Posted: 03/14/2011 11:40:10 AM MDT

Updated: 03/14/2011 02:28:09 PM MDT

Denver and Colorado Springs are among the
nation’s metro areas that are recovering the
fastest from the economic recession, according
to a report released today.

Denver was among six metro areas to beat the
national rate of job creation during the fourth
quarter, growing 0.8 percent, according to the
Mountain Monitor, a report by The Brookings
Institution.

No Mountain West metro area has fully recouped
jobs lost to the recession, but Ogden, Utah; D
enver; Colorado Springs; and Albuquerque, N.
M., are closer to doing so than the top 100 metro
areas as a group.

Sluggish housing markets continued to slow the
region’s recovery. In Denver, the healthiest major

market in the Intermountain West, prices dipped
in the fourth quarter, after turning around briefly
in the third quarter.

The Brookings report follows new data that last
week said the Colorado’s economic downturn
was more severe and any recovery much weaker
than first thought.

Colorado’s unemployment rate hit 9.1 percent in
January, moving ahead of the U.S. rate for the
first time since the 2008 recession, the Colorado
Department of Labor and Employment.

The discrepency in numbers is likely because
Brookings follows metropolitan areas, rather
than using statewide figures, said Jonathan
Rothwell, senior research analyst at Brookings.
Another possibility is that Brookings report used
December figures, rather than January, Rothwell
said.

The U.S. unemployment rate has fallen from 9.7
percent in January 2010 to 9 percent this January,
while Colorado’s revised unemployment rate rose
from 8.9 percent to 9.1 percent over the same
period.

Read more: 2010 mixed for Denver metro-area homes – The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_17060952#ixzz1AqTrtmiG
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The Denver-area home rental market, which fell to a 2.9 percent vacancy rate, lowest third-quarter rate on record, appears poised to see vacancies go even lower and rents increase.

Experts today said that while housing rents have not kept pace with the dropping vacancy rates, they expect that will change next year. Also, they think that vacancy rate could fall even lower.

“I think vacancy rates could fall another percentage point,” said Gordon Von Stroh, a University of Denver business professor, and the author of the report for the Colorado Division of Housing. (For an earlier blog on the report please visit Rental home market hits low.) He also said that he expects to see the cost of renting a house, condo, town home or other small home to rise.

Lose a home, rent a home

Demand for rental homes continues to come from people who have lost their homes to foreclosures or in short sales, in which the lender agrees to take less for the home than the amount of the mortgage. “What we have found is that people with a family who lose their homes want to stay in a home, and will turn to a rental single-family home,” especially if that means their children can stay in the same school, he said. “I think that is a significant number of the renters, but not an overwhelming number.”

In addition, a number of renters who have out-grown their apartments – perhaps because they have had a second child – are now renting a house, instead of buying one, as they would have done four or five years ago.

“While home ownership is an ideal, some people are just not ready for it,” Von Stroh said. “A fact of life is that there is a group of people out there who realize at the present time that they should not be buying. They have gotten the wake-up call.”

Boulder rentals rock

The Boulder/Broomfield area had the lowest vacancy rate at 1.4 percent. It also showed the biggest percentage drop from a year ago, when it stood at 5.7 percent. Overall, the Boulder/Broomfield’s year-over-year percentage drop of 75 percent, was more than twice the Denver area’s drop of about 36 percent.

Lane Hornung, co-founder and president of 8z Real Estate, (a sponsor of InsideRealEstateNews.com), said part of that might because of the Boulder fires earlier this year that displaced homeowners.

“In the Broomfield area, that is less of a factor,” Hornung said. “A lot of people are relocating to the area, and they are not buying. ” He said people taking high-tech, high-paying jobs, typically are renting homes near the U.S. 36 corridor.”

He said he finds it hard to believe that overall rents are going down. Indeed, while the monthly average rent is down from the third quarter of 2009, the overall median rent rose to $995 from $975.

“The trend is, anecdotally, that rents are going up. And with vacancy rates these low, rents are sure to rise,” Hornung said. He said he has heard that some landlords are willing to cut deals in order to retain or land financially strong tenants. Also, he said that macro-trends support rising rates. “Some people think the homeownership rate is going to fall from about 68 percent to 63 percent, which will mean more renters. And there are some people out there who are still waiting to buy homes until they are absolutely sure the market is at the bottom – of course, when they reach it, it will be too late,” to get the combination of low home prices and near historic low financing available in today’s market.

“You could look at the days on the market as starting on Nov. 1, but actually, it was only vacant for seven days,” Alldredge said. “There was only a loss of income for seven days.”

Read more: Rental home market surging – The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/realestate/ci_16848384#ixzz187aUMt7D
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Three businesses and five people have been sued by Colorado Attorney General John Suthers for allegedly defrauding homeowners through deceptive foreclosure rescue schemes.

The civil lawsuits allege that consumers facing foreclosure were approached by the defendants with a proposal to save their homes.

The defendants allegedly promised to use the equity in the homes to halt the foreclosures and, in some cases, to make improvements to the property, Suthers said.

Homeowners were allegedly instructed to transfer their property titles to investors arranged by the defendants, who would then lease the properties back to the original homeowner with an option to repurchase their homes.

Suthers alleged that many of the homeowners were subsequently evicted and that none were ever able to exercise their repurchase option.

The lawsuits allege all of the equity in the homes were lost to the defendants. The loss of equity ranged from approximately $40,000 to $140,000, according to the lawsuits.

Named in one lawsuit is Jason L. Lynn, 33, and Lynn’s company, Superior Financial Group. A second lawsuit names Patrick C. Brunner, 31, and Brunner’s company, Platinum Financial Group, Jerry Ohu, 36, and Ohu’s company, Fortune Financial Group, Gregory D. Hoffman, 41, and William J. Schultz, 46.

In the lawsuit naming Brunner, Hoffman, Schultz and Ohu, it is alleged that they targeted and preyed on financially unsophisticated and vulnerable homeowners by convincing them that the best way to save their homes from a foreclosure sale was to sell it to an investor from whom the homeowner would then lease the property back for two years with an option to repurchase.

The suit says that the defendants misled and deceived the homeowners, failing to disclose to them that they were assigning all the proceeds from the sale of the home to the defendants.

“No homeowner was able to repurchase a property. Instead nearly all the homeowners lost their homes starting in or around November 2007,” said the lawsuit. “The unlawful scheme devastated distressed Colorado homeowners in foreclosure who believed that they were saving their home from foreclosure by working with (the) defendants, not relinquishing all their equity,” the lawsuit alleged.

Brunner lives in Fort Collins; Ohu lives in Colorado Springs, Hoffman lives in Westminster.

Lynn, who was named in the first lawsuit, lives in Marion, Ohio. His Superior Financial Group was based in Superior. The suit against Lynn claims that from June 2006 through 2007, Lynn obtained from Colorado homeowners equity in excess of $1 million through his foreclosure rescue scheme.

The defendants are accused of multiple counts of violation of the Colorado Foreclosure Protection Act.

Suthers is seeking a court ruling that the defendants violated the Colorado Consumer Protection Act and is asking for restitution as well as a requirement that the defendants return all proceeds derived from the allegedly unlawful conduct

Read more: Colorado AG files suit against alleged deceptive foreclosure rescue schemes – The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_16806891#ixzz17XtnEynF
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