Cisneros: Worst Over for Colorado Housing Market: Colorado’s housing market will continue to face challenges, but the worst appears to be over, according to national housing expert Henry Cisneros, a former Cabinet secretary who was in Denver on Tuesday, August 24^th. read more here

RealtyTrac: Colorado Foreclosure Filings Down 9.3% From 2009; Down 8.6% in Denver: New Colorado foreclosure filings dropped 9.3 percent in July from the same month a year earlier, and they declined 8.6 percent in the Denver metro area, according to a report this week from RealtyTrac Inc. read more here

Mortgage Refinance Applications Continue to Increase as Rates Decrease: The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) today released its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending August 20, 2010.   read more here

Western Slope Leads Colorado in 2000s Home Appreciation, CSU-Realtors Study Says: The Western Slope had the greatest increase in home-price appreciation of any Colorado region in the last 10 years, at 68.5 percent, according to a recent study by Colorado State University’s Everitt Real Estate Center. The study was done in collaboration with the Colorado Association of Realtors. read more here

Juju.com: Denver is 11th Best City for Job Seekers: Denver is the 11th-best place for job seekers among 50 large U.S. cities in the latest ranking by career search engine Juju.com, released Friday August 13^th.                 read more here

11 Colorado Schools on Forbes’ 2010 ‘America’s Best Colleges’ List: The United States Air Force Academy and Colorado College rank highest among 11 Colorado schools listed in Forbes’ annual ranking of the nation’s 610 best colleges. Others listed included: Colorado School of Mines, Golden; University of Colorado at Boulder; University of Denver; Colorado State University, Ft. Collins; University of Colorado Denver; Western State College, Gunnison; Ft. Lewis College, Durango; Metropolitan State College of Denver; Mesa State College, Grand Junction.  read more here

15 Colorado Companies on ‘Inc. 500’ Fastest-Growing List: Ayuda Management of Broomfield is the highest-ranking Colorado company on the latest “Inc. 500” list of the nation’s fastest-growing businesses. Others listed included: Vivax Pro Painting, Littleton; OtterBox, Ft. Collins; Professional Roofing and Exteriors, Arvada; Eco-Products, Boulder; StealthCom Solutions, Colorado Springs; Travelers Haven, Denver. read more here

Call Center Hiring Again in Ft.Collins: Center Partners in Fort Collins needs help, but in a good way. The company has more than 500 available full time jobs it wants to fill by October. The positions include sales and customer service agents and do offer benefits. read more here

Fannie Mae today announced the launch of KnowYourOptions.com, a new consumer education Web site that outlines the choices available to homeowners who are struggling with their mortgage payments, and provides guidance on how they can contact and work with their mortgage company to find solutions.

The online resource, which offers reliable and easy-to-understand information in both English and Spanish, expands on Fannie Mae’s ongoing efforts to help struggling borrowers find alternatives to foreclosure. Click here to visit the site.

Ten Great Days for Metro Denver – Good News Arrives in Many Packages: read more here

Forbes: Denver Broncos are World’s 14th Most Valuable Sports Team: The Denver Broncos are the world’s 14th most valuable sports team, according to a new ranking by Forbes.com. Forbes says Denver’s National Football League franchise is worth $1.08 billion and has annual revenue of $240 million. read more here

Five Colorado Cities on CNN’s Money’s ‘Best Places to Live’ List: Five Colorado small cities are on Money magazine’s latest list of America’s 100 “best places to live,” with Fort Collins at No. 6, Highlands Ranch at No. 12 and Broomfield at No. 19. read more here

Colorado No. 3 on CNBC’s 2010 List of ‘Top States for Business’: For the second year in a row, Colorado ranks No. 3 on CNBC’s latest list of “America’s Top States for Business.” CNBC’s annual America’s Top States for Business report, examines 40 different measurements and groups them into 10 large categories for the survey. read more here

Vestas Plans to Hire Hundreds for 3 Colorado Plants: Vestas Wind System A/S said July 12 its three Colorado wind turbine factories are officially up and running, and the company has hired more than 1,000 people, with hundreds more expected to be hired in the next 12 to 18 months. read more here

CU Boulder Survey: Colorado Business Leaders Expect Growth: Colorado business leaders are expecting “solid expansion” in the state’s economy for the first time in three years, according to the latest quarterly Leeds Business Confidence Index from the University of Colorado at Boulder’s Leeds School of Business. read more here

New Home Sales Surge in June, Inventory at 42-Year Low: Sales of new U.S. single-family homes rebounded strongly in June from the prior month’s record low, driving the number of houses on the market to its lowest level in nearly 42 years. read more here

Case-Shiller Index: Denver Home Prices Up 3.6% From 2009: For the seventh month in a row, home prices in the Denver area showed a year-over-year price increase in May, rising 3.6 percent from May 2009, according to the latest S&P/Case-Shiller Home Prices Index, released July 26. read more here

Denver Luxury-Home Sales Spike in June: Home resales in the $1 million-plus range in metro Denver hit their highest level in almost two years in June. read more here

Midyear Economic Report: CO Springs’ Rebound Under Way: The Southern Colorado Economic Forum’s Business Conditions Index, established in 2001, stood at 80.31 in May, compared to the 73.43 posted in May 2009 and the low of 68.26 seen in February 2009. read more here

Jeff Cramer with Cherry Creek Properties in Highlands Ranch has launch a new real estate website Denver Homes For Sale This website give users the ability to find homes in Highlands Ranch, Castle Rock, Aurora, and surrounding Denver Colorado communites.

One of my favorite features of the site is a link to a great real estate app called MyAgnet by IDX.

myAgent by IDX gives real estate agents the ability to extend their online MLS search tools to the mobile web. This is the same MLS data IDX, Inc. manages online for tens of thousands of agents already throughout the US. With over 4 million active listings available from 300+ multiple listing services throughout the US.

Jeff Cramer  & Jodi Cramer

The Cramer Team at Cherry Creek Properties, LLC

1745 Shea Center Drive, (Suite #400)

Highlands Ranch CO, 80129

Direct: 303-646-7571

Fax: 303-558-4224

Colo. foreclosure filings up:
New foreclosure filings in Colorado rose 6 percent in the first quarter compared with the same period in 2009, according to data released Thursday. There were 11,136 new filings, compared with 10,509 during the first quarter last year, according to the report by the Colorado Division of Housing. But foreclosure filings are down 4.3 percent compared with the first quarter of 2008. “Foreclosures aren’t really going up much, and there’s no sign of a big increase, but they’re not going away anytime soon,” said Ryan McMaken, spokesman for the division. “We will only start to see big dips when there’s job growth. This ties into the larger economy.”
Go to Article (Denver Post)

Tax credits sow seeds of record April housing action:
Last month was the best April on record for Denver-area home-buying activity, as buyers rushed to place homes under contract by April 30, the deadline for tax credits worth up to $8,000 for first-time buyers and $6,500 for qualified existing home owners. In the Denver-area buyers, placed 6,616 homes under contract last month, a whopping 27.6 percent increase over the 5,183 homes placed under contract in April 2009, shows a report based on Metrolist statistics released today by independent broker Gary Bauer. There were 4,188 closings, a 23.5 percent increase over the 3,390 a year earlier, although that was not a record for April.
Go to Article (Indenvertimes.com)

Denver ranked No. 49 for foreclosures:
Foreclosures are occurring at a faster-clip in the Denver-Aurora area than the national average, according to a national first-quarter report released today. The Denver-Aurora area ranked No. 49 out of 206 metropolitan statistical areas tracked by RealtyTrac, based in Irvine, Calif. One out of every 116 households in the Denver-Aurora area was in some stage of foreclosure, according to the company that sells real estate foreclosure data. That compares to the U.S. average of one household out of ever 138 homes in some stage of foreclosure. RealtyTrac counts every step of the foreclosure process ? from the first filing until it become an REO (Real Estate Owned) property owned by the foreclosing lender ? and then adds them. The foreclosure rate in the first quarter rose 11.18 percent from the fourth quarter, compared with a 7.23 percent increase nationwide, and was up 16.02 percent from the first quarter a year earlier, compared with the first quarter of 2009. On a national basis, year-over-year foreclosures grew by an average of 16 percent.
Go to Article (Insiderealestatenews.com)

State Senate panel approves plan for mortgage broker oversight:
A state Senate committee Friday approved a bill calling for the creation of an oversight board to discipline mortgage brokers, removing the power from the director of the state’s Division of Real Estate. House Bill 1141 passed the Senate Appropriations Committee 6-0. Sen. Ted Harvey, R-Highlands Ranch, abstained from voting under Rule 17 (c), which requires any senator having a personal interest in a pending bill to not vote on it. Harvey is a mortgage broker with American Home Funding.
Go to Article (Denver Post)

Foreclosure rates in the metro area were up in February over the same period a year ago, according to data from First American CoreLogic.

The foreclosure rate for the Denver-Aurora-Broomfield area was 2.06 percent, an increase of 0.57 percentage points compared with February 2009, when the rate was 1.49 percent.

The study also showed that 5.95 percent of mortgage loans in the area were 90 days or more delinquent, compared with 4.16 percent for the same period last year.

Source : Margaret Jackson, The Denver Post

Source: Denver Business Journal

Expiring federal homebuyer tax credits helped propel Denver-area home resales, of both houses and condos, in March from February and year over year, according to Metrolist Inc. data released Thursday.

Total resales rose 12.35 percent to 3,602 year over year, and jumped 47.87 percent from February sales.

Average sold price for both types of housing last month increased 7.10 percent to $248,905 from the same month of 2009 and was basically flat from February.

Resales, also called existing-home sales, are those of homes that have already been sold at least once before.

“First-time homebuyers will be out in force in the next 30 days, even though inventory will increase,” Gary Bauer, an independent Littleton residential real estate broker, said in a statement. “[Move-up] buyers will remain limited.”

Those credits include the $8,000 first-time homebuyer credit and the $6,000 credit for existing homeowners who want to buy a different home. The first-time homebuyer tax credit was extended last fall, at the same time the existing-homeowner credit was added, but real estate brokers don’t expect either credit to be extended this year.

“Hundreds of homebuyers in Colorado are still rushing to beat the April 30 deadline for the homebuyer tax credit,” David Simonson of Re/Max Professionals Inc. said in a report released Thursday. “If they’re successful, we could see some big sales numbers in next month’s report.”

Among the neighborhoods attracting the highest average selling prices for houses alone were Boulder ($611,479), metro Denver’s southeastern suburbs (476,312), Louisville (443,259) and southeastern Denver ($421,671).

Most existing houses sold — 32 percent — were in the $100,000-$200,000 price range, followed by the $200,000-$300,000 range with 31 percent of sales.

Other significant Denver-area statistics from Metrolist’s March report:

• Sales of houses rose 8.15 percent to 2,801 in March year over year, and were up 45.42 percent from February.

• Average selling price for houses increased 9.29 percent to $274,950 year over year, and rose 1.95 percent from February.

Median selling price went up 12.28 percent to $229,000 from March ’09, and 3.74 percent from February.

• Average days on the market for houses dropped nearly 19 percent to 86 year over year, and were down 6.5 percent from February.

• Condo sales rose 30 percent to 801 from the prior-year March, and jumped 53.15 percent from February.

• Average selling price for condos increased 4 percent to $157,830 year over year, but dipped 5 percent from February. Median selling price was up 2.4 percent to $131,579 from March of last year, and basically flat compared to February.

• Most condos sold — 47 percent — were in the $100,000-$200,000 price range.

• Days on market for condos also dropped — 16 percent to 89 year over year, and nearly 18 percent from February.