Last week, I broke down the various price ranges in real estate and what we might expect for the coming year. I mentioned that the 400-800K price range might be the toughest price range to sell for a variety of reasons.

Ok, it’s that time of year again to rub my crystal ball and foretell the coming year in real estate. I should disclose that I am not a professional crystal ball reader so take this interpretation for what it’s worth (totally free, unscientific guess).

The Ratchet Effect is one of the few economic theories that has any relation to reality. As President Harry Truman succinctly observed, if you laid every economist end to end, they would point in every direction, and only be able to explain things after they have happened.

Freddie Mac reported last week that the average on the 30-year fixed mortgage rose sharply from 3.94% to 4.12%, which according to the National Bureau of Economic Research was the lowest rate ever.

What is absorption rate pricing? Here is a quick definition: Absorption rate pricing answers the question, “How many months will it take to sell all the homes in my area at the current rate?”

VA funding fees will be going down for purchase transactions closed on or after October 1, 2011. First time users, either Veteran or Reservist/National Guard, will see the funding fee reduced by 0.75% across the board.

As a real estate agent, I must get that question three times a week. And why wouldn’t I? After all, people are buying homes and chances are they’ll need repair work or construction.

Every spring right around March, I start hearing all the alarms, all the warning bells, and all the Doom Sayers crying, “The Foreclosures Are Coming, The Foreclosures Are Coming!!!”

Has it become easier to get a mortgage in the last three years? Not from what I am seeing. Whether it is a conventional, FHA, or VA mortgage, in most instances, it is harder to obtain a mortgage than it was just three years ago.

I was reading a story in the May 24th business section of the Denver Post by Howard Pankratz entitled, “Colo. Population Grew in 2009-10.” In it, he explained how Colorado had a net gain of 56,310 residents in a year’s period, according to the latest statistics by the Census Bureau.