In the recent weeks a Realtor’s rating of the real-estate market in Denver, CO has stayed nearly the same as previous months. Realtors ranked the market on fairly strongly the side of the buyers (2.2 out of 5 with the median of balance between buyers and sellers being 3.0). With prices still lower than average and buyers volume down slightly, there is still room for some haggling on the part of the buyer.

Rating for price trending was 2.8 (with the same median of 3.0 with lower meaning prices are falling and higher are rising). This is similar to what we are currently experiencing. Houses are still selling, some very rapidly still, bun on average we seem to be slowly chasing a deflating market. The good news is that this decreasing trend has slowed over the past months, and we are all waiting for the rebound in the early months of 2011.

With mortgage rates slowly starting to creep back to what some would call ‘normal levels’ buyers are still heavily motivated to buy today to secure extremely low costs of carrying a loan!

Lately in the news, following the Federal Reserve’s past announcement of QE2 (quantitative easement) and its actual implementation (formal announcement 2 weeks ago), there have been rallying cries of foul play from the states and abroad. One consensus seems to win out, however, that QE2 will help inflate the dollar in an effort to prevent possible deflation (something there is little experience handling on the mass scales such as the US economy). Even with an inflated dollar, however, overseas money is still being held in greenbacks as the alternative instruments (such as the Euro) are still facing considerable uncertainty.

How this relates to housing in the long term at this point is anyone’s guess, but in the short term it should help prices from further sliding in a already challenging market. Deflation would only lower prices further, which if later followed by inflation could cause considerable losses in any industry, so thank you for RE2, and let see how the next few weeks go!

Colorado’s foreclosure filings have dropped almost 3% in September from the same time last year according to RealtyTrac.

Colorado had a little over 6,000 properties filing for foreclosure last month, which is lower than the national rate. Although between August and September 2010 foreclosures rose 3% in Colorado.

Currently Colorado is ranked 12th among the all the states during September and during all of 2009 and the first six months of 2010 it was ranked 10th.

Foreclosure filings are just the initial documents filed, which are used to begin the foreclosure process. Foreclosure can end in 2 ways: one being where the homeowner settles with the lender or the other way is the home is sold through a foreclosure sale and the owner loses the property.

There were a total of 347,420 homes nationwide with foreclosure filings in September 2010, up 1.1 percent from September 2009 and up 2.53 percent from August 2010 according to RealtyTrac’s numbers.

The division of housing said new foreclosure filings in Colorado fell 10.1 percent from the same month of 2009 but were up 15.6 percent from the previous month according to the most recent official state report on foreclosures in Colorado.

Some very curious things are happening in the market right now. Here and summary of what Bank of America is doing. This is creating major waves across the nation.

Here is a summary of an LA Times article:

Bank of America is moving forward with halting foreclosure sales in all 50 states as the nation’s largest bank said it was widening its examination into how it handled home foreclosures.

The move by the lender might put pressure on other banks to declare foreclosure moratoriums nationally.
“Bank of America did the right thing today by stopping foreclosure sales in all 50 states,” said Assemblyman Ted Lieu, who has written a series of mortgage-related bills. “Other major lenders should also halt foreclosures in states such as California.”

Kevin Stein, associate director of the California Reinvestment Coalition, said the move by the bank indicated that there were widespread problems with the way banks were conducting foreclosures.

Three major banks — Bank of America, Ally Financial Inc. and J.P. Morgan Chase — had suspended foreclosures in the 23 states that process repossessions through courts. Bank of America hasn’t halted all foreclosure proceedings, however. “Our ongoing assessment shows the basis for foreclosure decisions is accurate,” the bank said.

Full article from LA Times

What are your thoughts on what this will do to Colorado’s real estate future?

Appraisals are very detailed reports. Appraisals are often confused with two other types of less formal home evaluations, CMAs and BPOs. There are two common appraisal methods used in Denver for residential properties. You will probably pay for the appraisal when you apply for your loan. Experienced agents often come very close to an appraisal price with their CMAS, but an appraiser’s report is much more detailed–and is the only valuation report a bank will consider when deciding whether or not to lend the money. Your lender will require an appraisal when you ask to use a home or other real estate as security for a loan, because it wants to make sure that the property will sell for at least the amount of money it is lending. The lender will study the appraisal carefully before determining whether or not the property qualifies to serve as security for your loan. Don’t panic if the appraisal comes in low, because there are often steps you can take to make the deal work. If the appraisal uncovers other problems, remember that most problems are correctable. A real estate appraisal is performed by a licensed or certified appraiser (in many countries known as a property valuer or land valuer and in British English as a “valuation surveyor”.