Santa Fe Downtown » Santa Fe Downtown

Past as Presence: Joanne Lefrak at Box Gallery

Malissa Kullberg — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 22:53:48 +0000

Joanne Lefrak is lovely and charming, with a warmth and gentle spontaneity that disarms.

Given the potent mystique of the brooding artist, you might think niceness would be an occupational detriment, or at the least, irrelevant. But if you’re in the business of brokering relationships and gathering stories, it helps to be the sort of person who invites engagement the way a puppy invites touch.

Surely that effulgent loveliness serves her work at SITE Santa Fe, where she works as education and catalogue manager and runs the Young Curator’s Program. It also enabled her to entice ghost town raconteurs to unfurl the old family stories she pairs with the delicate drawings in her show, Past as Presence, currently on display at Box Gallery.

Like any good works of art, Lefrak’s pieces unveil in layers. The fact that she scratched her drawings onto plexiglass is an immediately appreciable neat trick, especially for anyone who has ever tried NOT to scratch plexi and knows just how touchy a medium it is. And it’s also quite cool that wall-mounting and front-lighting these scratched plexi panels reveals pallid but precise images in shadow. What follows is what you feel: the haunting resonance of powerful times past–at the Trinity Site, testing ground for atomic bombs, and in the faint, memory-bent remnants of a vigorous family life echoed in a present day ghost town.

Head down to Box Gallery, downtown in the Santa Fe Railyard, and spend a half an hour absorbing these etheric wonders. Slip on a set of headphones, and listen to the words of the ranchers Lefrak befriended. Share the fresh, direct sense of something not there made real and present by the humble, receptivity of this gentle artist.

Exhibition runs August 27 – October 2, 2010 at Box Gallery “[one of] a dozen galleries … that the serious collector and the discerning tourist would not want to miss.” — Mimi Avins, Los Angeles Times, Travel

Box Gallery is located at 1611-A Paseo de Peralta, across from SITE Santa Fe. Open Tuesday – Saturday 10 – 5; Tel: 505.989.4897

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Activate or Deteriorate: Avoiding ‘Spectrum Syndrome’ in Santa Fe

Malissa Kullberg — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 20:59:10 +0000

Activationism Indoors is practiced at the New Central Nightclub in Provincetown, 1948

About six weeks ago, I found myself in a time trough between appointments, looking for shade and coffee in a part of town not known for its cafes. I stumbled upon Spectrum which won me over with its excellent coffee and commitment to community. While doing a final fact check last week prior to giving them a plug in my blog, I called their number. Disconnected. Like some crazed EMT-wannabe doing CPR on a cold corpse, I redialed four times. Finally, I called neighboring Pizzeria Espiritu and learned from the friendly voice on the line that, in fact, the cafe had closed the day before.

I shouldn’t have been shocked. When we spoke to Shalene Dailey, who co-owned Spectrum with her husband Nathan, we detected the ozone of exhaustion, centered on the challenge of finding professionally-minded staff. But what heartened me was to hear Shalene frame this challenge as a big picture service to community. She wanted her employees to learn life skills they could later apply to their own passions and to model the same for her own kids. She wanted the cafe to serve as a locus of community.

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Last week, at the urging of Red Cell, we met with Dan Werwath and Shannon Murphy who were collecting info for the next MIX Santa Fe from locals-in-the-know about Santa Fe nightlife. I’m hardly one to tap on that subject, but Changing Gallery–our endeavor to support emerging and independent artists–has made occasional contributions to the downtown night scene. So we talked about common ambitions and perennial problems. If you haven’t heard, MIX Santa Fe “is a public/private collaboration that [uses] creative micro-stimulus initiatives, job resources and regular networking to [attract] new ideas, business growth and energy to Santa Fe.” That’s the short version. Visit the Mix website for the full bio on this local effort to make Santa Fe a better, more economically-friendly home for the city’s young professionals. MIX even caught the camera-eye of CNN.

Every month, MIX poses a question with a prize for the winner. May’s “Mix Pays Revenge of a Question” was, “What, besides money, do you need to launch an entrepreneurial idea or business?” The responses pointed up both the sandpits and fairways of launching new venture, including a rant about how the city is controlled by a small cabal of status quo players with longstanding ties (here termed a “gerontocracy.”) Positive suggestions included assembling a group of taste makers to vet and bless new ventures, and providing a gathering place for entrepreneurial folk to share ideas.

Member of an old Boston Family... expresses Activationist Joy

Whatever it doesn’t have, Santa Fe has no lack of talent. The challenge is how to interlock that talent to make it go further. I was going to propose that the wished for groups of tastemakers and entrepreneurs make Spectrum their meeting place, and that Spectrum tap the pool of young professionals for ideas and action to create a full scale entrepreneurial “factory,” but Spectrum didn’t make it.

So what HAVE we got? Changing Gallery uses on-market real estate to showcase the work of emerging and independent artists. Sure, I’d love a large warehouse with walls into which Jennifer Joseph could hammer her gorgeous installations, where a day cafe could make way for a nighttime performance space for indie musicians. But what I have are listings and artwork–both of which need to be seen in order to be sold. Through intersecting needs, everyone wins.

Last month’s Mix Pays winner was Rob DeWalt, who suggested “extending the Santa Fe Trails bus service to 3 a.m. on limited routes on the weekends for a 3-month trial period…. “In order for it to work, though, people will have to put their money where their mouth is and actually use this new public transportation option during the trial period.” (italics mine) “We’d like to try to put Rob’s idea in motion but we need your feedback…,” said Mix. “What would it take to get you and your friends to ride it? What routes would be most important? Leave it in the comments or show up at the next MIX event (every third Thursday) to tell us in person.”

As of this writing, there wasn’t a comment in the box. This is what I’m calling “The Spectrum Syndrome”: the passive belief that somebody will give feedback; somebody will set up the program; that if it’s a good idea, it’ll happen. I know I’m guilty of this; Spectrum’s my witness. Are you? Here’s hoping that those whom the talented creatives behind Mix are seeking to serve will offer what they can easily spare–opinions and support for a good idea–lest the fine potential that is Santa Fe Mix become just another case of Spectrum Syndrome.

**Answer August’s $200 MixPays Survey on the issue of public transportation in Santa Fe and earn a ticket toward a free drink and a chance to win $200 if your answer smokes the competition.

This Week on Santa Fe’s Creative Scene–8/13/10

Malissa Kullberg — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 16:57:54 +0000

I’m the luckiest kid, I get to do what I love to do everyday. – Phillip

Phillip’s been counting: Ten days, four days and now one. On Saturday, August 14th, Phillip Vigil will have the Opening at Shiprock Santa Fe that he, and we, have been looking forward to since he was invited to join the gallery last October. We met once emerging artist Phillip in the Spring of ’09, when he reached out to us (and a thousand others) via Facebook. We gave him space in several of the Changing Gallery group shows, (described in the posts Sights and Sounds and See and Be Scene) because we were impressed by his knowledge of art history, his huge curiosity and his hunger to grow. We also got to know his generosity of heart–a generosity in evidence when he suggested I use a piece by Matthew Chase-Daniel as the visual for the blogpost. “Matthew Chase-Daniel is Amazing!” he wrote. And a few minutes later, “Use the profile photo!”

Matthew Chase-Daniel’s photo-assemblage portraits “[draw] on the traditions of photography, painting and cinematography to capture the dynamic activity [of seeing.]“

“I do not photograph only one moment in time, but rather a group of moments, selecting the most essential details of a place.”

In the photo to the left, he effectively captures a fleeting bit of Phillip: the focus, the intensity, the polygamy of culture, color, medium and technique. We know who and what we know in the aggregate of our acquaintance, as a moving point of moments, experiences, pictures. As artists do, Chase-Daniel helps us to see what we fail to notice.

Shiprock Gallery is located on the Plaza, at 53 Old Santa Fe Trail, 2nd floor, in downtown Santa Fe, New Mexico. Tel: 982.8478 The opening for Phillip’s Exhibition will run from 6:00-8:30, Saturday, August 14th.

Malissa Kullberg and Joshua Maes, AKA Changing Gallery, use their real estate listings, where appropriate, to showcase the work of emerging and independent artists. Check out our website at SantaFeRealEstateDowntown.com

Neighborhood Quick Sketch: Santa Fe’s Historic Eastside

Malissa Kullberg — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 00:41:25 +0000

Authentic old adobes on winding dirt roads, mature trees, bountiful gardens and seasonal water from the acequia or Santa Fe River: this is Santa Fe’s Eastside. A mesh of grand estates, modest adobes, condos, and galleries, the Eastside is a comparatively pastoral, tranquil slice of Santa Fe, walking distance from the cultural bounty of the city’s historic heart. The Eastside is Santa Fe’s oft depicted, photogenic ambassador. Many homes are over 100 years old, but whether historic or new, the residences weave together to create an engaging, Old World, feel.

Location and character make homes on the Eastside a perennially popular purchase. The stats below reflect the current state of the market;

Eastside Area Snapshot

Residential Listings (6/30/10)
Active: 124
Pending: 14
Sold: 53*
Average DOM: 201*
Average Listing Price: $712,840*
Average Selling Price: $668,177*
% of List Price: 94%*

*Sold (7/01/09-6/30/10)

Days on Market (DOM)
Eastside Area -- Residential Sold*

Selling Price: % of List Price
Eastside Area -- Residential Sold*

MLS Comparison, Sales Year To Date
Eastside Area -- Residential -- 2009 v. 2010
(1/1/09-6/30/09) -- (1/1/10-6/30/10)

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc1mpYUnbMw

Our listing at 645D East Palace Avenue is emblematic of the area’s offerings. Originally built in late 1800s, this home plus guesthouse was thoroughly renovated with a French Provençal flair. The double adobe main house, fully surrounded by walls and gate, has an inviting brick patio lushly landscaped with flowers, herbs and trees. The interior is comfortably luxurious. The gourmet kitchen has ample room for a 6-8 person dining room table. The cozy living room with wood-burning fireplace is well-lit from a skylight and duet of casement windows. Adjacent to the living room is a bright bonus room, lined with bookshelves, that could be configured as a library, den, office or guest bedroom. The detached 1 bedroom, 1 bath guesthouse charms with its sweet, private patio, dormer window and radiant heat. Both structures have pitched roofs. MLS# 201003505

Controlling Chaos: an Interview with Santa Fe Landscape Designer, Allison Moore

Malissa Kullberg — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 16:27:45 +0000

Landscape Design by Allison Rani Moore

A garden is a do-si-do between Nature and nurture. The gardener works to fall in step with the weather and plants to create a beautiful multi-sensory dance that plays out over the seasons. Add a few more humans, each with his or her own whims and will, and the choreography becomes that much trickier. To harmonize these divergent forces is the job of the landscape architect. Allison Rani Moore calls it “controlling chaos.”

Moore’s grandparents were landscape Architects who met during their college years at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Moore’s grandfather was hired by John D. Rockefeller to be in charge of the gardens at Colonial Williamsburg. But at home, the gardens he and his wife created were wild and unstructured and their road trips with Allison, marked by direct, full sensory experience of the plant life they encountered. “Here, taste this.” Moore grew up enchanted and influenced by both formal and loose styles of plant management.

While obtaining her five year degree from Virgina Tech, Moore spent a semester at The Arboretum at Flagstaff. After graduation, she rounded and anchored her education through professional stints at with Julia Berman‘s Landscape design firm, Eden and Wardwell, with Santa Fe Permaculture and through running her own company: In the Garden. Collectively, these experiences taught her the nuts and bolts of designing and installing landscapes in the high desert.

Currently, Moore is Project Manager for the Open Space and Trails Program at the Santa Fe County, a job she assumed in September of 2008. Working for the public ramps up the demands to reconcile human and environmental concerns. Moore likes the chance to work closely with community while acknowledging the challenges of balancing the realities of budget, timing and scope with the complex of human culture.

“For every project, we have to pay attention to cultural aspects: present and historical. We do an architectural survey, look at the history of the property, ancient ruins, petroglyphs as well as [the site's] living history: does it have an active acequia, for example?”

“We have to get projects okayed by thirteen tribes and both the immediate and regional community. We have to respect all the time periods. Maintain a cowboy shack. Revitalize a windmill. We work to balance new uses and needs, such as a bike or equestrian trail, with what’s there. We also look at use: are people using an existing trail or making their own trails? If their making their own, why?”

Moore’s own garden is waking from its seasonal sleep at the home she shares with artist Laird Hovland at 2589 Camino Chueco, currently on the market in downtown Santa Fe. Check it out at Great Buys in Santa Fe, NM For more information on Moore’s work as a landscape architect, visit her website, Spirit of the Garden.

Fall Garden at Moore/Hovland home, Camino Chueco

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Santa Fe is rife with plant lovers and voluptuous gardens that belie the traditional notion of rock strewn xeriscapes. If you’re looking for plants, materials or guidance installing your own leafy oasis, check out the list of Santa Fe Designers and Contractors at NM Landscape Designers and Contractors. Agua Fria Nursery, Newman’s, Plants of the Southwest, Payne’s Nurseries and Santa Fe Greenhouses are good local sources of plants and expertise.

Bring your thorny gardening questions to the Santa Fe Master Gardeners. Or stock up on plants and know-how at the organization’s Annual Garden Fair on April 24th at the County Fairgrounds. Ambitious DIYers should do the informative and empowering Master Garden Program themselves through the NMSU Santa Fe County Extension Office.

Santa Fe is blessed with a number of excellent non-profits serving a variety of plant interests:

The Santa Fe Botanical Garden provides education and outreach to the greater Santa Fe community through its two nature preserves and various programs. The Native Plant Society of New Mexico holds monthly meetings; head to their website for contact info and details. The Santa Fe Iris Society meets the last Saturday of the month, from February through September. Contact Marilyn Bennett at 505.474.0261 for more information.Tesuque residents can share information and seeds through the Tesuque Garden Club; Call 982.3839 for info. Contact Jane Thomson at 986.0753 to learn more about the Sangre de Cristo unit of The Herb Society of America, which meets every other month.

Buying Smart in Santa Fe Real Estate

Malissa Kullberg — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 21:32:13 +0000

Photo courtesy of Jonathan Tercero

“Will the Home Buyer Tax Credit be extended?” Lately, we’re asked that question even more often than “How’s the Market?” Dr. Ted C. Jones, economist for Stewart Title, answers this with a firm and definitive “No.” He also thinks interest rates are going up soon. Jones should know. Besides his considerable qualifications, he has lunch with Ben Bernanke every week.

Dr. Jones shared those predictions, and many other useful insights and tips, at last week’s economic and real estate forum bracingly entitled, “Adapt, Mutate, Migrate or Die.” His standout fact should serve as a call-to-action for both buyers and sellers: every 1 percent increase in interest rates is approximately equivalent to a 10 percent increase in price. With interest rates currently around 5%, buyers can buy more home and sellers can draw more buyers. Sellers with no intention of buying another home may want to wait, as prices and sales volume are picking up, but sellers wanting another home should jump in and buy smart. Even if they don’t reap maximum dollar on their current home, they stand to gain in a purchase. Jones’ blogpost, “Postponing a Home Purchase Waiting for Home Values to Decline Further May Price You Out of the Market” features an easy-to-follow table outlining the relationship between interest rates and buying power.

If you’re a buyer wanting to take advantage of the Home Buyer Tax Credit, it’s not too late. 8 Tips to Take Advantage of the Home Buyer Tax Credit Before Time Runs Out offers some smart guidelines for how to rapid-focus your efforts to put the right home under contract.

Since we tour dozens of homes each month, we’ve put together a short list of best buys in Santa Fe: homes that we think offer excellent value for the price. This week’s pics include a gem in Las Campanas for less than $500K, a clean contemporary pueblo with views priced just under $295K, and a steal-of-a-deal custom home in the Hills and Villas at Bishop’s Lodge, minutes from The Plaza and downtown Santa Fe.

If you’re looking in a particular price point or neighborhood, challenge us to find you a winner.

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Top Seven Reasons Banks are Denying Home Loan Requests clarifies what to expect in the current lending climate, and introduces a little known alternative for securing loans: Private Lending.

Santa Fe Neighborhood Quick Sketch: South Capitol

Malissa Kullberg — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 02:14:27 +0000

Rail traffic and an expanding middle class fueled the development of South Capitol in the early twentieth century. A rich and appealing collection of single family homes, condos, and small compounds, South Capitol charms with its architectural diversity. Craftsman bungalows intermingle with Pueblo Revivals, Victorians and Territorials. Construction materials run the Santa Fe gamut: adobe, brick, Pen-tile (a term for hollow bricks formerly made at the State Penitentiary) and framed stucco. Mature trees abound thanks, in part, to the WPA. Yards range in size from postage stamp patios to 1 acre spreads.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPaIDQ0TdAA

The district takes its name from its dominant landmark: the State Capitol AKA The Roundhouse, on Paseo de Peralta east of Don Gaspar. Roughly bounded by Paseo de Peralta on the North, Old Santa Fe Trail on the East, and Cordova on the South, South Capitol’s western edge is less clearly defined. Don Diego is the main artery yet the neighborhood breaks its line to include pockets of streets just west of Don Diego.

The Unitarian Universalist Congregation and Temple Beth Shalom are both within the neighborhood’s confines. Nearby, on Old Pecos Trail, are the Santa Fe Children’s Museum, The Center for Contemporary Arts, and The Armory for the Arts. The elementary school that serves much of the area is Wood Gormley; Capshaw Middle School and Santa Fe High School serve the upper grades.

Great amenities abound in easy walking distance. What’s available depends on where you’re located. The Santa Fe Railyard is an intersection of galleries, shops, housing and public spaces. Kaune’s Neighborhood Market and O’horis Coffee, on Old Santa Fe Trail, are an easy walk from the neighborhood’s eastern end. Cordova offers a superabundance of restaurants and shopping including several of our favorite dining spots: The Pyramid Cafe, Saigon Cafe, Backstreet Bistro, and Maria’s. For groceries, head to Trader Joe’s and Wild Oats. The neighborhood’s Northern end is just blocks from the Plaza with its trove of dining, coffee houses and shopping. Walkability is high for Santa Fe. Check out the Walk Score of our listings at 111 East Santa Fe Ave., The Bella Donna. Unit #4 is one of five contemporary restorations.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPlDs3iuSac

For a deeper look at issues of interest to homebuyers, check out the following resources. CrimeReports.com is self explanatory. Usually, I turn to city-data.com for its fascinating compilation of demographic data and statistics. However, city-data.com does not recognize South Capitol as a neighborhood. Instead, it creates a statistical profile for what it terms the Don Gaspar Neighborhood which covers the bulk, but not the entirety, of this historic district.

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SOUTH CAPITOL UPDATE

Below are market stats for the South Capitol Neighborhood reflecting the state of the real estate market on July 16th, 2010.

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South Capitol Area, Looking Up in YTD Residential Sales.

Santa Fe Market Report
Featuring South Capitol Area
Presented by Prudential Santa Fe

Active SFAR Listings
All Santa Fe Listings (7/16/10)
Residential: 2805
Residential Land: 1546
Farm & Ranch: 134
Commercial Buildings: 199
Commercial Land: 77
Live/Work: 21
Multi Family: 36

South Capitol Area Snapshot
Residential Listings (7/16/10)
Active: 86
Pending: 4
Sold: 54*
Average DOM: 218*
Average Listing Price: $591,081*
Average Listing Price Per Sq.ft: $277*
Average Selling Price: $543,175*
Average Selling Price Per Sq.ft.: $255*
% of List Price: 92%*

*Sold (7/17/09-7/16/10)

Days on Market (DOM)
South Capitol Area -- Residential Sold*

Selling Price: % of List Price
South Capitol Area -- Residential Sold*

MLS Comparison, Sales Year To Date
South Capitol Area -- Residential -- 2009 v. 2010
(1/1/09-7/7/09) -- (1/1/10-7/7/10)

What It Takes to Sell a Home in Santa Fe

Malissa Kullberg — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 16:36:11 +0000

Ready to get radical?

You think you’ve done it all: decluttered, staged, priced and marketed your property appropriately, and it’s still not selling. What now?

Through open houses, in-house broker tours, MLS tours and showings, your agent has had opportunities to gather feedback as to what people do and do not like about your home. In some cases, you simply can’t provide what is desired. Buyers are looking for a pool, a different location, a bigger yard--something you don’t have. On the other hand, there are often gems to be scavenged from the feedback. Question is: are you willing to act on what you learn?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=RE7q-Y8ByLI

In the case of our listing at 133 Sombrio, we kept hearing disappointed noises about the kitchen and baseboards. Everyone loved the vigas and refinished red oak floors. They admired the wood-framed double paned windows, the covered portal, kiva fireplace, extra garage space and laundry room. But the kitchen? Nyeh. So we, the real estate agents and the owner, who flew back from California, took three days to replace tile, paint cabinets, change out hardware, upgrade light fixtures, patch and paint walls. Two days after we finished, we received multiple offers.

If you want or need to put your home on the market soon, forearm yourself with somebody else’s hindsight. Start by taking everything up a notch. Declutter as if you’re a hoarder. If your furnishings don’t show the house to best advantage, consider a stager. Think you can’t afford it? There are stagers who consult by the hour and use your own furnishings. And if your home is empty, there are professional housesitter/stagers who will bring their eye-enticing furniture to your place and keep it looking warm and lovely while deftly accommodating showings. Curb appeal is often as easy to remedy with muscle as cash. Some landscape and nursery professionals will offer on site, low cost consultation to help you spend your DIY energy and money in the improvements.

What about a pre-inspection? Typically, buyers will schedule and pay for home inspections after the home is under contract. Having a certified inspection report in hand for a buyer avoids potentially deal-killing surprises deep into the transaction. Do you know the five most preventable problems that can scuttle a sale?

Did you work with your agent to price your home at the market rate--not what you think you need or want to have in order to buy the next house. Don’t gamble on an inflated price. Pricing your home to sell out of the gate will bring you the highest ultimate return.

If you have some money to spend, Top 10 Must-Have Features in Today’s New Homes and Remodeling Magazine’s 2009 Cost vs. Value Report will give you ideas about what trends are attracting buyers. In the words of Kris Berg, FrontDoor.com, “Yesterday’s avocado green shag carpeting is today’s granite countertop.” Would you have this perspective? Your home is your nest, but when it comes time to sell, you’re serving someone else’s taste.

Selling Your Home in A Buyer’s Market can be a success, but now more than ever, success favors the exceptionally prepared. We have lists of reliable and flexible professionals and an arsenal of articles like the ones above. We also have muscles and out-of-the-box marketing we’re not afraid to use. If you’re serious about selling your home, give us a call.

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Selling Your Santa Fe Home in a Buyer’s Market

Malissa Kullberg — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 20:48:13 +0000

Abundant inventory is described as a buyer’s market: great if you’re a buyer, but what if you’re a seller? The tough news is that the value and appeal of your home will be measured against a greater number of homes than in a neutral or seller’s market. You’ve got competition and potentially lots of it. Your mission? Don’t be a “comp.”

When agents set out to determine the price of your home, either because they are interested in listing it for sale, or because they have buyer’s interested in making an offer, they will do what is called a “CMA, “ or Comparative Market Analysis. In a CMA, your home is stacked up against active, pending, sold and expired listings that have COMParable features and locations: “comps.” Homes with extras, such as a kiva fireplace, will command more money; homes without such extras, less. Because no home is exactly like another home–even tract homes may have slightly different lot sizes, orientations and upgrades–a CMA is both an art and a science.

Despite its limitations, a CMA is a fact based tool. If you don’t like the results, don’t get emotional. Mine it for info you can turn to your advantage. People tend to focus on the active listings, the price for which someone in the neighborhood is trying to sell their home. But the market value of an active is unknown until someone makes an offer. Pay close attention to the comps that have sold. Pay even closer attention to the listings that expired. Buyers voted in favor of the sold home. The expired home was kicked out of office.

Once you’ve looked at what sells and what doesn’t, use that measure against your own home. Understand that not having a fireplace might hurt you with some buyers, and accept the price cut. Now, turn your attention to your home’s assets. Barabara Corcoran addresses this brilliantly in her book If You Don’t Have Big Breasts, Put Ribbons on Your Pigtails: “What matters is that you identify and play up what you’ve got.”

Look at your home as if it were a theatrical stage set or work of art. Presenting is more than just decluttering and removing personal items. “The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak, ” said abstract painter Hans Hofmann. Let the beauty of your home speak by taking away the visual noise that prevents its charms from being heard. Try these 30 Can’t Miss Staging Tips from HGTV’s Lisa LaPorta.

If you can afford to invest a little money, Remodeling Magazine’s 2009 Cost vs. Value Report offers tips on how to get the best return on your investment. Do you have nice wood floors that are in shabby shape? Have them refinished or DIY –if you can do professional quality work. Ensure you have dynamite curb appeal: weed, trim trees and bushes, repair, remove or replace a fence, add color. (We removed a chain link fence in front of our listing, a Casa Solana Stamm located at 133 Sombrio in downtown Santa Fe. Visitor feedback confirmed what a huge impact this small gesture had on the home’s streetside presentation.)

Showings are job interviews for your home. Make sure they are dressed-to-impress.

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Real estate agents Malissa Kullberg and Joshua Maes, AKA Changing Gallery, use their listings, where appropriate, to showcase the art, photography, sculpture and other creations of emerging and independent talents. Artists receive 100% of the proceeds from any sale. Currently displaying work by Mark Frossard, Laird Hovland, Jonathan Tercero at 133 Sombrio in Casa Solana, downtown Santa Fe. To schedule an appointment, call: 231.7598. For up-to-date market info and full access to the MLS, visit: Santa Fe Real Estate Downtown.

State of the Santa Fe Real Estate Market at start of 2010

Malissa Kullberg — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 23:23:42 +0000

On Sunday, January 3rd, The Santa Fe New Mexican rang in the new year with the article Promising Signs in Santa Fe’s Housing Market Slide. Statistics compiled by Alan Ball, a title officer with Southwest Title and Escrow, showed the number and price volume of Santa Fe residential home sales at their lowest point in decades. Comparing 2009 with 2005, the peak market of the last decade, showed a 56% decline over the 5 years –from 1.2 billion to $540 million. Indeed, the sales volume of 2009 ($540 million) was even lower than the sales volume at the start of the decade ($578 million.)

Still, Santa Fe fared far better than many markets. And there’s good news for both buyers and sellers.

Low interest rates and abundant inventory collectively offer a point of entry for many buyers shut out in the past. A search for single family homes within the Santa Fe city limits, shows the following:
Under $200K = 33 homes
$200K-300K = 120
$300K-400K =95

Roughly 95 of those are within a few miles of the Plaza, including the downtown Santa Fe neighborhoods of Casa Solana, Casa Alegre and Barrio la Canada which we’ve covered in previous blogposts.

For those who qualify, the pot sweetens with the addition of the Federal Housing Tax Credit. Not just for first-timers, homebuyers who have “…owned and lived in their previous home for five consecutive years out of the last eight years” also may qualify for a $6500 move up credit. Follow the link for a clear presentation of the incentives’ details.

Sellers face tougher competition on the market. At present, the absorption rate–the number of months it would take to sell all the homes on the market at the pace at which they are currently selling–is 29.71 months. Add to this the fact that homes are selling at roughly the prices they were in 2005, meaning a net loss for those who bought at the market’s peak. To sell now demands realistic pricing, excellent presentation and smart marketing, if not patience.

Sellers can console themselves that Santa Fe is still a good investment. Just one year ago, the absorption rate was a grimer 34.3 months. Plus, median prices have risen 50% over the decade, from $296,000 in 2001 to $447,000 at the end of 2009. We don’t hit the crests of California, neither do we spelunk down to its cavernous lows.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow;
The year is going, let him go…
–Tennyson

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Real estate agents Malissa Kullberg and Joshua Maes, AKA Changing Gallery, use their listings, where appropriate, to showcase the art, photography, sculpture and other creations of emerging and independent talents. Artists receive 100% of the proceeds from any sale. Currently displaying work by Mark Frossard, Laird Hovland, Jonathan Tercero at 133 Sombrio in Casa Solana, downtown Santa Fe. To schedule an appointment, call: 231.7598. For up-to-date market info and full access to the MLS, visit: Santa Fe Real Estate Downtown.