Why Now Is the Time to Buy in Vail/Beaver Creek

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to my video blog!

If you’ve been thinking about buying a home in the Vail/Beaver Creek area, now is the time.

1. You will have the best selection. You will beat the competition for the best properties.

2. If you choose to rent your condominium, you can start out with positive cash based on the peak rental income during the ski season.

3. You will catch the sellers a little off guard. Because we are early in the season, sellers will have lower home prices. As ski season approaches, inventory will drop and prices will increase.

4. Interest rates are rising. Rates are still historically low, but they are expected to increase. Take advantage of the market now!

For further information, please call me, Dave Cole at Prudential Colorado Properties at 970 331-6867 or email me at dave@davecole.com

Interest Rates

We recently experienced the lowest interest rates in the history of the Vail/Beaver Creek market. Those rates, though, have been on the rise recently. How does that impact you?

Let’s look at the difference a jump from four percent to six percent creates. At four percent, every $100,00 you borrow costs around $477 a month. If the rates increases to six percent, every $100,000 costs $599 a month. That’s a difference of $1,465 a year.

While that may not seem significant, what if you need a larger loan? If you need to borrow a million dollars that $1,465 difference a year is now $14,655.60. This will eliminate a lot of buyers.

Increased rates slow the market. They decrease the buyer’s pool and thus home prices drop for sellers. Now is the time to take advantage of the market. Give me a call or send me an email at dave@davecole.com

Beaver Creek is a Screaming Deal for Buyers Right Now!

If you are looking for a beautiful ski home, Vail and Beaver Creek are experiencing incredible markets right now. With great prices and historically low mortgage interest rates, now is a fantastic time to buy.

Beaver Creek prices are considerably cheaper than prices in Vail Village and Lionshead. While the price per square foot in Vail Village and Lionshead are anywhere from $1,100 - $2,300, the average per square foot in Beaver Creek is an incredible $800-$950.

There are even some areas, such as Highlands Lodge and Highland Slopeside, with even better steals than that. If you are a fan of Vail/Beaver Creek and want it to be part of your permanent family lifestyle, the time to act is now before prices and interest rates take off again.

Please call me with any questions at 970.331.6867 or send me an email at dave@davecole.com

Advice on Buyer’s Offer and Pricing Strategy

Hey everyone. I have some advice on a buyer’s offering and pricing strategy. It’s helpful to know a few things at the start.

The first thing to know is Vail is really two separate real estate markets: the downtown market and the out of town area. The downtown market is the ‘beachfront’ properties, where you can walk to skiing, shopping and all the restaurants. Pricing for a one bedroom condominium in this market starts at around $500,000. The out of town area starts about five blocks from the ski lifts. Here, the one bedroom condominiums start around $200,000.

Both markets have large multimillion dollar properties and a wide range of types of living from duplexes to condos to single family homes, etc.

It’s also important to know that rarely do Vail’s affluent property owners have to sell. Most will wait for an acceptable price. Desperation and foreclosure sales are rare. It is not productive to wait for one. I have only seen one or two of these sales in my 40 years as a Vail realtor.

We are currently experiencing the lowest inventory since 2008. Sellers know the selection is limited and prices are on the rise again.

My strategy is to represent you as your exclusive buyer/broker so I can be a tough negotiator. Most discounted sales are within the 2%-10% range. When you offer you want to make a sensible bid so that the seller will counteroffer at a less than listed price. You don’t want to offer too low, though, because you don’t want to anger or insult the owner.

My goal is to get you the best available price and not leave anything on the table. So if you want to buy in the Vail area, give me a call and we can get started!

What's Happening in Our Current Vail Market?

Hi everyone, I wanted to give you an update on the current Vail market.

The sales dollar volume from January to May was $497million, which is a 12% decrease from 2012. The number of sales, however, is up by 9% in a year-to-year comparison.

Perhaps one of the more dramatic statistics is the 74% increase in sales dollar volume from 2009 as well as the 123% increase in the number of units sold. My interpretation of these figures represents a large volume of foreclosure and short sales in 2012. There the prices are generally under $500,000; this is basically our employee housing market. Also a large number of $4million and over luxury property sales took place in 2012; affluent buyers stepped in and took advantage of the low prices. In addition, inventory has dropped to below 800.

The 2013 residential price record is just under $6million in May for one home. So my conclusion is now is a great time to buy! It’s the best in fact in the past ten years. Mortgage rates are still at an all-time low of 4% fixed. We are seeing multiple offers on attractive properties.

Resort Condominium Expenses

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Hi I'm Dave Cole with Prudential Colorado Properties in Vail and Beaver Creek Colorado. Today we are discussing resort condominium expenses, such as what condominium expenses will you have besides a mortgage, if any in real estate taxes. There are two types of condominium expenses, rental management expenses and property management expenses. Rental management expenses only apply if you rent the property. So let's assume that you will rent only short term, meaning night to night. Your expenses will be items such as maid service, advertising, credit card commissions, travel agent fees, supplies, linens, and managers profit etc. These expenses will run 35 to 50 percent of your gross rental income.

Property management expenses are recurring items that you are responsible for, even if the property just remains vacant. This covers the expenses of the property just to maintain it include working order. Items in the assessment vary from building to building, but generally include water, sewer, fire insurance, management fee, trash removal, snow removal, lawn maintenance, pool maintenance, elevator maintenance, commonary cleaning, and common utilities etc. Items generally not in the condominium assessment include debt service, if any, contents insurance, firewood, electricity, telephone, heat, cable, television, real estate and personal property taxes.

For further information please call me Dave Cole at Prudential Colorado Properties in Vail and Beaver Creek Colorado. That's at (970) 331-6867 or email me at Dave@DaveCole.com. Thanks!

Rental Management Gross Revenue Split

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Hi, I’m Dave Cole with Prudential Colorado Properties in Vail and Beaver Creek, Colorado. Today we are discussing why the rental management gross revenue split with a condominium owner is at 35% -50%. The reason that this split sounds so high is because the person asking the question has a reference point of the rental commission to rent a single apartment unit. The only expense involved is the rental commission and perhaps some advertisement, which typically costs 6% - 15%. Such expenses such as maid service, supplies, linens, credit card commissions and travel agent fees are not involved or included. However, in renting a condominium by the night with professional rental management you are effectively in the night-to-night hotel business. This means that you now have the expenses of daily maid service, advertising, credit card fees, travel agent fees, linens and processing, etc. These quickly add up to 35% - 50% of the gross rental income which needs to include a profit for the rental manager.

For further information, please call me, Dave Cole at Prudential Colorado Properties in Vail and Beaver Creek, Colorado, at (970) 331-6867 or email me at Dave@DaveCole.com.