Western Slope leads Colorado in 2000s home appreciation, CSU-Realtors study says

The Western Slope had the greatest increase in home-price appreciation of any Colorado region in the last 10 years, at 68.5 percent, according to a recent study by Colorado State University’s Everitt Real Estate Center. The study was done in collaboration with the Colorado Association of Realtors.

The Mountain Resort and Northern Colorado areas also had large increases in home prices — at 43.2 percent and 30.6 percent, respectively, the EREC-CAR House Price Indices showed.

Metro Denver experienced the lowest statewide increase in home-price appreciation, at 7.1 percent for the 10-year period. But the Denver area was one of only two regions, in the seven statewide areas surveyed, to show positive home-price appreciation from 2008 to 2009, at 2.1 percent.

Metro Denver by county

Looking just at counties within the metro area in the past decade, Denver and Arapahoe counties reported the lowest appreciation — at 4.2 percent and .5 percent, respectively — while Adams County had negative appreciation of 2.7 percent. Adams has been the hardest-hit county in the metro area during the recent housing downturn, often reporting the area’s highest foreclosure rates.

Douglas and Broomfield counties showed the highest home-price appreciation in the decade, at 28.3 percent and 24.5 percent, respectively.

But from 2008 to last year in the metro area, Denver and Adams counties had the highest appreciation at 5.2 percent and 4.6 percent, respectively.

Study basics

The report data covers 1999 through 2009, and is the first joint housing study by CAR and CSU. The association and the university agreed last year to collaborate on producing regular reports about Colorado’s residential real estate market.

The recently released 2009 EREC-CAR House Price Indices report calculated change in home-price appreciation based on selling prices for houses as well as condominiums and townhomes. Researchers used information from county sales records, and other resources.

The data differs from similar information provided by groups such as S&P/Case-Shiller and the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) because it uses different parameters. The EREC-CAR index, for example, doesn’t include Elbert, Park, Gilpin and Clear Creek counties in the Denver metro area, while Case-Shiller and FHFA indices do.

The EREC-CAR report makes metro Denver a six-county area, including Adams, Arapahoe, Broomfield, Denver, Douglas and Jefferson counties. Boulder County, which often is regarded as part of the Denver area in studies, is included in this report’s Northern Colorado region, along with Weld and Larimer counties.

More numbers

Other data from the study:

• Broomfield County home values steadily increased for much of the 10-year period, but peaked in 2003 and dropped each year through 2008. But the county still had appreciation of 24.5 percent.

• Just from 2008 to ’09 in the metro area, four metro-area counties had increases in appreciation — Denver (5.2 percent), Adams (4.6 percent), Broomfield (2.3 percent) and Arapahoe (.9 percent). Douglas and Jefferson counties had negative appreciation of 3.9 percent and 2 percent, respectively.

• In addition to metro Denver, the only other area of the state to report positive appreciation in the last two years was the Mountain Rural region, at 2.2 percent.

• From 2008-2009, five Colorado regions included in the report had negative appreciation — Mountain Resort (15.3 percent), Western Slope (10.9 percent), Eastern Plains (7.7 percent), Colorado Springs-Pueblo (4.2 percent) and Northern Colorado (1.9 percent).

The Colorado Association of Realtors is one of the state’s largest real estate trade groups, with more than 21,500 members.

Instead, on Saturday afternoon, she sat at a round table draped in red at the Steamboat Springs Community Center with several friends she had run into at the annual Steamboat Springs Board of Realtors Community Christmas Dinner.

Although her family members went to another city for Christmas, she was surrounded by familiar faces from her more than 40 years in Steamboat Springs.

“This is what community should be,” she said.

The dinner featured a buffet of comfort foods donated by local Realtors and community members, and plenty of spirited conversation.

Event organizer Peggy Wolfe said she expected to serve more than 500 people before the dinner ended at 6 p.m.

Live holiday music from local musicians drifted over the heads of the diners, many of who donned Santa Claus hats or festive clothing.

Bob Sawer, a longtime Steamboat Springs resident, wore a blue Santa hat in honor of the Elvis Presley song “Blue Christmas.”

“The best thing is you see people you haven’t seen in years,” Sawer said about the dinner. “Or you see people you saw here last year. It’s like a family reunion.”

He attended the event with his brother, Craig resident Bill Sawer, who said the dinner is the best meal he’ll have all year.

The two exchanged small gifts — a rock ’n’ roll trivia calendar and a framed photo of the Yampa River — as they finished their desserts, all donated by the community.

Beverly Glenn, a Realtor working in the kitchen during the dinner, said the donations still were rolling in.

She said an older woman had just dropped off a homemade pie before returning home to cook dinner for her own family.

Wolfe said the Board of Realtors was overwhelmed by the response of the community, including full-time residents and second-home owners.

“What it says is that Steamboat Spr­­ings is made of families, of people, who care about one another,” Wolfe said. “They want to be a part of the community and make it better than it is.”

Donations also came from several restaurants, including Steamboat Smokehouse, The Tugboat Grill & Pub, The Egg & I and Slopeside Bar and Grill. Wolfe said she was turning down volunteers to help Saturday.

“People who are attracted to Steamboat have this certain characteristic of caring for others,” she said.

Steamboat resident Zach Baker said he might prefer the community dinner to a family affair.

“It’s sharing good times with others,” he said. “Sometimes, it’s better to spend the holidays with the community than with family. The holidays are stressful, and I’d rather see my family the rest of the year during not-so-stressful times.”

And it’s hard to be stressed out when one of several young children wearing antler headbands kindly asks to clear away your plate that once held ham, turkey, gravy and cranberry sauce.

“We’re in an economic downturn,” Bill Sawer said. “But you can’t tell it by the people here.”

Wolfe said her favorite part of the event is the atmosphere in the main room of the community center, where she said she could feel the warmth and energy of the holiday spirit.

“Instead of sitting at home and maybe eating a microwave meal, they can be here and be part of a group that’s the family of Steamboat,” she said.

Article written by Nicole Inglis, Steamboat Pilot reporter published December 26th 2010

Lift operators are preparing to reopen Four Points lift today, and Bashor and Thunderhead Express are slated for Saturday openings as the open terrain at Steamboat Ski Area expands.

Lift Operations Supervisor Ted Serafy said a crew of six people would head to South Peak today to start digging out the lift in preparation for its opening. The crews will start moving snow with snowcats, but will have to use shovels closer to the machinery.

Lift Operations Director Deb Werner said it’s good and bad to have such deep snow early in the season.

“It’s great to have that much snow at the start of the season, but it’s a great deal of work for the crew,” she said.

“Of course, last year was a lot of work because we had to bring the snow in,” Serafy added.

The snow will continue to pile up in the next few days as well, National Weather Service forecaster Chris Cuoco said.

He said he is predicting a dusting of snow in town today, with 2 to 3 inches tonight.

On the mountain, there could be 3 to 7 inches of accumulation today and tonight, and another 1 to 3 inches Saturday.

Cuoco said he expects it to be windy Friday with 15 to 25 mile per hour winds and clouds throughout Saturday and Sat­urday night.

Steamboat Ski and Resort Corp. spokeswoman Loryn Kasten said the trail openings posted on www.steamboat.com were inaccurate Thursday — it listed all but three trails open — but she did not have an updated list of trail openings as of Thursday evening.

Story written by By Zach Fridell, Steamboat Pilot reporter in the Friday, December 3, 2010 issue.

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Existing houses can be retrofitted so they will produce as much energy as they use every year — the technology is available and doing the work would save owners thousands of dollars in energy bills. But most homeowners won’t bother because there are too many barriers in place, a report by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC) concludes.

The CMHC report, Approaching Net Zero Energy in Existing Housing, says that current energy-efficiency programs aim for overall energy reductions of 20 to 30 per cent, but that in order to achieve a net-zero retrofit, energy use would have to be reduced by 70 to 90 per cent in existing homes.

Among the methods that can be used to reduce energy consumption:

• create a high-performance building envelope using insulation and air barriers and high-performance doors and windows;
• use energy-efficient appliances and lighting;
• use high-efficiency mechanical systems;
• use passive-solar cooling and heating techniques;
• use solar thermal systems and heat pumps;
• offset electrical use with grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) systems.

Last week in Toronto, a demonstration home called the Now House was unveiled to the public. It’s one of 12 demonstration homes in CMHC’s EQuilibrium project, and the only one that is aiming for a net-zero renovation.

It’s a 60-year-old “wartime” house with 1.5 storeys and 1,200 square feet of living space, located in a subdivision of about 200 similar homes. It’s estimated that there are about one million houses in Canada with similar footprints and structure, according to the Now House team. It says if the Now House retrofit design was implemented at a national level, “We could achieve an annual green house gas reduction between 5.4 million and 26.3 million tons, contributing up to 14 per cent of Canada’s Kyoto Protocol emissions-reduction targets.”

The team says if the program was implemented in the U.S., “nearly 4.5 million homes built in the wartime period and up to 70 million single detached homes would benefit, accomplishing an annual reduction of 423 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions. This would equal a seven per cent reduction of the total greenhouse gas emissions produced in the U.S. annually.”

To retrofit the Now House, insulation was upgraded on the flat and sloped roof, exterior walls and basement. A south-facing window was enlarged with high-performance glass. A solar PV system was installed. New appliances and lighting were added, and ultra low-flow showerheads and faucets were installed, along with a grey water heat recovery system.

The CMHC research simulated what would have to be done to retrofit houses of various ages and style across the country to net-zero. “As could be expected, there were differences between climatic regions that influenced the challenge,” says the report. “The region where retrofits were most likely to come close to net-zero energy, mainly through building envelope improvements, was Vancouver.”

Comparing two bungalows built in 1969 – one in Vancouver and one in Whitehorse – the study found that with improvements to the building envelope and a rooftop PV system, the Vancouver house was able to reach net-zero. But the Whitehorse home still fell far short with the same improvements, and the only way to achieve net-zero would be to install a high-efficiency, ground-source heat pump. This would be unlikely to happen because of the cost.

Houses that have larger roof areas, and are thus able to accommodate more PV panels, have an advantage when attempting to reach net-zero energy. The easiest house retrofit is a bungalow, because it’s the most straightforward when upgrading the insulation and air sealing.

“Barriers to actually getting to net-zero energy in existing homes include the challenge of coordinating the timing of a retrofit,” says the report. “Making a project cost-effective depends on some planning – for example, if the siding is to be replaced on a home, that is the time to insulate the exterior and upgrade windows. Mechanical equipment is usually replaced under emergency situations, so a change-out to a higher-efficiency, smaller output unit that coordinates with an envelope upgrade requires a clear plan and timely financing.

Other barriers are the logistics of finding contractors willing and able to do the work required.” But the biggest barrier of all is financial. The report says, “Energy conservation retrofits in the $30,000 to $50,000 range were cost effective when refinancing a mortgage. In many cases, the monthly energy savings outweighed the incremental increase in a mortgage payment. However, a full net-zero retrofit would cost more than this.”

While Canadians have shown they are not shy about spending money on renovations that include flashy kitchens and materials, the report says, “Recent studies show comfort and esthetic benefits far outweigh energy concerns, and very few homeowners assess the economic benefits of their investments by monitoring energy bills or calculating payback times.”

The report concludes that because PV systems are expensive and have long payback periods for small systems, “Unless there are reasonable incentives to purchase and operate these systems (tax rebates, purchase incentives, ‘green power’ premiums for grid-connected systems), most homeowners will not opt to retrofit their house to a net-zero energy home.”

by Jim Adair                               Published: September 16, 2008

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www.steamboatmagazine.com

“Despite the difficult economic climate,” said Garrett Simon, vice president of development for the Atira Group, “Edgemont’s results show that there’s always demand for great real estate.”

The opening day sales volume meets pre-construction requirements making it possible to start construction on the landmark site in June. “These results show that it really doesn’t matter what is happening with the economy when it comes to ‘beachfront’ or should I say, ‘slopeside’ real estate. An excellent location will always resonate with buyers who are the end-user,” said Simon.

This is a great day for the Atira Group, developers of Edgemont, a great day for Steamboat and finally, some good news on our nation’s real estate front,” said Simon.

After an early morning float over Steamboat in a hot air balloon, prospective buyers gathered with their brokers and the Edgemont team for the afternoon Selection Event at the Real Estate Preview Center. Those who were not able to attend in person joined live online from their home or office.

“We are thrilled to be among the first owners at Edgemont. This will be ski-in/ski-out at its very best on the mountain, and there isn’t a better mountain community in the West than Steamboat Springs,” said Jack Quinn, former White House Counsel in the Clinton-Gore Administration and founder of Quinn Gillespie & Associates. He and his wife, Susanna Quinn, a writer, contracted on Edgemont’s opening day.

Much like the Quinns, the majority of buyers purchased their residence at Edgemont as a second home with plans of spending time throughout the year in Steamboat Springs with friends and family. Direct ski slopes access combined with an intimate community setting and well-designed residence plans were at the top of the list for Edgemont’s first homeowners.

Situated on the edge of the Steamboat Ski Resort, perched just above the base area, with the Gondola on one side and the Christie Peak Express on the other, Edgemont’s access to the mountain is unmatched by any other new property available in Steamboat. With spectacular views from every home, owners at Edgemont will enjoy spacious open floor plans ideal for entertaining, as well as a host of community amenities that bring neighbors together outside the home. Amenities include outdoor heated pool, hot tubs and fire pit, ski lockers, family game and media rooms, a fitness facility and underground parking.

http://www.allbusiness.com/

A sampling of green building, sustainable and conservation practices employed at Marabou includes:

- Preservation of a sharptail grouse lek

- Community buildings sided with wood recycled from miles of aging snow fences in Wyoming

- Grazing cattle kept away from the river corridor to allow the recruitment of young cottonwood trees

- Use of solar panels and wind energy certificates to generate electricity for community buildings

- Construction of a settling pond so silt from man-made streams doesn’t return to the Elk River

- Introducing limestone boulders to the river, streams and trout ponds to increase alkalinity, which supports the health of aquatic invertebrates

- Seasonal trail closure to protect elk calving areas

- Orienting buildings to make the most of passive solar opportunities

- Use of internal gravel pits to provide all of the road base for roads, reducing the number of truck trips needed to build the subdivision

- Insisting contractor utilize small pieces trimmed from lumber – kept estimated 14,000 pounds of construction waste out of landfill

- Attention to interior air quality in community buildings – no carpets that give off toxic gases

- Design guidelines requiring all homes to use exterior lighting that conforms to dark skies standard

http://www.yoursteamboathome.com/archived_article.php?newsID=22