Durango named 'A Best Place to Live' by Men's Journal. The April issue of the popular men's magazine hits newsstands Friday. Our boy Jeremy, from Pine Needle, is features in the article as well. 18 towns were selected as having 'mastered the art of living well in the 21st century by prioritizing localism, sustainability and conservation'. Very cool.

At Prudential we are constantly working to better understand the business. A few years ago now, we got some software to set-up and track showings. This allows us to looks at such things as what price range is seeing more activity, to see how many showings it takes to sell a home, compare year to year and so on. The value to the client is that you price appropriately, gauge how long it should take to sell and how many showings, etc.

Here's what we discussed yesterday at our sales meeting: for the same period as last year, between 1/1 and 2/15, showing activity is up a around 10%. That's all good but the surprising stat is that the number of those showings that Closed or are under contract is up 170%. Wow. It confirms what the real estate community is feeling, that its getting a little better out there and that we're probably hitting the 'real' bottom of the market. It also is showing that the number of showings it takes to get a home under contract has been cut in half which signifies that we're better pricing properties. Curiously, days-on-market remains the same at about 250 which we may attribute to some stagnant properties that have been lingering on the market for a long time.

So, the stock market continues to move forward, new housing starts we're the best in january that they've been in 20 months and the housing market is starting to show signs of life.

Good stuff but I'm not nearly busy enough, so let's chat and see if we can take advantage of some of these REO properties.

Cheers, Seb

Good News/Bad News: There are some awesome deals right now in Durango but its due to increasing foreclosures. Good time to buy.

According to Richard W from CU's Leeds School of Business, once again Colorado is late to go into the economic toilet and late to climb out. Construction being the brunt of the problem. In the last decade we've added 800,000 people and zero net jobs created. Still, we are seeing solid signs that Colorado is starting its recovery.

Here are a couple of Real Estate tidbits....

* the long term mortgage rates have gone up again, the third time in as many weeks. Maybe time to finalize that refi.

* the commercial market seems to be on the mend with leading economists saying that vacancy rates have probably topped out. A good sign to go along with marginally better Consumer Confidence.

Durango Real Estate Market Enjoys Late Fall Sales Hike. Its been a late rush for fall real estate sales in Durango. October sales are almost double what we expected here at Prudential and November is looking strong for pending contracts. Don't pull your property off the market just yet folks!

Its not all bad...take a look at this example of the power of a "Buyer's
Market': Economist Karl Case (of the Case-Shiller home price index)
provided a useful (if not obvious) perspective on just how affordable
houses are these days. In short, Case notes that four years ago, the
monthly payment on a $300,000 house with 20 percent down and a mortgage
rate of 6.6 percent was $1,533. Today that $300,000 house would sell (on
average) for $213,000 and a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage with 20 percent
down would carry a rate of about 4.2 percent and a monthly payment of
$833. What's more, the 20-percent down payment would be knocked down to
$42,600 from $60,000





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