https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSPNHSUS
Median sale price of NEW homes drops by highest margin ever, -17.6% year-over-year. New homes make up about 1/6 of all US home sales.
...

National Association of Realtors is BY FAR the largest political lobby. Pay attention to the letters below.

NRA 2022 political lobbying budget: $2.5M
NAR 2022: $81.7M

The next largest behind...

I had about 35% of my client's appeals changed, none to the extent we requested. I heard that many appeals were denied because the assessor staff was simply overwhelmed and did not have the time to...

"How to Get Rich," Ramit Sethi's netflix show, has a revealing experience with a couple and their storage unit. They spend $100/mo on the storage unit (or whatever it was). It stores things like a...

:fm:
Ya, zillow is a wonderful resource, but not always reliable. And if you're in CO, you can't use any data after 6/30/2022, so present values are irrelevant.

Lots. Depends. Every time. The breakeven is actually very low, lots of people value their time, don't understand the complexities, just want someone to handle it.

If you think your house is...

There is a lot of bad information and guidance in here on how to appeal property taxes...

It's not hard, especially if you've been doing it professionally for 12 years like I have.

If anyone is...

Cities/towns/municipalities are not politically in favor of commercial to residential conversions. They collect the lionshare of their income from sales tax (at least in Colorado). I've yet to hear...

WFH/remote working kills office demand. Rent prices drop, vacancies increase, income plummets, debt coverage ratios go negative. Commercial note reaches the balloon, time to refi at double the...

Lack of childcare is nothing new. My office had a remodel a few years ago, so we were purging old files. I found a clipped newspaper article (was it the "Vail Daily" in 1993? I would have been in...

Colorado broke this during GFC. Denver crashed about a year before the mountain markets. Unless Denver is the outlying area to the resorts, in which case you are correct?

The mortgage broker I'm working with advised doing a 45-day rate lock now for the 4/15 closing. Everything he was seeing said rates go up tomorrow.

We're going to hold on to it for now. Maybe if renting it out becomes a maintenance nightmare, we'll look to sell.

We got 30 year money at 2.75% and it's been appreciating ~2.5%/MONTH for the...

We're under contract! Only 1 other offer, they came back for highest and best. We offered $6k escalation clause because our realtor said $5k is common; got it for 2% over asking. Inspection...

We just bid on a house with an ADU. Our bid was not chosen despite an escalation clause of $1k more than the greatest offer. Not a big % on a sale of that size, but better than not having $1000 so...

I sounded like a dick last night, brain fried from performing the slumlord gig.

Where are your rentals? Do you prefer LTR or STR? What's the deciding factor between LTR/STR for your properties?

Thanks. I do. It's 1 of our 3 rentals I've been self-managing since 2013. Every single tenant has become a friend and we still see many around town and there's never been a single late or missed...

Fun fact: there isn't a home for sale on zillow, in the state of Colorado, for $666,000

In other news, listed our tiny 1-bedroom lock-off for 40% rent increase. Been answering 20 emails a day...

Yes, stocks went down for a few months at the beginning of the pandemic. But it's not really a cherry-picked data point, the stock market is up over every day in history; record highs every day. ...

VTSAX up 42% in the past year, VTIAX up 29%, VBTLX admittedly down 2.66%. Basic boglehead stuff.
BTC was at 9293, 34,500 now. There's of course better (or worse) numbers for other letters, but I...

Scandal in CO's high country property tax:
https://coloradosun.com/2021/06/08/eagle-san-miguel-counties-division-property-taxation-official-ethical-breach/

$3k CO taxes, 94 mills, 7.15% res assessment rate, that's about $446,000. $2k is $297,000.

You've made nothing.

Unless you sell, or do a cash out refi. Plus you've got to subtract 6% selling costs. But the appreciation lately for existing homeowners is kind of exciting. Home values...

When will you be vacating? I'm flexible for a lease-back period. My offer is $1,000,000, in bitcoin, with an escalation clause of 1 Tesla greater than next highest offer.

You got it. We didn't actually have a cap but our realtor called us and asked if we wanted to match the +$100k bid and we declined and that was that.

Stop me if you've heard this story before (like almost this exact same scenario 2 weeks ago).

Listed for $775k, we offered list + $1k escalation clause. 2 days on the market, 9 offers. Our...

Why do we still pay realtors silly high fees? The NRA (guns) spent $1,2M lobbying politicians in DC last year. The NAR (6% cut out of your largest asset) spent $41,2M. Ask not what your lobbyist...

Whew, glad to be done with this process.

Officially listed for 2 days at $775,000. We were the first offer in at $750 and then resubmitted on realtor's advice to $776. 9 offers, we didn't even...

So far, the story goes like this.

The realtor that sold us our house Christmas 2016 had a listing about a week ago in the next town down valley. It had a lock-off basement, so piqued my interest....

Our first home in 2013 (the local post-recession trough) had a 1-br carriage house above the garage and the 3-br "big house". We lived in the carriage house, rented the big, essentially breaking...

Looking at a house for sale tomorrow. $315/sf. Apartment above the garage would cover about 60% of cost. Stupid price but it nearly makes sense.

Stupid son - Whitefish has at least 2 sushi restaurants. Last time I visited Indah Sushi (owned by a CO native), I saw Tanner Hall. Not dead.

New challenge: find the bathtub

Here's an...interesting...home listed on redfin. Click on the 3d tour button to cruise around the house and find the bathtub (hint that is probably not helpful,...

2 weeks ago, I listed a 500 sf 1-bedroom tiny home for rent. I was nervous that I was being a greedy dick, raising rents 20% over current tenants, to $1750/month (including 1-car garage and...

Say I have a stable job, not affected by the virus. And a mortgage. And an appetite for risk. Can anyone for no reason, stop paying their mortgage for 3 months? Put it all on black, hope the bet...

We're at the starting point of a major recession. We lose a ton of jobs. A ton of people stop making money. Those people stop paying their rent or mortgage. Demand plummets, home prices plummet. ...

Given the choice, I choose the Colorado mountains. But there are worse places to be for sure.

Benny doesn't believe anyone can earn a respectable living and lead a happy successful life without...

I should add, $1M gets seriously impressive homes in Dubuque compared to Vail...but location location location..

Iowa keeps being mentioned as the shithole comparison. While much of it is...a few pages back, Danno specifically said Dubuque, IA - my hometown. I was just back last week. Couldn't believe the...

Anecdotally, three friends bought recently in my small CO town. 2 bought townhomes in 2008 at the peak, started families and were massively underwater for 10 years, sold in the last month for a...

I do not see any catalyst for a national or international crash beyond a catastrophic event. For the time being, nuclear war seems to be trending down. Major terrorist attack?

I feel like...

It's a great rate but nothing special. It was available to many people for multiple years and now is only slightly higher.

New purchase loan taken out 11/1/16. First payment was 38.7% toward principle. This month's payment is 40.8% principle.

I agree, good post glademaster. And summit before that. And GB here. Wade through enough BS and there is actually lots of good stuff on the ol TGR forumz.

_____ County Open Space, _____ Valley...

Interesting factoid: China's Prime Minister Xi Jinping did a study abroad program at my brother's high school in Muscatine, Iowa. He was interested in farming and IA's a great place for that. So...

I visited my older brother's new home in Muscatine, IA last month, from my down-valley home in the shadow of Vail. Despite owning a beautiful home, he and his wife both in good jobs, just having a...

Can you do that again right now in Colorado? Serious, submitted offer today.

Zillow, trulia, county records should give you a ballpark estimate - no need to pay for appraisal up front. Plus, no bank will accept, they need to do their own.

County appraisals can be way off....

Summit's main value driver is the Front Range, and the Front Range is crazy now, so Summit is similarly expensive.

There is no Vail County - it's Eagle County. Vail and Beaver Creek/BG/AH's entry...

Good luck closing yours MD9. Had some serious issues at the 11th hour on mine. Then again at the 11:30th hour. Then another issue at the 11:59th hour! But it all worked out for the best. It'd...