The report showed 17,087 homes in some stage of foreclosure, ranging from the initial notice to the REO, or Real Estate Owned, when the bank acquires the home at a public trustee foreclosure auction. In the Denver area, 1.62 percent of the homes were in some stage of foreclosure, compared with 1.28 percent for the nation. One out of every 62 households was in some stage of foreclosure, while the national average was one out of 78. In the first six months of the year, the foreclosure rate rose by 9.3 in the Denver area, compared with an 8.26 percent for the nation.

Greeley’s foreclosure rate worse than Denver’s

Greeley was No. 29, with 2,334 foreclosures, a foreclosure rate of 2.58 percent, and one out of every 40 households in some stage of foreclosure. It matched the year-over-year percentage change of the nation as a whole, at 8.26%

The report also ranked Colorado Springs as No. 53 and Boulder at 136.

Across the country, 154 of the 206 MSAs with a population of at least 200,000, posted year-over-year increase in foreclosure activity, according to RealtyTrac. Four states — Florida, California, Nevada and Arizona — accounted for all top 20 metro foreclosure rates. Florida led the way, with nine of the top 20 metro foreclosure rates, followed by California with eight, Nevada with two and Arizona with one.

Recovery fragile

“While we’re seeing early signs that foreclosure activity may have peaked in some of the hardest-hit markets, foreclosures continued to rise in three-quarters of the nation’s metropolitan areas in the first half of the year,” said James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac. “The fragile stability achieved in many local housing markets hinges on improvements in the underlying economy, specifically job growth. If unemployment remains persistently high and foreclosure prevention efforts only delay the inevitable, then we could continue to see increased foreclosure activity and a corresponding weakness in home prices in many metro areas.”

Top metro foreclosure rates

Las Vegas continued to post the nation’s highest metro foreclosure rate in the first half of the year, with 6.60 percent of its housing units (one in 15) receiving a foreclosure filing — more than five times the national average. A total of 53,525 Las Vegas properties received a foreclosure filing during the six-month period, a decrease of nearly 15 percent from the previous six months and a decrease of nearly 9 percent from the first half of 2009.

Foreclosure activity in the Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Fla., metro area decreased nearly 22 percent from the previous six months and was down nearly 30 percent from the first half of 2009, but the metro area still documented the nation’s second highest metro foreclosure rate — 4.98 percent of its housing units (one in 20) received a foreclosure filing during the six-month period. Other Florida cities in the top 10 were Orlando-Kissimmee at No. 8 (4.15 percent of housing units) and Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach at No. 10 (3.89 percent).

Contact John Rebchook at JRCHOOK@gmail.com or 303-945-6865.

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Suthers announced today that his office has filed a lawsuit against Sherron L. Lewis Jr.. Lewis, 53, is suspected of defrauding homeowners in foreclosure, including the elderly and disabled, by collecting upfront fees in exchange for fraudulent legal services.

According to the complaint, Lewis attracted homeowners facing foreclosure through his Web site, www.illegalforeclosures.com, and mail advertising and informed consumers that they could defeat the foreclosure process and eliminate their mortgages. Lewis did not immediately respond to a request for an interviews.

Lewis not an attorney

Lewis, who is not licensed to practice law, is suspected of providing consumers with legal advice on how to combat their foreclosures through the use of frivolous lawsuits. According to the complaint, Lewis’ lawsuits, often leveled against judges, public trustees and even one of his victims, have been routinely dismissed as meritless.

As part of his services, Lewis is suspected of requiring his victims to pay upfront fees for his services, which is illegal under the Colorado Foreclosure Protection Act. He also has acquired an interest in his victims’ properties as part of his agreements. In some cases, Lewis has rented out properties he has acquired an interest in while he delays foreclosure through his frivolous lawsuits.

In one case, Lewis is suspected of advising a quadriplegic victim in Jefferson County to file multiple lawsuits to challenge foreclosures on his home and two other properties. Lewis is suspected of charging the man more than $20,000 in exchange for the “legal work” he performed for the victim. In another case, Lewis is suspected of occupying an elderly Illinois woman’s home rent-free for more than a year. When the woman attempted to repossess her own home, Lewis filed a lawsuit against her claiming racial discrimination.

Contact John Rebchook at JRCHOOK@gmail.com or 303-945-6865.

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Margaret Danuser is the newest director at CHFA.

The Colorado Housing and Finance Authority today announced it has hired a new director, who will be in charge of a multi-billion bond portfolio.

Margaret Danuser is the  new director of corporate debt and investment management for CHFA. Danuser  will administer CHFA’s existing bond portfolio, which currently stands in excess of $3.6 billion. She will oversee CHFA’s debt issuance, treasury functions, and serve as a member of CHFA’s Strategic Management Team. Prior to CHFA, Danuser served as the debt administrator for the City and County of Denver, and as a fixed income investment manager for the Dreyfus Founders Funds.

“I’m excited about the opportunity to be part of CHFA’s team, and help them in their mission of affordable housing and economic development finance,” Danuser said.

Danuser is a Colorado native. She graduated from the University of Colorado at Boulder with a Bachelor of Arts degree in International Affairs. She lives in Centennial with her husband Garry and three sons.

Contact John Rebchook at JRCHOOK@gmail.com or 303-945-68865.

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Laurent Saltiel has this Cherry Hills home on the market for $5.9 million. The only problem - he paid $6.7 million, less than a year ago.

Laurent Saltiel is such a whiz at international stock investing, that the investment firm of AllianceBernstein LP in New York City, lured him from Denver, where he managed the $2.44 billion Janus Worldwide Fund for the Janus Capital Group.

Six months before the announcement last May that Saltiel would be a team leader and manage the International Large Cap Growth/Global Large Cap Growth funds for AllianceBernstein, Saltiel and his wife, Kimberly, paid $6.7 million for a home on more than 5 acres in Cherry Hills Village. It was the most expensive home to sell in the Denver area last year.  (For the original story in InsideRealEstateNews, please visit Janus Manager Pays Record Price For Home.)

Now, he has put the 10,409-square-foot  home,  on the estate formerly owned by golf pro Craig Stadler, on the market for $5.9 million. It was designed and built by highly regarded Debra Toney, who initially hoped the home would fetch in the neighborhood of $8 million. Cherry Hills Village values the home at $7,225,600 for tax purposes.

That means that Saltiel, if he gets his asking price, will face an $800,000 loss. And when the real estate commissions are thrown in, he will lose $1 million or more. Saltiel is not alone. While there are signs that the 7-million home market in the Denver area is picking up (see a previous blog, Million-dollar home showing rise) it’s because sellers such as Saltiel,  are willing to take big financial haircuts to unload their properties.

Edie Marks, the Kentwood Co. broker who sold the house to Saltier last November, now is listing the home at the new price.

“It was not easy to get him to that,” Marks said. ” He has the ability to wait as long as he has to. But I told him it does not make sense to just have this home sitting here in Colorado and convinced him to go with this price. He has the ability to weather this and hold it until the market comes back. But I thought it would be smart to sell it, even at a loss, and just put it behind him.”

Marks said that Saltier family has just moved to New York, where they bought a unit in a high-rise in the middle of Manhattan. They also own a home in Washington state, she said.

And there is a big cost to holding the home.

Daily tab: $5,176

Records indicate he has a $4.69 million loan with a 5.375 percent interest rate. Monthly principal and interest payments would set him back $26,277. In addition, annual property taxes run $54,255.62, or $4,521 a month. If he was lucky enough to sell it after eight months of ownership, and figured that he paid a 5 percent commission of $295,000, the cost of ownership would amount to about $1.26 million, including the mortgage payments, taxes, loss on the home, and commission. Another way to look at it, that would equate to  about $5,176 per day to own the home. And that’s not even including his utilities, lawn maintenance and other costs.

Interior photo of home listed by Edie Marks.

At the peak of the market, the land itself would have been worth more than $5 million, Marks said. And she estimated the replacement cost at more than $10 million. “The cost of building homes really has not gone down much at all,” she said.

Marks said people house-hunting today for homes priced in the stratosphere, expect to get unbelievable bargains.

‘No. 1, it  is really about the price and No. 2, they have to feel they are getting a great deal,” Marks said. Unlike Saltier, many people selling at the high-end today do not have the financial ability to hang on, she said.

Buyers smell blood

“I think most of the sales we are seeing at the upper-end are bloods sales,” Marks said. “They smell blood. Even though that is not the case in this sale, you do get a lot of those. Or, the bank owns it and is ready to deal.”

She said that Saultier is firm on his price, and won’t budge from the $5.9 million.

Price not low enough

But Greg Geller, principal of Vision Acquisitions LLC, said he thinks Saultier will need to come down more, a lot more, before he can sell it.

“I’m sure he is a really smart guy and he understood when he bought it that it needed very much to be a long-term hold,” Geller said. “As a short-term hold, you’re not going to be able to sell it as $6.7 million any time soon, and he knew that. In today’s market, the number of people paying more than $3 million for a home is a very short list. High-end real estate is on life support.”

Marks said that she thinks the buyer of the home “will be someone who is very comfortable in his own skin, as Laurent is. They will not be trying to prove anything to anybody.  Yes, it is over 10,000 square feet, but it is so warm and comfortable. And the grounds are fabulous. Some lucky buyer is going to take advantage of a great deal.”

Marks said that so far she has only had one showing. “I’m really just starting to market it,” she said. “The family has been living here until recently.  And after 100-degree heat on the East Coast and close to 100 percent humidity, they plan to come back in the near future to beat the heat.”

One wag familiar with the deal, had this to say about Saltiel:  “He should stick to picking stocks, not real estate.”

Contact John Rebchook at JRCHOOK@gmail.com or 303-945-6865.

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Steve Blank is listing this home in Park Hill for $1.6 million. The price has been slashed by $350,000.

Peter Niederman, in addition to being the CEO of Kentwood Real Estate, is a student of the housing market, who loves to pour over data to discern the tea leaves of the Denver housing market.

Recently, an in-house statistic caught his eye, when he was looking over the June data for Kentwood, including offices in Cherry Creek, the DTC, and Kentwood City Properties in downtown Denver. (Kentwood is a part-owner in Kentwood City Properties.)

“While our overall showings for all price points were down 10.1 percent in June, compared with June 2009, our million dollar-plus showings were up 8.2 percent,” Niederman said.

That is the metric that is extremely important. Indeed, in some ways he thinks that takes the temperature of the the market better than the Case-Shiller report released today, because that tracks where the housing market has been, but showings show where the market is headed, Niederman said. (To read about today’s report, please visit Denver No. 8 on Case-Shiller.)

“I like the Case Shilller report and I am happy that they compile it, but it looks backwards, and I’m interested in looking forward,” Niederman said. “Traffic through homes is a leading indicator and one we are following closely.”

Carol Ihli, co-managing broker at Kentwood, pulled data to show that they had 422 showings of homes priced at least $1 million in June, compared with 390 in June 2009. Kentwood also had 38 percent of the listings in Cherry Hills Village, home to some of the most expensive homes in the metro area in June, according to their internal data. Earlier reports also showed that the sale of 7-figure homes in June also out-paced the closings of luxury homes in June 2009.

Buyers smell bargains for 7-figure homes

Of course, the reason that interest is picking up in those lofty prices is not because well-heeled buyers can’t snap up expensive homes fast enough at any price in tony neighborhoods such as Cherry Hills, Country Club, Hilltop and Castle Pines Village, as they did during the boom days from about 2004 to early 2007.

Quite the contrary.

“I think sellers are much more likely to be realistic of what they can sell their homes for in today’s market,” Niederman said. “I think last year, they were holding on to unrealistic prices, while now they are willing to meet the market.” (For a look at what the most expensive home sold last year is now selling for, read Former Janus manager faces million dollar loss on his home.)

Rates at record lows

In addition, there is far more money available for so-called jumbo loans – that is, mortgages above $417,000 – and at much lower rates. A Wells Fargo banker last week addressed Kentwood brokers and said that jumbo rates now are available at 5 percent for qualified buyers, compared with 6.125 percent a year earlier.

On a million-dollar mortgage, that translates to a savings in principal and interest of about $720 a month. If a person owned the homes for seven years, which in the past was considered the typical holding period for a home, that saves a buyer more than $60,000 a year.

“That provides a real incentive for someone to buy,” Niederman said. “And that is $60,000 that is tax free. If you were thinking of buying a home in the next year or two, and you can afford it, it probably makes sense to buy now to take advantage of depressed home prices and low rates.”

Fuller Sotheby’s International Realty, which like Kentwood, sells a lot of expensive homes, is seeing a similar trend.

In June, Fuller had 469 showings of homes priced at $1 million or above, 14.1 percent more than the 411 in June 2009, said Steve Blank, a veteran broker at the company.

High-end homes bottoming

But the high-end market is not on fire. “It is definitely better than it was,” Blank said. “I think bottoming out is the way you would describe it.”

And Blank has not experienced prospective buyers knocking down the door of a $1.6 million home he is listing in Park Hill, even though the price has been slashed 18 percent from $1.95 million a year ago.

“It’s really a cool, Georgian-style home almost 100 years old on Montview Boulevard,” Blank said. “But I’m only getting a couple showing a month.”

The problem is that buyers are having problems unloading their current homes, to pave the way to move into an even bigger home.

One prospective buyer first must sell a home, also in Park Hill, for about $1.2 million, and another potential buyer is looking to sell a home for $900,00, but likely will get $750,000 to $800,000 for it, he said.

“One of the problems at the upper-end is that people are not as likely to buy, before they sell,” Blank said.

Quality buyers bargain-hunting

Kelli Lanphere, a broker with RE/MAX of Cherry Creek, who is listing a number of homes above $1.5 million, said she is not seeing an increase in quantity of prospective buyers, but the quality of the buyers has gone up.

“It’s kind of interesting,” Lanphere said. “It’s not as we are seeing an increase in showings, so to speak, but the people looking are truly interested in buying. I do believe they think that homes in the $1 million and up range are priced very attractively. So we’re not seeing a ton of showings, but the ones who are looking are willing and able to perform.”

And Lanphere is walking the walk.

“I bought a home in that price range in Hilltop,” she said. “It was a spec home by a developer, and it was financed using commercial paper. The investors in the commercial paper were very willing to work with buyers.”

She said that infill development of spec mansions in places such as Hilltop have come to a halt, which means there won’t be more supply coming on the market to compete with existing homes.

“Land values used to drive up the price of entry level homes in places like Hilltop,” she said. “Builders used to pay outrageous prices for small homes to get the property. No more. Builders can’t get financing and a lot of them who did build homes at the end of the last cycle, are out of business.”

That is probably the one positive trend for high-end housing, said Greg Geller, principal of Vision Acquisitions, who this week made headlines for buying the Washington Park home of Democratic Senate candidate Andrew Romanoff.

Sea change in buying sentiments

“I can buy homes in any price range, but I seldom buy anything above $400,000, because there just isn’t the market for those homes,” Geller said.”I’m concerned that we are in a new era where people just are not as interested in buying expensive real estate, as they once were.”

Jason Miller, of Milan Realty, said he thinks the high-end market is in worse shape than may realize, and is not close to recovering.

Shadow inventory clouds recovery

“I believe going forward, the high end market will have fewer sales and additional price reductions,” Miller

said. “There is too much inventory for prices to stabilize.”

He also said that the many builders, unable to sell their castles, are renting them, instead. This has created a “shadow market” that is not being counted, but will soon hit the market, further depressing prices.

He, like Blank of Fuller, said that people who buy expensive homes, are having trouble selling their homes.

Miller said that some areas, such as Ravenna and Colorado Country Club, “are looking at 60 percent haircuts from their peak. When sellers do come down in price on the higher end, it will compress prices down the food chain. When a $1.3 million home sells for $1 million, the old $1 million homes needs to drop to $800,000 to compensate.”

All markets cyclical

But Niederman is not so skeptical.

He notes that last year, many people had written off the lowest end of the market, thinking that appreciation was years away.

“Now, you can’t buy homes at the low end for the same price today you could have even at the beginning of this year,” Niederman said.

Granted, the number of buyers a the high-end even when the economy is strong, is about as thin as the air at the top of Pike’s Peak.

“All of real estate is cyclical, and we’re in part of the cycle where sellers need to cut their prices before they can sell,” Niederman said. “But if they do, their are buyers out thee and there are unbelievably low mortgage rates available to them. It is really the buyers, not the sellers, who set the market.”

For other blogs on this topic, please visit: Million dollar home market moving, Million dollar homes show life

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Apartment vacancy rates in the Colorado Springs area fell to a 9-year low of  5.8 percent during the second quarter of 2010, shows a report released today by the Apartment Association of Southern Colorado and the Colorado Department of Local Affairs’ Division of Housing.  Overall vacancies fell in the Colorado Springs area from a rate of 9.8 percent reported during the second quarter of 2009. The rate fell from 2010’s first quarter rate of 6.9 percent. The Colorado Springs-area vacancy rate has not experienced an increase since the first quarter of 2009.

The first quarter’s rate of 5.8 percent is the lowest vacancy rate recorded since the third quarter or 2001 when vacancies were 5.4 percent. The vacancy rate rose to 8.9 percent during the fourth quarter of 2001, and never fell below 8 percent again until this year.

Troops drive demand

“Increases in the local troop population have clearly been a factor, but we’re also seeing the impacts of very little new production in multifamily housing in recent years, said Gordon Von Stroh, the report’s author and a professor of business at The University of Denver. “Not all permits translate into actual completed units, and for buildings with five or more units, only eight permits were issued for units in a single building in 2009. Zero permits have been issued through May of this year.”

Year over year, vacancy rates fell the most in the “Southeast” market area of Colorado Springs where vacancy rates were more than cut in half from 17.8 percent to 6.7 percent. Vacancy rates were lowest in the Far Northeast and Southwest market areas with vacancy rates of 4.7 percent and 3.7 percent, respectively.

Vacancy rates for all market areas were: Northwest, 6.0 percent; Northeast, 5.8 percent; Far Northeast, 4.7 percent, Southeast, 6.7 percent; Security/Widefield/Fountain, 11.7 percent; Southwest, 3.7 percent; Central, 7.7 percent.

Rates barely budge

In spite of significant drops in vacancy rates, the metro area’s overall average rent increased only slightly year over year. This year’s second quarter average rent rose to $719.22 from 2009’s second-quarter rent of $717.65. In individual market areas, from the second quarter of last year to the same period this year, average rents fell in the Northeast, Far Northeast and Security/Widefield/Fountain areas. During the same period, average rents rose in the Northwest, Southeast, Southwest and Central market areas.

“Average rents have increased in the area, but a lack of job growth across the region will keep some downward pressure on rents,” said Ryan McMaken, a spokesman for the Colorado Division of Housing. “This rent data is from June, and June employment data shows that year-over-year employment in El Paso County fell by about seven thousand. It’s tough for apartment owners to raise rents in such an environment.”

Average rents for all market areas were: Northwest, $765.40; Northeast, $703.97; Far Northeast, $840.25, Southeast, $613.56; Security/Widefield/Fountain, $615.66; Southwest, $733.66; Central, $659.79.

Apartment Realty Advisors is also a major sponsor of this report. The Vacancy and Rent Surveys are a service provided by the Colorado Department of Local Affairs’ Colorado Division of Housing and the Apartment Association of Southern Colorado to renters and the multi-family housing industry on a quarterly basis. The Colorado Springs Area Vacancy and Rent Survey reports averages and, as a result, there are often differences in rental and vacancy rates by size, location, age of building, and apartment type. For more information, please contact the Apartment Association of Southern Colorado at http://www.aacshq.org ; or please visit the Colorado Division of Housing web site: http://dola.colorado.gov/cdh/

Contact John Rebchook at JRCHOOK@gmail.com or 303-945-6865.

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The Denver metropolitan area ranked No. 8 of the 20 areas tracked by the closely watched S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices released today. Overall, homes in Denver appreciated by 3.6 percent in the one-year period ending in May, compared with a 5.4 percent gain for homes in the 10-Composite list and 4.6 percent for all 20 of the areas, according to the report.

“I like what I see,” said Peter Niederman, chief executive officer of Kentwood Real Estate.

Niederman noted that some of the California markets shot the lights out in May, according to the index. For example, San Francisco showed a gain of 18.3 percent and San Diego home prices rose by 12.4 percent.

California skews stats

“Those California markets were well into the double digits,” Niederman said. “If you remove those, Denver was right up there. I think Denver is a very sustainable market. Those California markets are really a lot of noise.

They’re very volatile. They have big drops, followed by big gains. Denver does not have these violent swings up or down.”

Niederman, and others, however, cautioned that the May numbers still reflect the impact of the tax-credit buying that took place prior to April 30, so the market should brace for a drop.

Still, sellers are increasingly willing to bargain on prices, especially at the higher-end, and mortgage rates are at historical low, providing an ideal buying opportunity for those financially able to take advantage of what is a buyer’s market, except at the lower-end.

Jobs key to housing

“Only the third-leg of the stool is missing,” Niederman said. “We need to see strengthening in our employment. When we see some improvement in the employment numbers that will bring consumer confidence back. No one buys a home when they lack  confidence.’

On the other hand, he said that consumers could miss the buying opportunity of a lifetime if they wait, because as the economy improves, it is likely that both home prices and interest rates will rise.

“I do understand there are a lot of people out there who realize this is a great buying opportunity, but aren’t willing, or can’t take advantage of it, because of their job situations,” Niederman said. “Or maybe they lost money in the financial markets, and they can’t make a decision to buy now, even though they know it is a great time to be buying. I remain cautiously optimistic about the market.”

Independent broker Gary Bauer also was encouraged by the Case-Shiller report.

“Once again, I think it shows that Denver is a market on to itself,” Bauer said. “This is another example of how relatively strong the Denver market is. I think it is a positive.”

Bauer, however, cautioned that the May numbers still reflect closing activity from the home buying tax credits, which required buyers to place a home under contract by April 30 and close by September 30.

Frenzy gone

“We’re still seeing the frenzy of the tax credits in the May numbers,” Bauer said. “I think the June numbers are likely to be flat.”

Greg Geller, principal of Denver-based Vision Acquisitions, agreed that tax-credit buying drove a lot of the activity in May, and that has to be taken into consideration. Next month, Geller is likely to be named as the president of the Denver Board of Realtors for 2011-2012.

“The tax credits just brought first-time home buyers out in drove,” Geller said. “Without the tax credits, the market might be far worse and not as bloated, and I’m saying that for across the country. Not only did the tax credits bring out more first-time buyers, but it also likely led to more sellers testing the waters. “If you were planning to sell your home next year, you might very well have tried to sell it during the time of the tax credits,” Geller said.

Falling off the earth

John Sullivan, co-owner of RE/MAX of Cherry Creek, said that “while I can believe” the Case-Shiller report was a pretty good indicator of what happened in May in the Denver area, he said he expects the downturn to be quite severe later this year.

“I think the housing market is going to fall off the face of the earth in July or August,” Sullivan said. “I have six or seven listings right now and nobody is making any offers. And some of them are considerably cheaper than they were of the pre-expiration date,” of April 30 for the tax credit deadline.

He even told his son not to rush out and buy a home before the tax credits expired, as he expected that prices would fall when the tax-credits expired.

Not only have home prices softened in many cases, but interest rates fell from an already low level. While that may help existing homeowners that can qualify to refinance, it seems to be doing little to get jump-start the home buying market, he said.

Low interest rate not enough

“I think if they would drop the rate to 3.5 percent it would not make that much difference,” Sullivan said. “Well, a 3.5 percent rate would drive some people to buy a house, but not that many. If 4.5 percent rates aren’t doing it, I don’t know that a lower rate would make that much of a difference. If you don’t have a job, or you are not secure about your job, you’re not going to buy a home no matter how low interest rates are.”

He said that buyers are pickier than they have ever been.

“Everyone wants the good stuff,” Sullivan said. ‘They want the granite and the stainless steel, the location and the ‘Wow’ factor. The prices of the homes that have all of these things, have held up reasonably well. But if you have an average or below-average home, the price might have dropped 10 percent since May 1,” since the tax credits have expired.

The May numbers also broke the streak of consecutive month-to-month improvements in appreciation. November 2009 through April, the appreciation rate had increased from the previous month, topping out at 4.4 percent in April. The market also increased by 3.6 percent in February, from February 2009. Case Shiller uses “paired sales” of homes closing, in an effort to remove the bias of bigger homes closing, thus driving up the overall percentage increases.

National market bouncing along the bottom

Nationally, the overall market, for the most part, appears to have bottomed more than a year ago, but could continue to bounce along the bottom for quite some time.

“While May’s report on its own looks somewhat positive, a broader look at home price levels over the past year still do not indicate that the housing market is in any form of sustained recovery,” says David

M. Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor’s. “Since reaching its recent trough in April 2009, the housing market has really only stabilized at this lower level. The two Composites have

improved between 5 and 6% since then, but this is no better than the improvement they had registered as of October 2009. The last seven months have basically been flat…It still looks possible that the housing

market might bounce along the bottom for the foreseeable future, before showing any real improvement that will filter through to the rest of the economy.”

MSA	Change from January 2000	April-May	1-Year Change
Atlanta	7.82%	2.0%	1.1.7%
Boston	55.95%	1.6%	4.8%
Charlotte	16.39%	0.3%	-2.8%
Chicago	21.9%	1.2%	-1.5%
Cleveland	5.85%	1.0%	3.7%
Dallas	19.93%	1.5%	2.9%
DENVER	28.24%	0.6%	3.6%
Detroit	-31.7%	0.7%	-2.5%
Las Vegas	2.35%	-0.5%	-6.5%
Los Angeles	74.67%	1.7%	9.7%
Miami	46.33%	0.9%	1.2%
Minneapolis	22.63%	2.8%	11.6%
New York	70.45%	0.8%	-0.4%
Phoenix	11%	0.9%	7.2%
Portland	47.98%	1.2%	0.7%
San Diego	63.11%	1.1%	12.4%
San Francisco	42.16%	1.7%	18.3%
Seattle	46.82%	1.2%	-1.4%
Tampa	38.29%	0.9%	-1.5%
Washington, D.C.	82.10%	1.5%	2.4%
Composite-10	59.36%	1.2%	5.4%
Composite-20	46.43%	1.3%	4.6%

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“He sold the house, and the proceeds from the sale will be used as a loan to the campaign,” Roy Teicher, Romanoff’s spokesman told InsideRealEstateNews about 4:30 p.m. on Monday. “I don’t know that much about it. Maybe he has got a lease-back deal for a while. I’ll have Andrew call you back, because he knows the details.”

Romanoff did not return calls to InsideRealEstateNews on Monday, but told other reporters that he would use the profit from the home sale and other personal funds to lend his campaign $325,000. The home was not listed in Metrolist, a broker said Monday morning.

Geller: No idea it was Romanoff’s house

Geller said that he didn’t even know at first that the home was owned by Romanoff, who is facing off with incumbent Michael Bennet in the Aug. 10 primary. Geller said that he and Romanoff went to the closing on separate days, which likely explains why the Warranty Deed incorrectly lists Vision Acquisitions’ address as 887 S. Gilpin St., which was the address of the home owned by Romanoff. Vision Acquisitions’ address is 2019 E. 3rd Ave.

“I assure you, there was nothing funny about this deal,” Geller said. “I didn’t know it was his home and I didn’t care. I’ve bought homes from city council people, politicians, celebrities, TV personalities, you name it. I buy 150 homes per year. I’m probably the largest buyer of homes in Denver.”

Fate of home a question mark

Geller said that he doesn’t know what he is going to do with the home. The house is a 946-square-foot, two-bedroom, two-bath home and was built in 1928. Public records show that Romanoff paid $189,900 for it in November 1996. The city values the home at $449,200, for tax assessment purposes. Geller said Romanoff can continue to live in the house until September.

“We have no clue what we’re going to do with it, yet,” Geller said.”We might tear it down and build something else, we might pop its top, we might put on a back addition, we might not do anything structurally to it and just sell it as it is.”

Depending on what they do with it, the entire hold period for the home could be as little as 150 days, if they re-sell it, to “a year or 18 months, if there is a massive redevelopment.”

As of June 30, Romanoff’s campaign had about $460,000 in cash, compared with Bennet’s $2.6 million, according to reports. In other words, the $325,000 infusion would increase his available funds by about 70 percent. However, Romanoff already has spent most of the $460,000 on TV ads, according to the Denver Post, so the $325,000 would likely provide the lion’s share of his available funds.

Geller described the purchase price an “all right deal,” for Vision Acquisitions. He has several bank lines of credit and pays cash. In this case, he said the “fairly lengthy” negotiations, at least for him, of two or three weeks.  He said the deal was presented to him by two different real estate agents. He said that he typically gets three or four offers a day from Realtors who want him to buy homes.

“They didn’t tell me whose home it was and I wouldn’t have cared,” Geller said. “I very seldom look in the public records to see who owns the home, because I really don’t care. When I found out it was his home, it made no difference to me.”

Cash flies, when Geller buys

He said he buys homes in a rapid-fire manner.

“I pay cash. I don’t do inspections, I don’t get appraisals, I don’t pay commissions to other brokers. I have a very fast-paced business. I work on volume. I have very thin margins on homes. My business model works if I make 8 percent on 70 percent of my homes.”

He said Romanoff’s home was in good condition.

“I look at a home and check to see if the furnace is good, the roof is good,” Geller said.”I don’t even see the decorations or what it has in the kitchen. I look at it and determine what it will cost me to fix it up. That’s all I care about. I have bought over 1,200 homes in Denver.”

Contact John Rebchook at JRCHOOK@gmail.com or 303-945-6865.

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“The evidence showed American Mortgage Consultants manipulated consumers into believing that the company was affiliated with the federal government and could guarantee that consumers would be able to save their homes,” Suthers said. “In nearly every case, consumers who placed their trust in American Mortgage Consultants found themselves out $2,500 and with nothing to show for it. This judgment and the steep fines Mr. Maldonado and Mr. Pineda owe should serve as a warning to other scammers considering setting up shop in Colorado.”

Deceptive advertising

According to the lawsuit, American Mortgage Consultants used deceptive advertisements to attract approximately 170 consumers to the loan modification company from January 2009 through March 2010. Maldonado also used video of President Barack Obama and materials from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to give consumers the impression that the company was affiliated with the federal government. American Mortgage Consultants did little if anything to help its customers renegotiate or modify their home loans beyond shipping off their applications to an Ohio-based company.

Consumers facing foreclosure are encouraged to obtain free help from the Colorado Foreclosure Hotline at 1-877-HOPE (4673) before hiring a company to modify your home loan.

Fraud protection tips

If a consumer is still interested in hiring a loan modification company, Suthers encouraged consumers to consider:

• It is illegal in Colorado for a loan modification or renegotiation company to charge you an upfront fee. Loan modification companies can only charge you once their services are completed.
• Consumers should be wary of any company that tells you to stop making your loan payments or to stop working with your lender. Failing to make payments could result in a foreclosure.
• Never ignore your lender at the behest of a loan modification firm. Most lenders have programs that can help you save your home.
• If a company promises to get rid of your debt, they are making a promise they cannot keep.
• Check out any loan modification company you are considering hiring. The Better Business Bureau maintains ratings of businesses. Any company with an “F” rating should be avoided.

Contact John Rebchook at JRCHOOK@gmail.com or 303-945-6865

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