June 2016

Have you driven by a house for sale and seen the “Under Contract” or “Sale Pending” sign added when a home has a signed contract?  Have you also noticed this sign get removed a few days later? This happens when a potential buyer terminates a contract and the seller is stuck putting the house back on the market to solicit the next buyer. 

This week I’m breaking down how often a house goes back on the market after having a contract in place.  There are about eight reasons in a Colorado real estate contract for a buyer to terminate a contract:

1.       Title documents
2.       Non-public matters
3.       Due Diligence Documents
4.       Inspection
5.       Insurance
6.       Appraisal
7.       Survey
8.       Loan

Each one of these options allows for the buyer to

Where Are New Homes Being Built?

We all know that Stapleton, Lowry and Green Valley Ranch have new homes under construction, but what about the rest of Denver? Where are developers deciding to invest their money? Where are buyers passing on the planned community – deciding instead on a newly built home in an older neighborhood?

I searched homes sold in 2015 and 2016 (thru May) that also had a build year of 2015 and newer. Then I created 3 interactive maps to show the distribution and count in each area for the following products:
• Detached homes
• Condos
• Townhomes/other multi-unit.

The Takeaway: Townhomes had the highest numbers; detached homes had the widest range of neighborhoods; and new condos are very limited these days – only in 5 different

So much real estate data is public record, but that’s not the case when it comes to agents so I’m going to open the door a little so you can see some of the data behind an agent’s performance numbers.

It’s hard to get an official count of REColorado (MLS) members. That being said, I’ve heard 18,000 thrown around a few times so I’m going to use that as the basis for my analysis outlined below.

• After sorting the data for 2015, I was able to find 12,970 agents having at least one (1) transaction recorded in MLS. This count includes listing, selling, co-listing and co-selling agents.
• Using 18,000 members as my agent baseline, my projection for agents performing zero (0) transactions in 2015 came to 5,030. That means:
  • 65% of agents completed 0-5

Have you noticed all the news in Denver talking about the housing market and how great it is?  I’m asked about it all the time, but my typical answer depends on my audience.  In 2016, the market is great if you are a seller. But what about being a buyer?  Not so much—bidding wars, appreciation, and supply vs demand are all working against buyers to make this market anything but great.

Instead of looking at numbers on appreciation or supporting the “great” seller’s market, I decided to look at the numbers from a buyers point of view. 

Below shows the breakdown of the average finished sq. ft. (livable space above ground and in the basement) in 2012 compared with year to date 2016.  On average, given the same price range, the house you can buy now is 18%