eff Hawks prepared a Power Point presentation detailing why the Denver-apartment market is poised to blossom with low vacancies, rising rents and incredible demand.

“I made the Power Point 10 years ago,” Hawks japed Wednesday, in the wake of a third-quarter report showing exactly what he predicted. “I only missed it by a decade,” said Hawks, a principal of the Denver office of Apartment Realty Advisors. Hawks, with partner Doug Andrews, has sold many billions of apartments in a career that has spanned more than 30 years in Denver.

The third-quarter vacancy rate was 5.3 percent. The last time it was lower was in the first quarter of 2001. Rents also are rising, according to the report released on behalf of the Apartment Association of Metro Denver and the Colorado Division of Housing. (For a previous report, please visit  Apartment vacancies fall.)

But Hawks is even more bullish on the direction of the rental market. Indeed, he said if the market absorbs another 9,000 units, it will be at a 98 percent occupancy rate, which he said is about as tight as a market can be.

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EW YORK (AP) — Home prices edged up in half of U.S. cities in the third quarter as the weak economy dulled buyer interest.

The National Association of Realtors says the median sales price for previously occupied homes rose compared with last year in 77 out of 155 metropolitan areas tracked in the July-to-September quarter. That compares with 100 out of 155 cities in the April-to-June quarter. Eleven cities had double-digit price increases.

Most experts believe these gains will fade as the economic recovery weakens. They expect prices to turn downward.

The national median price in the third quarter was $177,900, down from $178,200 in the same quarter last year and up from $176,800 in the second quarter.

The modest rise was announced as rates on fixed mortgages, which have been low for months, dropped to their lowest levels in decades this week after the Federal Reserve unveiled a massive bond-buying program to help spur economic growth.

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Banks were more willing to make consumer installment loans and eased standards on credit card loans, the central bank said in its quarterly survey of senior loan officers through the middle of October. At the same time, demand for mortgages remained weak, while demand for business lending fell, after having been unchanged in the previous survey.

“For the most part, banks are no longer contracting lending,” Paul Dales, U.S. economist for Capital Economics in Toronto, said before the report. “There is unfortunately very little evidence that lending is about to take off substantially.”

At its Nov. 3 meeting, the Federal Open Market Committee decided to buy $600 billion of Treasuries through June, pumping money into the economy in an effort to lower unemployment and ward off deflation. In an Oct. 15 speech in Boston, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said, “Banks are no longer tightening lending standards and terms and are reportedly becoming more proactive in seeking out creditworthy borrowers.”

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“Anybody who’s getting into this business now, you get a whole lot of return if you’re paying cash for properties,” he says. “You’re just buying them so cheap.”

Prices for apartment buildings are “incredible” in Indianapolis, as well, says Barb Getty, who owns 27 apartment properties in the downtown area. “You can start small like I did; 20% of 40 thousand bucks isn’t a lot of money.”

Just as there have been massive price drops for single-family homes in the past three years, there have been big price declines for apartment buildings. That suggests that it’s a good time for investors who want to be landlords to start buying.

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ore home builders are putting solar panels on new homes and have come up with a novel way of making solar more affordable for buyers.

Builders Lennar and Toll Bros. recently opened new home developments in California in which solar panels are included at no upfront cost to buyers. Solar companies own the systems, and the new homeowners lease them from the company.

Solar companies have offered solar lease programs for owners of existing homes for several years. Now, the option is spreading to new homes.

It makes the most sense for new home buyers who are unable to wrap the solar system cost — often $10,000 to $20,000 — into their mortgages.

Builders are considering the lease arrangements as a way to make solar affordable and distinguish their new homes in a tough economy.

“Most of the major builders have nosed around it,” says Robert Hammon of energy consulting firm ConSol. He expects new home solar — and the lease option — to spread slowly in the next year.

Most of the solar-system-buying action has been in California, where state incentives and a 30% federal tax credit can halve the cost, says Lynn Jurich, president of solar company SunRun.

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This article if from last month’s Denver Post, but it really makes the case for why now is the time to buy even without the tax credit.

Ever dream of a cottage by the sea, atop a mountain or in the heart of downtown? Well, you may enjoy 10 projects in the latest edition of Builder Magazine that practice the “art of thinking small.”

“There’s no shortage of fine little structures out there with lessons to be gleaned on how to build a tight ship, be they primary residences, weekend retreats, granny casitas or outbuildings,” Jenny Sullivan writes. She says many of the projects are selling well and incoporating eco-friendly features into their less-is-more footprint.Among her examples are the Greenstone Homes’ “cottage series” near Spokane, Wash. The models, ranging from 1,300 to 2,000 square feet, include playful roofs, porches and crisp picket fences. They’re built to Energy Star and Built Green standards.

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