Cole is becoming an attractive option for first-time homebuyers for its affordability and choice location
By Christian Toto
Special to The Denver Post

Loralie Cole didn’t realize her last name matched the name of her Denver neighborhood when she bought her house seven years ago.

She could be forgiven. Cole often slips the minds of locals. The neighborhood may be one of the city’s most historic regions, dating back to 1874, but area realty agents say it keeps a low profile.

That might change as Cole’s transformation from a hardened part of the city into a safe, affordable neighborhood continues.

Cole, surrounded by the Whittier, Clayton, Five Points and Ely ria/Swansea neighborhoods, is bouncing back after high crime rates during the 1990s.

Now, its choice location and affordability make it attractive to first-time homebuyers.

Most houses in Cole date back to the early 1900s, if not earlier. Much of Cole is small Victorian homes with small, manicured lawns.

Like nearby parts of Denver, Cole attracts a melting pot of demographics.

“We have Hispanics, African-Americans, new white residents, gay and lesbian residents — it’s very diverse,” said Cole, a 36-year-old teacher and member of the Cole Neighborhood Association. “I think people want to come to a neighborhood like ours if they’re seeking out that diversity.”

In Cole, residents walk everywhere and are eager to engage their neighbors, she said.

Merlin Parker, a broker associate with Distinctive Properties Ltd. in Cherry Creek, says the affordable housing prices may last for a while.

“From a real estate point of view, it’s not really thriving,” Parker said.

Still, buyers are eager to see their money go further in Cole than elsewhere. Parker recently sold a home in Cole to a young couple who chose the neighborhood for its proximity to City Park and the chance to buy a larger home than they might have elsewhere.

“There wasn’t much in central Denver for what they wanted,” he said.

Other Denver residents could follow their lead.

“It’s only a matter of time before Cole is recognized for its value as a neighborhood in the city,” he said.

City Councilwoman Carla Madison says the biggest change to Cole could happen in the next few years. Talks are ongoing about extending the current light-rail system either through or near enough to Cole to leave a big imprint on the small neighborhood.

“It may not be in Cole, but just over the border (into a nearby neighborhood). It’ll still have a huge impact,” Madison said.

The councilwoman went door to door in Cole during her 2007 campaign for the District 8 seat and found residents to be both friendly and down to earth.

Dan Sullivan, a Realtor with Re/Max Alliance in Denver, sees home prices on the rise and smaller homes growing in demand.

Sullivan says the average price per square foot for single-family home sales last year in Cole was $146, a 6 percent gain from 2006 — a solid jump given the jittery overall real estate market.

Sullivan also sees Cole as a wise investment.

“It’s got all the fundamentals,” he said. “It’s heading in the right direction.”

That didn’t seem possible for Cole during the higher crime periods of the early 1990s. Sullivan points to a sea change between that neighborhood and Cole circa 2008.

Crime remains a concern in the area. A realtor.com report on crime in Cole revealed an average rating on violent crimes but higher-than-average figures for personal property theft. According to Denver Police Department data, crime levels either stayed roughly the same or dropped in most categories from 2006 to 2007, but the number of burglaries jumped 66 percent during that period.

Longtime Cole resident Samuel Herrera, 65, has witnessed his neighborhood’s rebirth firsthand.

A dozen years ago, people didn’t feel safe walking around at night, Herrera said. Today, that’s no longer true, he said.

And while neighborhood commerce has been focused on corner liquor stores, now a variety of shops are popping up.

“All in all,” Herrera said, “life is getting better in Cole.”

All about Cole

Who lives here: A diverse blend of ages and ethnicities.

Housing prices: Average single- family sale price of $146 per square foot in 2007. Highest priced sale was $445,000. Second highest was $297,500. A total of 90 properties sold last year at an average price of $162,193.

Main attractions: Proximity to Interstate 25, I-70 and downtown. A short walk from City Park and the City Park Golf Course.

Common complaints: Some graffiti concerns.

Schools: Community College of Denver, Cole Middle School, Mitchell Elementary School, Annunciation Elementary School and Wyatt Edison Elementary School (a charter school).

Shopping: Limited. A few small grocery stores and modest Mexican restaurants.

By John Rebchook, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)
Thursday, January 17, 2008

The only thing that is holding back the Denver-area housing market is “irrational pessimism” from prospective buyers.

That insight comes from Lawrence Yun, chief economist and senior vice president of real estate for the National Association of Realtors.

Yun, who presented his 2008 real estate forecast to the Jefferson County Association of Realtors in Lakewood on Wednesday, noted afterward that “all markets are local” and that the bleak national market conditions do not represent what is happening in the Denver area.

Yun said unemployment is lower in the Denver market than nationally, while job creation is stronger.

The Denver-area housing market also didn’t experience the huge run-up in prices that other markets did. It takes far less of the typical income in the Denver area to buy a house than in such areas as San Diego and Miami, he noted during his presentation.

“And interest rates are basically at their 45-year low,” Yun said. “I would say the Denver market is past its bottom and is now in the early stages of recovery.

“The one thing that may be holding back your market is buyer pessimism,” Yun said. “I think for your housing market it is irrational pessimism. You have very strong affordability.”

He said buyers’ gloomy attitude springs from all the attention on the collapse of the subprime market.

“Wall Street made a very bad mistake by being overly exuberant on the profits gained from subprime lending,” he said. “But those are mistakes made in the past. It’s not related to home buying today or in the future.”

He did say, however, that the number of foreclosures, which set a record in the metro area in 2007, will continue to rise this year.

But he still expects overall housing appreciation in the Denver area this year to be 4 percent to 5 percent, while the nation as a whole will be flat.

Previously hot markets, such as California and Florida, will likely see home prices continue to fall this year, he said.

Yun predicts that home prices in the metro area will rise another 5 percent to 7 percent, on average, in 2009.

Yun said that if there is a recession this year, Denver should weather it better than the country as a whole.

“That would really be bad news for a city like Detroit, where they have had seven years of rising unemployment,” he said.

“But Denver will be able to escape most of the job losses of a recession because of the highly educated work force and because you’ve already wrung out the excesses of the dot-com boom,” with a huge loss of tech jobs starting in 2001, he said.

Also, a recession would mean further cuts in mortgage rates, which would make Denver housing even more attractive, he said.

Jim Smith, owner of Golden Real Estate, called Yun’s talk “fascinating.”

The facts speak for themselves,” he said.

[poll=2]

Denver Business Journal

Metro Denver’s housing market, including condominiums, continued to be relatively soft in November 2007, with decreases in sales and selling prices, according to data from Metrolist Inc. of Greenwood Village.

The Denver area reported 3,482 closed home sales — including single-family homes and condos — last month, down 2.3 percent from 3,565 from November 2006. Last month’s sales were down 9.5 percent from October of this year’s 3,848 closed sales.

Through November of this year, closed home sales dipped 1.2 percent to 46,570 from 47,140 for the same period of 2006, according to Metrolist data provided by independent real estate broker Gary Bauer of Denver.

Sales of Denver-area condominiums dropped 2.18 percent in November to 736 from the same month last year, according to Metrolist data from Re/Max International Inc. Condo inventory decreased 8.6 percent year over year to 6,524 units.

The median selling price of single-family homes in the metro area fell to $229,500 in November, from $240,000 for the same month last year. That price was $234,200 in October 2007.

Median condo price also decreased, to $139,000 in November from $155,750 for the same month of 2006. That price was $140,000 in October of this year.

Median selling price is the middle price between the highest and lowest price. In the real estate industry, it’s considered important because it’s not skewed by extreme selling prices, as the average selling price is. Median price also indicates the most active price range.

The average selling price of both single-family houses and condos for November was $268,826, according to Metrolist. That’s down from $285,441 for November of last year, and from $265,236 in October of this year.

The number of unsold homes still on the market was down 1.5 percent year over year in November, 27,127 from 27,530. There were 28,928 homes on the market in October of this year.

By John Rebchook, Rocky Mountain News

The tiny, historic San Rafael neighborhood in northeast Denver is locked in a zoning dispute with a nonprofit group that builds affordable housing.

Hope Communities wants the neighorhood to temporarily back down on plans to rezone the neighborhood as an OD-9, or overlay district.

The OD-9 zoning calls for a height limit of 35 feet and sets numerous other restrictions. It does not prevent the demolition of historic buildings, as a landmark designation would.

The Denver Planning Board is scheduled to consider the request at a hearing from 3 to 5:30 p.m. Wednesday on the second floor of the Webb building at 201 W. Colfax Ave.

The planning department staff supports the rezoning, noting that the majority of the neighborhood supports it, with the exception of Hope and two other property owners.

The zoning change, which has been in the works for months, is needed to preserve the historic character of the neighborhood that’s filled with Victorian homes, said Paul Benington, president of the Old San Rafael Neighborhood Association. Benington and others say they don’t want to see buildings constructed that would be much taller than existing buildings in the neighborhood.

However, affordable housing could be in danger if the new zoning is in place, said Bradford Bates, executive director of Hope Communities. Hope owns the Carolton Arms, which has 21 units in three buildings at East 23rd Avenue, Emerson and Clarkson streets.

Hope has indicated it eventually plans to develop the site with 50 to 75 units but hasn’t made public the height of new buildings.

“Affordable-housing developers need a certain density to make development feasible,” Bates said. “By tying our hands with this zoning overlay, the city will force affordable properties to return to market (rates)in the near future. This decision is literally slapping the working poor in the face.”

Bates said he doesn’t necessarily oppose the OD-9 zoning, but says he would like the association to table it for 30 to 60 days to give Hope more time to study it and see if a compromise can be reached with the neighborhood.

“We believe his request for a delay is unreasonable and is just calculated to buy time for Hope to either put more political pressure on city officials or to start relocating the Carolton Arms residents, demolish historic buildings and start construction in the hope that they can beat the limits of the new overlay district,” Benington said.

Because neighborhood residents have asked him about the income levels of the people in affordable housing, Bates said he suspects there’s a certain amount of NIMBYism, or Not In My Back Yard, involved.

Nothing could be further from the truth, Benington said, noting that San Rafael has one of the highest concentrations of affordable housing of any Denver neighorhood.

“What we don’t want in our backyard is the type of inappropriate height and bulk that we have seen in City Park West and other parts of Capitol Hill,” Benington said in an e-mail, after voicing the same concerns in a phone interview.

“Brad (Bates) does not appear to appreciate that preserving the historic character of San Rafael is more important than his proposed redevelopment.

“When you look at the entire neighborhood, there is not such a need for additional affordable-housing units to justify inappropriate height and bulk that threatens the historic character of the neighborhood.

“Hope can increase its service to its population at the Carolton Arms property within the limits of the overlay district. Brad just wants more.”

I recently received an email from Cole Schneider, casting director for HGTV’s hit series, ‘My First Place’, asking me to post a little something about their upcoming season on our blog.  They’re on the hunt for stars for their third go-around, and are looking for ”fun, interesting and energetic” first-time Buyers to film starting now through January 2008 (sorry, sounds like you boring Buyers need not apply).  For those who haven’t seen the show, it’s basically a documentary of a Buyer’s first-time home-buying experience.  They film everything from the securing of financing, to the home search, bidding, inspection and closing, finally wrapping things up with you in your happy home.  HGTV is even throwing in a special surprise gift for the new homeowners at the end of it all.  

If you think you might want your first home-buying experience to be documented for all the world to see, contact me and I’ll give you the scoop, or check out http://highnoonentertainment.com/#/casting/ for more info.  A chance to be famous AND get a free gift?  Hard to pass up if you ask me; but I’d do pretty much anything for a free gift.  Of course, on the downside, you may have to fend off your many fans on a daily basis and live out the rest of your life under the close scrutiny of the public eye.  But I suppose that’s just the price one pays for stardom (sigh).

    Job growth in Denver is still steady, says a recent report by the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp. 1,300 jobs were added in Metro Denver through the first eight months of 2007, which is up 1.8 percent over the same period last year.  The report shows that even with a high foreclosure rate, the economic growth is fairly steady in Colorado and the unemployment rate is still relatively low.
    Another recent plus is that a state report just last week shows the vacancy rate for Metro Denver has dropped to its lowest in about seven years.  We’re now at 5.3 percent for the third quarter, whereas last year at this time we were at 6.7 percent, and the year before that in 2005, we were at 7.7 percent.  We haven’t seen vacancy rates this low since the first quarter of 2001.
    I’ve heard lots of theories floating around that the high foreclosure rate and the declining vacancy rate are tied to one another, which, from a logical point of view makes sense.  People are losing their homes left and right and they can’t purchase for awhile because their credit is shot; they have to live somewhere, right?  However, we have to realize that the increasing rental rate numbers are based mainly on multifamily apartment buildings and not single family home rentals, which are much harder to track.  
    But don’t negate the theory quite yet that a glut of foreclosed homes equals a better single family rental market.  Studies have shown that those people who have lost their homes to foreclosure and were in a single family home tend to gravitate toward that single-family home-rental market rather than the apartment market.
    What does this all mean from a real estate investment point of view?  Well, the multi-family market has been improving and is predicted to continue along this route in the foreseeable future.  It may be a fun time to get into the game and pick up a building or two.  Not up for an entire building?  You can buy some single family foreclosed properties at a great price right now, and will most likely be able to get the homes rented.   
Emily Bullard / Broker Associate, Investor / emily@mynewera.com / 303.903.9457 

By MELINDA MAWDSLEY The Daily Sentinel

Friday, October 12, 2007

David Posta has been on both sides of the tenant and landlord relationship.

His heart has been broken by an unreturned security deposit, and he’s been given the runaround by irresponsible tenants.

“Owning a house is so much better,” said Posta, who rented at least five places since moving to Grand Junction in 1997. He bought his first house two years ago.

But making house payments isn’t possible for everyone, and some people, for various reasons, don’t want to own. Not all renters know what it means to be a good tenant. Other renters don’t know what their rights are or are afraid to exert them in the Grand Valley’s tight rental market.

Much has been made of the lack of availability of rental housing in Grand Junction and rents that started increasing about two years ago when the market began to tighten, said Beverly Lampley, director of transition housing with Catholic Outreach in Grand Junction.

“Ten months ago, it started to get even crazier, and three to four months ago, it just got to be awful,” Lampley said. “Now, it’s worse than awful.”

The definition of “worse than awful,” Lampley said, was best seen in a three-bedroom/two bathroom rental unit on 29 Road and Orchard Avenue. Several years ago, the unit was available for $750 a month. Today, the same unit — albeit an older unit — runs at $950 a month.

The vacancy rate in Grand Junction was 2.1 percent as of last summer, based on the most recent survey conducted by the Colorado Department of Local Affairs’ Division of Housing. But that was before the Mesa State College students returned to seek off-campus housing.

The survey results also indicated the average monthly rental rate in Grand Junction was $591.11, and the median monthly rental rate was $609.55,

“There is nothing there, and that’s been the story for the past several quarters,” said Ryan McMaken, spokesperson with DOLA’s Division of Housing based in Denver. “There isn’t anything we can see anywhere to alleviate the low-vacancy rate right now.”

READ THE LEASE

In addition to the struggle to find available, affordable units in Grand Junction, prospective tenants must learn what it means to rent property from someone.

Posta said that as a teenager, he didn’t read the first two leases he signed. He read through the third and fourth leases, but he didn’t get a security deposit back until he vacated the fifth place he rented.

Within the lease, Chuck McIntyre said, should be a description of what a tenant will have to do and the condition the unit will have to be in to ensure a return of the security deposit. The lease should also list the rent total, when it’s due and what the late penalty is for failing to pay rent on time. Most property managers give a tenant three or four late days before charging an extra fee.

McIntyre manages hundreds of local properties for Century 21 Homestead and has lived in Grand Junction since 1981.

McIntyre likes to sit down with prospective tenants and go through a lease before they sign because many people don’t realize the ramifications of signing a lease.

“They don’t understand that they are signing a contract,” McIntyre said. “Live up to the contract, and you won’t have problems.”

Each property manager is different, McIntyre said, so each manager has different requirements and expectations for its tenants. Many tenants in Grand Junction have dealt with a variety of property managers simply by moving around and taking what units are available, but McIntyre said prospective tenants should expect several steps to be taken before they can move in to a unit, particularly by larger property management companies.

For one, expect to fill out an application, which will include credit and criminal background checks. Not every property manager may do them, but McIntyre does, and Posta, who was caught off guard when his credit was checked for a rental unit in 2004, understands a landlord’s right to do so.

“I would do a credit check and criminal background search if I was on the other side,” said Posta, who has been a landlord. “I’ve rented to somebody who wasn’t perfect.”

The credit and criminal check likely will include calls to previous landlords and a check on references, McIntyre said.

“I can be tough, but I have to be tough,” McIntyre said. “But I believe (I’m) fair.”

McIntyre said tenants in Grand Junction often are responsible. Others, for example, have been convicted of crimes, leaving the landlord to figure out what to do with the lease, he said.

“Tenants are just all over the place,” McIntyre said. “We have people who are spotless and people who just walk away. Just recently, we had a condo near Safeway on Patterson, and the tenants just left the place immaculate. They will get 100 percent of their security deposit back. I just had other tenants move out. These people had two or three dogs. We literally took the carpet out, and it was dripping with urine. There were feces on the walls.”

Those tenants will not get their security deposit back.

McIntyre said he couldn’t speculate on the basic things tenants should do to make sure they get their security deposit back, but he reiterated that specifics should be in the lease.

He did, however, offer one suggestion to help tenants get their security deposits returned.

“Make sure you do a move-in checklist,” McIntyre said, “so you can determine the current condition of the property.”

Posta did a move-in checklist at his fifth rental unit, taking pictures of everything so the landlord could visibly see the condition of the unit when he moved in and the condition of the unit when he moved out.

“I got my security deposit back,” Posta said.

KNOW YOUR RIGHTS

Tenants who do not follow the terms of the lease are subject to eviction, which must be done through a legal process. Tenants who are evicted will have the eviction on their rental record, which will show up when prospective landlords are doing background checks.

A previous eviction is a red flag.

“There is a lot of landlord and tenant disputes,” said Kathy Boelte, managing attorney with Colorado Legal Services, which provides counsel to low-income clients. “Many tenants won’t raise issues because they don’t dare get evicted because they know they won’t find other housing in this market.”

Boelte said she has a “soapbox” she talks from when discussing tenant and landlord relationships because she has seen her clients thrown out of their rentals.

“(Landlords) know if a tenant messes up, they can evict them and get another tenant,” Boelte said. “We have clients who have been evicted and are being housed at the Grand Junction homeless shelter. Some members of the public have poor opinions of poor people, but our clients are the working poor or people with severe mental illness. There are many who are severely impaired and just can’t participate in a competitive job market.”

It is these people, Boelte said, who suffer from an expensive, tight rental market. She also has clients who have complained that landlords won’t fix leaky faucets or landlords who turn off the electricity and water in a house with young children because payments were late.

Boelte said such behavior is like “bullying” because most tenants don’t know their rights or don’t want to spend the time and money fighting conflicts in court.

If Boelte could change any Colorado law she would make it legal for a tenant to make a necessary repair a landlord won’t, and then have the landlord deduct the repair cost from rent. But “a responsible landlord would make the repair,” she said.

The State of Colorado has been interested in the tenant and landlord relationship from a legal standpoint since 2005 when a bill concerning the matter was brought to the House floor by Rep. Michael Merrifield, D-Manitou Springs. The bill was vetoed May 5, 2005, by then-Gov. Bill Owens.

The bill, among other things, established a grace period before a landlord could charge a tenant a late fee for overdue rent, established a maximum late fee and reduced the maximum time a landlord could retain a security deposit.

Merrifield may present similar legislation next year with Gov. Bill Ritter, a Democrat, in office, McMaken said.

“It was never made public who lobbied for the veto, but it was considered a big deal that it made it that far and was then vetoed,” McMaken said. “The issues are the same (in 2008), but it’s reasonable to expect the advocates will be pushing for legislation more favorable for stronger tenant rights with the Democrats.”

“We have more good landlords than we do bad ones,” Lampley said. “Housing is such a basic need. We know people paying 50 to 60 percent of their monthly income on housing, so everything else becomes an issue. People have been talking about needing more affordable housing in Grand Junction for years. People are spooked by a bust.”

•

Tenant tips

1. Read the lease. Understand a lease is a legal contract, so make sure to understand the contract.

2. Pets make renting more difficult (excludes service animals).

3. Background checks will likely be done. Employers and previous landlords will be called, so one good experience with a landlord goes a long way.

4. Complete a move-in checklist with documentation and photos of condition of unit.

5. Try to avoid the eviction process because it will follow you.

6. Understand what the security deposit is, why it’s there and when it will be refunded. The information should be in the lease. Turning in the actual keys may speed up the process.

I just toured the 3 newest of Modo’s projects: Element, Verde & Epic on the Park, in the Capitol Hill and West Wash Park neighborhoods.  Epic is the newest and was mentioned in the September blog, but I wanted to see for myself what all the fuss was about.  Just completing this sixth condo conversion, Modo seems to have found a niche with the delicate balance of affordability and classy finishes.  In each of the buildings I saw custom lighting and cabinets, stainless steel appliances and hardwood floors.  Along with these little perks, the granite in the kitchen and Italian glass mosaic in the bathrooms helped keep these places steps above your standard Home Depot remodel.  The HOA fees were pretty average, but included water, heat and wireless internet.  Pack rats beware, as there were no additional storage areas available in two of the buildings.  The prices made up for this in my opinion, with one and two bedroom units still available anywhere from $139K - $288K.  Covered or uncovered parking was an option in each building, and the Epic and Element had super-cool rooftop decks.  The good prices actually tempted me to buy one as an investment property because you just don’t see this quality in renovation, at this price point, in these neighborhoods.  Modo is definitely filling a gap with nice places at a great price, seemingly aimed at the urban professional.  Check back with us soon, as I’ve been promised insider info on the newest Modo planned projects in Curtis Park and near the old CU Health Sciences Center off of Colorado.
Emily Bullard / Realtor, Investor / 303.903.9457 / emily@mynewera.com

Changes are coming to Downtown Denver’s Prospect district behind Coors Field. For several years, Urban Neighborhoods, Inc. has been planning a 7-building development called Prospect Place, which would have featured about 430 condominium units and ground-floor retail space centered around a central piazza. To date, only one of those buildings, the Ajax Lofts with 49 units, has been completed. Citing skyrocketing construction costs and lackluster presales, the developer has scrapped the project.