Steamboat Springs’ Real Estate Center for Buyers Opens

Looking for somewhere to load yourself up with real estate information about the Steamboat Springs, Colorado, real estate market?  Want to browse without being bothered? Want access to stats and graphs?

Want to chat with an experienced Exclusive Buyer Agent who can 100% represent your interests as a real estate buyer in the Steamboat market?

Well, we’ve created the space just for you:

Buyer’s Resource: Steamboat Springs’ Real Estate Information Center for Buyers, in downtown Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Located next to Off the Beaten Path Bookstore and Cafe, at 56 Ninth Street between Lincoln Ave (Steamboat’s main street) and Yampa Ave (running alongside the Yampa River), we’re centrally located in the heart of downtown’s activity.

Our hours are M-Sat 8:30 am to 7:00 pm, and Sun from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm.

At Steamboat Springs’ Real Estate Information Center for Buyers you can:

• Check out Harry, the Moose’s, interactive story about how he came to use an Exclusive Buyer’s Agent when he bought his Steamboat home.
• Have one of our Exclusive Buyer Agents help you conduct a property search in our virtual screening rooms.
• Browse the Directory we’ve put together of local FSBO (For Sale by Owner) properties.
• Review our list of the current Bank-owned Properties which are for sale. 
• Reserve the use of our classroom/conference room for your organizations’ next meeting.

Or just come by to say hello! We’d love to see you, and hope you’ll find this to be a true “Buyer’s Resource” for all your real estate needs, before, after and during a purchase!

4 Top Steamboat Springs Homes for under $400,000

I have been looking at homes priced under $400,000 in Steamboat Springs Colorado recently for several sets of home buyers. They all want at least two bedrooms and a garage, and two want there to be more than one bathroom in the home. These so far are the top picks:

Meadows Condo, $234,925.00

This is a two-bedroom condominium just a couple of blocks from the ski mountain. It’s been renovated and feels modern, clean and chic. Although it only has one bathroom there is a sink in one of the bedrooms. It’s on the top floor, with views, and a private balcony surrounded by trees off the living room in the back. The garage is impressive – it’s technically just a one-car garage but it is extra deep and wide with a lot of room for storage.

The Downside: It’s a short sale and it’s unknown what price the bank will accept.  There was a buyer for this condo but after 4 months of waiting for acceptance from the bank the buyer decided to look elsewhere for a property so it is back on the market. Will the new buyer have to wait another 4 months and still hear nothing?

Burgess Creek Town home, $287,449.00

This is also a two-bedroom town home with a one-car garage. It has been lavishly renovated and is tucked away from the bustle of the ski mountain area yet still very nearby. Located up Burgess Creek Road, it is in a small two-building complex surrounded by trees that extend up the mountain, and alongside the babble of Burgess Creek.

The Downside: This is also a short sale, with all the inherent unknowns: Will the lender accept the contract price? How long will it take for the lender to respond? Will something else happen in the interim, ie. the seller accept another offer?

Merritt Street Home, $319,900.00

This is a single family home located in one of the best family neighborhoods downtown, within just a couple of blocks of main street. It is surrounded by much more expensive homes and consequently will always hold its value. It has two-plus bedrooms, two bathrooms, a large one-car garage and a big backyard with mature trees and room to expand. It is bank owned, which is a much easier scenario to deal with than short sales.

The Downside: It needs some TLC, including a new roof which will run around $20,000, and past roof leaks need to be further investigated. Bank-owned properties are only allowed 10 days for inspections to be conducted, so the buyer would need to act quickly. But even putting an extra $100,000 into the house would keep it priced below the least espensive homes in the neighborhood. 

Sundance Creek Condos, $389,500.00

Built in 2006, this is the newest of the four homes in this post. It’s centrally located between downtown and the mountain, within just blocks to grocery stores, restaurants, shops and the Core Trail. A top floor condo, it has high end finishes throughout, cathedral ceilings, views of the ski mountain, and two spacious bedrooms. The detached one-car garage has some extra storage space.

The Downside: It’s a bit overpriced and the seller has not reduced the price in the 137 days that it’s been on the market, so we question how motivated the seller really is.

The unknowns:

• With the short sales, will the lenders accept the contract price, and if so, in how much time?
• With the bank-owned property, how much work really needs to be done and does the homebuyer really want to take on that kind of a project?
• With the newer, seller-owned condo, will the seller accept a more reasonable price?
• Although initially pre-qualified for loans, will all my buyers be able to get the needed financing?
• And for my buyer deciding between the already-beautiful move-in ready condo with no yard or the single family home with a yard and great appreciation potential but a lot of necessary work to do…which one makes the most sense?

If you’d like me to conduct a search for you, let me know your parameters and I’ll share with you here (or in private if you prefer) my top picks and why.

Small-town Steamboat Springs hosting big-time Nordic combined event is no-big deal

Living in Steamboat Springs Colorado brings with it familiarity with things like the sport of Nordic combined, neighbors like Olympians Todd Lodwick or Johnny Spillane and volunteer opportunities like hanging with athletes from 13 different nations during competitions like the Continental Cup. Not bad for a community of 10,000 now is it?

I just finished two weekends of spactating (yep, that’s a verb) and volunteering at the Nordic combined Continental Cups (previously known as World Cup B) during their two-weekend visit to the United States. 

Our 18-year-old son Cliff competed in this international event all four days (two in Steamboat and then two in Park City Utah), so of course my husband and I were cheering and biting our nails and studying the Start Lists and Results sheets and cheering some more, when we weren’t actually working the event as volunteers.  

Probably 99.99% of the world’s population hasn’t a clue what Nordic combined is, or so I’m guessing - it could be more! It’s two sports really, ski jumping and skate skiing which is a form of cross-country skiing, and Howelsen Hill in downtown Steamboat Springs has both the ski jumps and the skate skiing course, along with the Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club, which is the training arm of the sport.   

So probably most people in Steamboat Springs Colorado know what it is, or at least have seen the words before in the local newspaper and are familiar with the local, Olympic-medal winning heros Todd Lodwick and Johnny Spillane. After all, just last week’s headlines and stories read like this:  

• Steamboat’s Lodwick to compete in Continental Cup  

• Nordic combined event begins today in Steamboat

• Steamboat’s Todd Lodwick wins Continental Cup race

• John F. Russell: Home sweet home 

• Steamboat’s Lodwick dominates final Continental Cup event

I worked as the Volunteer Coordinator for  Steamboat’s event and was also up in the Judge’s Tower during the ski jumping calling in the distances to the announcer, so I wasn’t as free to video as I might have been otherwise (and consequently didn’t get any ski jumping footage). 

But I did get some behind the scenes footage, capturing the agony of the skate ski race for the finishers that gave it everything they had, and the joy of Todd Lodwick as he easily crossed the finish line and took his accustomed place at the top of the podium. 

Did the whole town turn out to watch the event? No, although we did have a respectable crowd, because believe it or not, for a small town of 10,000, hosting a big-time event is just as common place as volunteering at them, as having a child competing in them and as having an Olympian as a neighbor.

13 Reasons Why I Haven’t Blogged in a Month; and the photos to prove it

I can’t believe it, and I feel incredibly negligent. After months and months of blogging regularly, a month has slipped past until now! 

I have though been posting daily on my Steamboat Gal facebook business page (only because Hootsuite allows me to schedule posts!), so I encourage you to check out that page and “LIKE” it if you are a facebbok user. Since every day I’m reading industry news as well as local Steamboat news – typically on my smartphone while having my morning latte on my red couch – it’s easy for me to pass the best stories, with a personal comment or two, along to you. 

Writing a blog is something I love but it still fell apart this last month. Here’s my excuse: 

1. I was sick as a dog for a week, and laid up in bed for the last 4 days of it, and trust me you would not have liked anything that would’ve come out of my mouth.
   

   My packed up boxes at our old office

2. I had to force myself out of my bed to pack my entire office into boxes in one day, and then went home to pack my suitcase.
3. I woke after a couple of hours of sleep to sit next to my 18 year-old son as he drove me to the local airport, normally a 30-minute drive away, in a blinding snowstorm in the pitch black of early morning (yes, in Steamboat planes often still fly in snowstorms).
4. I landed safely in sunny Orlando at my sister’s home (who’d just arrived from her business in China) and went straight to sleep. A couple of days later the limo appeared.
   

   The Limo arrives at my sister Tania's house

5. Then who would’ve guessed that in this modern day of electronics a crusie ship would dare to charge $50/hr to use their very slow satellite internet connection. So much for using our Caribbean sea days to get caught up on blogging! I had to play Rummikub instead (and won the first 4 games straight – so I wasn’t slacking, mind you).
6. Our first land day in Nassau, Bahamas, I spent the day at an internet cafe working, while my dad and his wife shopped for jewels (he did gift me one from his collection; a ruby necklace) and my sister, along with the other 7 people in our party ate fresh conch and drank Gumbay Smashers It’s just as well I didn’t join them). But alas there was no time for blogging!
   

   Tania treats me to lobster in St. Maarten.

7. My sister, who I was sharing my cabin with, berated me for wanting to plant myself in an internet cafe to work while they went to a beach in St. Thomas, British Virgin Islands. It’s pathetic to say that it really did take some nudging on her part. I acquiesced – thank you Tania!

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8. Ditto for the day we had in St. Maaten, although it didn’t take any pushing on Tania’s part really.

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Me working in the Judge's Tower during Continental Cup

9. By the time we returned to Orlando my work and internet addiction had abated, and although I was back on the computer it was just to attend to urgent stuff. And until you guys start begging for me to blog regularly, and sending me money in the mail, catching up on 3 weeks worth of blogging just wasn’t urgent enough.
10. My first day back in Steamboat was entirely spent unpacking the boxes I had packed on my last day in Steamboat. they were unpacked in our new, very cool office.

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11. Then bright and early the next day, I was up at Howelsen Hill, checking on the volunteers who had gathered to work the Nordic combined Continental Cup that weekend (my being the Volunteer Coordinator for the international event – yep, that was part of the “urgent work” I was doing at that cafe in Nassau and Orlando). 
    

    Our 1st office meeting in our new real estate info center on 56 9th St. From left Ulrich, Gery, me in front, Mary and Doug.

12. Then back to the office for our first meeting in our new digs and a celebratory dinner afterwards 
13. Followed by two more days working the Continental Cup. And then wrapping it all up.

Now I’m back at my desk and guess what is (still) first on my TO DO list from before I went home sick? Doing this blog of course!

So what is the lesson from this all? If you missed me dearly and want more frequesnt updates go “LIKE” my facebook business page. You can even click back to my website from there by clicking the website header that is on my Welcome page!

And please leave a Comment here. Like, did you even miss me?

Steamboat Springs’ Residential Real Estate Values Return to 2006

What’s going on with the Steamboat Springs real estate market as far as values are concerned? How bad is it, for the sellers? And how good is it if you’re in the position to buy real estate in Steamboat Springs today?

Doug Labor, the managing broker of the real estate office I work in, Buyer’s Resource Real Estate Steamboat, just finished a study which he shared with us during our last office meeting. He looked at condominium and townhome developments as well as single family home neighborhoods that had multiple sales every year from 2004 until now. Note that by the fact he needed multiple sales from 2004 until the present, no condo, townhome or single family developments created after 2004 could be included in this study.

 To use a common denominator to establish a home’s value, Doug looked at the price that a property sold for in relation to its size; specifically its square footage. For example, if a home sold for $500,000.00 and it was 1000 square feet in size, that house sold for $500 per square foot ($500,000 divided by 1000 sq ft). Doug’s graph shows a couple of things:

Average Steamboat Springs Residential Value – Findings

1. Despite 2007 being considered Steamboat Springs’ real estate market peak, the highest values actually occurred in 2008! There was still price momentum from the buying spree of 2007 into 2008 purchases. And lthough the lending environment had started to tighten up in the second half of 2007, it wasn’t until the end of 2008 that things really got bad. 

2. Today’s real estate values in Steamboat Springs harken back only to 2006. That’s just four years ago!

Residential Values by Type: Condos, Townhomes and Single Family Homes

Doug went on to distinguish between Condos, Townhomes and Single Family Homes (SFR). This graph shows:

1. Single Family Homes in the five Steamboat neighborhoods Doug studied had the greatest cost per square foot, of all three groups, in 2008, but dropped below condos briefly in 2009, and took the biggest hit of the three groups with a 39% decline from 2008 to 2010. (For those of you intimately familiar with Steamboat’s neighborhoods, the five studied were: Anglers, Silver Spur, Tree Haus, Dakota Ridge and the Sanctuary).

2. Townhomes took the least hit from peak to 2010, dropping by only 22%. (The three projects studied were: Cornerstone, Mountain Vista and Whistler Village.)

3. Condominiums were the only ones that lost value from 2009 to 2010, losing 12%. This is probably due to the fact that condo financing has been much harder to get than either townhomes or single family homes, causing the pool of potential condo buyers to shrink. 

What this means for buyers and sellers today

For sellers, if you bought your home before 2006 and didn’t refinance or take out a large equity line against all the equity you had in 2007 (okay, that might not be too many of us), you have not lost money in your home other than the imaginary sum you could maybe have sold it for in 2007 or 2008. But remember, you would have probably bought a replacement home at that inflated price too. Enough said.

For buyers today, although prices have only dropped back by a few years, at these values you can still buy nearly 40% more house today than you could have in 2008. Amazing, huh? Plus, having to go back only four years to find comparable real estate values, compared to many more years in other locations nationwide, shows that Steamboat Springs’ long term home values are holding well.

Gals Guide to Steamboat Springs: A Hoot of a Halloween Stroll

Dogs in costumes and french fries for treats. Businesses turned into Haunted Houses, shop owners into costumed human candy dispensers and a bank into an inflated kid magnet. Every year Main Street Steamboat Springs Colorado turns into a people-watching, dog-trotting, child-feasting, Community Stroll for Halloween.

If you’re a local, how many people or dogs do you recognize? If you’re a downtown business owner, did your store front attract my camera? And if you have kids or grand kids and are thinking of moving here… show them this video to get them all on board, and start planning next year’s costumes today!

Outdoor Living in Downtown Steamboat Home

Downtown’s too busy, I hear. Or, the Mountain’s where it’s happening. But I, being a die-hard lover of all things Downtown Steamboat, beg to differ.

And this house is a case in point.

One and a half blocks from main street, there’s no sound of traffic or partiers out on the street. The street ends at a one-way T, so the traffic is just local. The backyard is private with a huge pine tree and the covered back porch is a room of its own. And the living room is as cozy and spacious and bright as any ranch house out in the country.

And not “Happening?” What can you not do downtown that you can do on the mountain? (Okay, we don’t have a gondola, and however-many feet of vertical, but you can walk two blocks and take the free bus to get there.)

The high school is two blocks away, and so is the post office, bank, Old Town Hot Springs and fitness center, the bike path, Yampa River, Healthy Solutions grocery store and free bus to the mountain.One more block beyond that, and you’re at Howelsen Hill with its ice rink, andski trails, and of course I could go on…(see 26 Ways Downtown Steamboat Rocks!).

But enough about location! It’s the entry I want to walk in to, the fireplace I want to curl up by, and the back porch I want to take root in on all summer long. The dining room will be awesome for Thanksgiving, I like the feel of the banister beneath my hand, and could I ever walk into the kid’s bathroom upstairs without cracking a smile?

Built in 1950, the current owners took it down to the studs. They added a second story, made the old home like new, and garnished each detail with love. The asking price? $1,060,000. If you’re interested, give me a call. (And remember, this is not my listing. As an Exclusive Buyer Agent, I have no vested interest in getting this home, or any other, sold. My interest is in showing you what Steamboat has to offer…)

What do you think? Could you see yourself living here?

What do you think would be your favorite part of the house? Please share your thoughts in the Comments below.