Teddy Errico's Telluride Tales

Recently I was sworn in as the new President of the Telluride Association of Realtors (TAR) for the 2009-10 year.

The Telluride Association of REALTORS® (TAR) seeks to provide an outstanding level of service for our REALTOR® and Affiliate members involved in the real estate and local community.

TAR is a professional trade association that offers a wide variety of services to our members. Some of the community benefits we provide are securing funds for the Hoot Brown High College Scholarship, First Time HomeBuyer Assistance Fund and managing the Telluride MLS system, which allows property information to be seamlessy available to brokers and clients alike.

The paving of the runway is complete! I also want to make sure that everyone knows the airport construction was delyaed only one day and will re-open on November 4th. This second phase completed the runway being flatter and repaved. (No more banana peel landings) We are hoping for larger commercial flights to come into Telluride (negotiations are on-going)and a safer experience. Overall $58 million will be spent on these improvements. The final improvement phase will occur in the summer of 2011 and will not shut the airport down.

Good news from Vail.

Real estate surges in Vail Valley: Seventy-seven residential properties went under contract between Aug. 10 and Sept. 10 in Vail Valley Vail Daily staff report September 11, 2009.

Anytime sales in Aspen or Vail pick up, Telluride is almost certainly to follow.

Below are some excerpts from todays article on Real Estate in msn.com, by James Stewart, SmartMoney, titled: Why its time to invest in Real Estate. I think that this is true of Telluride Regional Real Estate. We are seeing properties contract the last few weeks at a greater pace that any other time this year, including raw land.

It’s scary to jump into the housing market when prices have been plunging. But waiting could end up costing you.

Passing through the Fort Myers, Fla., airport a few weeks ago, I noticed people eagerly signing up for a free bus tour of foreclosed real estate – with all properties offering water views. During the ride to my hotel, the young driver volunteered that he’d just bought his first house, paying $65,000 for a foreclosed property in nearby Cape Coral that had last sold for more than $250,000. He said he’d never expected to be able to buy anything on a driver’s salary, let alone something that nice.

Late last month, Standard & Poor’s reported that its S&P/Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price index of real-estate values increased this past quarter over the first quarter of 2009, the first quarter-on-quarter increase in three years. Its index of 20 major cities also rose for the three months ended June 30 over the three months ended May 31, with only hard-hit Detroit and Las Vegas experiencing declines. The week before that, the National Association of Realtors reported that sales volume of existing homes was up 7.2% in July from June.

In short, the data suggest that real-estate prices hit a bottom some time during the second quarter and have now begun to rise. There’s no way to be certain that this marks the end of the long, painful correction that followed the real-estate bubble, but clearly prices are no longer in free fall.

That means if you’ve been sitting on the fence, it’s time to act.

Trying to buy at a bottom: Ordinarily I’d never try to time the real-estate market, but I can understand why buyers have been cautious. Few want to buy in down markets, just as stock buyers avoid bear markets. And for most people, of course, buying a house is a much bigger decision than buying a stock. But with real-estate prices nationally now down about 30% from their 2006 peak and showing signs of turning up, the prices aren’t likely to go much lower. Every real-estate market is local, and so there may be a few exceptions. Overall, though, I can’t imagine a better time to buy than right now.

Contact me for a list of the great buys that are starting to disappear or go to my Top Picks section on my website: www.TeddyErrico.com