Before you find yourself in the dilemma of being ready to move on – literally and figuratively – but the “for sale” sign has grown its own roots in your front yard, recognize the many things that you can do to avoid finding yourself in that situation. Bradley K. Tuttle’s Real Estate Update offers these tips to avoid a home spending longer than necessary on the market:

Tip 1: Be realistic about the price.

 Determine the sales price by educating yourself about the market by reading the newspapers, visiting online real estate sites, researching the sale prices of homes in your own neighboring and consulting with the best experts in the business.

Tip 2: Fix up your home.

Most buyers don’t want to purchase a big list of must-do fixes in order to

January brought plenty of good news regarding the national housing market as both pending and existing home sales improved month over month, according to the National Association of Realtors®.

However, the lack of inventory – including in the Boulder-area and Colorado markets – is hindering the West from experiencing the healthy improvement in sales that other regions are: existing home sales rose in every region but the West, according to the NAR.

The NAR reports that a seller's market is developing and home prices continue to rise steadily above year-ago levels.

Total existing home sales – completed transactions that include single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops – increased 0.4 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of

ZipRealty included Denver among its Top 10 Best Cities for Home Sellers in its recently released List Price to Close Price Ratio Report based on MLS data covering 32 U.S. markets.

The Denver metro market 

The online residential real estate brokerage found that the gap between the listing price and closing price of an average home in the United States continues to narrow, with a growing number of homes selling for more than 98 percent of their listing price.

The study also showed that the median number of days a home spent on the market dropped to 44 nationwide in 2012, a 23 percent decline from 2011’s 57 days.

“A limited inventory of homes on the market, combined with the extremely low cost of mortgage financing, has resulted in homes selling

The drop in the Boulder area’s January home sales is typical for the middle of winter, but the market continues to perform well compared with a year ago, which gives hope for a promising spring sales season.

Sales as a whole in 2012 showed substantial improvement over 2011.

“The year-over-year sales numbers are pretty dramatic,” says Ken Hotard, senior vice president of public affairs for the Boulder Area Realtor® Association.

The 3,898 single-family home sales in 2012 represented a 23.6 percent increase compared with 2011’s 3,152. And the 1,257 condominiums/townhomes that sold last year improved 20.5 percent over 2011’s 1,043 sales.

“Basically, this is the confirmation of market soundness,” he says. “This continues to show the strength of our

The folks who work and volunteer for Wildlands Restoration Volunteers aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty.

In fact, they may be covered in dirt and even ash by the time their work is done on any given day.

When government funds are insufficient to improve or restore the outdoor Coloradans love, such as rerouting an unsustainable trail or putting a forest on the path back to its former glory following a wildfire, WRV comes to the rescue.

The nonprofit organization provides an opportunity for people to come together, learn about their natural environment, and take direct action to restore and care for the land.

Sarah Egolf, development coordinator for WRV, says the organization had 4,100 active volunteers between its two offices – in Boulder

By many appearances, the housing market is on its way to recovery following years of both buyers and sellers sitting on the fence, according to Bradley Tuttle’s Real Estate Update.

While sellers have been hoping prices would improve so they can get more for their homes, buyers have anxiously anticipated the market hitting rock bottom so they can purchase a house at the best possible price. 

Whether buyer or seller, here are some of the top resolutions to consider before entering the housing market:

Buyers

• Monitor your credit – Instead of paying to monitor your credit, take advantage of the one free credit report a year from each of the big three credit reporting agencies – Experian, Equifax and TransUnion – as well as from any smaller credit

Colorado’s housing market is once again showed its staying power in the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s 2012 third quarter house price appreciation rates ranking.

Although the state as a whole dropped one rank from the second quarter, likely because of a lower quarter-over-quarter appreciation rate, three of its metros – Fort Collins-Loveland, Denver-Aurora-Broomfield and Greeley – made the top 20 for highest appreciation rates out of 306 metros nationwide. No Colorado metros fell in the bottom 20 for lowest rates.

Only two Colorado metros – Boulder, which was ranked 41st, and Fort Collins-Loveland, ranked ninth – saw increases in home appreciation rates for both the year, the quarter and the five-year timeframes. Colorado’s five-year appreciation

While December isn’t usually the month in which contractors begin construction projects, apparently 2012 was an exception for the West Region.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, housing starts were up 5.7 percent in December in the West Census region, which includes Colorado, compared with December 2011. 

However, new single-family home sales in the U.S. West were flat from December 2011 to December 2012, remaining at 5,000 new homes sold, according to another census report. While new home sales grew overall in 2012 compared with the previous year, December new home sales have hovered around 5,000 little since 2008.

The bureau reports that the number of new homes for sale in the West region rose 6.25 percent from December 2011 to December 2012,

The Boulder-area real estate market offered no surprises as 2012 came to a close, with sales and prices increasing in general year over year but falling – as expected – compared with the previous month.

“December was pretty straight forward,” says Ken Hotard, senior vice president of public affairs for the Boulder Area Realtor® Association.

The sale of 235 single-family homes in the Boulder-area market represented a 15 percent increase over a year ago, and the sale of 84 condominiums and townhomes was an increase of 16.6 percent compared with December 2011.

However, single-family home sales fell 21 percent in December compared with November, and attached unit sales fell 5.6 percent.

Overall, the market did as it usually does in the middle of

Boulder’s and Broomfield’s commercial real-estate market has had a pretty good year, and looks set to enter 2013 with some momentum, Lynda Gibbons predicted in November while giving an overview of the local real-estate picture at the Boulder Valley Real Estate Conference.

Gibbons is president and managing broker of commercial real estate brokerage firm Gibbons-White Inc.

At the time of the conference, vacancy rates were down and rents were climbing for office space in Boulder and Broomfield, with rents reaching $30 per square foot in downtown Boulder. The downtown vacancy rate was about 6 percent, Gibbons said.

In the city of Boulder, office rents were $21.50 per square foot with an 8 percent vacancy rate, and the average rent for Boulder County