Up to our eyeballs in news!

(originally published 8-7-2024)

Greetings folks! Been a little while since the last update and all it takes is one very interesting property - or opportunity - to get me fired up. 

As many of you know, I live in Taft Canyon. We’re just outside of city limits near Taft and 38E (west Harmony), an area many of my friends and neighbors playfully describe as “between the trailer park and the landfill”. This may be a light-hearted attempt to keep interlopers out of the neighborhood but then again they accepted me, so they’re all a little crazy here. 

Speaking of which, when I attended the first Taft Canyon HOA meeting I was asked which house I had moved into. After I said where, the board president very matter of factly said, “Oh, across from The Eyeball House”. This would have taken most people by surprise, but some dear friends who were instrumental in our move to Taft Canyon had previously mentioned The Eyeball House to us. Nevertheless it was still a bit odd to hear the HOA president also refer to it as the Eyeball House in a somewhat formal setting.

The Eyeball House was/is an infamous oddity in the neighborhood and beyond. It is well known for its immense size (just shy of 7000 sq ft), its desirable location overlooking the lower half of Taft Canyon, Fox Hills and Fromme Prairie, the usable (and very nice) 17,000+ sq ft lot, and the amount of unexplainable neglect the house had endured over its lifetime.

Oh yeah, and it also has eyeballs. You see, dear reader, the house has dormers on the north and south sides of the interesting den above the garage. Each of these two dormers are rounded, like sleepy eyelids that sit over fisheye, oval bubble windows. They don’t sort of look like eyeballs - they totally look like eyeballs. Gaze upon one if you dare:

​​The owner passed away some time ago, and it’s taken months for several different crews to clear out the house. Today it finally hit the market. The good news is the house is brighter than anyone imagined, the floorplan is unique and quite usable, the views are amazing, the primary bedroom is 26x24, it has 7 bathrooms and 6 bedrooms, three kitchen areas and an oversized 3 car garage with an overhead door that will accommodate an RV.

The bad news is the aforementioned neglect, so it’s a bit of a tinderbox with (likely) original board and batten siding and a shake shingle roof. There’s evidence of mold in the basement, most of the flooring needs to be replaced, the decks are rotten, and because of the sheer size of the house it’s going to be a MAJOR project. And then there’s the price.

Strangely enough, the house right next door is also up for sale. It’s a bit smaller but still a large home at 4 beds, 5 baths and 5600 sq ft. It’s also $1.6m which, compared to 4205 Picadilly, may seem like a deal given its move-in ready condition and basically identical location. This unusual pair of neighboring houses are the only ones currently for sale in the ‘hood. 

I would love to have cool neighbors nearby, so please let me know if you are curious about either place, please!

In other news, Enjoy Realty is proud to welcome two new agents to the fold, Jay McCulloch and Matt Christensen. Jay is a seasoned investor with properties all over the country, and Matt is the brave new driving force behind Enjoy Realty’s new property management division. 

That’s right, we’ve heard far too many clients tell of unanswered emails and phone calls from other property management companies and decided to take matters into our own hands. I would urge you to at least meet with me or Matt to discuss making the switch. We already have a few of our existing clients on board and are hoping to grow the portfolio of properties we manage. 

Additionally, I’ve been asked about rates and the future of housing and new construction more in the last two months than I have in the last two years. New home prices are down (nationwide) and we’re at the highest inventory of new homes since January 2008. Pending sales are down, so guess what that means? We are going to see some hardship in many of those new home communities. I’m going to go out on a very sturdy limb and say it will be those neighborhoods with Metro Districts that will be primarily affected. Some could argue that’s most of them and I wouldn’t disagree.

However, please don’t let that sway you from checking out new construction if it happens to compete with the cheapest homes in the market. Those tend to always be a safe bet.

Finally, as a follow up to some of the previous emails re: the NAR settlement, we’re hearing trickles of information from the designers of our Colorado forms in terms of what we can expect. The short version: don’t expect much to change. The main thing that will change in terms of my business (and most other’s, if they’re doing it right) is having some forms signed by buyers before looking at any properties. This was supposed to happen mid-July and has been pushed back to mid-August.

That’s right when rates will be dropping, right? Well the Fed meets at the end of July and although they’ve gone on record to say there will be no more rate hikes that doesn’t necessarily mean they will drop. 

The economy will of course be the main topic in tonight’s debate but like most of you I’m not holding my breath for solid answers, or answers at all, for that matter. But if you want solid answers re: the real estate market around here, hit us up. 

Thanks for reading! Hope to see you soon, either for a coffee catch up or at a gig. Cheers, Crip