Denver Real Estate Discussion / Opinion Thread (NO Data Charts) (Lakewood: crime, credit)

[Timmyy]

Originally Posted by SkyDog77

This anecdote is so funny I don't even know where to begin. To think that a situation like this is going to drive the market at all is laughable.

No financial institution is willing to sit on a property for 5 years in the hopes of breaking even. Cash now.

Pot does not have he same environmental hazards as meth.

Pot smoker homes don't smell like cigarette smoker homes.

I completely agree with you. I use to work for a mortgage service company managing foreclosures. The banks want the inventory off the books as quickly as possible. The longer they sit on them the more money they lose.

[denverian]

Originally Posted by flyingcat2k

I think this antidotal tale may help. My neighborhood in Tulsa has a former drug house. This is in a well to do area where homes range from 350k for a 2,500 sf house to 2M custom mansion (recent sales all in the past year). The former owner reverse mortgaged it to the hilt, put the house in trust with the kids as trustees and went in a nursing home. Her kids took the money, dumped her onto Medicare, and started up a meth lab in the house. She passed, the kids are in jail and the bank just bought the house at the foreclosure sale at 275k, the value of the note, for a home with all the wire and pipe stripped out, at least one known meth lab and trashed floors, furnaces, ect from junkies. The bank will sit on that house until they realize nobody should pay more than $10 for the house. The plot is worth a chunk of money but the hazardous waste disposal of the meth lab residues and asbestos in the house wipes out the value of the raw land. We don't know when the house will be demolished but it will likely be many years before it is. Banks are foolish with worthless properties like this. They think they can polish a turd and make it work. Truth is, they are just delaying booking the losses.

Take this case and put it in Denver. A housing bust will create a large number of homes with THC residues in them that will sell for less than market to people who don't want the residues. Cigarette smokers homes sell for less than market and pot smoker homes should follow that notion or sell for less than cigarette smokers homes. The banks won't approve the sale, at a loss, because some goober in the home office thinks its worth more. The sellers eventually get tired of or can't support the payments, the bank forecloses and if it sold quickly, would get tagged with a 10-15% loss due to the pot. If they sit for five years, the market and inflation may make it so they have a nominal loss or push sale.

So you think that because pot is legal here, that more and more people are sitting in their houses smoking it? lol! And comparing pot to meth is laughable. Nobody ever blew up a house or caused an environmental hazzard by smoking pot. Or growing it.

[SkyDog77]

Originally Posted by denverian

So you think that because pot is legal here, that more and more people are sitting in their houses smoking it? lol! And comparing pot to meth is laughable. Nobody ever blew up a house or caused an environmental hazzard by smoking pot. Or growing it.

A large scale grow in a house can definitely screw it up, but because we have legal pot most of the grows have moved to warehouses. It is such a funny notion that this guy thinks legal pot is going to screw up our real estate market. If anything it might be raising commercial rates a little bit.

I know the owners of several commercial spaces that had a few long standing vacancies until medical marijuana. Vacancies went quickly and all the applicants were pot shops.

[Timmyy]

Originally Posted by denverian

So you think that because pot is legal here, that more and more people are sitting in their houses smoking it? lol! And comparing pot to meth is laughable. Nobody ever blew up a house or caused an environmental hazzard by smoking pot. Or growing it.

Well, there have been a couple of hashish explosions but they are the exception.

Colorado police investigate hash oil explosion - The Denver Post

[robertgoodman]

Residential hashish processing or large scale residential growing will devalue a property. Both are still illegal in Denver though.

I do think smoking MJ can devalue a property -or at least force you to replace things before selling- in a similar manner to cigarettes depending on how often it is done. The primary difference between MJ and tobacco is heavy tobacco users smoke about 40 times more grams per day than heavy cannabis users. Less smoke results in less damage and since MJ isn't done as often it's not ever-present in a MJ users home like it would be in a tobacco users home. However if you were to turn your house into a spot where people came and smoked MJ non-stop I think you would begin to see similar effects as tobacco.

[denverian]

Originally Posted by robertgoodman

Residential hashish processing or large scale residential growing will devalue a property. Both are still illegal in Denver though.

I do think smoking MJ can devalue a property -or at least force you to replace things before selling- in a similar manner to cigarettes depending on how often it is done. The primary difference between MJ and tobacco is heavy tobacco users smoke about 40 times more grams per day than heavy cannabis users. Less smoke results in less damage and since MJ isn't done as often it's not ever-present in a MJ users home like it would be in a tobacco users home. However if you were to turn your house into a spot where people came and smoked MJ non-stop I think you would begin to see similar effects as tobacco.

True. The people I know who smoke it do so in their garages. (they're professional people w/kids).

I've been in homes of cigarette smokers where it was so disgusting, I couldn't stand to be in the house. I think those houses need to have all new sheetrock installed to sell them!

[SkyDog77]

Originally Posted by denverian

True. The people I know who smoke it do so in their garages. (they're professional people w/kids).

I've been in homes of cigarette smokers where it was so disgusting, I couldn't stand to be in the house. I think those houses need to have all new sheetrock installed to sell them!

I wonder if there is more too it. Maybe less tar in marijuana so it doesn't stick to everything?? I've been in houses of both pot smokers and cigarette smokers. It's really not even close which one is worse.

Most of the pot smokers I know have switched to vaporizers as well.

[robertgoodman]

Originally Posted by SkyDog77

I wonder if there is more too it. Maybe less tar in marijuana so it doesn't stick to everything?? I've been in houses of both pot smokers and cigarette smokers. It's really not even close which one is worse.

Most of the pot smokers I know have switched to vaporizers as well.

I've heard the 'MJ doesn't stick to everything' rumor but I've never seen anything to back it up. It's possible, I would lean towards doubtful based solely on being able to smell it on people's clothes a few hours after they smoked.

But as far as tar goes MJ actually has 4 times as much tar in it by weight relative to tobacco. A pack a day cigarette smoker smokes about 20 grams of tobacco a day and a heavy MJ user smokes about 0.5 grams a day. So with MJ you still end up with less tar overall, but there's more tar in it by volume. Although the chemical composition of tar from tobacco and MJ are different so it's possible the 'sticky' properties of tobacco aren't present.

Either way it's doubtful that MJ legalization is going to hurt distressed properties, and even more doubtful that the banks will hold those distressed properties forever. On an individual property basis though I wouldn't have an open door policy for people who are looking for a place to toke (unless it's vaporizers), because long run it could bite you when you go to sell.

[SkyDog77]

Originally Posted by robertgoodman

I've heard the 'MJ doesn't stick to everything' rumor but I've never seen anything to back it up. It's possible, I would lean towards doubtful based solely on being able to smell it on people's clothes a few hours after they smoked.

But as far as tar goes MJ actually has 4 times as much tar in it by weight relative to tobacco. A pack a day cigarette smoker smokes about 20 grams of tobacco a day and a heavy MJ user smokes about 0.5 grams a day. So with MJ you still end up with less tar overall, but there's more tar in it by volume. Although the chemical composition of tar from tobacco and MJ are different so it's possible the 'sticky' properties of tobacco aren't present.

Either way it's doubtful that MJ legalization is going to hurt distressed properties, and even more doubtful that the banks will hold those distressed properties forever. On an individual property basis though I wouldn't have an open door policy for people who are looking for a place to toke (unless it's vaporizers), because long run it could bite you when you go to sell.

I learned something today!

[Timmyy]

Originally Posted by SkyDog77

I learned something today!

I know, me too. That was unexpected.