Average monthly rents saw yet additional increases in the new year, with a 15.2% jump over January of 2021, according to the real estate brokerage service Redfin. The company is reporting that the national rent average now stands at $1,891 a month, the latest in an ongoing trend that has been underway for the last two years, despite the pandemic economy. Redfin’s January numbers come on the heels of its December report, which pegged the average at $1,877, up 14.1% over December of 2020. According to the Seattle-based company, rents have seen their greatest increases on both the East and West costs, with Portland recording a 39% gain over January of last year, followed by cities in New York, New Jersey, and Florida, all with gains of anywhere from 31% to 33%. Only two cities in the West, according to Redfin’s figures, were listed in the top fifty for increased rents: Denver, with an average rent now of $2,667, a 24% gain over last year at this time; and Phoenix, with an average early 2022 rent of $2,158, up by 26.5% over January of last year. Such increases, notes the Washington Examiner, are coming at a bad time as the “country grapples with inflated prices across most sectors of the economy.” In a statement, Daryl Fairweather, chief economist with Redfin, remarked, “One of the only ways to avoid high housing costs is to move somewhere cheaper, but the list of places that are truly inexpensive is shrinking.” Despite the generally rising rent trend line, some cities continue to remain below the $1,891 average. According to the site Rent Café, the average current rent in Albuquerque is $1,161; with El Paso at $917; and Tucson at $1,150. By Garry Boulard
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A one-story historic brick building in the town of Dolores, Colorado that once housed a grocery store and meat market may soon see a significant upgrade. Located at 315 Central Avenue, the former Exon Mercantile Building was built around 1907 and has been on the town historic register list since 1998. Now the owners of the Kokopelli Bike and Board bike shop, which operates out of one half of the structure, are working with town officials to restore the building. To that end, building owners Scott Darling and Pete Eschlier are applying for a grant of up to $50,000 to underwrite the effort. If approved, the grant will be come through Colorado’s State Historical Fund. Originally called the Exon and Rush Meat Market and Mercantile building, the structure some fifty years later served as the home for the offices of the Dolores Star newspaper. The building, named in honor of early Colorado settler and businessman William Exon, is notable for its decorative corbels extending across the front exterior, and side walls that slightly decline towards the rear of the property. By Garry Boulard Up to 200 miles of broadband infrastructure could soon see construction in western Arizona. Governor Doug Ducey has announced that the state plans to spend around $68.1 million to build broadband connectivity between the city of Flagstaff and the California border. “This critical infrastructure will give more homes fast internet, improve public safety, increase access to education and help more Arizonans get the care they need through telemedicine,” Ducey remarked in a statement. As planned, the infrastructure will be built along Interstate 40, which runs east to west in north Arizona. By design, the infrastructure will provide connectivity to Coconino, Mohave, and Yavapai counties, as well as what are described as the underserved and rural communities of Bellemont, Ash Fork, Seligman, and Kingman. According to a document released earlier this month by the Arizona Commerce Authority called Arizona Broadband Statewide Middle-Mile Strategic Plan, many rural and tribal communities in the state have been “left behind in the digital age.” The document adds that to date some 800,000 households in Arizona are “without access to a wired connection capable of 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload,” while at least 862,000 households have access to only a single internet service provider. The document also noted that up to 91% of households currently identified as being unserved or underserved in Arizona are located within a five-mile radius of a highway, providing optimal conditions for the building of new broadband infrastructure. As planned, the new project will be a continuance of work that is already underway building new broadband infrastructure in Arizona along Interstate 17 and Interstate 19 running in a north to south direction down the middle of the state. By Garry Boulard During declining covid rates nationally, more and more companies say they anticipate expanding their existing office space in the near future. A new survey released by the Atlanta-based corporate real estate services company CoreNet Global, also reveals that for now a sizable 57% of corporate real estate professionals said they were using roughly the same amount of office space as they had during the spring of 2020, after the pandemic outbreak. Undoubtedly reflecting the specter of more and more office employees working from home, the survey also shows that nearly 70% of respondents said they were using less office space than before the outbreak of the pandemic. How much less space is being used varied, with 45% of respondents indicating that they are using up to 10% less space; while a combined 24% said their use of office space had been reduced by anywhere from 10% to 30%. In the category of planning to use more space, a sizable 28% said they thought their offices in the next one to five years were likely to increase or use up to 20% more space; while a smaller 13% anticipated office space expansion of up to 30%. In a related finding, the survey, according to a CoreNet Global press release, also indicated that “many corporate real estate managers expect their portfolios to grow over the next five years.” In that category, 41% of respondents said they expected to increase the amount of office space they are using currently. By Garry Boulard Building in Craig, Colorado with Long-Established Popular Bar and Restaurant is Up for Sale2/22/2022 A 100-year-old building that for the last half century has housed one of the most popular taverns in northwestern Colorado is being listed for sale for around $572,000. The two-story structure at 420 Yampa Avenue comprises 12,500 square feet on a less than one-acre site in downtown Craig, across the street from the Craig Rural Fire Protection District station. In 1950 the Mathers Bar was established at the site, becoming a regional institution that also includes a steakhouse. The combined bar and restaurant have also become also known through the year for offering free Thanksgiving dinners. Renovated in 2019, the building includes a patio, 6,000 square-foot basement, and parking space for up to 50 vehicles. Listed for sale with the Craig-based Cornerstone Realty, the structure is classified as a Class C building. By Garry Boulard A long-planned flood mitigation project in Boulder will be delayed pending the outcome of a vote scheduled for this coming November. Members of the Boulder City Council have given their unanimous approval to putting on the ballot a referendum that would cancel out an earlier city approved annexation agreement. That agreement was designed to pave the way for work to begin on the project at a nearly 310-acre site that is owned by the University of Colorado at Boulder. Opponents of the project have said that they are concerned about its environmental impact, and that the planning process for it has been incomplete and hastily undertaken. The proposed $47 million South Boulder Creek flood mitigation project would entail the construction of a dam, flood wall, detention area, and earthen embankment. As envisioned, the project will protect Boulder from flood waters rising out of the South Boulder Creek drainageway. Sources have indicated that at least 3,500 residents and some 600 structures are located within the floodplain of the creek. By Garry Boulard Commercial lending appears to have fully recovered from its 2020 decline, with loan closings up a very significant 42% over where they were before the Covid 19 outbreak, according to a new report. The Lending Momentum Index compiled by the Coldwell Banker Richard Ellis Group also shows commercial loan closings up by 10.3% in the final quarter of last year over the summer of 2021. The increase in lending, said Brian Stoffers in a statement, reflects the “continued expansion of high levels of liquidity in the commercial mortgage market.” The global president of debt and structured finance for capital markets at CBRE, Stoffers added that “credit spreads on permanent loans remained tight, while underwriting standards were generally unchanged from the previous quarter.” The report additionally notes that debt funds and mortgage real estate investment trusts “had the largest share of non-agency loan closings” in the final quarter of last year at 37.7%, down slightly from the previous quarter. Banks, meanwhile, came in as the second most active lending group in late 2021 at 29%, significantly up from 23.1% in the third quarter of the year. With headquarters in Dallas, CRBE is the largest commercial real estate services company in the world. By Garry Boulard The Ascarate Park in El Paso could see an extensive upgrade of its facilities at a cost of anywhere between $20 million and $35 million, according to a master plan currently being reviewed by county officials. Altogether, members of the El Paso County Commission may soon be giving the green light to up to several dozen park upgrade projects with a potential cumulative total of up to $100 million. Located at 6900 Delta Drive, roughly six miles to the east of downtown El Paso, the Ascarate Park is the largest of its kind in El Paso at 400 acres and includes an aquatic center, 48-acre lake, playgrounds, and 18-hole golf course. According to a document released last fall called El Paso County Parks and Recreation Master Plan, the Ascarate Park, far and away the most used park in the county, needs a loop road around the park to facilitate traffic, upgrades to lake infrastructure, and a walking trail. Similar upgrades with a price tag of up to $20 million have been proposed for the county’s Gallegos Park, located at 7361 Bosque Road in the town of Canutillo; and the San Felipe Park, at an anticipated cost of $4 million to $5 million, to the east of the town of Fabens. Additional proposals are looking at general upgrades to smaller county parks, at an estimated cost of anywhere from $4 million to $8 million, and improvements to the El Paso Sportspark, located at 1780 N. Zaragoza Road, which, according to the master plan report, lacks turf for passive park activities and shade facilities for its open play lawn. The park master plan, according to officials, is designed to provide a roadmap for how to preserve and improve the county’s parks, which encompass more than 8,000 acres, over the next 5 to 10 years. By Garry Boulard What is expected to be a long and arduous process that could take up to a decade to complete is now underway in Boulder County, Colorado. More than 1,100 structures were destroyed at a cost of at least $513 million as the result of two grass fires that broke out in the towns of Louisville and Superior between December 30 and January 1. In the month and a half since that disaster, contractors, and insurance adjusters, among others, have been appraising the damage, while an array of local, state, and federal agencies have provided relief to the more than 35,000 people impacted by the fire. “We are committed to working with Boulder County,” Colorado Governor Jared Polis has remarked in an exclusive interview. “We want to make sure that the state can help with that and have had conversations with legislators about funding.” An $80 million bill just approved by Colorado lawmakers funding schools and the state’s healthcare system also includes $5 million to the fire’s victims, while also paying for new firefighter equipment. Meanwhile, according to published reports, homeowners are looking at the potentially staggering costs of rebuilding, with some estimates suggesting that prices may be double or triple the pre-fire market value of the homes. The Home Builders Association of Denver has set up a Marshall Fire Rebuilding Task Force, providing information on state aid, insurance, and the importance of vetting contractors. In an interview with the Denver Gazette, Steve Erickson, head of the task force, urged residents to “ask the potential contractor for references, licensing, proof of liability insurance, and workman’s compensation, as well as Better Business Bureau records.” By Garry Boulard New housing starts were down by 4.1% during the first month of this year largely due to ongoing supply chain issues, according to a new report just issued by the National Association of Home Builders. The multifamily sector, at the same time, which includes apartment buildings and condominiums, saw a decline of 0.8%. In a statement, Jerry Konter, NAHB chairman, remarked that “chronic production bottlenecks, including ongoing price increases for lumber and oriented strand board, continues to raise housing costs and harm housing affordability.” The January numbers follow a November report issued by the NAHB showing a decrease of 0.7% in housing starts, also due largely to supply chain problems. Another industry report, meanwhile, is predicting that a lessening of global supply chain problems is not expected to be seen until at least the end of this year. Providing an overview of ongoing capacity shortages, higher freight rates, and port facility overloads, the publication Logistics Management notes that supply chain analysts are in general agreement that “pressure on the ocean freight market” will continue through the year, while “freight rates are unlikely to fall back to pre-Covid levels.” The report additionally notes that the nation’s airports have also been impacted by supply chain challenges, challenges made even more difficult by processing backlogs, insufficient storage space, and labor shortages. In its monthly Global Port Tracker, the National Retail Federation is noting that congestion remains an issue at ports on both coasts, and “as more ships arrive each day and delays mean some cargo won’t get unloaded until the following month, shifts in import patterns could be difficult to follow for the next few months.” Jonathan Gold, vice president for supply chain and customs policy with the Federation, remarked in a statement: “We’re not going to see the dramatic growth in imports we saw this time last year, but the fact that volumes aren’t falling is a clear sign of continued consumer demand.” Gold added that a slowdown in cargo growth would actually be welcomed by many retailers as the supply chain “continues to adapt to these elevated volumes.” By Garry Boulard |
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