There was one state that stood out among the rest back in the early 2000’s regarding a plummeting real estate market - Colorado. You’d think that a vacation hot-spot and booming metropolis like Colorado would be safe from the foreclosure boom, or at least in the same boat as the rest of the nation currently being faced with the reality that we’re in one of the worst real estate markets in history. Colorado, however, is what’s commonly referred to as a ‘counter-cyclical’ market. In other words, the economy of NY and Wall Street tend to represent the rest of the nation in general, whereas Colorado tends to be at it’s peak when NY and WS are down and vice-versa.
Why is this information important? Because Colorado’s economy will help the rest of the nation predict where the future lies. Since nearly 2002 Colorado has steadily increased in number of foreclosures and is still on the rise. The only reason Colorado dropped on the “Top Foreclosure State” list is because other areas like parts of California, Detroit, and Cleveland shot so high up on the charts that they surpassed Colorado. Here are some interesting statistics that not only reflect Colorado’s most recent foreclosure boom, but also the foreclosure boom they felt in the 80’s from the oil bust. It is evident that the same things we’re seeing now happened in the 80’s as well. If you want to know your future don’t go to a crystal ball, just look at these statistics:
In 1988 there were 17,122 foreclosures in Colorado (the height of it’s foreclosure boom from the oil bust that occurred years earlier). In 2004, 23,567 foreclosures cases were opened by the Public Trustee’s office. In 2006, 54,747 foreclosures were filed in the state of Colorado by the Public Trustee! These numbers are staggering even when you consider that a fraction of these foreclosures redeemed their bleak situation.
Let’s now take a look at the population of real estate sales agents & brokers during these time periods:
According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), here is the “Historic Membership Count” of Colorado:
1984 (just after the oil bust): 15,252
1987 (starting to feel the aftershocks of the oil bust): 14,482
1988: 13,622
1989: 11,686 (pinnacle of the aftershocks of the oil bust & peak of foreclosures)
What’s evident here is that real estate sales agents & brokers tend to “jump ship” when the market turns to a foreclosure-heavy arena. Why is that? Most likely due to the unique skill-set required to operate a successful and accurate foreclosure-based real estate firm. The same thing is happening in Colorado’s current market as you can see:
2000 (peaking tech boom): 19,618 agents statewide in CO.
2003: 23,295
2006: 27,640
And now the numbers in 2007 are dropping (full statistics not reported at the time of this blog) which will not be seen until 2008-2009 when their license on file expires from inactivity.
What all this comes down to is that there is a wealth of business to be had in this real estate market, the only caveat is the knowledge of foreclosure real estate (otherwise known as REO). The National Foreclosure Sales Training Institute provides all of this knowledge and MORE to real estate professionals around the nation. Get going on the REO Training material and start making more money that ever before as a real estate agent or broker. Become the six-figure agent that you always dreamed of while maintaining the same or less hours than ever before! Become an REO agent now and reap the rewards for years. Foreclosure is among us and isn’t going away for a very long time.
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