While changes in the housing market have been a crisis for some, it's created opportunity for others, especially first-time homebuyers.
The National Association of Realtors conducted a survey showing that 47 percent of those who bought a house last year were jumping into the market for the first time. That's up 6 percent from the year before.
Not only are prices down, but interest rates remain low. And an $8,000 federal tax credit is prompting a lot of activity at the cheaper end of the housing market.
Earlier this week, Brian Chalmers, 39, signed the closing papers on a 1950s, single-level brick ranch in Denver's North Park Hill neighborhood.
Getting to that point was not easy. Chalmers earns about $25,000 a year and saved up that much for a down payment.
"It's been a five-year struggle — living in very inexpensive apartments, cooking rice every day," says Chalmers. "I've gone without a cell phone for five years."
His new house is in pretty rough shape, but at $125,000, he can finally afford to make the jump into homeownership.
"There was a time back in 2004-2005 when people were purchasing this same kind of home for the high 100s, low 200s," says Chalmers' real estate agent, Ann Connelly.
Connelly says Chalmers got this house under a short-sale agreement. The lenders accepted about $75,000 less for the property than they'd loaned to the previous owner. There are other examples of good deals like this in the neighborhood, too.
Just a few blocks away, Courtney Gross, 27, and Rebecca Wolff, 28, are preparing to spend a first Christmas in their new house.
They're in their late 20s and both are social workers. They paid just a little more than $182,000 for the house last spring. That's $28,000 less than it sold for in 2004. And that was before the house was completely remodeled from the basement to a new roof.
"Because the market dropped — everything kind of went under — we were able to get a house that a few years ago we wouldn't have been able to afford," says Wolff.
There was just one thing missing: The windows needed updating. That's where the $8,000 federal tax credit for first-time buyers came in handy.
"We turned around and used that tax credit to put in new windows, but then we get a tax credit on new windows," says Gross.
Their real estate agent, Vicki Porter, says that a few years back, foreclosures pushed down prices in neighborhoods like this. Now, she says, lenders are more interested in working out short-sale deals before a foreclosure is under way.
"There's still some great opportunities for any buyer, but especially first-time homebuyers with the tax credit," Porter says.
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