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July 2011 Metro Denver Real Estate Newsletter

J. David Lampe, Realtor

Quick Stats 
Denver Metro Single Family Housing Stats:

Active Listings: 14,215

  • Down 15% from June ‘10

Under Contracts: 3,828

  • Up 23% from June ‘10

Solds: 3,295

  • Down 11% from June ‘10

Average Price: $292,230

  • Up 2% from June ‘10

Average Days on Market: 99

  • Up 44% from June ‘10

 

Denver Metro Condo Housing Stats:

Active Listings: 3,811

  • Down 23% from June ‘10

Under Contracts: 933

  • Up 24% from June ‘10

Solds: 785

  • Down 27% from June ‘10

Average Price: $158,463

  • Up 2% from June ‘10

Average Days on Market: 125

  • Up 43% from June ‘10

 

Real Estate News

It’s no secret that the attitude toward owning a home in recent years has changed. In the go-go years of 2003-2006 Americans got caught up in a frenzy of speculative home buying, banking on unlimited future appreciation to compensate for miniscule down payments and massive overleveraging. In retrospect this real estate bubble was all too apparent. But like all bubbles throughout history it’s easy to identify when it’s over, yet millions were swept up by it when the going was good. So, where do we go from here?

What we are experiencing now is like a twist on the classic 4 step grieving process – let’s call it the Real Estate Bubble Grieving Process. It’s made up of the following stages: Denial, Grief, Overcompensation, and finally Acceptance.

We saw Denial in full force as we led up to the peak of the market in 2006. People were standing in line to buy chits to purchase condos in Florida, then selling those chits to the next sucker in line for $20,000. Cleaning people were buying penthouse apartments in Manhattan, then selling them for a $500,000 profit and buying a bigger one. Crazy!

Next came Grief. The market collapsed and millions of people faced financial ruin, the inevitable consequence of a market gone mad.

Then we entered Overcompensation. In this stage large numbers of people decided ALL home ownership is bad. Clearly this is wrong, but the lessons of the past few years will take a long time to fade. So for now, many people who arguably SHOULD buy homes are not because they are too scared. If they don’t own, they rent. So now the rental market is overheated and rents are skyrocketing.

Finally we will get to Acceptance. I don’t think we’re there yet. Acceptance will happen when homebuyers finally accept the fact the buying a home should be a lifestyle decision as it was for most of our history, not a speculative investment. The folks that realize this first will get some great deals as the rest of the buyers sit on the sidelines, too scared to act.

What stage are you in?

YCRE In the News
Your Castle continues to lead the industry in free, informative real estate education. We have a wide variety of classes on subjects like First Time Home Buying, First Time Investing, How to Improve Your FICO Score, Wholesaling 101, Subject To Investing, Lease Options, Home and Investment Driving Tours, Investing in Your IRA, and much, much more! Our classes are always free of charge and we NEVER sell anything – we just like to talk about real estate! To see our whole training schedule go to www.yourcastle.org and click on Training/Seminars. Or, call me and I’ll send you one email a week with our upcoming training calendar.