About one in 10 Colorado households who filed a tax return in 2014 had moved across county lines or relocated from another state, according to IRS counts.
Source: Colorado has more people on the move than any other state – The Denver Post
|
|
Apartment Buildings For Sale Denver Colorado
About one in 10 Colorado households who filed a tax return in 2014 had moved across county lines or relocated from another state, according to IRS counts.
Source: Colorado has more people on the move than any other state – The Denver Post
|
|
The median price of a home sold in Denver is up 26 percent the past two years, the fastest pace of any major metro, according to the National Association
Source: Denver home price gains are steep, but not a bubble, economist says – The Denver Post
Metro Denver is heading into another peak home-selling season with empty shelves and rising prices, but don’t be too quick to use the “B” word — bubble.
“Denver is in a good spot. It is a strong market,” said Lawrence Yun, chief economist with the National Association of Realtors, during a visit to Denver on Wednesday.
The median price of a home sold in metro Denver reached $353,600 at the end of 2015, up from $310,200 in 2014 and $280,600 at the end of 2013, according to the NAR.
Over a two-year period, median home prices in Denver-Aurora are up 26 percent. That’s the eighth-fastest pace among more than 176 cities tracked by the NAR, the fastest of any major metro area, and nearly double the U.S. average two-year gain as measured by the association.
Historically, home prices over the long term rise at the pace of inflation plus 1 or 2 percentage points, and Denver’s off-the-chart acceleration has raised fears of a bubble.
But Yun notes that some key ingredients needed to create a bubble are missing.
Easy credit was a driver in the excesses last decade, creating artificial demand that resulted in an excess supply of homes.
Credit remains so tight now that many potential buyers can’t qualify for a mortgage, either because their credit scores are too low or they lack an adequate down payment.
Another driver of the last bubble was excess construction, and multiple signals show that not enough homes are being built. The chief signal is the lack of homes available for sale.
Metro Denver’s inventory of homes available for sale could quadruple and still would be around the historical average. There were only 3,963 active listings at the end of February, down dramatically from the 30-year average for that month of nearly 15,000, according to the Denver Metro Association of Realtors.
It would take a sevenfold increase to bring listings to the levels seen in the last bubble, when builders were willing to go gangbusters.
And yet, builders are pulling single-family permits only at a pace to match historical averages, despite a strong influx of people relocating to the region.
A shortage of construction labor, lack of close-in and affordable land to build on, and conservative construction financing are holding builders back, Yun said.
Another reason the for-sale supply remains tight is that many foreclosed properties after the housing crisis were snapped up at discounts and converted to rentals.
One way to boost the inventory of homes for sale would be for those rentals to come back onto the market. But with interest rates so low, investors are hard-pressed to find alternatives that can earn a comparable yield.
And as long as prices keep rising, investors don’t have an incentive to let go, Yun said. If prices start to level off or go the other way, then more of those homes might end up as listings.
A turn-of-the-century Uptown temple and adjacent parking lot that once caught the eye of Donald Trump has traded hands
Source: Uptown shrine and proposed tower site sold – BusinessDen
A Virginia-based firm led by attorney Robert Lubin bought the El Jebel Shrine at 1770 Sherman St. last week for $12.375 million, city records show. The 110-year-old building comes with a surface lot at least three developers have eyed for 50-story skyscrapers in the last 15 years.
The shrine and parking lot, both bought by Lubin’s DMPT, LP, cover 0.68 acres. The building sits at the corner of 18th Avenue and Sherman Street. It totals 36,000 square feet and was built in 1906.
The parking lot totals 17,213 square feet of asphalt. In 2003, that site was approved for a 650-foot-tall skyscraper as part of a deal where a developer would use proceeds from that commercial tower to pay for upkeep on the historic shrine building.
Lubin declined to comment on his plan for the property when reached by phone on Monday.
The Shriners built the Sherman Street temple between 1906 and 1907. At the time, it was the largest Shriner mosque in the country, according to the National Park Service, and the construction budget came in at $190,000.
According to Park Service documents, the building caught fire in March 1924. The Shriners then sold the building to the Scottish Rite Masons that same year. They used the sale proceeds plus $53,000 worth of insurance money to build a new mosque at 50th Avenue and Vrain Street. That property was recently sold.
But the property’s last 15 years might be just as interesting as its first 20.
Martin Wohnlich and Wes Becker bought the temple and the adjacent parking lot for $3.9 million in 2000. According to media reports, Wohnlich and Becker announced plans for a 51-story building on the temple’s parking lot.
Their idea was to use revenue from the skyscraper to preserve the temple, which then would be rented out as a for-profit event space.
Wohnlich and Becker also shopped the development proposal around to other real estate firms. A group led by Donald Trump and New York-based Bayrock Group looked at the property in the mid-2000s, and put itunder contract for $22 million, according to a Colorado Real Estate Journal report.
After that deal fell through, Denver-based firm Barrons Development took a run at the site with plans to build a 54-story tower, the Rocky Mountain News reported in 2006. Barrons was unable to close that deal by a November 2006 deadline, the paper reported.
Today the temple is an event space. The parking lot still sits undeveloped. Wohnlich declined to comment on the sale when reached by phone on Monday, referring any questions to the property’s new owner.
CBRE brokers Martin Roth, Eric Roth and Hadley Cox represented the sellers in the deal.
Lubin has yet to take on a major development project in Denver. He did announce plans to build a new $140 million hotel and casino in Gulfport, Mississippi, earlier this year, according to local media reports.
The Chattanooga Times Free Press reported a Lubin-headed group also bought an office building in 2014 with plans to turn it into a hotel. The article pegged that project at about $31 million.
If he builds every single foot of height allowed under the deal Wohnlich and Becker struck 13 years ago, Lubin could develop Denver’s tallest skyscraper. The 2003 zoning amendment provides for a 650-foot-tall building with a 65-foot skyscraper.
Republic Plaza stands 714 feet high. 1801 California is 709 feet tall and the Wells Fargo Center, a block from Lubin’s site, is just shy of 700 feet.
But the site’s new owners still will have to maintain the historic temple building, according to a document recorded last week and signed by Lubin that references the 2003 agreement.
Any modifications to the El Jebel temple will require approval from Historic Denver, the local preservation group. That group holds easements on both the exterior and the interior of the building.
Historic Denver Executive Director Annie Levinsky said the exterior easement is a standard protection Historic Denver holds on 60 or so protected properties around town. The interior easement, however, is a different story.
“That is especially rare. It’s the only interior easement we have,” Levinsky said. “It was conveyed at the same time as the exterior easement, because this building’s interior is particularly spectacular.”