Where to find affordable homes - north suburbs? (Denver, Arvada: condos, credit)

[dunnc71]

I just accepted a job offer in Broomfield and will be relocating (back) to Denver after 10 years away.

From a search of realtor.com, it seems the 1998-2001 housing bubble prices are still intact. I'm having trouble finding a nice place for under $300K (which would be the absolute top end of my price range). Asking prices for homes that sold for $150K-$175K in 1996 are now over $300K.

I'm looking for a 3-bedroom, 2.5-bath, single-family property (no condos/townhomes please) in the north suburbs (Broomfield, Westminster, Thornton, Arvada, etc.). I'd like at least 1,800 sq. ft. of above-grade living space (the more square footage and fewer bedrooms, the better), a big finishable basement, a 2-car garage, and the home should have been built in the last 20 years (not set in stone, but I want something energy-efficient, and don't have the time/budget to take on a fixer-upper).

The properties I liked had asking prices of over $300K. My budget is around $250K.

Expensive things I don't need/want: large lots, snob appeal, top-rated schools (no kids), expensive interior materials.

Suggestions on where to look for the kind of home I want?

[2bindenver]

recolorado.com has more up to date info. What happens if what you want is not on the market? A $250,000 house is about average. Over $300,000 is way nicer.

After 11 years of little to no appreciation, there is no bubble to deflate. We had no double digit markup. We do have in some price ranges a recovery going on.

You have to think about resale. The best buys are made when purchasing, not when sold. A nice size yard and good schools are attractive to home buyers.

[choosing78]

We were just looking in the same areas not that long ago and I'm not sure if I'm missing something from your post but we just purchased in Broomfield bought a 3 bed, 2 bath, 10 years old, 1800 sq feet for $179000. Yes of course there's things we want to change but when we were looking this past summer/fall we saw tons of places especially in the $200-250k range in Broomfield/Westminster that would meet your/our requirements. We just saw the listing for our house the day it came on the market and offered the same day and got a great deal. The REcolorado site is a great site definitely the most up to date.

[dunnc71]

I'm a little more encouraged after reading the post by 'choosing78.' Got the impression from '2bindenver' that what I want isn't available in that price range.

There WAS a housing bubble in Denver between 1997-2000. During that time, every time I turned my back, builders went and painted over their billboards and advertised a higher price range. Home values appreciated about 50% over the course of three years, which seems rather bubbly to me. I just find it disconcerting that today's prices look like 2000 prices, not 1997 prices.

On a lot of listings, I see people 'cheat' and list finished basement square feet as if that space counts the same as above-grade square feet. However, it shouldn't (unless perhaps the home has a walk-out basement, but even then, I thought basement sq. ft. were worth about half as much as above-grade).

It can be hard to discern, from looking at listings on-line, which homes are 2,000 sq. ft. above grade + basement, vs. homes that are more like 1,400 sq. ft. and have finished basement space. The full detail isn't shown.

Maybe the good deals aren't sitting in inventory for long, and so I'm just seeing a lot of overpriced inventory when I search on-line. I'll get a Realtor once I'm moved to Denver, to help me keep on top of new listings.

[bhcompy]

The listings aren't cheating if they're listed correctly(ie a properly permitted finished basement, not a diy hackjob). Most of the listings I've seen in the past 2 years I searched were correctly listed for the most part. The fact of the matter is that a proper, finished room is a proper, finished room, whether it's in a basement or not

Anyways, you have finished square footage and total square footage, and generally a basement square footage broken out on the side. take total square footage, subtract basement, and you have your total above ground square footage. Most of the sites I've seen also show a breakdown of rooms and bathrooms(at least if the realtor isn't lazy), so you can see if any are in the basement.

As far as your prices, I don't see why you would have problems in that range, and if you truly did, you could always look east/northeast in Commerce City or Brighton. Plenty in your range out there

[Brian_M]

No inflation happened between 2000 and 2010? <sarcasm>

FWIW, when I was online shopping last summer, I was informed that there were new "laws" regarding listing Sq/Ft... garden level and walk-out basements were allowed to list basement Sq/Ft. And then when I was physically shopping in September and October of 2009, I was told that properties under $250-ish were spending an average of 45 days 'on the market', with 30 of those being tied up in contract.... so that's 2 weeks of a house being listed. We encountered a *LOT* of competition for any house of even Passable quality (multiple offers with at least a couple over asking). It made us aggressive to the point that we limited the time for reply AND offered quite a bit over asking on the house we finally got (beating out a few other offers).

What I learned from the experience is that looking online was mostly worthless. Any house of passable quality was gone by the time I saw it online (or so), lots were mis-represented (not listed as short-sale, incorrect Sq/Ft,etc...). Where it helped was in compiling a list... a BIG list (44 listings) for our Realtor to look through to try and find trends. We even got to see some of the homes on our list, and they were disappointing (there were clear and obvious reasons why they were still available). There's no replacement for spending 8~10 hours a day looking at homes in person.

Have your ducks (financing) in a row BEFORE looking... we missed one opportunity because of this (just hadn't met with the lender yet for that instance, we didn't realize the market moved so dang fast). Not fun to know you missed out on something by your own actions (or lack there-of).

FWIW, 2bindenver is a Realtor so maybe there's more insight into that post than of some random guy (myself) who bought a couple months ago.

[2bindenver]

There are seven fields in MLS for square footage , one for each floor (Upper, Middle or Main, Lower), one for total above ground, one for basement, one for total including basement and one for total finished.

I think that's plenty.

A house is only worth what a willing buyer is willing to pay a willing seller.

I think you could avoid some painful and time consuming lessons if you dropped the whole bubble, inflation, conspiracy that was a decade ago and focus on what other buyers paid other sellers in the last three months.

[dunnc71]

A couple other comments...

- Sites like recolorado.com don't show all the detailed breakdowns of basement / above-grade square footage. It makes sense for garden-level and walk-out basement square footage to "count" fully, but fully underground basement rooms aren't equivalent to above-grade rooms (egress, natural lighting, etc.). For example, here's a ~1,500 sq. ft. house (I remember this particular Melody floorplan well) with a finished basement, listed as a 2,000+ sq. ft. house. Link: REcolorado.com - brought to you by Metrolist Inc. (http://www.recolorado.com/Search/propertyDetail.asp?mls_number=800201 - broken link)

- It does not make sense to me that housing prices would be rising, or even stable at their current levels. Interest rates have nowhere to go but up. Credit is very tight. Unemployment is high, and wages are down compared to 2007-2008. Values are down in other markets, reducing the down-payment money that move-up buyers are bringing in from out of town. All these factors should diminish the pool of buyers and their purchasing power significantly. Or does the Denver area suffer from a permanent housing shortage, so as to make a downward correction in price impossible?

[Brian_M]

Originally Posted by dunnc71

All these factors should diminish the pool of buyers and their purchasing power significantly. Or does the Denver area suffer from a permanent housing shortage, so as to make a downward correction in price impossible?

Well, you can argue your own 'theory' all day long ~ but the fact is that for the $250k and under market, it is 100% a sellers market. I don't claim to know Why (and didn't care when shopping), I'm just saying that's the way it is. Apparently during the building booms, the 'entry' level homes weren't the ones being built, it was that 'mid' level ($400~800k) that were over-built, and that is currently a buyers market.

It's nothing something you can change.... 2bindenver nailed it, homes are selling for what people are willing to spend. Either you're willing to play the game, or you're not.

[bhcompy]

Originally Posted by dunnc71

- It does not make sense to me that housing prices would be rising, or even stable at their current levels. Interest rates have nowhere to go but up. Credit is very tight. Unemployment is high, and wages are down compared to 2007-2008. Values are down in other markets, reducing the down-payment money that move-up buyers are bringing in from out of town. All these factors should diminish the pool of buyers and their purchasing power significantly. Or does the Denver area suffer from a permanent housing shortage, so as to make a downward correction in price impossible?

Denver is high on all the lists of desirable places to go, affordability, etc, so there is added demand from outside that other areas don't have. It's not the biggest job market, but companies target cities like Denver, SLC, and quite a few in Texas for job openings because they are very business friendly major metro areas in the west(lower taxes and wages than CA) with major colleges nearby to provide educated people and low housing costs in nice areas to permit those lower wages.

Basically, just like Denver bucked the trend to have astronomical growth in housing prices for most of the decade, it's bucking the trend to have astronomical declines(infact, in the areas I was looking at the pricepoint I wanted prices haven't really changed at all since I started looking in late 07/early 08) because it's the inexpensive place that people and businesses want to go in a down business climate.