Recent real estate sales for commercial, land, and light rail in Denver, Colorado. There are several entries on the complete list which came from the Denver Business Journal. There were several transactions that stuck out to me.

Real Estate Builders buying land

• Vacant land, Douglas County — Celebrity Custom Homes Inc. of Englewood bought this acreage for $4.37 million. The seller was D&D Real Estate LLC of Englewood.
• 1397 Sky Rock Way, Castle Rock 80109 — Meritage Homes Colorado Inc. of Greenwood Village purchased this vacant land in The Meadows subdivision for $2.09 million from Arcadia Holdings at The Meadows LLC.

Builders buying raw land will be one of the predictors of the housing turnaround and US economic recovery. This is step one of building new houses and creating jobs.

1. Buy Land – Somebody made some money by selling land that was not generating any income.  Now they can spend that money or invest in another capital producing investment
2. Builder builds a house.  This is where the bulk of the value is created.  Think of all the contractors that are needed.  The raw material and capital investment is big as well.
3. Builder sell the house.  This is where title companies, real estate agents, and mortgage bankers makes the transaction happen.
4. Customer moves into house.  They likely need new lawn equipments, furniture, LCD TV’s etc.  This helps with retail sales.

It all starts with the purchase of land.

Light Rail Properties

• 5155 E. Yale Circle, Denver 80222 — The Urban Land Conservancy purchased this 1.2 acres, near the light rail station at Yale and Interstate 25, for $1.33 million. The City of Denver’s Transit Oriented Development (TOD) Fund covered 90 percent of the cost. Affordable, workforce housing will be built at the site. The seller was Denver residential developer Wally Hultin of Byers Street Properties LLC, as East Yale Circle LLC, according to property records.

What does this mean for the light rail in Denver, CO.  I view this as a positive stop for the light rail. One of the key factors in the success of transit is the amount of people that live around it.  This leads to people using the light rail. Wouldn’t you use if was in walking distance?  Perhaps you like driving down I-25.  This increases revenue and use of the light rail system.  This also leads to higher retail sales for business in the Transit Oriented Development (TOD) district.  At the risk of stating my political views, not supposed to talk about politics while selling real estate, and the answer is.  I’m a conservative and I believe light rail should be a conservative issue.  If you don’t believe in the welfare state you want people to work.  One of the biggest problem the poor and unemployed have is access to transportation. Why don’t we make it as easy as possible for them to get a job.  If you are probusiness don’t you want people to have reliable trasportation?  Don’t you want the widest applicant pool possible.