Centennial Approves Home Rule

 

Residents in Centennial decided Tuesday that they want the power many other cities in Colorado have: home-rule status that lets them chart their own destiny.  Though the results were not yet officially final on Wednesday, the measure was passing by more than 2-to-1, with almost 18,000 mail-in ballots counted.

 

Centennial had been a statutory city, meaning the city was under a statewide municipal code. Now city leaders can take a variety of issues to Centennial voters for approval. One of the key changes for Centennial is the ability to audit businesses on sales-tax issues. Some of Centennial's sales-tax revenue had been going to other neighboring cities, such as Englewood and Aurora, Noon said.

 

State Issues Mobilization Committee has Vacancy

 

The Colorado Association of REALTORS® is looking to fill an unexpected vacancy on its Issues Mobilization Committee (IMC). IMC will be very busy this summer addressing some of the more critical citizen-led initiatives which are vying for a spot on the ballot in November. If you are interested in applying to fill this at-large vacancy for a three year term, please contact me at nbokone@gmdra.com.

 

Concerns Over Denver’s Tree Preservation Proposal

 

The Denver Board of REALTORS® (DBR) this week sent a letter to Denver city officials outlining a few concerns over the proposed tree preservation ordinance introduced to city council recently. Chiefly, DBR expressed concern that the fee schedule proposed by the ordinance might be overly punitive to less fortunate homeowners and could actually serve as a disincentive for planting new trees for those wary of heft fines.

 

DBR also encourages significant outreach by the city’s Forestry Division in soliciting public input from homeowners, concerned citizens, and potential home buyers as this idea moves forward.

 

FHA Higher Loan Limits Call To Action

 

NAR supports legislation to make permanent the loan limits included in the economic stimulus legislation.  Mortgage availability and affordability continue to be problems, and making the loan limits permanent will create stability in those markets and in our economy as a whole.  Dramatically reducing these limits in more than 240 communities in 26 states on December 31, 2008 would throw mortgage markets into turmoil. 

 

The Economic Stimulus Act retains the GSE current national limit of $417,000, and for higher cost areas in 26 states and the District of Columbia increases the limit to 125 percent of the area median, capped at $729,750.  For FHA, the Economic Stimulus Act raised ALL the loan limits from a base of $200,160 and a cap of $362,790 to a new base of $271,050 and a cap of $729,750.  The new GSE and FHA limits are slated to expire on December 31, 2008.

 

There’s still time for you to contact your United States Senators from Colorado to urge them to make permanent the changes to loan limits from this year’s economic stimulus package. To act today, go to the NAR Legislative Action Center Website here: Contact Your Senator Today

Fannie Mae Eliminates Controversial Zip Code Policy

 

Fannie Mae is doing away with higher minimum down-payment requirements for borrowers in parts of the country where home prices are dropping.

 

The government-sponsored Federal National Mortgage Association said Friday it will require minimum down payments of 3 percent to 5 percent for all loans it guarantees. That replaces a December policy that required a higher minimum if the loan was for a home in a ZIP code with declining real estate prices.

 

The announcement comes as lawmakers near a bipartisan agreement on a housing bill that could bring stricter regulation for the two companies. Senators are considering tapping a fund drawn from Fannie and Freddie's profits to pay for a new foreclosure-prevention program.

 

 

Candidate Screening Set for Late May/Early June

 

Local REALTOR® Associations all across the Metro Denver area have set up candidate screening sessions for the primary election on August 12^th. Each association will be interviewing candidates where there are contested primaries about their views on such real estate issues as private property rights, real estate transfer taxes, and regulatory topics.

 

Your help is needed! More REALTORS® are needed to help screen these candidates and make recommendations. If you’re interested in meeting candidates personally and discussing real estate issues with them, contact your local association today or send me an email at nbokone@gmdra.com.

 

DBR Annual City Council Luncheon Set for June 5^th.

 

The Denver Board of REALTORS® will hold their annual luncheon with members of Denver City Council on Thursday, June 5^th at the 4 Points Sheraton Denver Southeast. Many City Council members will be in attendance, and the luncheon is a great way for you to spend time with our elected officials in Denver. The event, open to all DBR members costs $25 for the luncheon. Please call DBR at 303-756-0553 to RSVP.

 

Castle Rock Mayor Announces Bid for State Senate

 

Castle Rock Town Mayor Randy Reed announced he will run for election at the state level in a bid for the Senate seat in District 4. The seat is being vacated by outgoing Republican Sen. Tom Wiens, who recently announced he is not seeking re-election.

 

Mayor of Castle Rock since 2005, Reed is a Republican candidate who serves at the state level as a commissioner for the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. The governor-appointed commitment is in addition to his service on town council, an experience that made clear to the longtime businessman he has a heart for public service. If elected, Reed will continue to represent Castle Rock residents, but will add residents of Douglas, Teller, Lake, Park and a portion of El Paso counties to his list of constituents.

 

"One of the things I enjoy the most in being an elected official is being a public servant," Reed said. "I really enjoy serving the people of Castle Rock."

 

He faces a delegate vote at the General Assembly May 30 to see if his bid for state Senate is successful. To see their names in the August primary, successful candidates must get at least 30 percent of the delegate vote at the assembly. He will continue to serve on town council during his campaign as he awaits the outcome of the assembly vote.

Denver Votes to Limit Property Uses in West Highlands/Sloan’s Lake

 

After a nearly 10-hour meeting that ended just after 3 a.m. on April 29th, the Denver City Council approved a rezoning that will limit land uses of property owners and prevent the construction of duplexes and other multifamily dwellings in two northwest Denver neighborhoods.

 

The council voted 10-2 to rezone 53 acres in West Highland and 62 acres in Sloan’s Lake from R-2 (multi-family) to R-1 (single family), putting an end to so-called scrape-off redevelopments to make room for higher density multiple-unit properties. In passing the applications, City Council found that this rezoning is consistent with the vision of Blueprint Denver, the city’s long term vision for land use and transportation.

 

These applications were opposed by the Denver Board of REALTORS® because a great number of residents in the affected areas actually opposed the reclassification of their properties. Involuntary rezoning limits a landowner’s private property rights in how they can use their land and often diminishes property values. Real estate professionals all across the metro Denver area remain committed to the fundamental principles of smart growth, which accentuate high density, mixed use development centered around transportation hubs.

 

Ballot Initiative #109 Threatens Real Estate Commissions

 

In a surprising move last week, the Colorado Trial Lawyers Association filed to put nine measures on the statewide November ballot. Among them is a proposal to cap real estate commissions. In short, the proposal would impose a six percent cap on commissions for transactions up to $250,000; three percent for $250,000 – $500,000; and one percent for transactions above $500,000 (but no more than $500 per hour). The move is an attempt by the trial lawyers to move debate away from measures designed to limit attorney fees and onto debate about things like real estate commissions, CEO salaries, agricultural tax breaks and other business interests.

 

The Colorado Association of REALTORS® strongly opposes the measure, noting that commissions are already negotiable, regardless of the selling price of a property.

 

 

Franktown Movement to Incorporate Suffers Setback

 

At least 18 Franktown residents have repeatedly tried to gain official recognition as an incorporated town by using a territorial statute from the 19th century and arguing that the town once was incorporated. This week, a Circuit Court judge barred them from holding a mayoral election.

 

"The court finds and concludes that the plaintiffs will suffer irreparable harm through general public confusion and mistrust as to local government jurisdiction and authority issues if a municipal election is held and purports to control the area determined ... to be in unincorporated Douglas County," the ruling states.

 

Douglas County has tried to stop any action by the Franktown group in court because officials are concerned that a handful of people could wield taxing and land use powers.

 

PSF Contributions Need to Fight Bad Ideas

 

With the introduction this week of a proposed initiative to limit broker commissions, now more than ever your help is needed to protect the real estate industry. Portions of Political Survival Fund (PSF) dollars go to the REALTORS® Issue Political Action Committee (RIPAC), which works to support (or oppose) ballot issues that affect our business.

 

Ask yourself these questions: “What issues really matter to me politically?” Or “What proposals out there really affect my bottom line?” Is there a better answer than “A proposal that would limit how much money I can make on a real estate transaction”?

 

Now is the time to stand up for your industry. It is time to fight back and show a commitment to your profession. Now is the right time to make a contribution to PSF and contribute to the cause. Make out a personal check to PSF today and take it to your local association, or go online at Invest in PSF . If the real estate industry has been good to you, PSF is your chance to be good to the real estate industry. 

 

Denver City Council to Vote on Sloan Lake and West Highlands April 28^th

Denver City Council will vote on the rezoning applications in the Sloan Lake and West Highlands neighborhoods after a public hearing on April 28^th. The hearing is scheduled for 5:30 PM in the City Council chambers on the fourth floor of the City and County Building.

The Denver Board of REALTORS® (DBR) opposes these zoning applications due to its public policy position generally opposing involuntary “downzonings”. Within these two neighborhoods, a large number of property owners actually oppose the downzoning of their property from R-2 to R-1, thus limiting the use and value of their property. DBR leadership has been meeting with members of city council to voice its support of private property rights and its opposition of involuntary downzonings. An article covering the issue can be found here in the North Denver News: North Denver News Clip

Ken Caryl Ranch Residents to Vote on Tax Increase May 6^th

The residents of Ken-Caryl Ranch Metropolitan District (KCRMB) will be voting through May 6^th on a proposed 2.5 mil property tax increase for capital improvements, maintenance, and general purposes relating to the facilities and services in KCRMB. Information in support of this issue can be found here: http://www.investinkcranch.org/; while an opposing viewpoint can be found here: Vote no in Ken Caryl. All REALTOR® associations in the area are monitoring this election closely.  

Summer is the Time to Screen Candidates

This summer, all of our local REALTOR® Associations will begin the process of interviewing candidates for public office and making recommendations for the August primary and November General Elections. The elections will be primarily for State House and State Senate positions, but a limited number of municipal and county races will be reviewed as well.

 Now is your chance to get involved. If you’re interested in finding out candidates’ positions on such real estate issues as private property rights, transfer taxes, land use and the like, get involved as a member of the candidate interview team. You can find out more information about the process by contacting your local REALTOR® association, or contact me at nbokone@gmdra.com.

Landlord/Tenant Relations

A measure by Rep. Mike Merrifield, meant to establish the responsibilities of landlords and tenants in rental agreements for the maintenance and care of the property, has been on hold since it was heard in committee on April 3rd.  Despite negotiations prior to the introduction of HB 1356, the bill as introduced continues to draw significant concerns from the business and real estate communities.  Rep. Joe Rice (D-Littleton) has serious concerns with the bill and is offering a number of amendments that address these concerns. As CAR continues to meet and negotiate with bill drafters and industry partners, we are continuing to seek clarification on rural, recreational properties and the single-family opt-out provision. It is expected that the bill will be back in committee next week.

Initiative #86 – Real Estate Transfer Tax

Initiative #86 has passed its first hurdle in making it on the November ballot. The proposal’s next stop is the Title Board, where it will undergo further scrutiny. As proposed, the initiative will look to increase the documentary fee on all real estate transactions by four cents per $100 of value.

As you know, CAR has resisted legislative attempts to raise the document fee during this year’s legislative session. This initiative, if it reaches the November ballot, will likely be opposed by REALTORS® statewide, including CAR and the REALTOR® Issue Political Action Committee (RIPAC).

NAR Raises Concerns about Fannie and Freddie Policies
On April 11, 2008, NAR President Dick Gaylord wrote letters to Fannie Mae CEO Dan Mudd and Freddie Mac CEO Dick Syron to raise serious concerns about a range of Fannie and Freddie policies that, taken as a whole, are hurting the entire national economy, not just the housing and mortgage markets.

REALTORS®  think there has been an overreaction by the GSEs and others in the housing finance industry that, even in the short term and certainly in the long term, will cause harm to the organizations involved by delaying recovery of the housing and mortgage markets. Many small individual policy decisions designed to keep the enterprises financially sound, when layered one upon another, have created major impediments to healthy mortgage and housing markets.

The letters address three main areas of concern:

1. A wide variety of higher fees and other underwriting standards that make mortgages much less affordable.
2. Policies reducing maximum loan-to-value ratios (LTVs) by five percentage points for homes in declining markets.
3. Extremely tight underwriting standards for jumbo conforming loans authorized by the Economic Stimulus Act.

Copies of the letter can be found on NAR’s website by clicking here: NAR's letter to Fannie Mae NAR's letter to Freddie Mac

Candidate Screening on the Horizon

This summer, all of our local REALTOR® Associations will begin the process of interviewing candidates for public office and making recommendations for the August primary and November General Elections. The elections will be primarily for State House and State Senate positions, but a limited number of municipal and county races will be reviewed as well.

 

Now is your chance to get involved. If you’re interested in finding out candidates’ positions on such real estate issues as private property rights, transfer taxes, land use and the like, get involved as a member of the candidate interview team. You can find out more information about the process by contacting your local REALTOR® association, or contact me at nbokone@gmdra.com.

 

 

Denver Public Schools to Consider Bond Issue

Denver Public Schools leaders will begin community talks in April about their chances this fall of winning a bond issue likely to top $300 million. If school board members agree to go to voters, it will be the district's first request for building dollars in five years. It also is likely to be their most expensive.

 

The Board will convene a community group next month to begin looking at the district's building and repair needs and the possibility of a tax question in November. Board members, who will ultimately decide whether to go to voters, will need to decide by July so Denver election officials can be notified. DPS last sought a tax increase for buildings in 2003, when voters approved a $310 million bond issue. The district last went to voters in 2005 for funding for a new pay system for teachers. It also passed.

 

Boulder Looks to Limit the Size of Homes

Though not specifically in the Metro Denver Area, it is interesting to follow the actions of Boulder City Council as they wrestle with the question of limiting the size of homes private property rights owners may build. This update comes courtesy of our friends at the Boulder Area REALTOR® Association:

Boulder City Council backed away from an emergency action to limit home expansions at its meeting on March 18. A severe city-wide .35 floor area ratio was proposed by councilor Macon Cowles in an email posted on March 17. The proposal suggested that the .35 FAR would be an interim ordinance until the end of 2008 while city officials developed and adopted permanent regulations. That drew a firestorm of critics resulting in hundreds of emails to Council that reportedly ran 90 percent in opposition. In addition, a coalition of community leaders, including BARA, engaged in broad outreach that produced a significant number of these communications. The City Planning Board was scheduled to take up the interim ordinance this Thursday, March 27, but that was pushed back to April 3. That means the Council will not take the issue up again until its April 8 meeting, at the earliest, with possible adoption of an interim ordinance on April 22. It is now very unlikely Council will adopt an interim home expansion regulation as severe and restrictive as was proposed and it is likely such and interim measure will be limited to six months rather that the two years suggested in early emails. This issue is far from over and BARA will be very involved in the months ahead as permanent regulations are considered and debated. Our aim is to see very limited restrictions that address only the out of scale home expansions while respecting the property rights and well being of Boulder's home owners.

 

NAR Call To Action Seeks Permanent FHA Reform

On Tuesday, a Call for Action (CFA) was sent to all NAR members asking them to send letters to their House and Senate Members urging them to move the FHA legislation out of conference committee and to the President for signature into law.  While the stimulus package President Bush signed into law last month did address the FHA loan limits, it’s a temporary fix, and the need for a permanent increase in the loan limits is mandatory to keep the housing market stable.

 

Over 53,000 letters have already been sent to Congress resulting in a 5.4% response rate.  The current FPC response rate is 64.1%.  While both of these numbers are a strong start in just a few days, we need to get those letters up to Capitol Hill!  If you haven’t yet responded to the CFA, please do so and then encourage all of your fellow REALTORS® to do the same.  (Reminder:  do not forward the CFA email you receive.  It’s encoded with your personal information.  Instead use the “Tell-A-Friend” feature on the REALTOR® Action Center.)  If you did not receive the CFA email, you can take action by following this link:  http://takeaction.realtoractioncenter.com/campaign/fha_marketreform.  Simply enter your email address and prefix – the system will know the rest – and then click “send this message.”  A re-send of the CFA will take place later today (Friday) to those who have not yet responded.

 

If you have questions about the FHA legislation, please contact Megan Booth at mbooth@realtors.org or 202-383-1222.

 

Good News – Escrow Bill Dies in Committee

 

Senate Bill 162 died in committee yesterday Wednesday, March 5.  Currently, real estate escrow accounts may earn interest or earnings credits that accrue to banks or title companies. Under the bill, consumers could voluntarily donate that interest to a new state foundation created to support affordable housing, ultimately creating a new foundation and mandating banks to pay a minimum of one percent or fair market value, which would potentially mean the end to viable foundations like CARHOF.

 

Sunny Banka, testified in opposition of the bill on behalf of CAR saying that “the association supports affordable housing and that the CARHOF program has donated over $5.8 million to affordable housing and over $75,000 has gone to support a foreclosure hotline.” She also stated that the interest belongs to the borrower, and that the bill presumes that buyers and sellers do not care what happens to the interest on their escrow accounts, which is not true. She cited statistics that over $700 million is already spent on affordable housing in Colorado. She also stated the bill unnecessarily creates bureaucracy when there are programs like CARHOF which serve the same purpose.  Sunny is a broker/owner with Metro Brokers and serves on CAR’s Legislative Policy Committee.

 

More Good News – Governor Says No to Transfer Tax Bill

 

CAR Political Affairs V.P. Rachel Nance reported House Bill (HB) 1340 was pulled from the table after it was announced that Governor Ritter does not support the bill.  CAR opposes this bill because it is premature to raise funds without having a completed statewide housing needs assessment. Further, the tax increase places a disproportionate burden on property owners to solve a societal problem that affects all of us. The availability of affordable housing is a broad based problem that requires broad based solutions.   This bill would have increased the documentary fee by 500% on residential property sales and would double it on commercial property transactions in order to create additional mechanisms to fund affordable housing. Additional taxes certainly do not making housing more affordable.

 

DERA to Screen Castle Rock Municipal Candidates

 

The Douglas/Elbert REALTOR® Association will be interviewing candidates for the Castle Rock municipal election on Monday, March 10^th. There are contested races this year in District 4 and District 7, and DERA will interview all qualified candidates for those races on real estate issues. Castle Rock is conducting a mail only election this year, with all ballots due in by April 1^st. For more information on the election, click here: http://www.crgov.com/Page.asp?NavID=1095

 

Down Zoning in Denver Still Alive

Applications to down zone property in the West Highlands and Sloan Lake neighborhoods of Denver are still alive after last week passing out of the Blueprint Denver committee and now head to city council. The Denver Board of REALTORS® opposes these applications due to its standing opposition of involuntary down zoning. DBR does not believe that property should be rezoned for a lesser use against the wishes of the property owner. This proposal was defeated a few weeks back at the Planning Board level by a vote of 8-1, but has been resurrected and strengthened by the Blueprint Denver Committee. More details about the proposal can be found here: http://www.denvergov.org/Portals/78/documents/West_Highland-Sloans_Lake_Evaluation.pdf

 

JCAR Seeks Regional Support of C470 Plan

The Jefferson County Association of REALTORS (JCAR) is meeting with the other associations in the metro area (as well as other non-REALTOR® groups) to seek area support with moving forward on a plan to close the C470 loop around the entire metro area. Transportation is key to the area economy, and its effective planning and implementation is an important element to the REALTOR® principle of Smart Growth.

 

Specifically, JCAR is encouraging these entities to adopt a proclamation supporting the beltway and the inclusion of W470 on the DRCOG fiscally constrained transportation plan. The inclusion of the project on the plan does not address taxation or funding sources, but allows for the release of federally protected lands for future right of way/construction considerations to a transportation authority. For more information on the proposal, contact Susan Aldretti at JCAR saldretti@jcar.com