DENVER | Main Development Thread #7

[laniroj]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

• Video Link

Thanks for sharing, great nostalgic video. I was one of the poor (nay, dumb) bastards stranded on I-25 in transit from C Springs back to Denver when everything shut down. Sheltered in Monument where it seemed like 10 feet of snow. What a day, what a storm!

[laniroj]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

Louisville's loss was Lafayette's gain. laniroj was (of course) totally right about Louisville's stupidity in losing a gem of moderate mixed-use density.

AND the Medtronic development could have been psuedo TOD with close access to HWY 36. Instead it's up north in the boonies at a vehicle dependent location. I just hope Lafayette continues to provide a mix of low and high density housing for all these jobs - they've done a pretty good job of allowing moderately dense and even some fairly high density housing. The thought in Colorado that we can bring all these great jobs to our State but not produce corresponding housing units for them is asinine. We spend how many tens of millions (hundreds?) in job incentives every year to attract new companies with new jobs? Meanwhile the State offers a $10 million annual housing credit in totality and maybe $20-$30 million through trickle down state funding - comical.

[DenvertoLA]

during the 2003 blizzard I had just gone back to school from being off track (back when DCS had a year round system) and then they closed school for a week!

What a great time

[TakeFive]

A little housing humor for your pre-storm prep

Does anyone recall any of my statistics rants?

Denver Home Prices Overvalued, Report Says
JULY 9, 2020 By Michael Roberts - Westword

But a new report contends that metro home prices are seriously overvalued and predicts that they'll decline nearly 10 percent by the spring of 2021.

That's among the takeaways in the latest analysis from California-based CoreLogic. While the study's authors acknowledge that Denver home prices are still on the rise overall, they expect that to reverse in a big way over the coming months.

Soaring home prices are starting to alarm policymakers
03/08/2021 By Katy O'Donnell - Politico

The last time the U.S. saw such skyrocketing home prices, the ensuing crash brought down the global economy.

Meanwhile, a glut of millennials — the largest generational cohort in the country consisting of those born from the early 1980s to the mid-1990s — is reaching the prime age for buying first homes, and regional data suggests the pandemic spurred plenty of them to pick up stakes and head for the suburbs.

It's interesting how easily 'numbers jockeys' can be misled; how easily it is to use statistics to mislead - whether intentionally or not. It's obvious too many people that have become statistics obsessed have never taken 'my course' on "How to read the Tea Leaves" or my assertion that "Context is Everything."

Thank You for Your Service

Originally Posted by wong21fr

Missed it. Flew out to North Dakota on the 15th to train up to deploy to Iraq for a bit of that event. They had just dug out of the epic blizzard they had a week or so prior and the snow was still 3 or 4 feet high but everything was open. Flew back at the end of March and the snow was mostly gone by then.

Then the deployment was delayed for a year so missed out on the initial invasion portion of the war as well, though I did get there as the insurgency exploded.

2000’s. Good times all around.

This is the first time I became aware of your having this experience in your background.

[Robert.hampton]

Originally Posted by Ich

He was referencing an earlier post by another user who called them some sketchy millennial bro investor lol

The plan is for a bunch of 4 bed/4bath, 900 square foot and 5 bed/5bath, 1,100 square foot apartments according to BusinessDen. I am utterly intrigued. Must be some hostel/dorm style living thing.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by Robert.hampton

The plan is for a bunch of 4 bedroom, 900 square foot and 5 bedroom, 1,100 square foot apartments according to BusinessDen. I am utterly intrigued.

A touch of London for Denver? What's not to like? I thought that, at the least, it might be good to know London better?

A Renter’s Life in London: The Inside Scoop
By Claire Bock - Apartment Therapy

Here is an American ex-pat’s perspective on London neighborhoods.

Islington

• Lots of Georgian style houses and smaller apartment buildings. There is a mix of families and young professionals.

Shoreditch

• Types of Rentals: Lofts and new build flats filled with hipsters, artists, and city bankers.
• Known For: Nightlife and street art all built around several streets making up the famous Shoreditch triangle.

Borough and Southwark

• Types of Rentals: New builds and lofts mixed with homes built post WWII.
• Known For: A haven for foodies with Borough Market and Maltby Street Market

Image credit: Chris Seddon via Apartment Therapy


Image credit: Pablo via Apartment Therapy


Image credit: Nick Hawkes via Apartment Therapy

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by Robert.hampton

5 bed/5bath, 1,100 square foot

Is that a typo? 200 sf per bedroom/bathroom is a small hotel room, with what, a 100 sf shared kitchen. Would love to see that floor plan.

[EngiNerd]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

[SIZE="3"]

Soaring home prices are starting to alarm policymakers
03/08/2021 By Katy O'Donnell - Politico
.

This shouldn't be news to anyone, its been the same old story since 2015/16.

[twister244]

Originally Posted by EngiNerd

This shouldn't be news to anyone, its been the same old story since 2015/16.

I think you're going to see prices level off a bit this upcoming year (one would hope) given the rising mortgage rates and bond yields. We need it..... Denver can't sustain this rise in prices.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by EngiNerd

This shouldn't be news to anyone, its been the same old story since 2015/16.

Yes, basically that's true.

But there is little to no corollary between now and 2005/2006. That was a unique period of 'fake' demand driven by a fraudulent tsunami of NINJA loans supported by a derivative based greedy Wall Street which resulted in excessive supply.

Today, the demand is real and the supply has been constrained.

Originally Posted by twister244

I think you're going to see prices level off a bit this upcoming year (one would hope) given the rising mortgage rates and bond yields. We need it..... Denver can't sustain this rise in prices.

I hope you're right - that we get by with an 'adjustment.'

I'm getting nervous that we may be closer to a 'tipping' point. When the bond markets get jittery then so do I.

I suspect the Dems may get smacked from a couple of directions that will surprise and leave them babbling. I wouldn't be shocked if in 2022 the country takes an even harder turn towards the Right (not a good thing).

[laniroj]

Originally Posted by twister244

I think you're going to see prices level off a bit this upcoming year (one would hope) given the rising mortgage rates and bond yields. We need it..... Denver can't sustain this rise in prices.

Generational housing shortage of all types. I'll say it til I'm blue in the face. We produce roughly half as much housing units as a percentage of overall population as we did 50 years ago - HALF AS MUCH - at a cost that is (depending on your market across the country) between 4x and 8x more expensive as a multiple of median income than when Boomers or the Silent Generation bought their first homes (skilled trades shortage, zoning restrictions, and reduced sprawl all feed into this).

Until the statistics (which are not manipulated even though TakeFive thinks they are) meaningfully change, housing prices will not drastically move downward. This is a generational issue and until significantly more housing is built, we are le screwed. We are double le screwed because skilled trades quite literally won't have the capacity to produce significantly more housing for another generation. Tell your kids college isn't necessary and that will help solve the problem, no joke.

[wong21fr]

Originally Posted by Robert.hampton

The plan is for a bunch of 4 bed/4bath, 900 square foot and 5 bed/5bath, 1,100 square foot apartments according to BusinessDen. I am utterly intrigued. Must be some hostel/dorm style living thing.

That is a big ass hostel. Call me intrigued as well on what a unit floor plan would look like.

[TakeFive]

Allow me to present the most notorious, historical example.

Originally Posted by laniroj

Until the statistics (which are not manipulated even though TakeFive thinks they are)

2004 - 2006 were the good ole Go Go Days. At the time Loan Officers had an interesting tool in their toolbox. It's called a "stethoscope." First thing they did was check to make sure people had a heartbeat; then they checked their pulse. If they could pass this test then they too 'qualified' to buy a house. Eh, don't worry about the numbers; we'll see to it they look just fine.

They were affectionately called NINJA loans. What could possibly go wrong with a "No Income verification; No Asset verification" loans? What's so bad with a 'few liar loans' being put in the mix?

What about the banks; the mortgage bankers?
Eh, Bankers love a good party as much as anyone. Besides, within 90 days they would sell their loans to Wall Street.

What about Wall Street?
You mean the Greedy Crowd? Wall Street took all these loans; they shaked (sic) them and they baked them until they looked so good they got high Credit Ratings from the Credit Ratings agencies.

What about the Credit Ratings Agencies?
This highly regarded and conservative group (when you boil it down) are a bunch of numbers crunchers. Plus most of the loans were guaranteed by the government.

What about the Government's role?
The quasi government agencies tasked with guarantying loans relied on a system that had worked for a long, long time. Plus the numbers were all there.

Back to Wall Street
Blessed with high ratings and government guarantees these loans were packaged into what was called Mortgage-Backed Securities and sold all over the world.

Can't leave out the tech-bros
What made all this dance so nicely like a good country waltz were the computer programs designed to analyze tons of data and to timely (cough, cough) track the "performance" of loans. Everything was going marvelously. Thanks to an ever accelerating market the few who fell behind were able to easily sell out from under if need be to the next sucker. Dime-store investors not only flipped houses, in many case they merely flipped their contracts to buy.

Why couldn't anybody figure this bubbling mess out?
Because we were in the midst of a growing bubble and until it popped what was not to like? Seems a bit quaint now but it used to be referred to as GIGO or garbage in - garbage out. But didn't anybody look under the covers to see what was there? Nope; too much money being made to care plus - see above.

I was blessed
I had the good fortune of stumbling upon a blog called Calculated Risk where an industry veteran (and his sidekick) explained how the housing market was a growing mountain of poop.

Do you also believe that nobody ever cooks the books; nobody ever embezzles money; no Nigerians ever try to scam people?

[laniroj]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

Do you also believe that nobody ever cooks the books; nobody ever embezzles money; no Nigerians ever try to scam people?

My favorite was the stated income loan - sign here! It's not the nigerians you have to watch out for, it's the Prince of Ghana who will take your money!

All joking aside, IMO as a recovering economist turned to the dark side of 'pillaging and profiteering', our entire country could build every single unit planned or hoped for by every developer everywhere and we'd still have a massive housing shortage. Unless the boomers die and give their homes to their kids free and clear, there are whole segments of current and future American generations who won't be able to EVER afford home ownership of any kind. That's not ok and that's not leaving a place better than you found it.

This type of housing issue is reminiscent of much of western Europe where they have a stagnated housing economy. If you have yours already that's great, but you're effed if you don't and you can't ever break in. Kind of like San Francisco as an example closer to home where real estate stays in families for generations with multiple generations living together because they can't afford any new housing. Millionaires on paper who can barely pay their property taxes.

Bring on those 4 bedroom developments - a place for families, finally!

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by laniroj

All joking aside, IMO as a recovering economist turned to the dark side of 'pillaging and profiteering', our entire country could build every single unit planned or hoped for by every developer everywhere and we'd still have a massive housing shortage. Unless the boomers die and give their homes to their kids free and clear, there are whole segments of current and future American generations who won't be able to EVER afford home ownership of any kind. That's not ok and that's not leaving a place better than you found it.

I suspected we weren't talking about the same thing. With respect to your points I guessed you were referring to 'industry' or 'trade group' data like perhaps the NAHB?

So I ran a couple of searches and found This Piece; You can tell me if that's spot on or close enough. You're welcome to provide other sources if you wish.

[laniroj]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

I suspected we weren't talking about the same thing. With respect to your points I guessed you were referring to 'industry' or 'trade group' data like perhaps the NAHB?

So I ran a couple of searches and found This Piece; You can tell me if that's spot on or close enough. You're welcome to provide other sources if you wish.

My math is based purely on the best available statistical information, in this case the US Census. The data has gaps but is very good at capturing macro trends. Homebuilders and REITs and the big money behind the housing industry run quantum projections on all sorts of things - it's why they're all plowing money into housing and won't stop anytime soon. Too bad construction trades can't keep up with the capital flow.

https://www.census.gov/construction/bps/statemonthly.html

[SirLucasTheGreat]

Anybody know the status of World Trade Center, Gates District, the Amacon towers, or Kenect Denver? Are any of them actually happening?

[rds70]

Originally Posted by SirLucasTheGreat

Anybody know the status of World Trade Center, Gates District, the Amacon towers, or Kenect Denver? Are any of them actually happening?

The only one I can tell is moving forward is the Amacon project. The building permit is still under review with the latest resubmission on March 11th.

Nothing has happened on the Kenect project since late 2019.

WTC has had some submittals as recently as January on their permit.

[rds70]

It looks like Denargo Market Phase 4 is about to start construction. The building permit has received all of the necessary approvals.

16 stories, 336 units, 4,000 square feet of retail. Basically located on the west side of Broadway just north of the A Line tracks.

This is the only drawing I can find of it (from the building permit package):

[laniroj]

Originally Posted by SirLucasTheGreat

Anybody know the status of World Trade Center, Gates District, the Amacon towers, or Kenect Denver? Are any of them actually happening?

Some kind of meaningful dirt work is happening at Gates on the west side of the railroad tracks east of Santa Fee. Not sure if it's for vertical development or not, hard to tell...