|
|
Very interesting article on Trulia about Home Ownership & Valentine’s Day…Enjoy this special day with all of those special “someone’s” in your lives!
Valentine’s Day for Real Estate: Trulia Says More Love for Home Owners
In a bit of Valentine’s Day pseudo-science (don’t shoot the messenger), Trulia surveyed men and women on their preferences in homeownership, styles of homes, amenities, and those same qualities they find attractive in potential dates.
The number of women stating that they preferred a man who owned a home was more than 15 times the number that preferred a renter. For men, the number who preferred a female homeowner was about six times the number who preferred a renter.
The study also found that although men and women had only slightly different preferences in home attributes, women had far more opinions. Female respondents chose far more home features as “important” to them as men did.
From the recap on the RealtorMag site:
“Home owners trump renters when it comes to finding someone to date, according to a new survey of 1,000 single people. More than a third of women and 18 percent of men would rather date a home owner than a renter, according to the survey, which was conducted on behalf of Trulia.
On the other hand, only 2 percent of women said they’d prefer to date a renter, while 3 percent of men said they’d prefer a renter.
Not only do both sexes prefer home owners, but they also prefer you live alone. Sixty-two percent of the singles surveyed said they prefer to date others who live alone and have no roommates.
And while the number of young adults who have moved back in with their parents has skyrocketed in recent months due to economic hardships, less than 5 percent of the singles surveyed said they would date someone living in their parents’ home.
What home qualities are the many singles who prefer ownership to renting most drawn to? The top vote-getters were the master bath, walk-in closets, and gourmet kitchens. They also gave high ranks to hardwood floors, outdoor decks, and home theaters.”
Click Here for the Article
Stacy Engle , Associate Broker
February 10, 2012 - Here’s your Durango Real Estate Statistics and Weekly Update! Great deals, new listings, foreclosures and sold comparables.
24 properties sold in Durango, Colorado and area over the last week, that’s 1 more than last week. Some really good deals – check it out.
Click Here for Sold Listings
New Durango Real Estate Listings this week:
There are 36 new listings this week.
Click Here for New Listings
Bankowned Listings (REO):
Due to continuing interest we are including REO property, which means “Real Estate Owned” in bank-lingo, in other words, bankowned properties, or foreclosed properties after the foreclosure process is completed. The bank/lender now owns the property. They are typically sold at a discount, hence the popularity! Please follow this link to our foreclosure page on our website. It shows all active bankowned and foreclosure listings in the area and is continually updated. Bookmark it and visit it often! Or email us, info@blueribbondurango.com to get set up for automatic email notifications on new bankowned listings!
Click here for Foreclosures & Bankowned Homes in the Durango & Surrounding Areas
And Back by Popular demand – the Market Snapshot – Free and Instant Home Valuations! A cool map based comparable report that shows new listings and sales comparables to your house, for sellers or buyers. Sign up by clicking here. Or go to Durangohousevalues.com. You’ll love it!
If you’d like to see any listings or statistics that we are not covering please don’t hesitate to send an email or post a comment. Maybe you’d like to be alerted to new listings in a specific price range or type. Let us know, we’re here to help.
NEW – We now offer full service property management and property maintenance to ensure maximum cash flow for your investments. If you own a rental property let us help you maximize your profit. If you are looking for homes for rent, check in with us as well. Sign up with us by January 1, 2012 to manage your rental, and get FREE set up ($150.00 cash value). Click here for our Property Management Page.
Sign up to receive automatic emails of new listings by sending me a quick email and letting me know what you’d like to see, claudia@blueribbondurango.com.
To see virtual tours of some of my listings click here
Have a great weekend! Feel free to call or email me if you’d like to talk about real estate or go to look at properties!
Claudia Williams
Owner/Ecobroker/Exchangor
Blue Ribbon Properties, 835 Main Ave #214, Durango, CO 81301
970 247 8388 (office), 970 749 3555 (cell), 970 247 8360 (fax), claudia@blueribbondurango.com
Be sure to LIKE Blue Ribbon Properties on Facebook!
Get the current market situation and find out what your home is worth. Sign up for the market snapshot here
Disclaimer – these links and information are based on the Durango local multi listing service. While all information is deemed accurate there are no guarantees. Does not include for sale by owners or foreclosure properties that are not listed on the MLS.
This is an interesting article we came across, and thought we would share.
Book Review: ‘The Smartest Money Book You’ll Ever Read: Everything You Need to Know About Growing, Spending and Enjoying Your Money’ Author: Daniel R. Solin
Today’s post-recession, pro-consumer, anti-bank zeitgeist reflects a dramatic sea change in the world of personal finance advice. Gone are the days when the cable TV pundits whose eyes bulge as they holler hysterics about what, when and whether to buy, sell or hold are taken seriously as anything but entertainment.
All the rules of thumb (e.g., owning a home is good) have been revised and nuanced (e.g., owning a home is good if X, Y and Z, but renting makes more sense if A, B and C).
And there’s also been a sea change in how this advice is delivered. Instead of a once-weekly column in the local paper by a financial writer, these days there is a steady stream — flood, even — of advice-blog posts written by actual financial advisers and delivered in short, simple chunks right-sized for today’s shrunken attention spans.
Daniel R. Solin is one such expert/blogger, and uses the same pithy style, linking to complementary online resources as he does in his advice columns on HuffingtonPost.com and USNews.com in his new book, “The Smartest Money Book You’ll Ever Read: Everything You Need to Know About Growing, Spending and Enjoying Your Money.”
Here are four of Solin’s smartest financial do’s and don’ts:
1. Don’t try to play the market. Solin practically pleads with readers not to base their housing or stock market investment decisions on their guesses as to whether the market will rise or fall, and when.
On real estate, Solin says to get aggressive about building equity by making conservative mortgage decisions and extra payments, when possible, rather than trying to sell at the top of the market and buy at the bottom.
And when it comes to the stock market, Solin exhorts readers: “Don’t just do something — stand there!” Solin repeatedly cites historical evidence that simply getting and staying in the market yields better results in the long term than what he calls “hyperactive” investing.
2. Do consider other options to a reverse mortgage to access fast cash in retirement. “Smartest” offers loads of Solin’s advice for retirees whose portfolios, plans and bottom lines have been adversely affected by the recession.
Rather than seeing a costly, legacy-draining reverse mortgage as their first resort for access to large amounts of cash, Solin first cautions retirees to get serious about whether anything but health, food and shelter are truly needs vs. wants (note: helping your children is not a need, in his book) and lists a number of more attractive, but less commonly considered options for accessing cash, including a “regular” home refinance or loan against a 401(k) or cash value life insurance policy.
3. Don’t confuse salespeople for financial advisers. Calling the investment industry “friend and foe,” Solin points out the sobering truth that 95 percent of actively managed funds fail to equal or beat their market indexes, yet the fees for investing in actively managed funds tend to be several times more expensive than for index funds, eroding whatever returns investors in active funds do attain.
Solin urges readers to be aware of the difference between an investment broker, who he says is more accurately described as a salesperson; and a financial adviser, who can take a look at your life and your money and help you set goals, pick low-fee investments, rebalance your portfolio, manage your tax exposure and manage your emotions.
Solin recommends that readers put together a trusted team including an estate planning attorney, a certified public accountant (CPA), and fee-only (i.e., not commission-based) investment and insurance advisers.
4. Do shop around. Solin likens our monthly income and expenses to our body’s metabolism. In the same way we gain weight over the years by consuming calories on autopilot, we can lose cash by having our insurance, investment and other expenses auto-debited, making it highly unlikely that we’ll notice when fees and bills rise.
Solin advises checking in on these items at regular intervals, and shopping around to see whether we can find a better deal.
“Smartest” makes a great effort to be comprehensive in terms of covering every area of financial life, but it doesn’t actually go deep enough to be the only book you need. Rather, it is a great start at giving you the rationale for getting motivated to grow up and get serious about your finances, and provides you with a primer and a road map for the work ahead of you.
With 40-plus chapters averaging a couple of pages in length each, “Smartest” feels rather like a collection of Solin’s blog posts; this will leave some readers hungry for more depth and detail, but will certainly appeal to many others who cringe at the density of a more traditional personal finance title.
To its credit, “Smartest” also does a good job of pointing out where you can find tools to execute Solin’s recommendations or learn more about a given subject online, mostly on the wildly popular and free, do-it-yourself money management platform Mint.com.
Generally, “Smartest” is written in plain English — though its approach is a tad bit imbalanced, getting a little bit in the weeds and detailed in the sections of his particular expertise and borderline vague and oversimplified in others.
However, if you are looking to start your proactive financial planning up again, after the trauma of the recession, or if you are just taking control of your finances for the first time, “Smartest” is a smart choice for the starter book you need to put your own personal money train in motion.
Click Here for the Daily Real Estate News Article
By Tara-Nicholle Nelson
Inman News®
–
Claudia Williams
Owner/Ecobroker/Exchangor
Blue Ribbon Properties, 835 Main Ave #214, Durango, CO 81301
970 247 8388 (office), 970 749 3555 (cell), 970 247 8360 (fax), blueribbondurango.com
Connect with Claudia on facebook, buzztown, twitter, linked in and my blog articles
Be sure to LIKE Blue Ribbon Properties on Facebook!
Check out the New Market Snapshot to monitor the value of your home and get current local market conditions
Green Buildings: What’s the Difference and Does It Matter?
I found this article in the Colorado Realtors Winter 2012 Newsletter and would like to share it with you. Claudia Williams is Durango’s first Ecobroker, certified and trained to market and sell green properties, both energy efficient and properties built or retrofitted with green features. This article was written by Taylor Watkins, a Certified Residential Appraiser and, among others, comments on the valuation of green elements in appraising homes.
This article will introduce some of the elements of green building and the ways in which they may relate to
appraisal practice. This is a very large field, so the list is not exhaustive, but it does provide a place to start
understanding green buildings. There has been a lot of talk recently about the popularity of residential, industrial, and commercial “green”, or environmentally responsible and resource-efficient, building structures. There have also been many published articles in which builders, brokers, and owners claim that appraisers undervalue green
properties. As appraisers know, we don’t create the market for specific property types; we analyze available,
appropriate market data to reflect the actions of the market. In the case of green buildings, however,
perhaps some green building advocates may not clearly understand the systematic appraisal valuation
procedure an appraiser follows to answer a client’s questions about real property value, and some appraisers
don’t clearly understand valuation issues involved with green buildings.
Green building is relatively new in many parts of the country, but it has been around for decades.
There are several different reasons for the recent interest in green building. Rising energy costs have made
green building more attractive, but as we will see, energy efficiency is only one aspect of green building.
Increased awareness of the principles of sustainability is another reason. Governmental support of green
building measures, from storm water management codes to energy efficient appliance incentives, has also
helped move green building into the mainstream.
What is Green Building?
One of the difficulties in understanding green building is the lack of a complete and accurate definition that
is commonly accepted among the varied professions and organizations that deal with green buildings. One
example of a green building definition comes from the US Environmental Protection Agency:
“Green building is the practice of creating structures and using processes that are environmentally
responsible and resource-efficient throughout a building’s life-cycle from siting to design, construction,
operation, maintenance, renovation and deconstruction. This practice expands and complements the
classical building design concerns of economy, utility, durability, and comfort. Green building is also known as
a sustainable or high performance building.”
Green building can generally be thought of as a building practice that that focuses on the
building structure’s resource efficiency (i.e., high performance) and the health of its occupants and the
environmental impact throughout the structure’s entire life cycle from its design through its occupancy and
eventual deconstruction.
Viewing a building through its entire life cycle is not a new idea, but it can lead to different choices in
the way it is constructed, and this is part of what distinguishes green buildings. These choices tend to gravitate
to the following basic elements of green building: site, water, energy, materials, and indoor air quality.
Although these elements are not exclusive to green building, the way in which green buildings address them
is different from conventional buildings. By understanding these elements and how they differentiate green
buildings, appraisers will attain the necessary competence in the valuation of green buildings and will also be
able to participate in the growing conversation surrounding them. Recall that USPAP requires competency
and being competent requires knowledge and experience to produce credible assignment results.
Site Element
Overriding site concerns are the preservation of open space and habitat protection when possible. In
addition, green site planning and development focuses on the site’s proximity to transportation and other
linkages, access to sun and/or shade as the climate dictates, and building placement on the site to take
advantage of solar, water, or wind-oriented resources.
Appraisal Practice: The traditional view of location applies here in terms of access to amenities, but
with additional emphasis on proximity to mass transportation, increased density, and open, or green spaces.
This is because proximity to mass transit improves air quality due to lower vehicle emissions, and lowers fuel
and energy consumption during occupancy of the building. Additionally, increased density can help protect
open space.
Water Element
Water is a resource that is actively managed and conserved in many green
buildings. Water that comes to the property from the local provider is conserved as
much as possible inside and outside the building. Storm water is all the water that falls
on the site as precipitation. In some cases, storm water is captured and retained
for reuse, either inside or outside the building. Drought tolerant landscaping is also
encouraged.
Appraisal Practice: In theory, water consumption and cost can be measured
and thus quantified in most cases. Especially in arid portions of the country or areas
with high sewage disposal costs, savings from reducing and reusing water in some
cases can lead to operational savings.
Energy Element
Energy comes to most buildings in the form of natural gas or electricity. While it is only one of the elements
of green building, it gets a lot of attention. This is because it is measurable, both in terms of consumption
and cost, and because there are many incentives available for energy efficient materials, systems, and
appliances. Unlike some of the other elements of green building, energy efficiency and related cost savings
are important to cost conscious buyers in some areas of the country.
Appraisal Practice: Like water, energy consumption is measurable, so if less energy is consumed by a
property, that savings may be a benefit that accrues to the property. It is also a benefit that will keep paying
forward throughout the life of that building or that particular energy efficient system or appliance.
Materials Element
Green building materials have entered the mainstream in many areas of the country over the past several
years. These materials again focus on resource efficiency in their composition, like being made of recycled
materials; in their production, such as being locally made or minimally processed; or in their use, meaning
that they can lead to less energy consumption while in place in a building.
Appraisal Practice: Some green materials may be more durable than their conventional counterparts,
leading to less maintenance over time. This can lead to lower operational costs and also perhaps to a longer
physical life. The proper material to use, green or not, depends on the application.
Indoor Air Quality Element
Indoor Air Quality (“IAQ”) has been getting a lot more attention lately, but it has always been an integral part
of green building. Particularly with commercial and governmental buildings, landlords, tenants, and owners
have become interested in the effects of good IAQ on workers. Studies are also looking into the effects on
student performance in school buildings with superior IAQ.
Appraisal Practice: If IAQ becomes measurable in some way, then its positive
effects on occupants may enter into the appraisal process using paired sales or
statistical analysis. Pending the availability of that type of measurable data, it
is still possible, indeed appropriate, to consider a qualitative technique known
as “relative comparison analysis” when using the sales comparison approach.
_____
For more information on building green and evaluating homes with green features please don’t hesitate to contact Claudia Williams, Blue Ribbon Properties, Durango Real Estate. 970.247.8388. claudia@blueribbondurango.com.
More online resoures:
Green Home Resources at greenhomesforsale.com
EPA Green Homes – http://www.epa.gov/greenhomes/
US Green Building Council – http://greenhomeguide.com/
Locally here in Durango you can join the “Green Business Round Table” hosted once a month by the San Juan Citizens Alliance
For information on making you La Plata County Home more energy efficient contact Four Core – www.fourcore.org/
Today I will share with you this great deal for Native Americans – the Section 184 Indian Housing Loan Guarantee Program offered through HUD! I’m reprinting information received from Michael Killmeyer with Gateway Mortgage – he specializes in these types of loans and would love to help you out! If you’d like to look at homes please keep Blue Ribbon in mind!
Here from Michael:
As you know, I have been spreading the word about a very special loan program that is focused on the Native American community, Section 184 Indian Housing Loan Guarantee Program offered through HUD. HUD is the nation’s housing agency, committed to increasing homeownership by creating affordable housing opportunities. Here at Gateway, we are certified to offer the Section 184 loan through The Office of Native American Programs. The goal of the program is to create a sustainable economy for the Native American community.
I would like to offer some information about the Section 184 Program and its benefits. In 1992, Congress saw an opportunity to help an underserved market and instituted the Program. Millions of dollar are put aside each year for Native Americans and to date, the opportunity has never been taken full advantage of. Colorado in particular has so much room for growth. To put it in perspective, since inception over 6100 loan have been closed in Oklahoma under 184. In stark contrast, Colorado has a total of only 168 loans closed in almost 20 years. The Section 184 loan is not well publicized and certainly not well supported here in Colorado. We are trying to change that.
Below are some of the important points to keep in mind.
Here are a few of the program benefits:
- Purchase and refinancing available
- Low Down Payment (2.25%)
- Up to 97.75% LTV (loan to value) on a refinance
- No Monthly Mortgage Insurance
- No maximum income limits
- Flexible Underwriting, credit challenges can be overcome
- Loan is assumable
- Loan amounts up to $503,000
- On or Off Reservation
Qualifications:
· Any Native American, Alaska Native that is a member of a federally recognized tribe or an Alaska Village
· An Indian tribe that has qualified for the Section 184 Program
· A Tribally Designated Housing Entity (TDHE)
· An Indian Housing Authority (IHA)
I hope I have illustrated the opportunity and goal of educating the public about this wonderful opportunity. Please help to spread the word.
Respectfully,
Mike
Michael Killmeyer
Gateway Mortgage Group, LLC
Mortgage Consultant
300 South Jackson Street, Suite 200
Denver CO, 80209
michael.killmeyer@gatewayloan.com
Office: 720-440-9741 ext 102
Cell: 303-929-4700
Fax: 720-328-2374
NMLS: 818932
DORA: LMB100036921
Or Contact us at Blue Ribbon Properties, 835 Main Ave #214, Durango, CO 81301
Claudia Williams – 970 247 8388
|
|
