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MORAL COMPASS POINTS WHERE?
Mahatma Gandhi has identified (Young India, 1925) mankind’s SEVEN SOCIAL SINS:
· Commerce without morality
· Politics without principle
· Wealth without work
· Pleasure without conscience
· Education without character
· Science without humanity
· Worship without sacrifice
· Rights without responsibility (8th added by Gandhi’s grandson)
I find this fascinating and troubling. Please read this Newsweek article: Will the Recession Change Us? Is GREED inherent to Mankind? Wealth without work? How does that work? Oh, taking advantage of others, your government, your family, your friends. My personal operating system is WIN-WIN. What’s yours?
Nation’s Most Affordable Cities? Colorado Springs comes in at #11. Check the link to see the rest!
Real Estate Steals? Memphis is #1.
How about what your realtor won’t tell you? Your price is too high? OK.
Just when you think you’ve heard it all: The U.S. has a real estate problem. It appears we don’t have enough homes to put a roof over everyone’s heads!!! Housing shortage?
INTEREST RATES. Nationwide. Owner occ. 30 yr fixed: 5.12%; 5/1 ARM 4.02%. Colorado is slightly lower (5.02 & 3.91). Figure ½ - 1 point higher for Non-Owner Occ/Investor. Rates continue to vacillate. What’s not to like? Will the FED increase change things (remember, Perception is Reality)?
REAL ESTATE WEATHER REPORT
Colorado news: Foreclosure filings down, sales and underwater mortgages up. No big surprises…we are doing better than most everywhere else (small consolation).
Houses are selling, buyers are buying. Inventory is “stable.” We’re getting a few more deals than 3 months ago. It’s still possible to get great deals (see our 4-plex below!).
The rental market remains stable. There appears to be a demand for a friendly forum to post our investor inventory, wholesales, for rents, tenants, etc. Let’s see if we can use our www.FollowMeDenver.com discussion board. It’s already up. Just create a name and password, we’ll approve you and that’s it. I just had a call from a renter looking for a 2/1 house in the metro area for around $700-800/mo. In addition, here’s our rental vacancies:
· 2/1 in a triplex near 4th and Havana in Aurora
· 3/1 house in Commerce City near Monaco and 62nd
· Swiss Haus in Evergreen: studio, 1 and 2 bedroom units
Call our office for more information: 303 338-8000.
We’re still fixing, we’re still flipping, we’re still buying, and we’re still holding. We walk the talk! Check out our Follow Me Program. We train you to Find, Fund, Fix, and Flip real estate. You MUST buy and rehab a house.
Call us with tips, rumors, conjectures, and cold cases. Send us your Wholesale Deals, too. We appreciate your feedback on both our Newsletters/Blogs and Breakfast Club meetings. Thank you for helping us help you!
INVENTORY
Our Arvada 4-Plex went quickly. We have a Denver 4-plex and a Brighton SFH. Call us, 303 338-8000, for more information or with questions.
700 Osceola St. Denver. REO. 4-PLEX. Front house has 2 3 bedrooms, 1 bath units with an attached 2-car garage. Back house has 2 1 bedroom, 1 bath units with center laundry area. Big rehab: $40K. Could rehab for $20K and defer some items. Rents should be in the $2600-3000/month range. ARV at $210K may be conservative. Buy & Hold or Fix & Flip (yeah, you can do that with multi-family properties!). Buy this at $120,000. This could be a double or more! Notice that someone bought this in 2002 for $310K.
631 Strong St., Brighton. This 2/1/1 REO can be yours for $84K. Fix it for $21K and get a quick sale. This bungalow has great CURB APPEAL. This is a must see!
Bon Homepetit!
John Fisher
www.happycanyongroup.com
303 338-8000
QUOTE OF THE WEEK: Taste is not only a part and index of morality, it is the only morality. The first, and last, and closest trial question to any living creature is “What do you like?” Tell me what you like, I’ll tell you what you are. ~John Ruskin
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TRUTH or TERROR
What is this, a quiz? I’ll take Door 2, Monte. What is happening in our country? Are people afraid? Paranoid? Where is our spirit of resiliency? Don’t forget what makes us American: CAN DO attitude, never say “die.” We will persevere. OK, we have a national debt that keeps growing. Logical solution: raise taxes. We’ll get through it. Social Security is negative. Logical solution: change pay outs and dates when eligible. We’ll get through it. SOLUTIONS. Our elected representatives must communicate and reach agreements. Let’s hope and pray logic and common sense will prevail!
What happened to Colorado? Zillow: West’s homeowners more pessimistic about value. They left us out. Bottom line, consumer confidence is down (maybe not so much locally!).
America’s 20 Most Miserable Cities. Surprise, Cleveland leads the pack; Ohio has 6 cities in the top 20 as reported by Forbes! Count your blessings.
FED raises interest! From 0.5% to 0.75%. It’s just beginning. Stay tuned.
Most (and least) affordable cities to buy a house. Wow! Check these houses out. Gorgeous…and cheap. Quite a variety. If you still have your mattress filled with money, you’re in great shape to take advantage of our market. Cash is still King. Where’s the moat? There are wonderful bargains from coast to coast (not just our Denver market). If you’re itching to be a remote landlord or remote rehabber, call us to discuss options. The placement of SYSTEMS can make the difference in your long term or short term wealth goals! Imagine, and make it so!
The INTERNET continues to make a difference in our lives, our market place, our industry. That you can view a house in Poughkeepsie, NY from the comfort of your laptop is incredible. Satellite view, street view. You can even find someone on the ground who can scope out a property for you. This does not have to be hard. Just be careful!
CNN Money has a USA Map that gives you Foreclosure and Unemployment rates. Florida, Nevada, California, and Michigan stand out (Ohio is not far behind). North Dakota leads the nation with the LOWEST rates.
INTEREST RATES. Nationwide. Owner occ. 30 yr fixed: 5.13%; 5/1 ARM 4.02%. Colorado is slightly lower (5.01 & 3.93). Figure ½ - 1 point higher for Non-Owner Occ/Investor. Rates continue to vacillate. What’s not to like? Will the FED increase change things (remember, Perception is Reality)?
REAL ESTATE WEATHER REPORT
Mortgage-scam leader fined $70,000, loses license. Colorado Division of Real Estate Director, Erin Toll, gets her man! Read this article and see how he was directly responsible for 70 foreclosures out of 105 “deals.” Ouch.
So, what IS happening in our Denver market? Please scroll down and see two gems we recently “got.” Maybe our market is loosening up. Maybe. Maybe the Shadow Market is beginning to appear. Maybe. Maybe wholesale deals will make sense. I think the two below do. NEVER forego your diligence! Just because someone says it’s a deal does not mean it is. TRUST NO ONE (sounds like a 1990’s TV series). We expect one or two more wholesale deals in the next few days. These two multi-families could be doubles. Check them out below.
Meanwhile, we’re fixing, we’re flipping, we’re buying, we’re holding. We walk the talk! Check out our Follow Me Program. We train you to Find, Fund, Fix, and Flip real estate. You MUST buy and rehab a house.
Call us with tips, rumors, conjectures, and cold cases. Send us your Wholesale Deals, too. We appreciate your feedback on both our Newsletters/Blogs and Breakfast Club meetings. Thank you for helping us help you!
INVENTORY
We’re BAAAAAAACK. Our numbers should compare VERY FAVORABLY with other wholesale DEALS. Call our office, 303 338-8000, for more information or with questions.
700 Osceola St. Denver. REO. 4-PLEX. Front house has 2 3 bedrooms, 1 bath units with an attached 2-car garage. Back house has 2 1 bedroom, 1 bath units with center laundry area. Heavy rehab: $40K or so. Rents should be in the $2600-3000/month range. ARV at $210K may be conservative. Buy & Hold or Fix & Flip (yeah, you can do that with multi-family properties!). Buy this at $120,000. This could be a double or more! Notice that someone bought this in 2002 for $310K.
8721 W 62nd Ave, ARVADA. REO. 4-PLEX. Cute, neat brick garden level multi-family, over-under side-by-side. 3 units are 2/1s and 1 is a 1/1. Great views of mountains. Dead end street, quiet. Buy this at $178K, fix at $30K. Rents should be $2450-2975. ARV should be around $280K.
Bon Homepetit!
John Fisher
www.happycanyongroup.com
303 338-8000
QUOTE OF THE WEEK: Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny. ~ Frank Outlaw
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TRUTH or FAIR
What is FAIR? What works for all parties usually. Except all parties must agree. Gosh, if that was the case, we probably wouldn’t need lawyers, or arbitrators, or mediators. Core values dictate what we believe to be True, to be Fair. It’s amazing our country runs as well as it does considering the diversity, the variety of people, land, customs. Nonetheless, I am tickled to be paying taxes, to be a US Citizen, to live where I do at this place in time. No complaints (we can always complain but that solves nothing, let’s come up with solutions, with answers, something that works, that makes our lives better, more fulfilling). Remember, it’s ATTITUDE. It’s that simple. Live it. Be it. Set a good example. Oh, and have fun!
HUD has awarded $2B in phase 2 Neighborhood Stabilization Program. This time around, unlike our Denver market, your tax dollars will be paying for some residential demolition, especially in Ohio. Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) will fix 216 homes and tear down 1000! Dayton plans to demo 1600 houses. 10% of Cleveland’s houses are vacant! That’s over 20,000!That’s a lot of wood, and lead paint, and trash! Can you say BLIGHT? …Speaking of Ohio, it looks like Dayton and Cincinnati may MERGE and become one and real estate values may benefit. Go figure!
Are Appraisals the New Organized Crime? It comes as no surprise to most of us as Housing Watch reports: “Greedy appraisers, who put lofty valuations on properties to please lenders and line their pockets, played a large role in the housing bubble.” They cite a moldy Denver home that got jacked up to a $370K appraisal in 2007 and sold in 2009 for $237K. Check this youtube video that takes you through this MOLDY OLD HOUSE. It’s no wonder Colorado legislature decided to put a leash on the appraisers. It’s unfortunate that Colorado appraisers are so price shy (and paranoid) that it now appears they are directing and dictating LOWER values despite our buyers wanting to pay more and pull us out of this recession. Can you say “CONUNDRUM?”
No new info on how the EPA Lead paint rules will affect us. I heard that owner occ rehabs are not affected. I will not bank on that. Stay tuned.
Home prices fell 12% in 2009. Click on that link to take a tour around the country’s top 200 markets and see how they fared: Denver, up 11.2% year to year!
INTEREST RATES. Nationwide. Owner occ. 30 yr fixed: 5.13%; 5/1 ARM 4.06%. Colorado is slightly lower (5.02 & 3.97). Figure ½ - 1 point higher for Non-Owner Occ/Investor. Rates continue to vacillate. What’s not to like?
REAL ESTATE WEATHER REPORT
Our local market continues to evolve. We appear to be healthier than most other US Housing Markets. We have even dropped out of the TOP (make that BOTTOM) 10 Foreclosure States: We’re Number 12, We’re Number 12….according to RealtyTrac.
As if you don’t already know: Apartment vacancies flat in 6 Colorado cities, rents drop. We may talk more at our Breakfast Club on this. No surprises that 3 bedroom units have the lowest vacancies.
Zillow reports that Denver (and 3 other Colorado markets) are about to get a “double dip” in home values: “The housing information provider defines a double dip in home values as two periods of sustained declines separated by a brief period of stabilization.”
Our Breakfast Club meets TOMORROW, Saturday, February 13. Come to eat and meet! If you’re not getting our announcements, please e-mail us to get on our list.
GOOD NEWS: our WHOLESALE company has a few new residential wholesale properties available this weekend. We’re sorting out the details and expect to have them posted Friday, February 12.
We’re fixing, we’re flipping, we’re buying, we’re holding. We walk the talk! Check out our Follow Me Program. We train you to Find, Fund, Fix, and Flip real estate. You buy a house, you fix it (well, you hire the contractors to do the work), you flip it. You learn what it takes to take action and DO IT.
Call us with tips, rumors, conjectures, and cold cases. Oh, send us your Wholesale Deals, too. We appreciate your feedback on both our Newsletters/Blogs and Breakfast Club meetings. Thank you for helping us help you!
INVENTORY
Our inventory is slowly coming back. Our numbers should compare VERY FAVORABLY with other wholesale DEALS. Call our office, 303 338-8000, for more information or with questions.
628 S Jasmine Way, Denver. HUD. 4/2/2+. Over 2700 sq ft. Backs to Leetsdale. Virginia Vale ‘hood. Brick. Yours for $161K and only $25K to fix. ARV is $250K. Sound too good to be true? Do your diligence. Check this out!
Bon Homepetit!
John Fisher
www.happycanyongroup.com
303 338-8000
QUOTE OF THE WEEK: Truth is what stands the test of experience. ~Albert Einstein
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TRUTH or REPAIR
What? Repair what? What’s broken? It’s a good thing that TIME HEALS. It’s what we don’t know that hurts. Like EPA’s Lead Paint Policies. Who knows how the EPA and local agencies are going to handle this? Opt Out is no longer an option. What else? Repair credit? Repair credibility? Houses? Fortunes? Our society? And the TRUTH shall set us free!
Just in case you doubt Radon Can Kill, here’s a story about a Chicago man who died of lung cancer traced to his 18 year old radon-heavy home.
Looking for a cheap city to rent and work? Here’s a few low rent/high employment cities in our heartland. Yeah, I can’t wait to move to Wichita!
CNN MONEY: You lost your house - but you still have to pay. Homeowners who did short sales are finding deficiency judgements still have a big bite! Be careful what you agree to and sign. “Oh, don’t worry about it” just doesn’t cut it!
INTEREST RATES. Nationwide. Owner occ. 30 yr fixed: 5.11%; 5/1 ARM 4.08%. Colorado is slightly lower (5.04 & 3.99). Figure ½ - 1 point higher for Non-Owner Occ/Investor. Rates continue to vacillate.
REAL ESTATE WEATHER REPORT
FROM THE WHO-ARE-WE-TRYING-TO-KID DEPARTMENT: Forbes Magazine’s Home Ec Department: “During the housing bust, while the effects of foreclosures and a crushing recession tore through real estate markets in states like Florida, California and Nevada, the Denver metro seemed insulated from economic harm. It has consistently performed relatively well among the 20 major metropolitan housing markets tracked in the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index, which measures sale prices, and is published with a two-month lag. In its January report, covering the year ending in November, Denver topped those markets with a 0.5% home price increase.”
“But real-time asking price data provided to Forbes by Altos Research, a Mountain View, Calif.-based real estate research firm, suggest the Mile-High city is taking a turn for the worse. In July 2009 listings showed a .5% decline from the year before, the first time the city posted a price tag decline since 2008. The slump has since worsened; in January year-over-year asking prices were down 3%, to $368,870.” Looks like we may not be out of the Front Range Woods, Dorothy. More will be revealed!
Just for grins, AOL cites over 300 houses listed in Denver area that are $50K or less. Click HERE to view.
Does Denver really have a Shadow Market of Real Estate REOs that are sitting vacant? It depends upon who you talk to. Are lenders really keeping properties OFF the market? Why? When will they release them? To WHOM will they release them? Will it be through local realtors or through cartels that specialize in REOs and bulk buys? Will we ever see them? OK, maybe the “Shadow” knows, but he’s not talking! (even I’m too old to remember that radio program)
How’s our rental market? Holding its own. What about our retail market? Again, holding it’s own (although the aforementioned Forbes article casts shadows of fear and uncertainty…and doubt. No FUD here. Just gossip and rumors.
Our Breakfast Club will be NEXT week, Saturday, February 13. If you’re not getting our announcements, please e-mail us to get on our list. We do our best to keep our e-mails weekly with a Breakfast Club announcement monthly. That is almost always IT. Remember, we all have a DELETE button we can use.
If you’re interested, please join me next Thursday, February 11, as we work on one of 24 Habitat for Humanity Townhouses near I-25 and Colorado. Lots of people, lots of work, lots of reward. Check HERE to register, etc.
The Denver Business Journal reports that Colorado foreclosures are down 4% in 2009. Don’t forget, if you know someone in housing hell, refer them to the COLORADO FORECLOSURE HOTLINE: 1-877-601-HOPE.
Call us with tips, rumors, conjectures, and cold cases. Oh, send us your Wholesale Deals, too. We appreciate your feedback on both our Newsletters/Blogs and Breakfast Club meetings. Thank you for helping us help you!
INVENTORY
Our inventory has cut back dramatically. We’re finding investors AND wholesalers willing to pay more than our business model dictates we should pay. There are still deals; do due diligence and find them!
We are still getting deals that make sense and they go quickly. Let’s hope that Shadow Market has some vision and we can all SEE it!
Bon Homepetit!
John Fisher
www.happycanyongroup.com
303 338-8000
QUOTE OF THE WEEK: The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining. ~John F. Kennedy
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