Value Plays: Triplexes and Detached Secondary Dwellings [Fresh Listings, Get ‘Em Hot]
50+ properties hit the boulder real estate market this week - everything from affordable housing to one luxury downtown condo with a wishful thinking asking price of $3MM. Only 9 made this week's cut. Buyers - be cautious in the current market. It's not only an election year, unlike any other, but we're nearing the end of the real estate cycle. Intelligent selection and negotiation can reduce the risk of capital loss if you're forced to liquidate in the coming downturn. During the last down market, the high-end saw prices fall as much as 40% from the peak value. Yes, here [...]
Getting Bubbly Yet?
by Osman Parvez ---- A couple of months ago, I posted an analysis of pricing and negotiations at Wimbledon. Read Osman, How Much Should I Offer? If you're not familiar with Wimbledon, it's a small complex of older townhomes located a few blocks from CU on the east side of Campus. The units are a little rundown at Wimbledon, but they have reasonable build quality and HOA fees. Most are occupied by students and owned by investors (often parents). In the past, these have made good investment properties. I like to use the model as a teaching tool with new investors [...]
The Case for Caution
by Osman Parvez ---- With Google’s new building well underway, there has been considerable buzz in the real estate community about the potential impact. As everyone knows, home prices have risen dramatically during the past several years, not just because of Google, but due to a large influx of people moving to the Front Range and a shortage of available homes. Sounds like a recipe for continued strong appreciation. Is there a reason for caution? You bet. In the Bay Area, venture capital fuels startups to compete for and compensate early stage employees who in turn, hand over a significant chunk [...]
Get Ready to Cut Your Tenants a Check [Analyze This]
by Osman Parvez ---- Rates remain far from normal. In case you forgot, here's a little visual reminder. The chart above shows the 1 mo average CD rate (blue) compared to the required rate for tenant security deposits in the City of Boulder (red). Someday we'll return to normal, maybe. Don't expect it anytime soon, however. Though the required rate is only 0.16%, landlords must track and make this payment to their tenants. For a fairly typical $2400 per month lease in Boulder, you're required to send your tenants a check for $3.84. References Tenant [...]
Osman, How Much Should I Offer? [Investment Analysis]
by Osman Parvez ---- We took one of our buyers to see an investment property at the Wimbledon in Boulder last week. At the end of the showing, they wanted to buy it. They asked "Osman, how much should we offer?" How much to offer and how much to list are the most common questions we get from our clients. To give you a sense of the type of work we do to answer the question, let me walk you through the analysis. This is far beyond the service you'll receive from a typical Realtor. We believe that [...]
House Price Index
by Osman Parvez The housing bubble blogs are using House Price Index charts developed using HPI data from the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO). Perhaps you'd like to see how Boulder and Denver compare to markets where bubbles likely to exist? Ok, let's compare Boulder and Denver (green and red, respectively) with San Francisco, Boston, and Miami's real estate markets. As usual, click on the charts below for larger images. Looking at the chart above, it seems to me that when the telecom collapse followed the stock market crash, our region's real estate market cooled substantially relative to [...]
