BankRate's 2007 Real Estate Guide

Bankrate, the nation's leading aggregator of financial data, released its 2007 Real Estate Guide, which includes 10 steps to selling, and a prediction that " a smaller volume of homes on the market, increasing income levels and rising interest rates could be contributing factors to cause the buyer's market to disappear by the end of 2007 and be replaced by a neutral market that favors neither buyer nor seller."

The press release: " stable interest rates, rising consumer confidence and bargain prices make for an overall optimistic outlook for 2007.However, new housing starts and foreclosures due to ARM resets keep experts on guard."

Its forecast for Denver: partly cloudy. "It's a low time for the Mile-High City's housing market [emphasis not added]. Denver experienced price declines last year, along with a drop in single-family home construction. Population growth is also low. Job growth was impacted by the last recession, losing jobs particularly in the telecom industry, but it's returning with moderate gains of 2 percent, which Ingo Winzer predicts may spur in migration in the next few years." The blurb reports Denver's 4Q06 median home price at $245,600 and calls for a decline to $244,980 at the end of 2007. According to the profile, there was 1 foreclosure for every 331 households in Jan. 2006 versus 1:283 in Jan. 2007.

The experts:

" Chris Porter, senior consultant with Irvine, Calif.-based John Burns Real Estate Consulting, predicts the market will hit bottom in mid- to late-2007. Spots such as San Diego and Sacramento, Calif., which got hit early, may be among the first to emerge, he says."

"Richard Moody, chief economist and director of research for Texas-based Mission Residential, says the increase in sales and prices during December and even November...was more of a blip because of warmer-than-usual weather in some parts of the country and seasonal adjustment. He believes the first half of 2007 will look much like the second half of 2006, with housing starts continuing to decline and sales further softening."

"Ingo Winzer, president of Massachusetts-based Local Market Monitor, a real estate analysis firm, disagrees.

'Interest rates are still low by historical standards, although not as low as a couple of years ago,' he says. 'I do believe that interest rates will drift upward and that will be bad for the housing market.'"

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Here's DenverInfill.com's blog entry on the Auraria Campus Master Plan, which has long been something of an island in downtown Denver.

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The Colorado Bankers Associated released a random survey of Colorado foreclosures, as reported by the Denver Post. Here's the full report. 374 randomly selected foreclosure filings were examined, revealing the following average profile: a 2.8-year-old mortgage valued at $202,000 and issued by a nonbank lender (banks originated only 22% of foreclosures studied) between 2003 and 2005.

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Here's an interesting analysis of Seattle's condo market, written by a consultant at Seattle-based Realogics, Dean Jones. Seattle's three urban condo markets are affordable ($350-$550 PSF), market rate ($450-$800 PSF) and luxury (700-$1,500+ PSF). Jones says that market fundamentals support a positive outlook for Seattle's urban condo market thanks to a healthy job market and the growing numbers of lifestyle buyers (re: downsizing baby boomers, retirees and second-home buyers).