Check out the latest Grubology post.

Thanks to all of you who came out and made my 3rd Annual BBQ a big success! I had a record turnout despite the cold, rainy day.

Go here for a list of door prize winners and some pictures.

Thanks again!

If you've driven in the mountains at all, you know how bad the pine beetle problem is. So sad.
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(source: Denver Business Journal)

"Did you know?

Pine beetles have killed about 3.6 million acres of pine trees in northern Colorado and southern Wyoming — equal to 5,625 square miles — an area nearly the size of Connecticut (4,844 square miles) and its neighbor, Rhode Island (1,044 square miles.)

The pine beetles first were spotted in Colorado in the late 1990s.

Of Colorado’s 1.5 million acres of lodgepole pine forests, 1.02 million acres — 68 percent — is infested with the mountain pine beetle.

The U.S. Forest Service expects 100,000 beetle-killed trees will fall over every day for the next decade in northern Colorado and southern Wyoming.

Up to 80 percent of the trees killed by pine beetles is considered off-limits to the timber industry, due to slopes that are too steep to log, or policy decisions that prohibit logging in the area."

It looks like the high end may not crash like we expected it to. That's a good sign!
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(source: Denver Business Journal)

Denver-area luxury-home sales jump 62%

"Denver-area sales of homes priced at $1 million or more jumped 61.8 percent in May from a year earlier, according to Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage's monthly report on high-end sales.

Fifty-five homes priced at $1 million or more sold in May in the metro area, up from 34 in May 2009, according to the brokerage, a leading local seller of luxury homes.

Median price of the luxury homes that sold in May was $1.28 million. The month's highest priced sale in the metro area was a four-bedroom, seven-bath, 8,000-square-foot home in Boulder that sold for $4.45 million.

Denver itself saw 18 million-dollar-or-more sales in May, while Boulder had 11, Castle Rock had five and Greenwood Village had four, according to the brokerage's monthly "Denver Metro Area Luxury Home Report.""

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(source: HousingWire.com)

Bank of America Puts Short Sales Ahead of REO

"Bank of America, one of the largest lenders in the U.S., has instituted a policy of liquidating as many assets saddled with defaulted loans as possible before repossession, said Matt Vernon, the short sale and REO executive at BofA.

Vernon took the position at BofA in February. He has since announced plans to add 1,000 employees to the short sale staff. BofA currently holds more than 477,000 loans eligible for the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), and has provided more than 600,000 modifications through HAMP and its own programs.

But Vernon said BofA will continue to make the short sale push when he spoke on a panel at REO Expo, being held this week in Dallas.

"We're going to do everything possible to liquidate property prior to foreclosure," Vernon said. "REO will still be available, but we will do everything we can to do short sales." Vernon said the goal is to get as close to market value as possible, or even over market value. "Short sales is not an investment strategy to get homes on the cheap," he said."

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