Our Airbnb is live, and we have several bookings (yippee), including one for Christmas (which has dashed my dreams of spending the holidays there, but I’m a survivor). Couldn’t be happier that things have fallen into place so seamlessly with it all!
Now I can stay home and keep up my CrossFit. I took some time off (doing those steps in its place), but I’m back full force and can’t believe I’ve lost so much of my strength! It’s shocking. But I feel confident it’ll be back soon with a healthy one-two punch of old-fashioned elbow grease and muscle memory stuff.
Do you guys have plans for Labor Day? We’re going camping at Fun Valley, and that should be super fun. I’m a bit stressed about work, but I’ll have internet service, so that makes me a bit more confident. The irony, right? You’re supposed to take time off for Labor Day, and I’m calling a campsite to see if I can work while there. Oy. Worst case scenario I come home. We aren’t that far away and it wouldn’t be the first time.
So, I did not have a great birthday. The day started great with family lunch plans at Vital Root and an afternoon at Meow Wolf, however it soon took a swift nose dive. It was my fault and I learned an important lesson. Keep my phone within sight at all times. Yet another reason to avoid birthdays altogether- no celebrations can be ruined. Maybe next year, we’ll skip it. But, I mean, cake, so…
My Real Estate Status
I had one of the most stressful days of my life yesterday but on the plus side, I did get a new listing, and the clients signed right then and there on the spot. Usually, people want to take a hot second to themselves before signing and I typically encourage that. But they are lovely and we vibe well and I’m excited to help them move up the hill (Colorado talk for ‘to the mountains’). They contacted me a year ago, but since the market was so nuts back then, it’s taken this long to get anything going.
They still live in their house, and in most cases, my properties are vacant when I list them. With people still living there and pets and all the stuff, it’s a totally different experience; it can get more complicated with scheduling. I think it’ll all go well with these guys, though, I’ve explained how stressful it is to rangle pets and keep a home clean so they are exploring a bridge loan or home equity line of credit which may allow them to purchase before they sell. Fingers crossed to that! Another plus to a bridge loan or home equity line of credit is they may be able to purchase without a contingency to sell their current home making them more desirable to sellers.
Current Denver Area Real Estate Market
Heading into Labor Day weekend showings tend to slow down. With 3 day holiday weekends and religious based holiday weekends buyer activity tends to dip creating a great opportunity for buyers to have more negotiating power on these weekends. On these weekends showings tend to drop 30-40% over non-holiday weekends.
Days on market have grown significantly since earlier this year. Setting the stage up front with your sellers that it is increasingly less likely that they will be under contract in the first weekend is imperative. Based on data from last week for units that went under contract, median days on market was 20, or just under 3 weeks. I break this into $500,000 price segments for you on a weekly basis so be sure to take a look at the breakdowns in each pricing tier. Days on market are longer for higher priced homes. This metric is likely to continue to lengthen out through the end of the year.
The 2/1 Buydown
What's old is new and what's new is old. So, what is a seller buydown? A buydown allows a seller to subsidize the buyer's payment for a specified period of time. Buydowns are sometimes confused with adjustable rates since they share some similarities but are not the same. Typically the seller will provide a lump sum concession which is deposited into a separate custodial escrow account(different from the one used for taxes and insurance) for the buyer and then applied each month to their payments. A common buydown is a 2/1 buydown. During the loan's first year, you'll pay an interest rate 2% lower than your permanent rate. In the second year of your loan, the interest rate will be 1% lower than your permanent rate. Once the first two years are up, you begin paying your permanent rate, which is fixed and does not adjust. Here's one of my favorite parts about the buydown….. If rates come down in the next 12-23 months and you don't completely use the buydown from the seller, any money potentially left over is then returned and subtracted from your payoff.
For this example, we'll use a rate of 5.0%. In the first year, you'll pay a rate of 3%, lowering your monthly payment to roughly $115/month per $100,000. In the second year, you'll pay a rate of 4%, lowering your monthly payment to roughly $60/month per $100,000. The seller buydown is roughly $2,100 per $100,000. So a $500,000 loan amount costs the seller a $10,500 concession, which is a lot lower than a 3% or 5% price cut. A buydown is a marketing strategy that sellers can use out of the gate and is an excellent way for buyers to lower their payments.
My Top 5 Reasons for Loving the Foothills of Jefferson County, Colorado
- The Music Scene- Red Rocks Amphitheater
- The Outdoor Opportunities- Whether you like hiking, biking, fishing, snowshoeing, hunting, equestrian activities, etc… there are options galore.
- Space- We might be able to see our neighbors, but rarely does it feel like we are living with our neighbors
- Proximity- Most places in the foothills of Jeffco are less than an hour from Denver and less than an hour and a half from skiing
- Summer Temps- When it’s sweltering in Denver, we are typically 10 degrees cooler up here
Upcoming Events
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