DID YOU KNOW??????????

Here are some fun rankings that our city has received recently. I thought They would be fun to share.

1. Colorado Springs was named “DogTown USA 2008” by Dog Fancy Magazine. The criteria used to select the winning city included plenty of dog-friendly open spaces and dog parks, events celebrating dogs and their owners, high vet-to-dog ratios, abundant pet supply and other services, and municipal laws that support and protect all pets. (07/08)

2. Colorado ranked as the slimmest state for the 18th year in a row. MedMD Health News reports that Colorado cuts the leanest figure, with 18.7% of its adults in the obese range. (07/08)

3. Colorado Springs ranked 7th in the nation in the percentage of its work force employed in high-technology industries during 2006, according to a report by the American Electronics Association. (07/08)

4. Colorado Springs ranked 9th “Best Place to Raise a Family” by BestLife Magazine. Criteria for the study included a safe location, good schools with favorable student-teacher ratios, above-average test scores, plenty of museums, parks and pediatricians also contributed. (06/08)

5. Colorado ranked 3rd in the Milken Institute’s survey of how well states are nurturing a high-tech economy. (06/08)

To help clarify

This information can be found at:
http://www.federalhousingtaxcredit.com/

It will help clarify the details on the new $7,500 tax credit that the president signed off on early this week.




Who is Eligible

The $7,500 tax credit is available for first-time home buyers only.

• The law defines a first-time home buyer as a buyer who has not owned a home during the past three years.

• All U.S. citizens who file taxes are eligible to participate in the program.
Income Limits
•
Home buyers who file as single or head-of-household taxpayers can claim the full $7,500 credit if their adjusted gross income (AGI) is less than $75,000.

• For married couples filing a joint return, the income limit doubles to $150,000.

• Single or head-of-household taxpayers who earn between $75,000 and $95,000 are eligible to receive a partial first-time home buyer tax credit.

• Married couples who earn between $150,000 and $170,000 are eligible to receive a partial first-time home buyer tax credit.

• The credit is not available for single taxpayers whose AGI is greater than $95,000 and married couples with an AGI that exceeds $170,000.
Effective Dates for the Tax Credit
•
First-time home buyers would receive a $7,500 tax credit for the purchase of any home on or after April 9, 2008 and before July 1, 2009. To qualify, you must actually close on the sale of the home during this period.
Tax Credit is Refundable
•
A refundable credit means that if you pay less than $7,500 in federal income taxes, then the government will write you a check for the difference.

• For example, if you owe $5,000 in federal income taxes, you would pay nothing to the IRS and receive a $2,500 payment from the government.

• If you are due to receive a $1,000 tax refund from the government, your refund would grow to $8,750 ($1,000 plus $7,500 from the home buyer tax credit).

• Buyers can take the tax credit in their 2008 or 2009 tax return.

• If you purchased the home in 2008, the tax credit is taken on your 2008 tax return. If you buy in 2009, you have the option of taking the credit on your 2008 or 2009 tax returns.
Types of Homes that Qualify for the Tax Credit
•
All homes, whether single-family, townhomes or condominium apartments will qualify, provided that the home will be used as a principal residence and the buyer has not owned a home in the prior three years. This also includes newly-constructed homes.
Payback Provisions
•
The tax credit essentially serves as an interest-free loan to be repaid over 15 years.

• For example, a home buyer claiming a $7,500 credit would repay the credit at $500 per year. However, the buyer doesn’t have to start repaying the credit until two years after the tax year in which the credit is claimed.

• If the home owner sold the home, then the remaining credit would be due from the profit of the home sale.

• If there was insufficient profit, then the remaining credit payback would be forgiven.

Housing Bill awaits Predident Bush

I think that its great that congress has been working so hard to get these measures passed (click on title.) The tax incentives to buy property are going to bring more buyers out of the woodwork and the re-structuring of bad loans headed into foreclosure will help keep these properties from saturating the market. I can't wait to start seeing the effects of this and hopefully this will mean that we will start heading more upstream in the housing industry.

Rates go Up

Interest rates have now gone up to 6.68 percent on 30 year fixed loans and up to 6.18on 15 year fixed loans. The Fed is obviously getting very cautious about flirting with a rise in inflation. Hopefully some of this mess will start to balance itself out because the last thing we want is less and less people being able to qualify for a loan because of a over correction in the terms one must pass to qualify with underwriting.

A story to make you think

I came across this story today and I just had to comment on it (Click on title for link.) Here we have a gentlemen who openly admits making 25/hr by..........pan handling. The sign he holds says " OLD-TIRED-SICK-HUNGRY CREATIVE BROKE. "
Now I'm no financial genius but making 25/hr hardly characterizes somebody as "broke." Nor is he sick or hungry. This guy makes his money by deceiving us. Now I will give him credit for being brutally honest but this proves the problems with our welfare system. This guy isn't paying taxes, is receiving free health care and is able to eat for free via churches, shelters and food stamps. I would even wager that if this guy wanted to get a university education he would probably qualify to have a full ride grant. All of this while making 25 dollars and hour. WOW! I bring all of this up because (in my humble opinion) the government obviously can't control our welfare system so why would they be able to control our housing crisis. I'm curious to hear opinions on this.

Buyers emerging..... More and more

Data is starting to show that home buyers are starting to jump off of the fence and beginning to put in loan applications to buy property. While I think it's fair to say that this doesn't mean that the market is going to be experiencing an immediate rebound it is great to hear of some positive activity. With interest rates rising slightly, many buyers are wanting to get in on the current low rate while there still is time! More and more economists are saying that the market bottomed out (8) weeks ago and now the bar is starting to rise. GOOD NEWS!!!

City to raise property tax???

Here is a clarification from the mayor followed by my thoughts.
Lionel Rivera says:
As a point of clarification, when I used the term “shift” I mean just that. As an example; We could ask our citizens at a City election to replace the 0.4% Public Safety Sales Tax with a 5.32 mill levy. It would be the same dollar amount, but a more stable funding source.
Lionel Rivera-Mayor


Hmmmmm. I must admit that the property tax in Colorado Springs is low for the national average. One could also argue that it's a well known fact that we pay the second lowest amount in Taxes (just ahead of Fort Collins) even though we are the second largest city in the state. The problem with tax hikes here is that most businesses are considered "small" (82%.) These employers can rarely afford to give consistent raises and the employees who work for them have limited means. Are they going to be able to afford the hike? Maybe we could find a way to pay city council members a competitive salary. This would not only make the positions more competitive but we could vote people in who have experience in dealing with such huge community issues and they would work full time to boot! Right now we have the rich and/or retired folks on the council because they can actually afford to get paid the peanuts that we give them for the position. Don't get me wrong, there are some excellent leaders on the council (Jan Martin) but unfortunately, I don't see how we can grow and evolve without a full time and deservingly paid council. Let’s bring in efficiency experts that will go through our city and find any slack that is tying up (or wasting) funds. Tabor passed because the citizens were concerned that the city wasn't managing our money and taxes properly. Now the city is countering with the fact that they are now in the hole. Where is the middle ground and as citizens do we feel that our money has been managed properly?

New FHA rules for "flipping properties"

With new rules and regulations on FHA loans it always is a challenge staying on top of all of the new information. I recently had a closing that almost didn't go through because FHA said that the seller had not had the property in her hands long enough for the borrowers loan to go through. She had the property under an LLC (that she owned) and then transferred the property to herself when she disbanded the LLC. Even though she was the same owner FHA still insisted that she had to have the property (in her name only) for a minimum of three months. Ultimately, the closing went through however, there were some hefty hurdles that we all had to jump. Now FHA says that it will make an exception to their rule when property becomes foreclosed on. Up until this point, property that was being foreclosed on was having to sit vacant because new buyers couldn't qualify for the loan unless the sellers had it in their name for a minimum of three months. This in turn has been causing the property to attract homeless people, graffiti and has been hurting surrounding property values too! Hopefully the rule alteration will help iron some of these problems out.

Fred Crowley Helps Sniff Out The Truth About The Colorado Springs Market

I had the pleasure of speaking with Fred Crowley (Southern Colorado Economist) about his data on Colorado Springs and its real estate market. Fred gave a lecture on how we are actually seeing a 1.8% annual increase in property values (remember, that number is an average for all neighborhoods combined.) Granted, if one were to track the data back 10 years you would find that in general, Colorado Springs properties generally appreciated about 5%/year. Though the numbers are down I think that it's important to realize that things could be much worse. We have an office in Las Vegas and the things that some of the owners are having to go through are very disturbing. So though this data that Fred presented on the Pikes Peak region looked positive, I still had the question that I am sure you all want to know as well; "When is the market going to get better and when will sellers begin to see a little more bargaining leverage?" The short answer was Spring 2010. The longer more complicated answer was somewhere between Fall 2009 and Summer 2010. Not only are we experiencing a influx of military, but Colorado Springs got ranked on Kiplinger's top 10 list of best places to Live, Work and Play. This is all great news.
I will talk more in my next post about how the presidential election can help jolt our economy (regardless of who wins.)

Who would have thought?

Now that Tejon Ave. is two way, it looks like we have a slight problem...Taxi cabs.
As of now they are holding up traffic loading and unloading passengers on busy Saturday and Friday nights. The real bummer is that the taxi can't just park in the middle lane loading zone because then you will have intoxicated people strolling across the street. Lets hope this problem gets a solution otherwise we might encounter more DUI's.

80916 Foreclosure help!

80916 is facing foreclosure crisis yet hasn't responded to information on various help programs. I am asking the question...........................WHY????

Gov. Ritter caught. (click for story)

Campaign violations are a serious matter and one that I feel deserves close attention. It is important that we demand that these laws be enforced.

Health care industry is one of Colorado Springs fastest growing sectors

Between Memorial Hospital (multiple locations) Penrose hospital, Centura Health, and Peak Vista among a slew of others, COlorado Springs is quickly gaining national recognition for its health care facilities. On a natioanl level, Colorado Springs has Cancer treatment and child birth facilities that rank this community amongst the best of the best.
If your looking for an investment property or a good starter home try to find one near these major facilities. Properties tend to appreciate better if they are close to a community anchor and properties that are near health care facilities tend to rent quicker too!

2 way Tejon (click for story)

In an effort to increase traffic downtown, Colorado Springs has decided to make Tejon a two way street. It's too early to tell if this is going to work or not, however, I don't want to be caught behind a delivery truck. :)

USOC STAYS!

Kudos to Colorado Springs for making the right decision to keep the USOC in Colorado Springs by offering a 54 million dollar incentive package. I had great concerns over this matter since the USOC has always been a staple of Colorado Springs and has brought many jobs, city recognition and marketability to the Colorado Springs region. After the closing of many large businesses that have left massive empty buildings behind losing the USOC would have been a very hard blow to deal with. Additionally, Landco and the El Pomar foundation are major contributors to this effort and should be thanked as well. Thank-you Colorado Springs for keeping this wonderful organization right were it belongs.

The bottom yet?

As the real estate debacle continues to unsettle our economy, chief economists are very afraid that things will still get worse before they get much better. Colorado Springs has taken its fair share of lumps during this process however it's important to point out that these stats reflect a more national view on real estate and its effect on the economy. Since our appreciation rate has been more on par with modest 3-5% annuals return rates our housing market has been very protected from owners owing more on their loans then their houses are appraising for. Remember, things are bad but they could definitely be worse.

Leadership Takes Center Stage

Colorado Springs is going to great lengths to promote community awareness and leadership. Click on the above title for a story that I wrote in this weeks Colorado Springs Business Journal about getting younger generations involved in leadership.

An article for the agents

What is an agent to do? The economy tells us that the housing market continues to develop negatively. Many agents are either taking on second jobs or hanging up their license altogether. Over the past 10 years business had been great! It seemed like everyone was able to buy a house and the market was appraising at a very rapid pace. However, these times are much different and it is extremely important to stay on top of potential clients while focusing on marketing techniques. I don't see the amount of agents who are dropping out of the business as a sign that I should do the same, rather I see it as an opportunity to diversify myself and grab new business. So, what are you doing to get more business? Here are some ideas that could help get the ball rolling:
Create a blog and advertise it to everyone you know.
Let those same people know that you are still in the business and that you LOVE referrals.
Attend networking events with other professionals.
Get involved in community groups and charity events.
Pick a four-five block radius around an area that you know well and market yourself door to door.
Partner up with another agent in your firm and work together to obtain greater exposure.
Find For Sale by Owner properties for the potential to list.
Advertise on college campuses to attract first time buyers.
These are just some ways to separate yourself from the pack. Remember, you are selling yourself and a service the services that you can provide. Business isn't going to always walk through the door so you are going to have to go get it!

10 months to sell a home (on average)

This is an interesting article regarding how long it can take to sell your home in the Springs. Starter homes are obviously going quicker because they are more affordable and discounted. I have to agree with the individual who commented on the article when they said that "if priced right" it is more on average with 3-4 monthes.

A great caucus turnout!

Colorado gets a voice! This is the first time that Colorado has been part of Super Tuesday (our caucuses used to be held in March.) I hope that everybody will get a chance to participate in this wonderful democratic process!

Never hurts to think SAFE!

2007 Top 25 top accident-prone intersections and rankings:

1. BRIARGATE PY/N POWERS BLw+* 6.29
2. N POWERS BL/N UNION BLw 2.97
3. S ACADEMY BL/S CHELTON RD 2.49
4. HY-83/N ACADEMY BL 2.42
5. NEW CENTER PT/S CAREFREE CR 2.19
6. AUSTIN BLUFFS PY/RANGEWOOD DR 2.17
7. E WOODMEN RD/N UNION BL+ 2.17
8. N POWERS BL/OLD RANCH RDw+ 2.13
9. E BIJOU ST/N ACADEMY BL+ 2.12
10. HY-83/N POWERS BLw+ 2.09
11. BRIARGATE BL/N UNION BL 2.08
12. E UINTAH ST/N WEBER ST 1.98
13. LAKE AV/SOUTHGATE RD+ 1.95
14. DUBLIN BL/N ACADEMY BL+ 1.93
15. BRIARGATE PY/HY-83 1.88
16. GALLEY RD/N MURRAY BL 1.80
17. AIRPORT RD/S ACADEMY BL+ 1.77
18. E PLATTE AV/N UNION BL 1.76
19. N CAREFREE CR/N POWERS BLw 1.64
20. ASTROZON BL/S ACADEMY BL 1.63
21. E PLATTE AV/N WAHSATCH AV+ 1.59
22. E PLATTE AV/N NEVADA AV+ 1.57
23. CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN BL/HY-115w 1.51
24. AUSTIN BLUFFS PY/N UNION BL+ 1.51
25. DURYEA DR/E WOODMEN RD 1.49

The goverment wants you to do what!?

Now that the government has decided to give you a 600.00 rebate(single) or 1200.00 (per couple) check they want you to....................shop till you drop. It's hard not to notice all of the people who have come out of the woodwork stating that in order to revive the economy you should spend that money as soon as you get it. Even investors are getting in on the act by putting their money in large retail establishments while hoping for large gains. Do yourself a favor and put that money to work for YOU and your family rather than blowing it all on frivolous purchases. You can help the economy much more by paying down some of your debt or putting your money in a bond or CD. If your looking to buy a house this is an excellent opportunity to add funds to help with your down payment costs. If you absolutely have to go out and buy a material item, how about a bicycle. Not only are they great for exercise but they can help save on some fuel costs too! Additionally, you can get a energy efficient appliance to help cut down on energy costs. Use your new found money to improve your situation which in turn will ultimately lead to a greater economy.

More good news!

T-Rowe to bring in 650 jobs to Colorado Springs! Amazing! This is exceptionally great news to hear. During this difficult economic time for the country it is acts like this that are truly separating Colorado Springs from the typical dismal recession talks. By bringing more jobs plus the steady inflow of our military, Colorado Springs is in much better shape then the average bear might think!

Over the last five years, the Springs saw appreciation of 4.2 % a year, which outpaced every major Colorado city other than Grand Junction!

Yes, you read that title right! Even in these dark times for property values the Springs still managed to keep a 1.6 appreciation rate in property values this past year. Click on the title of this entry for a great story from the C/S Gazette by Rich Laden on what local economist Fred Crowley had to say at a recent conference to REALTORS about Colorado Springs and its local economy. We need to realize how lucky we are to be in such a wonderful city that can protect us from many things that are happening in other parts of the nation. I highly recommend reading this article as it will give the reader good perspective on the current situation.

The bad areas that could be so much BETTER!

In his recent oppinion article in the CSBJ, publisher Lon Matejczyk brings up some good points on how it makes no sense that a certain stretch of South Nevada avenue (between South Gate and Downtown) is in such poor condition. He's absolutely right! Downtown is making strides to look elegant and the old Southgate is leaps and bounds above where it used to be. Yet, when one travels from one point to the other they are met with run-down motels, pawn shops and a high crime area. The same can be said for the area just east of union and west of circle. Its almost as if the city decided to improve the ends but forgot to tackle the middle. These areas I think should be prime targets for Mike Kazmierski and the Economic Development Council to tackle. If they could convince a big box store to be an anchor in both areas I think it would drasticaly improve the downtown region as well as the South Union area. Of course thats just my humble oppinion. :)

Good Bye Mr. Bruce

After three years in the county commishioners office, Doug Bruce is now on his way to Denver. The man who is responsible for TABOR as well as raising eyebrows due to his outspoken ways will never be forgotten. Though he was an extremeist, Doug Bruce deserves some respect. If for nothing else, he tried his hardest to speak for the everyday tax paying citizen. Whether you disagree with him or not, you have to admit that in a day of goverment officials getting their palms greased by corporate entities its refreshing to see a public elected official trying to stay true to his promises.

A new Year

It's been too long since I have been on here.........Damn Holidays!
Well, here we are 2008 and still some negativity in the real estate market? Though I have fought off some of the rumors and discouragement I will say that these times are interesting. Nationaly, things are not looking hot. However, localy, we are still experiencing great growth + it's an election year!