Your VOTE is important! NOW is the Time.
Hey Boulder! Don't forget to vote. Boulder's future is on the line. Ballots are due tomorrow, November 3rd. It's too late to mail, you must drop it off. Polling locations are HERE. Bill Moyers Essay: Your Vote is Important -- Here's Why (2008) from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.
Commuter Condos to Castles on the Hill [Fresh Listings – Get ‘Em Hot]
Ready to see some houses? We've sorted through this week's fresh listings. As usual we scrubbed the old inventory, bad locations, egregiously overpriced, and otherwise undesirable properties from the list. We're also including Louisville and Lafayette into this week's mix. Here are this week's picks. To schedule a private showing, which includes a discussion of valuation and price trends, call Osman at 303.746.6896. Single Family Homes 409 Mapleton Avenue | $995,000 | More Details Great location for a ranch style house, albeit one that needs a full gut and remodel. Post war construction, but expect some struggle to get past [...]
Boulder Sales Volume Up Almost 20% [Analyze This]
by Osman Parvez ---- 560 residential units traded hands last month in Boulder County, a 19% increase from the previous year. Within the city of Boulder, sales volume was up 15%. Longmont saw a year over year increase of 34%. As smaller cities, Superior, Louisville, and Lafayette are typically more erratic on a month to month basis. September was no exception, with sales dropping 21% in Lafayette but rising 78% in Louisville. Superior was a wash. Sales volume is a good proxy for demand. Be sure to compare it to our analysis of inventory conditions for the bigger picture. [...]
Long’s Urban Oasis
by Osman Parvez ---- If you're new to Boulder, you've probably wondered about Long's Gardens - a patch of land visible from Broadway, just North of the North Boulder Rec Center. It's a third generation Iris farm founded in 1905 with a long history in Boulder. Check out this video: From a real estate perspective, this patch of land is unique in Boulder. It's the city's only urban farm with 15+ acres of land being utilized by Long's Garden, the Mountain Flower Dairy, and Growing Gardens. I would like to see this land protected by a permanent conservation [...]
CU Kiddie Condos, Flips, and Family Homes – This Week’s Fresh Listings [Get ‘Em Hot]
It's that time of year. Fresh listings are getting few and far between so we've broadened our scope this week beyond Boulder to include Longmont, Louisville, Lafayette, and Superior. As usual, we've culled the bad locations, the sneaky refreshed old listings, known poor construction, and other un-worthies. Ready to see some real estate? Let's go. To schedule a private showing, which includes a discussion of valuation and price trends, call Osman at 303.746.6896. Single Family Homes 331 Indian Peaks Trail W | $825,000 | More Details The more desirable west side of Indian Peaks. Large, family friendly, and built in [...]
A Change in the Wind? Boulder Inventory Update [Analyze This]
by Osman Parvez ---- Happy Autumn, dear blog readers. Hot off the presses, here's our latest inventory analysis of Boulder real estate market conditions through October 1st. Think you know what's happening? You might be surprised... This first chart (above) shows inventory for Boulder houses. The brown line represents the total number of houses listed in inventory. The blue is the percentage that are currently under contract. The typical seasonal pattern shows a significant drop in both inventory and percent under contract. This year is far from typical. Total inventory has remained steady and the percentage under contract has trended [...]
Short Term Rentals and Over Occupancy Enforcement [Council Watch]
by Osman Parvez ---- We attended last night's City Council meeting. Council approved an ordinance limiting short-term rentals to primary homeowners for up to 120 days. Rental licenses would be required. Once implemented, second home owners will not be able to rent their property legally. Implementation won't begin until January. Council's supposed intention is to encourage long term rentals. While council members considered the impact to second home owners, and acknowledged it would catch some people in the net they didn't want, they passed the ordinance anyway. I expect the impact will be a new revenue stream for the [...]
The Last Surge of Summer? [Analyze This]
by Osman Parvez ---- Ready for an update on inventory in Boulder for attached dwellings (i.e. town homes and condos)? Here we go. As of this morning (August 13th), total inventory has dropped to 157 units. This is up 10 from a week ago but down substantially from the seasonal peak in mid June. Meanwhile percentage of inventory under contract has increased to 71%, up from the recent low of 63% in mid July. What to make of these tea leaves? It's unusual for inventory under contract to increase after August. The majority of buyers have found their properties and [...]
The Market Signals a Downturn [The Wayback Machine]
by Osman Parvez ---- Here's one from the wayback machine: Fresh on the Market. Back in the early spring of 2007, the Boulder real estate market signaled the beginning of a downturn. Too bad wishful thinking and happy talk can't beat Mr. Market. One key indicator was the spike in refreshed, withdrawn, and expired listings. The analysis (Read: Fresh on the Market) looked at changes in sales activity for the same period (November to January) for three consecutive years. On the surface, sales volume was the same. Lurking beneath that data? A telltale indicator of a market about to [...]
Sorry Sellers, Boulder Inventory Under Contract PLUNGES [Analyze This]
by Osman Parvez ---- Psst... want to know a secret? The Boulder real estate market has finally started swinging back towards buyers. If your Realtor tells you differently, get a better Realtor. As usual, no happy talk or hand waving. Let's look at the charts. Remember, intelligent real estate decisions are based on a deep understanding of the market. If you're serious about buying or selling real estate in Boulder, call us for a detailed analysis of market conditions tailored to your specific real estate situation. Don't rely on a 30,000 foot analysis to determine your strategy, not even this one. [...]
Civic Area Design Initiative
The Boulder City Council is working on a plan to implement new designs and updates in Downtown Civic Area Park to better suit the City's needs. They have decided to turn to us, the citizens, for creative ideas! They're calling it the Civic Area Design Inspiration Initiative. Artists, architects and creative thinkers of all types are encouraged to submit their thoughts, pictures, drawings and ideas HERE in this three part survey. They are running three phases of the design initiative, and the deadline for phase one is July 10th. Since the passing of the Community, Culture and Safety tax initiative in November 2014, [...]
Have We Reached the Peak of the Selling Season? [Analyze This]
by Osman Parvez ---- This is a follow-up to yesterday's analysis of Boulder inventory and digs a little deeper. Consider it part #2 of the inventory analysis. We'll also expand by analyzing neighboring cities including Longmont, Louisville, Lafayette, and Superior. The key question for buyers and sellers is whether we've reached the peak of the summer selling season. It's a question that impacts selection, pricing, and negotiation strategy. Let's take a look. This busy first chart shows percentage of inventory under contract over the past twelve months. Note: - A far lower percentage of houses in Boulder are under [...]
Six Years of Declining Boulder Inventory [Analyze This]
by Osman Parvez ---- Ready for an update on real estate market conditions in Boulder? Here we go. Remember: intelligent real estate decisions are based on a deep knowledge of current market conditions. Don't settle for hand waving, happy talk, and old statistics too stale and generic to be useful. Get the facts about market conditions relative to YOUR specific real estate situation. If you're buying or selling real estate in Boulder or surrounding areas, CALL US FIRST. 303.746.6896. Let's start with a look at the single family house market. 115 houses are currently available, 119 are under contract and [...]
PAY Below Asking Above $1MM, SELL Dumpy Houses Below $600K [Analyze This]
by Osman Parvez ---- Buying or selling a house in Boulder? This is what the market looks like right now. At prices below $600,000, more than 80% of available inventory is under contract. This is the price range where we're seeing many buyers overpay for marginal properties and where we advise the most caution for our buying clients. Conversely, it's also where we advise our sellers who own marginal properties to liquidate in order to buy higher quality assets. Percentage under contract drops as a function of increasing price, more or less as you'd expect. There's a bit of [...]
Luxury Compounds and CU Kiddie Condos – This Week’s Fresh Listings
37 listings hit the Boulder real estate market this week. We culled the refreshed listings, the grossly overpriced, the bad layouts, and the marginal locations. These twelve are worth seeing. To schedule a private showing, which includes a discussion of valuation and price trends, call Osman at 303.746.6896. Single Family Homes 755 7th Street | $2.8MM | More Details This one is pretty spectacular, even to our jaded eyes. Gorgeous updates and hike half a block and you're on the best trails in Boulder. Outdoor living spaces, the indoor outdoor transition, and proximity to open space help anchor the [...]
