I know of an excellent handy man.  His name is Mark Fisher, and his phone number is 720-224-3487.  Just tell him that I referred him to you.

Sincerely,

Elizabeth Martinez
Your Castle Real Estate
303-882-9520
ElizabethMartinez@yourcastle.org

—————————————————————————————————————–

Just wanted to send you my contractor’s information for the request that you made on the whiteboard the other day. 

I have used Matt Jeffers with Capricorn Construction for the last several years both for myself and my clients.   He is respectful, reasonable and very skilled in all aspects of construction.  If you client is interested in using him, he can be reached at 720-933-1405.

Deanna Silva  |  Realtor  |  Your Castle Real Estate
120 W. 5th Ave Denver, Co 80204
DeannaSilva@msn.com
720-339-7136 |  cell
303-847-9945 |  direct
303-648-4411 |  efax
www.DeannaSilva.com

——————————————————————————————————————————–

My husband, Anthony, and I own a home remodeling company.  We do everything.  A link to our website is below.  Anthony’s contact # is 303-669-0167.  We do really nice work, we return phone calls, and we show up to get the job done quickly.  We also have several references from other YCRE agents that we have worked for in the past.

Holly Vaccaro

CrossroadsConstructionLLC.com

YourCastleRealEstate.org

720-227-3115 cell

720-977-9421 fax

———————————————————————————————————————

I use Roger Robison

Front Range Home Repair

(303) 520-2214

frontrangehomerepair@yahoo.com

Best Regards,

Royal Kingdom Associates

Robin Lucy

YOUR CASTLE REAL ESTATE

BROKER ASSOCIATE, CRS®, GRI ®, REALTOR ®

Phone:  (303) 948-1692

Fax:      (303) 200-7256

Paul Richardson at Home Wizards, Inc.  303-570-0842.

———————————————————————————————————————–

Per your whiteboard posting below about a contractor, I wanted to share my brother’s name with you.  I know that I am biased, but he has an engineering degree and now operates his own renovation company. He has a team of three that can tackle almost any job.  Charles Roberts recommends him to all of his investors.  Additionally, YCRE agents, Drew Armbruster and Matt Brooks, have used him for their personal properties. 

His contact information is:

I saw your posting on the whiteboard regarding a client looking to do some remodeling. My partner and I have a full-service general contracting company, and would be more than happy to give you an estimate on the work. I attached some information about us, as well as references from our last eight projects. We are very competitive as far as pricing goes, and we self-perform all our own work (don’t sub anything out, and one of us is on site everyday) which sounds like what you are looking for. You can see some before and after pics of some of our work at www.ppofco.com. If I can be of any assistance to you please let me know.

Thanks,

Wesley Fisbeck

Pinnacle Properties & Construction Services, Inc.

Your Castle Real Estate

I have a guy that pretty much does exactly what you’re looking for except possibly the painting.  He does lots of bathroom, kitchens, etc.  It’s mostly just him, so low overhead.

Bob Erbie

Restruction Construction LLC

303-232-0844

In an earlier blog I discussed how condo marketing times have been declining for 36 months.  Here’s why.  In 2008, the overall average marketing time for condos was 97 days.  However, the distress sales (foreclosure and short sales) only took 75 days, on average, while the non-distress sellers took 114 days to sell. 

This gap has been consistent for over three years!  As the percentage of the distress sales increases (see earlier blog), we’re selling relatively more of the fast-selling distress property and relatively less of the slow-selling normal property.  This mix change has driven a lot of the declines in DOM.

Looking at just distress DOM over the last three years, it has been on a modest downward trend.  The marketing times for non-distress sellers have increased a bit.

The average marketing time (Days On Market or DOM) in 2006 was 109.  Things sped up, just a little, in 2007, when the average marketing time declined by six days to 103.  In 2008, there was another improvement of six days to an average DOM in 2008 of 97.

My numbers will be a bit different than Metrolist, as I delete land sales outside of the Denver Metro area (e.g., Central City, Boulder, Breckenridge…).

I suspect we’ll see a little more REO (foreclosure) activity in 2009 than in 2008.  Since these properties tend to sell a little faster (see next blog), we’ll probably continue to see DOM drop modestly in 2009 for condos.

In an earlier blog I discussed how the volume of sales has been on a gentle, steady decline for 48 months in our market.  If the decline has been so gentle, why does it feel so bad?  The answer is in the mix of the sales.  REO (real estate owned by banks, or foreclosure properties) and short sales are “distress” properties.  Distress volume had increased greatly recently.  It was 22% of sales in 2005, 23% in 2006, 32% in 2007, and 41% in 2008. 

While this sounds terrible – and it is – it is still better than the distress sale intensity of single family homes or income properties.  It’s all relative, but the condo segment is doing better than many other parts of the overall market.

There were 11,600 condo sales in the MLS in 2005.  It decreased 3% to 11,300 in 2006.  We had a further 3% reduction to 10,900 completed deals in 2007.  Denver experienced another 10% drop in volume in 2008, to 9,800 completed deals.

My numbers will be lower than Metrolist, as I delete condo sales outside of the Denver Metro area (e.g., Central City, Boulder, Breckenridge…).

I’m just finishing the end-of-year update for condo price trends.  The average price for a condo, in the MLS, was $189K in 2005.  It decreased 1% to $188K in 2006.  The average price dropped 2% for the full year of 2007, to $184K. 

In the last year, priced dropped an additional 7% to an average price in 2008 of $171K.  Overall, the price declines in the condo market have been a little less severe than for the single family homes.

In an earlier blog entry we discussed how the average price for an income property, in the MLS, was $392K in 2006.  It increased 12% to $439K in 2007.  However, the average price dropped 21% for the full year of 2008, to $346K. 

Did distress sellers (e.g., REO or foreclosures, and short sales) do the same as the regular, non-distress sellers?  Actually not!  The average price for the regular sellers has been gently inching up, while the average price for the distress sellers was essentially steady.

However, since the number of distress sales is increasing rapidly, that mix change is a big part of the price decline.

To get the definitions out of the way, I’m defining a “distress sales” as either an REO (real estate owned, by a bank… aka a foreclosure) or a short sale.  I’m looking at what percentage of the sold properties in the MLS were distress sales as a percentage of the total sales.  The other part of the 100% would be the regular sellers.

Only 14% of the income property sales in 2006 were distress sales.  This increased by 13% in 2007: 27% of sales were distressed.  It got worse even faster in 2008, when the distress percentage increased another 24% to 51%.  Just over half of the income property sales this year were foreclosure or short sales!

My numbers will be different than Metrolist, as I delete land sales outside of the Denver Metro area (e.g., Central City, Boulder, Breckenridge…).

I’d expect this trend to continue into 2009.  Great time to be a buyer; rough time to sell if you have to.

To get the definitions out of the way, I’m defining a “discount” as the gap between the last asking price in the MLS and the sold price that was recorded in the MLS. 

The average discount in 2006 was 2.6%.  This increased by 1.7% to an average discount of 4.3% in 2007.  The average discount in 2008 increased another 1.5%, to 5.8%.  The trend recently, in the 4Q of 2008, was declining a bit… to more of the 4% range by 4Q 2008.

My numbers will be different than Metrolist, as I delete land sales outside of the Denver Metro area (e.g., Central City, Boulder, Breckenridge…).

The average marketing time (Days On Market or DOM) in 2006 was 114 days.  Things slowed down, just a little, in 2007, when the average marketing time increased by eleven days to 126.  In 2008, DOM remained unchanged at 126 days.

My numbers will be a bit different than Metrolist, as I delete land sales outside of the Denver Metro area (e.g., Central City, Boulder, Breckenridge…).

I think we’ll have more REO inventory, particularly in the 2-4 unit segment, in 2009 than we did in 2008. Since the banks are getting better at moving REO rapidly, this should result in a modest acceleration of marketing times overall.  For regular sellers, though, it will become a difficult time to sell.  If you have a smaller income property you are considering selling – do it ASAP, as mid next year we will have a lot of option ARM resets.  I suspect you’ll have a lot more competition soon.