Buying A Home In Colorado - After a year of renting a 500-square-foot, garden-level apartment in Holland, Kimi and Jay Strat wanted something bigger, and they wanted to buy. It was in 2018.
Strats stayed and were saved. But when they were set to meet again this summer, it really wasn't a good time.
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Andrew Abrams, who chairs the Denver Metro Market Trends Committee, said that when the median single-family home price in the Denver area hit $510,000 in September, it was the "toughest time to buy a home in the history of metro Denver." was the market." Since then, home prices have risen (last month the median single-family home was $519,900). Properties are so cheap, and with so many people trying to take advantage of low interest rates, competition for Strats has become fierce.
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Kimmy and JJ decided not to wait any longer. If they were able to buy in 2018, they would still be broke, Kimi said. There is no reason to believe that it will be easy to delay the purchase for another few years. When their lease expired in August, they went month-to-month in preparation for the purchase.
The demand that has raised prices has also been fueled by the demand for a place that is good to work and live in due to this disease. JJ, an energy efficiency consultant, is among the many people who have been able to work from home since COVID-19 was first diagnosed in the Denver area in March.
JJ grew up in the centenary. Kimmy is a transplant from Iowa who is drawn to the outdoor lifestyle that she finds accessible to the patients she works with as a medical technician at the VA hospital.
They also started saving, hoping to reduce the cost of housing by 10 percent. They needed a little help from JJ's parents to reach their down payment goal.
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They set a budget of $400,000 and began their search, guided by Christina Cassinelli of Assage Realty, an agent they contacted after first speaking with her in 2018.
"I felt like we were really aggressive," Kimmy said, describing looking at homes every weekend across the metro area.
He estimated they visited 40 homes during the summer. Homes will usually be listed on Thursdays. "They go on Saturdays sometimes," Kimmy said.
They later proposed, but gave up. They saw a house out of their budget. They toyed with ideas such as finding roommates or making extra money by renting out short-term rentals outside the city. They began to wonder if homes were listed below their $400,000 threshold to push them into a bidding war.
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Cassinelli said the couple is competing with people who can afford to pay cash or are willing to take steps like releasing checks. He had customers who, after tasting the market, decided to wait until spring in hopes that there would be more inventory.
"Customer fatigue is real," Cassinelli said. "Writing an offer is an emotional process for clients. After clients do it a few times and have that grief and that disappointment (of rejection), they just give up."
He advised Stratus to focus on homes that didn't sell the first weekend. They found one in Westminster that had been on the market for about a week. They visited on Wednesday and offered an asking price of $417,000.
JJ said Westminster was not on their radar. He suspects that the house they found, for which they were the only bidder, was in a neighborhood overlooked by others in the housing market. The move added just five minutes to Kimmy's trip to the VA hospital.
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"You don't have to look for a house in Highland or Wash Park," JJ said. "Don't look in the neighborhood you've set your heart on."
"Thankfully, there are still many options outside of downtown Denver that are still affordable," Kimi added.
They pay $1,000 a month for their one bedroom apartment in Holland. Their monthly mortgage on their 1,700 square foot home is $1,900. The house has two bedrooms, two other rooms that can be converted into bedrooms, and a yard for the dogs who want them.
Homeowners who bought Strats had already found their next home. Realtors say one of the reasons listings are so low is that people who want to sell their homes are worried about how they'll find a place to move.
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"It's hard to sell property and buy property at the same time" in any cycle, said Greg Fischer, a senior broker at residential real estate firm West & Main. "And it's tough with a low inventory in a global pandemic."
Fisher said there are programs that, for example, offer loans to people who want to move so they can buy their next home, making them more comfortable putting their current home on the market.
Anna Franciszek and her husband, a veteran, discussed taking out a VA loan, an option that requires a down payment to buy before putting their home on the market. Franzzek said the monthly mortgage payments would be "brutal."
"It's not going to be good," he said. "But I just felt like we had an option that a lot of people didn't have."
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In the end, they were able to find a new home in Westminster without having to move, and their old home in Arvada sold quickly.
Franaszek and her husband spent more than originally planned on their initial budget after finding they couldn't afford to buy more houses. Franciszek said that because they would cost more, they turned down nursing homes that needed work. New homes mean smaller yards, they found. Franzzek is a keen gardener and the couple have two dogs. But they agreed that other priorities were more important, among them the availability of a basement where they could build a home gym that was in the garage of their old house. Franzzek and her husband are powerlifters.
Both have been spending a lot of time at home since the tragedy. Franciszek has been working from home since spring as a proposal manager for an engineering firm. Her husband, an engineer for an aerospace company, has many days when he works from home.
Franceszek advised clients to "have clear priorities. Know exactly what you want and where you're willing to compromise."
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She and her husband were previously able to go home only because of pandemic precautions. Franceszek recalled seeing houses on the site one day and finding them to take it down the next, perhaps because the seller was afraid of what the spread would mean.
Fisher said clauses are being added to contracts that call for termination if pandemic-related measures make it difficult to do business as usual. Fischer added that sellers are asking questions about what to do if customers are forced to return due to pandemic-related job losses.
"It's a difficult and real situation that we have to deal with," Fisher said, adding that while homes are selling quickly now, he worries about the future if job losses continue. .
Jessica Dominguez and her husband, Joseph, started their real estate company Love Your Neighborhood to help low- and moderate-income families buy homes. Some of their businesses are market rate houses. It also directs buyers who meet income limits to programs that provide housing for less than $250,000 using subsidies and other measures.
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The Dominguez family has seen buyers scramble for homes in the $600,000s. But the demand for affordable housing has decreased. Joseph said many of the people who qualify for the affordable housing program may be those who have lost their jobs due to the effects of the economic crisis, or who fear they will soon lose their jobs.
Joseph said home ownership can provide stability in uncertain times. Speaking from experience, he says that before he started dating his neighbor he was stuck in a lease that required him to give two months' notice if he planned to leave. have But he did not need the landlord to tell him in advance that the rent would increase. He had to break his lease when he realized he was facing a 42 percent increase, and the landlord sued him for two months' rent.
"Rent is not about helping people, all the time," he said. "We're trying to help people who have left home ownership."
Some people may feel pessimistic especially when they see house prices rising. But those who are able to save, or who qualify for down payment assistance, could end up with a mortgage that's similar to what they're paying in rent now, regardless of the landlord. Suddenly raise the price.
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Muriel Williams-Thompson said the home is in the $450,000 range, which is the price range for most buyers.
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