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Albuquerque, New Mexico Real Estate
New Mexico's green awarenes is growing to such an extent that in the City of Albuquerque, in three consecutive weeks one could participate in green related events that include clean air, green buildings and green-living education by way of workshops.
Last week I attended the clean air summit at which our green advocate mayor was present. This week the New Mexico chapter of the the U. S. Green Building Council is organizing an all day tour of sustainable architecture of commercial buildings, some of wich are seeking Platinum, Gold and Silver LEED certification. The following week, the LEED for Homes workshops will be held at the University of New Mexico. Separately, Green Living Lecture Serisw and Green Central Expo will also be held as part of the University of New Mexico's Continuing Education.
During our recognized period of slower market activities, it is certainly appropriate for real estate prefessionals and others affiliated with the industry to take advantage of opportunities to become as knowledgeable as possible in sustainability and green building practices. There is no doubt, given the current circumstances of climate change, that those cities that embrace green living will be leaders in preserving regional and world-wide quality of life.
Eloise Gift
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Date: Dec. 30, 2006
Tags: None
.jpg) Albuquerque, New Mexico Digging Out Again
It is snowing again in Albuquerque! We were surprised and thrilled when we unexpectedly received six to eight inches about three weeks ago. Now we are in awe. We are into our third day of snow with a record-breaking thirteen inches in the city. My friends in Edgewood and Tijeras are getting much more.
I had no intention to write about the weather again. Once per year is enough. We who live in Albuquerque thought our last snowfall was worthy of conversation. We could not have anticipated what has been happening these past three days. Albuquerque is having snowfall as if it were the ski resort areas of Taos, Angel Fire, or even Santa Fe. Right now, the city looks and feels like wintertime Baltimore, DC, or New York. No one I talk to, including my neighbor who has lived here for more than forty years can remember ever receiving this much snow at one time.
Church services are cancelled for tomorrow, our two major Interstate Highways are intermittently closed, and travelers by road and air are stuck in and just outside of Albuquerque. It is strange to watch my husband and our neighbors digging out, taking turns, sharing the one snow shovel someone unearthed from the depths of a garage.
We are a hospitable city. The government made arrangements to open up shelters to accommodate many of those stranded. However, having had to wait out a snow storm of smaller proportion in Tucumcari, just a step away from Albuquerque, four years ago, February, after driving all the way across the country from the east coast, I understand the impatience to get going.
In addition, I am having a party tommorow, New Year’s Eve. I am planning a delightful time for 40 people and I want them to turn up; so I am hoping it will not snow tonight and that the sun will shine fiercely enough tomorrow to melt the snow from the streets. We always have to bear in mind the likelihood of icy streets when our desert climate night temperatures fall. We need to have dry roads especially in the evenings.
It is inconceivable that it should snow again tomorrow. This is Albuquerque, after all. We are always thankful for moisture, but we need our sunshine. We cannot tolerate having gray skies for one whole day, let alone three.
Eloise Gift
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A lbuquerque, New Mexico Real Estate
A Winter Wonderland
Yesterday, folk were cross-country skiing in Albuquerque. Today, just half hour away up on Sandia Peak, they are skiing down the slopes.
I am at home this morning - all scheduled events cancelled since yesterday morning through tonight. Since we are so close to the Christmas and New Year holidays, essentially all business events to the end of the year have been cancelled.
The following email is typical of the notes I have received within the last twenty-four hours.
Hi everyone,
Hope you have a very Merry Christmas and New Year!!! The snow looks like a picture....beautiful.
The meeting for tonight is cancelled due to the weather, slick roads and traffic...we want you to be safe. Also, next week is cancelled for the after Christmas melt down. We will see you January.
Yesterday, I was scheduled to attend a luncheon at 11:30 a.m. in Estancia, Moriarty (if you remember, that is on the other side of the mountain). Monday night, my husband told me, "You won't be going to Estancia tomorrow." He was right. Even though the sky was overcast, I could see the mountains when I woke up and even a hint of glow behind them, but by 10:30 a gravelly hail was beginning to fall as I left home. “It won’t stick.” I told myself.
By 11:00 a.m., Albuquerque, was blanketed in white. We were in a winter wonderland --no mountains, no sky, just a fairy-tale world of white, like a stage or movie setting for a tale of enchantment. For all I could tell, the whole world was similarly transformed.
In the stores, clerks began wondering out loud about getting home safely later in the day, anticipating lower temperatures and icy roads. An obvious newcomer, not dressed for the weather, contemplating getting to his car outside the grocery store declared with a broad grin, "What's going on? I thought I had come to the desert. What's with this snow storm?" I thought to myself, "Welcome to the desert!"
I was hardly better dressed for the weather than the newcomer. I was wearing a coat, but not one suitable for wet weather, and had left my umbrella in the car. As I dashed back to my car trying to dodge the snow puffs, I sported a plastic grocery bag bonnet. Like many others in Albuquerque, I usually don't pay attention to forecast of bad weather, and we never believe it will be as bad as predicted.
Out here in the desert we are subject to sudden extremes — extreme winds, extreme rainfall, extreme heat, extreme cold, extreme snow. These extremes are always brief, however, and already, most of yesterday’s snow is melted from my south-facing front lawn. By tomorrow, we are likely to be wondering if it really happened.
The snow has been beautiful and thrilling. I felt like a child playing, as I drove around, taking advantage of business cancellations to do last minute personal chores. This morning, a friend in Edgewood, also on the other side of the mountain not far from Moriarty but only about thirty-five minutes away from Albuquerque, emailed to say they had received 12 inches of snow and it was still falling. It is beautiful, she wrote, but I am unable to get out of my driveway.
I couldn't resist taking pictures. I want to preserve the mood and the sentiments. If you think snow is beautiful falling on oak and grass, you should see it on piñon, sage, and rosemary. I love living here. In any season of the year, in any weather, "Albuquerque is beautiful, a true land of enchantment.
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Albuquerque, New Mexico Real Estate
Person of the Year--You and I
In 2006, Albuquerque, the city in which I reside, was voted one of the best cities in which to do business, one of the best places to live and raise a family, and now this—I have been honored as Person of the Year. So have you!
Time magazine voted all of us web users, Person of the Year. (Albuquerque Journal, http://www.abqjournal.com). If you are reading this article, it makes me (the writer) and you (the reader) winners. I created content that is available only on the World Wide Web, and you are using that content. That makes us citizens of the “new digital democracy” and therefore, winners.
If you are over the age of forty and are able to navigate the information highway, you have every reason to feel particularly honored and proud of your achievement. You are using technology that was not available to you in school during your childhood. You had to cover a lot of ground in a short time—terrain that many of your peers failed to or refused to negotiate.
The road to becoming a Time magazine “Person of the Year” required not only an academic, but a psychological leap. My friend, a hospital nurse in the mid 1980’s, chose to resign her position rather than learn to use a computer. She explained that she feared the use of computers for administrative purposes would lead to lack of face-to-face interaction and destroy interpersonal relationships.
You and I did not fear technology. We made the leap, and I will let you be the judge of whether our Web experiences have hurt or improved our relationships
.
I recall the period when I thought building a web page was rocket science until with the help of a colleague, and online support, I created my very first page on a school LAN as a teaching aid for third grade students. Emboldened, I undertook a more ambitious project with the aid of Writing HTML, http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/tut/lessons.html, just one of the myriad sites dedicated to teaching code, knowledge of which is no longer necessary for building a web page. i created a web site for sharing information with teachers. (Now available at http://www.eloisegift.com/TeachingSpanish.htm)
My next challenge was to write blogs. The million dollar question was, “What is a blog?” The word was new, a creation of the technology age, introduced into our vocabulary like so many others by the need to describe new concepts and ideas.
This is a blog. I am blogging about Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” award. That means I am writing and publishing my views on the topic on the World Wide Web. If I were actually speaking, I would be “blabbing.” Will anyone read my views? I have no idea. I write simply because I feel like it.
In the past, I may have written this on a typewriter or in a notebook. I would have had a limited audience unless I could have afforded to publish it myself or convince a publisher that it was worth the expenditure for publication. With the World Wide Web, you and the rest of the world make up my audience, and publication cost is minimal. Taking advantage of this relatively new gift of technology has made us winners--at least in the eyes of Time.
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Albuquerque, New Mexico Real Estate
New Mexico's Newest Mall
shoppers' delight
Last month I attended four new business openings at ABQ Uptown, including the ribbon cutting for the grand opening of the mall itself.
Albuquerque’s newest mall is unlike any other in the city. High-end retail shops are grouped along pedestrian-friendly streets bordered by wide sidewalks in an open-air configuration very suitable to Albuquerque’s all-year-round, sunny climate.
Gary Sapp, executive vice president of the Hunt Development Group conceived of the main-street shopping concept, and planned and completed it as an infill project between two older, traditional, covered malls anchored by department stores.
Sedberry & Associates, the leasing agent for the group, found 48 willing and able tenants who now occupy the space. Forty-three percent of these tenants are new to New Mexico, suggesting a substantial impact on retail growth for Albuquerque.
A few weeks after the opening of ABQ Uptown, I heard Gary Sapp speak at the December 7, monthly meeting of the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce http://www.AbQChamber.com. Mr. Sapp spoke of the decade-long development project, of his vision, his search for the right property, and negotiations and collaboration with the city to realize the dream.
The ABQ Uptown project has brought a measure of excitement, freshness, and revitalization to the city, as well as convenience to shoppers. As infill, it is an inspiration to addressing urban sprawl. As land in the northeast quadrant of the city becomes scarcer and more expensive, such projects will have more relevance and greater impact on the continuing development and vibrancy of the city.
Sources: http://newmexico.bizjournals.com
Eloise Gift
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 Albuquerque at 300 Years
A Great Place to Call Home
Albuquerque, New Mexico's largest city, has just completed a year-long birthday celebration - its three hundredth.
Many people attracted by the celebrations, discovered some of the area's charms that have been no secret to those of us who have long been captivated by them.
Not surprisingly, accolades started piling up and continue to do so. Forbes' placed Albquerque at the top of its list of Best Places for Business and Careers, fifth on its list of Best Metro Overall, and declared it one of the the lowest cost cities for doing business.
On Kiplinger's list of 50 Smart Places to Live, Albuquerque placed No. 3, and MSN featured the dity as one of the best cities in which to start a business or career.
Expansion Management Magazine proclaimed Albuquerque to have had the Fifth Best Real Estate Market in 2006 and the Fourth Lowest City for Purchase Costs.
Business Development Magazine said the city is one of the Top Metro Areas for job growth and high-tech output.
As if to sum it all up, CNN-Money Magazine reported that the Greater Albuquerque area is among the top 100 Best Places to Live in America.
The truth is, Albuquerque is a delightful city with beautiful people, pleasant all-year-round weather and story-book landscapes with access to more of the same. The big, blue sky is almost always full of light. During the day we live under a canopy of blue, at night, under jewel-studded black velvet.
At sunrise and sunset, irridescent shades of red and orange accent the eastern and western horizons, and at noon high floating cotton-puffs or feathery wisps drift overhead producing shadow plays across the Sandias.
Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez in speaking of the city says,
Our city boasts a diverse economic base, a vigorous high tech industry, incomparable research institutions, an efficient transortation system and a trained, friendly workforce. All of this, and blue skies too!
All this and more make Albuquerque a great place to call home.
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Date: Oct. 3, 2009
Tags: None
It’s Balloon Fiesta Time Again
Hot-air ballooning is an all-year-round sport in
Albuquerque. We have the landscape, the weather conditions, the sky and the
enthusiasts for the sport. It is a rare day that you go for an early morning
walk or drive without seeing hot air balloons floating overhead. But for
nine days in October every year the international Balloon Fiesta draws people
from all over the world and hot air balloons drift up, up and away over the
city.
For the past few weeks you could tell the city was gearing
up for a big event. The morning skies gradually got busier although nowhere
near as busy as they will be for the daily colorful mass ascensions of the coming
days. The out-of-town pilots have been arriving and joining the locals in
practice runs and testing of the air currents in the run up to the big
event. October 3, tomorrow, the 38th Annual Balloon
Fiesta will start.
The balloons are wonderful to watch floating overhead. It is
awesome to have one land almost in your backyard. But it is a most exhilarating
experience to be on the launch field, up close, and surrounded by the hubbub,
color and movement of hundreds of puffing, colorful shapes hovering above comparatively
small wicker baskets spouting flames and snorting like many dragons. It is
worth waking up at 3:00 in the morning (my preferred show time) to experience
the drama.
I love the way the balloon fiesta morning shows begin with
dawn patrol. The lone, quiet sentinel seen only by its intermittent twinkling
light sails off into the pre-dawn darkness to patrol and report back on the
state of the ‘box’ (the name given to the near predictable corridor
of air that defines the invisible paths balloons drift across the city). The lift
off of dawn patrol is like an assurance that ‘yes,’ soon the sun
will appear again above Sandia Peak and the promised show will begin. And
what a show it always is for nine full days.
Eloise
Gift, CRS
Qualifying
Broker
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Albuquerque, New Mexico Real Estate
In our community, not unlike many others, we have seen transactions affected by recent higher loan-to-value ratio requirements resulting from falling and lower sales prices.
Good News
Beginning June 1, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will no longer require borrowers to provide an extra 5 percent down payment when purchasing homes in areas deemed "declining markets" because prices are falling.
Thanks to the National Association of REALTORS® who protested the declining-markets policy, the giants of the secondary loan market agreed to abandon it.
under the the new policy, borrowers can get loans up to 95 percent loan-to-value even in markets in which prices have been falling. Before the change, borrowers suddenly found they could only get loans up to 90 percent of the price of the property because lenders were requiring a 5-percentage-point cushion to protect against possible future price declines. Many buyers saw their home ownership dream vanish overnight as lending policies changed in the midst of negotiations.
With the stigma removed, we expect to see all neighborhoods thrive and fewer people denied the American dream.
Eloise Gift, Associate Broker
Keller Williams Realty
Albuquerque
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Albuquerque, New Mexico Real Estate
Great Year for Albuquerque Residential Real Estate — Rising Prices Despite Rising Inventory
Two thousand six has been a great year for the Albuquerque residential real estate market. Unlike some other parts of the country where prices have fallen, Albuquerque has seen a rise in prices.
Sales decreased, leading to a rise in inventory that gave buyers more choices, but with no negative effect on prices. Increases continue, but not at the consistent double-digit pace of the last few years. September's prices increased 7.5 percent, October’s 8.4 percent, and November’s, edged back up into double digits at 10 percent.
The average sale price per residential unit , including detached, townhouses, and condos, increased to $233,512 from $212,593 in 2005. The average price for condos and townhouses was $158,500 in November 2006 compared to $154,877 in November, 2005, a 2.3% increase. The median townhous/condo price was $136,000, a 10.3 percent increase from November 2005, to $150,000 in November, 2006.
The significant increase in the inventory of resale homes gave buyers more choices and did not put a damper on the market prices. From November 2005 to November 2006, the supply increased from 1.89 month’s supply to 3.95 months supply. In November 2005, 1130 units sold, but in November 2006, only 935 units — a decreased of 17.3 percent. .The record for residential sales units in any one month was August 1999 when 5,310 units were sold.
Two thousand six has been a great year for the number of resale homes;12,633 units sold through November 2006, reflects the second best home resale period in the history of the region, and because of the number of homes under contract and not yet sold, indications are that the 2006 final resale totals will surpass those of 2005. In 2004, 12, 254 single family homes were sold, and in 2005, 14,330. Here in Albuquerque, we are optimistic about continued real estate success in 2007.
Happy New Year!
—Source: Albuquerque Metropolitan Board of Realtors
Eloise Gift
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Albuquerque—
A great place to call home
Even in Albuquerque, the state’s largest city, with almost half a million people, you can feel the presence of the land . . . It beckons in the changing colors of the sky . . . Out in that great space is peace.
--Jim Arnholz
New Mexico on My Mind
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