Steamboat Springs’ real estate market still is in recovery, but single-family homes that are attainable for working families are not abundant.

Elk River Guest Ranch access includes one-third of a mile of river access for trout fishing, 900 feet shared with five adjacent lots and another 900 feet that is exclusive to the guest ranch.

The first three months of 2013 already have seen some eye-catching activity at both extremes of the market.

Some eyebrows might have raised this week when Penny’s Diner and the nearby Oak Tree Inn in the small South Routt town of Yampa sold for nearly $2.5 million.

Construction workers toiled through the weekend of Feb. 9 and 10 to complete the roof on Casey’s Pond Senior Living community near the south entrance to the city of Steamboat Springs, and with windows being installed at a brisk pace, the day when the project will be heated is coming near.

Realtor Chris Paoli cites data that reveal fewer listings, a decline in foreclosure notices and homes selling well below their replacement cost.

The recovery in Routt County and Steamboat’s homebuilding market has been a little like climbing a set of stairs — one step at a time.

The Steamboat Springs City Council will meet for the first time in the New Year on Tuesday and consider approving a new 42-apartment building at Whistler Road and Sky View Terrace.

Prices paid per square foot for Trailhead Lodge condos during the Dec. 15 auction began at $259 for a pair of one-bedroom units on the second floor.

As the Routt County Regional Building Department closes another year, small changes are afoot.

The last time Routt County saw more than $40 million in October real estate dollars was in 2008, when it crested $49,600, according to Stan Urban, of Land Title Guarantee Co.

Residents of the Tree Haus subdivision always take the best photographs of fireworks over Steamboat Ski Area, rainbows in front of Thunderhead and alpenglow on Storm Peak.

Can a classic but dated ski chalet built circa 1972 in one of Steamboat’s most exclusive neighborhoods sell for more than $1 million? Realtor Cam Boyd, of Prudential Steamboat Realty, and his clients are testing that hypothesis as Steamboat Ski Area gets ready to celebrate its 50th anniversary.

One Steamboat Place, the luxury condominium project at the base of Steamboat Ski Area, entered September with $46 million in sales in the preceding 12 months and $27 million year-to-date when pending contracts are taken into consideration.

The chief economist for the National Association of Realtors told a Steamboat audience Thursday that whoever becomes the next president of the United States, whether it’s President Barack Obama or President Mitt Romney, will be a lucky man, indeed.

The closings of sales involving 15 condominiums in Trailhead Lodge last month helped put the Routt County real estate market in the pink for June when dollar volume of $65.4 million was up 64.57 percent from June 2011, when it was $39.7 million.

Within specific price points and product categories, there are signs the Routt County real estate market is turning. The change is particularly evident in the city of Steamboat Springs.

The last week in June and the first week in July brought the sudden sale of four new-construction townhomes in Eco Corral in the Hilltop and Tamarack neighborhood of Steamboat Springs.

The sale of a $1.87 million condominium at One Steamboat Place on Friday put the finishing touches on the real estate month of June 2012. And if anything, this was a month when Realtors didn’t have to worry about carrying an umbrella in the car for their clients.

Members of the Yampa Valley Housing Authority board said this week that they would like to learn more about a proposal from Brent Pearson, of Resort Ventures West, to tap into federal tax credits that could help a third-party developer build out the remaining affordable housing units in Wildhorse Meadows.

The most-asked question fielded by Realtors in Steamboat Springs is, without a doubt, “When will the market recover?” 

The answer often is that the local real estate market appears to have hit bottom and will recover gradually within niche products and price points.

Historically low interest rates and depressed housing prices have reopened the opportunity for successful working families with great credit ratings to purchase a home in or very close to the city of Steamboat Springs. But there are signs that the inventory of those single-family homes is dwindling.

In a sign of the times, Tom Fox received 52 applications when his company, Fox Construction, ran a classified newspaper ad this spring seeking to hire a project manager and estimator.

The physical evidence won’t be visible for a little while, but there are increasingly positive signs of new activity in commercial construction and leasing as well as multifamily development.

When Steamboat’s real estate market finally regains its equilibrium, the demand for affordable housing may see increased emphasis on rentals versus home ownership.

With five closings valued at a combined $7.81 million between March 28 and Monday, sales at One Steamboat Place seem to have found a sweet spot in the luxury resort market.

Dollar volume in the Routt County real estate market was up 6.7 percent to $22.45 million in February when compared with February 2011, but unit volume remains soft in the first quarter of 2012.

The clients weren’t asking for a miracle. They were looking for a luxurious home on a rural parcel with live water close to public schools near a good spot to hunt elk.

Barring epic snowfall in March and April, the stage is set for the wide-open hay meadows wrapping Steamboat Springs to shed their cover of snow early and begin greening up in early May.

Among the 62 foreclosed homes actively listed on the local real estate market, 39 are offered by the federally sponsored mortgage packagers Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. The list changes weekly, and the two entities often price the homes at some of the steepest discounts in the market. But not every time.

Keith Kelly, of Kelly & Stone Architects, told an audience of business people last week that he and his partner, Tim Stone, are fortunate to have a growing list of clients outside Colorado during the economic downturn.

The ambitious construction project now under way to expand the Panama Canal has the potential to shrink the globe and change Panama's economic fortunes. And Steamboat resident Alan J. Krause is in the thick of it.

The North Routt community received a fresh jolt of enthusiasm this weekend with the opening of Hahn’s Peak Roadhouse, owned by Carroll and Darren Zamzow, formerly of Steamboat Springs.

The number of foreclosure filings in Routt County in 2011 suggests the real estate market will be feeling the impacts of distressed properties on pricing for some time to come.

Opening a commercial kitchen is no small challenge, but now that Fixins Kitchen is open at 135 11th St., local cooking instructors, caterers and food wholesalers don’t have to go through the brain damage.

The Old Pilot Building was once a health care facility, but it was never, as the name implies, a home for aging aviators. Today, the building at 1041 Lincoln Ave. is under new ownership and is one of the largest downtown office spaces.

Construction on Trailhead Lodge began in 2007, and the first units closed in 2009. Fifty-eight condos remain unsold. The building cost $71 million to build and comprises 184,000 square feet.

The number of Routt County homes entering the foreclosure process jumped 39 percent in the third quarter as 86 properties started the foreclosure process between July and September.

The Routt County real estate market has produced some noteworthy values in 2011, but perhaps nothing to match this week’s sale of a family home in Elk River Estates.

Among the most self-evident trends in the Steamboat Springs real estate market this summer has been the downward arc of prices and, as a result, transaction amounts that reflect lower prices per square foot and are often significantly below either their last sale price or their valuation for 2011 taxes.

Commercial real estate has been a tough sale in the midst of the construction drought, but veteran commercial brokers say the autumn will bring a burst of activity in commercial leasing, particularly on Lincoln Avenue. Additionally, there are signs that well-established businesses in Routt County are getting ready to take advantage of 50 percent price reductions and low interest rates to move into new spaces.

It has already been a long, hot summer in Texas. Perhaps the weather is a contributing factor in the news that eight of the 45 buyers of million-dollar-plus properties in Routt County through May this year are from the Lone Star State.

When the market for modestly priced housing here someday turns upward and someday begins to stimulate demand for newly constructed homes, Steamboat Springs investor Steve Caragol thinks he’ll be positioned to dominate the market for appropriately priced building lots.

Were it not for remodeling projects to existing buildings, construction activity in Steamboat Springs and Routt County would be almost invisible early this summer. Specifically, alterations and additions to commercial buildings are carrying the local building industry through a deep trough.

The dollar value of building permits in Steamboat Springs and Routt County continues to lag in 2011 but has started to show slight improvements through April and the beginning of May. That comes on the heels of March seeing only 11 permits in Steamboat and Routt.

The tax valuation of property in Routt County dropped by more than $300 million in the past two years, but it wasn’t as steep a decline as Assessor Gary Peterson had feared. “Overall, values declined 21 percent compared to the 2009 reappraisal,” Peterson said.

Realtor Lisa Ruffino has been tracking sales at the 136-unit Sunray Meadows condominium project on Village Drive for eight years and has seen it evolve from stalled construction project to red-hot seller’s market to “distressed city” and now, finally, to a property with increasing demand.

The market for $2 million-plus homes is alive in Routt County. The valley saw 21 sales of improved residential units priced at $2 million and above in 2010. And there have been eight in 2011, including the March 31 sale of a home on Pebble Run for $2.03 million.

While government leaders expressed concern this week about the continuing pace of new foreclosure filings, a local Realtor, who is among three who list distressed properties for Fannie Mae, said it appears the demand for foreclosed homes is outpacing the supply of them.

In a housing market where most homes bought in the past six years are worth less than what the owner paid for them, it’s understandably difficult for sellers to invest in all but the most necessary improvements. However, one veteran Steamboat Springs Realtor says in the competitive million-dollar-plus market, tackling a major upgrade can set a home apart from the competition.

Overlook Park, a proposed 139-lot residential subdivision on Steamboat Springs’ far west side, has emerged from foreclosure and resumed the city planning process.

The 70-acre parcel immediately west of the West Acres Mobile Home Park and West End Village neighborhoods is on the market for $3.8 million.

The board of directors of the Yampa Valley Housing Authority may be asking the voters of its district to validate its existence in fall with a new property tax that would provide it with a stable funding source.

A building proposal that some say represents economic development in Steamboat Springs ran into the realities of the city’s development code at a Steamboat Springs Plan­ning Com­mis­sion meeting last week when plans for a new Walgreens store were tabled until Jan. 27.

In November, the real estate story in Routt County was defined by the sale of entry-level homes at attractive prices. Statistics researched by Bruce Carta, of Land Title Guarantee Co., revealed that of 48 residential transactions in November, 33 were at prices below $500,000. And of those 33, 20 were for less than $300,000. Eight homes sold for less than $200,000 — a price that was unheard of just three years ago.

Building permits for single-family homes in Routt County continue to come through at a trickle, according to the most recent figures from the Routt County Regional Building Department. One permit was issued for a single-family home in Steam­boat Springs in November, bringing the year-to-date total to seven.

Bill Starkey and his partner, W.C. White, of Evergreen, have just become the majority partners in longstanding Steamboat real estate agency Old Town Realty, which is poised to become a Keller Williams Realty franchise as soon as they can get the banner up over the office.

Four downtown redevelopment projects that came of age in the recession quietly are putting up some noteworthy numbers this fall — and one, The Victoria, is resurrecting itself.

Karen Mayfield, Thurs­day’s keynote speaker at Colorado Group Realty’s fourth annual Real Estate Roundup and Expo, all but promised her audience that she wouldn’t cheer them up. And before she launched into the bad news, she offered that ray of hope: “We’re through the worst,” Mayfield said. “We’re going in the right direction.”

After languishing all summer, land deals are coming to the fore in the Yampa Valley during the fourth quarter of 2010. Realtor Chris Wittemyer said the developers of Barn Village closed the sale of four single-family lots last week — all four to a longtime Steamboat resident.

Foreclosures could be slowing down in Routt County, but interest in them is growing.

There are 38 single-family residential properties in foreclosure across the county, said Beth Bishop, of Prudential Steamboat Realty. In September, there were 12 closings on foreclosed properties. In October, 18 are under contract and three have closed, she said Friday.

When three separate pieces of Riverfront Park sold for nearly $5 million this month, it was a combination of well-established tenants and dev­­­elopment potential that sealed the deal.

David Josfan broke ground on a new spec home in Boulder Ridge this week and he already can visualize the car the likely buyers will drive up in. Josfan isn’t psychic. He just has a finely tuned sense of the Steamboat market for a $1.695 million home in late 2010 and 2011.

The next big news in the seven-figure market could come from the Doug Martell-developed home in Catamount Ranch that is owned by Bank of America and listed by Ryan Stafford of High Mountain Sotheby’s. It recently went under contract.

It’s the pending sales that are most telling about what’s happening right now in the market.  “The number of pending contracts right now is 100 compared to 70 in the third week of July,” Realtor Jon Wade, of Colorado Group Realty, said Wednesday.

Steamboat Springs mortgage lenders say their business is picking up in line with a national trend that has seen mortgage refinancing applications come in faster than they have since May 2009. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t challenges.

Nearly half of the 1.3 million homeowners who enrolled in the Obama administration’s flagship mortgage-relief program have fallen out.

Michelle Garner, of Pruden­tial Steamboat Realty, looks forward to hosting open houses, not because she expects to sell the house where she spends a Saturday afternoon, but because an open house can be the real estate equivalent of speed dating.

There are several other buyers looking right now and at least one of them would plan to build, according to one of the developers

A business entity called BDMN Storage LLC, headed by building contractor Tom Fox, has returned to the city planning process with plans to develop 93 building lots on 44 acres developers say will be intended for people who work for a living in the Yampa Valley.

In the Sanctuary luxury home subdivision adjacent to Rollingstone Ranch Golf Cou­rse, homes sold for an average of $444 per square foot in 2007. By June 2010, that number had dropped 11 percent to $395 per square foot. The drop was much steeper in the older Tree Haus subdivision, just south of the city limits on River Road. The per-square-foot price there dropped 31 percent from $309 to $212 between the end of 2007 and this summer.

Nearly three years after construction liens brought progress at Hayden’s Lake Village subdivision to an abrupt halt, 72 building lots on the town’s south side are back on the market for a combined $2 million.

The 15th annual Strings Kitchen and Garden Tour on Saturday, which benefits the Strings Music Festival, will take residents on a tour of some of Steamboat's wonderful homes and gardens.

The bank-owned Steamboat properties appraised at $10-plus million within the last six months. The minimum bid is $3.8 million and there is an undisclosed reserve price that is somewhat higher, representing the lowest price the bank would accept.

Kevin Cooper readily admits he was taken aback when be began looking for a new home in Steamboat Springs in February 2009. But he finally found a brand-new home he could afford in Dry Creek Village. His new home was built by a local builder as a spec home at a time when almost no contractors in the valley are building without a contract.

Randall Hannaway, a broker/owner with Colorado Group Realty in Steamboat, also confirmed Thursday that he is representing Wilton in a sale of the property with the cooperation of Wells Fargo Bank (nationally), which acquired the note along with Wachovia Bank.

“It’s a private listing,”  Hannaway said. “We didn’t want it exposed publicly initially, and it’s not on the MLS (Steamboat Springs Multiple Listing Service). Hank is the owner — he’s still in control of the property.”

The bear cub squeezed into the house through a kitchen window Tuesday and helped itself to cereal, pistachio nuts and apples, then returned for second helpings on Wednesday, but was able only to open a human-sized garage door with its paw.

In a sluggish real estate market, nothing’s more frustrating to sellers than identifying a buyer for their home, only to find that their salvation is held up because the buyer can’t take action until they sell their own home. One workaround that’s gaining some attention in the Steamboat Springs market involves finding buyers for sellers who are willing to buy a second, lesser property in order to get a deal done with a buyer hoping to move up to a nicer ho

The era when real estate developers used increasingly elaborate amenities to differentiate resort properties is in the past. Taking its place is a new climate with buyers seeking out more sustainable projects that make economic sense in the post-recession era, Tyler Niess told an audience at The Steamboat Grand this week.

City officials this month are reviewing an application to subdivide a 12.13-acre parcel east of Casey’s Pond on Steamboat Springs’ south side that could begin the transformation into a senior living campus as soon as this summer.

The homeowners associations for the ski-in/ski-out condominiums at Bear Claw I and Bear Claw II have entered the city planning process with development permit applications for a pair of luxury duplex buildings and an addition of four condominiums.

The three large luxury condominiums at the base of Steamboat Ski Area that had their genesis in late summer 2007 into 2008 have accounted for $128.6 million in sales, but Edgemont, One Steamboat Place and Trailhead Lodge at Wildhorse Meadows have a distance to go.

Some of the most aggressively priced properties on the Steamboat real estate market have begun to go under contract as the sun passes the vernal equinox. A bank-owned duplex offered on a short sale on Bear Creek Drive with 1,680 square feet of living space recently closed for $413,000, compared with the asking price of $499,000.

It took a little nerve for EcoCorral developer and K.J. Otterman, of Middle Cog Builders, to break ground on the first of seven buildings in EcoCorral in November 2008. It took even a little more courage to stick to his plans to build to green standards in a struggling economy.

Routt County officials are moving ahead with a plan that would create the potential for 300 or more five-acre home sites on land wrapping around the northern and western perimeters of the city of Steamboat Springs.

Two local nonprofit organizations are seeking city development permits that would allow them to increase their presence in Old Town Steamboat Springs.

Paul Ralston and Mariana Ishida purchased a building site in Heritage Park that overlooked open ranch land more than two years ago. However, they temporarily put the building on hold as construction prices went up. They didn’t revisit the possibility of building a custom home until early in summer 2009. When they did, they were pleasantly surprised.

At $113.41 per square foot, the log-sided home at 250 Hillside Drive likely qualifies as one of the best Routt County real estate buys of 2009. The house measures 6,472 square feet, 5,555 of which are finished (the price per square foot was calculated on only the finished space in the home). A standout design feature is the large turreted roof on one wing.

The storefront at 824 Lincoln Ave. is on the sunny side of the shopping district in downtown Steamboat Springs, and last week, it went under a new five-year lease with an option to purchase.

The depth of the 2009 building slump here was underscored this week when the Routt County Regional Building Department issued a report showing that just eight permits were issued all year for new single-family homes in Steamboat Springs city limits.

It was open house night in Steamboat Springs on Wednesday, as Realtors took the temperature of holiday visitors to see whether they could turn the merely curious into solid sales leads.

Thanks to a rare winter storm front brewed up by growing sales of condominium intervals, an unexpected $26.7 million sale of mineral rights, and the steady closings of luxury condos put under contract in 2007, the Routt County real estate market in November saw its best month in a year that has tried the perseverance of the industry here.

Mary Weiss didn’t have to think too long about what to give her tenants for a holiday gift this month. “We have 50-plus tenants, most in one-bedroom units, and we gave them all a $25 gift certificate off their rent,” Weiss said, who is owner of Central Park Management.

The Routt County Board of Commissioners offered a ray of hope last week to 1,155 lot owners in some of the original subdivisions at Stagecoach. The commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday to reject a proposal from the Morrison Creek Metropolitan Water and Sanitation District to cap the number of sealed sewage vaults that can be installed on the lots.

New two-room suites  with mini kitchens are expected to appeal to ski vacationers.

The gondola towers rising from Wildhorse Meadows are tangible evidence of the steady progress being made at Wildhorse despite the down economy. But closings on 30-plus condominiums at Trailhead Lodge can be expected to continue at a gradual pace for months to come.

Chances are, locals have driven by the property of longtime Steamboat residents Mike Kortas and his wife, Nina Darlington, many times without fully appreciating what they were looking at. The entire 13 acres is available for $1.8 million or broken into its component parts through Realtor Scott Eggleston.

"Fractional purchases are made on the basis of frequency of use,” Irish said. “With the high cost of whole ownership, people often look at how often they plan to use a condominium. Many people can’t justify the capital outlay. If they only expect to use it two or three times a year, fractionals look very attractive. You get very high quality and great locations for an amount that makes sense.”

Unlike actual sales, which often aren’t recorded until a month or more after the contract was signed, pending sales are more indicative of current activity.

Michelle House and Rene Mattone have taken divergent paths during the past 13 months to realize their dreams of affordable housing in Steamboat Springs. Today, they live in beautiful new condominiums within 600 yards of each other. And although both professional women were prepared a year ago to buy deed-restricted condos that would limit appreciation in their new homes, it hasn’t worked out that way.

When the two-story condominium in the Val Gardena building at The Trails at Storm Meadows sold for $1.225 million this week, it was swimming against a brisk current in the local market.

The developers intended that the price of the lots would allow families to build 1,500 to 1,700-square-foot homes, and obtain 90 percent loans on 30-year fixed mortgages. The hope was that a 1,500-square-foot home could be built there for about $360,000 including land, construction and a budget for appliances and extras.

The elevators will cost about $35,000 apiece, and although Olsen has taken care to design a point of interest at each landing, in the end they’ll have a hard time competing with the visual impact of the completed four-story staircase.

The 10,654-square-foot building will be devoted exclusively to the bank’s use. It is being built on a 1-acre triangular lot immediately west of the movie theater. The site originally was anticipated to house a freestanding restaurant when Wildhorse Marketplace came through the planning process in 2003.

Steamboat luxury home developer Shayne Macher­owski has made a study of the natural light that sculpts the pocket valley where Fish Creek tumbles out of a geologic fault line leading down from the Continental Divide.

Kathleen Titus reluctantly has resigned herself to giving up her Earthship in North Routt, which means Realtor Darrin Fryer has a new listing that stands out among the 3,000-plus offerings on the multiple listing service.

A Houston-based development firm that owns Slate Creek Ranch just northwest of the Steamboat Springs Airport is tentatively pursuing a plan to build as many as 235, 5-acre home sites and a 36-hole golf course. The development would occur on 1,150 acres that share a boundary with city limits.

Stagecoach developer Ji-ang Song left the courthouse with a small victory Tuesday after Routt County commissioners agreed in concept to award him a zone change needed to develop 432 dwelling units just east of Stagecoach Reservoir. Commissioners Nancy Stahoviak and Doug Monger agreed that Song and his development consultants had modified their original plan enough to meet the criteria for a zone change from agriculture and forestry to zoning that allows a master-planned, increased-density community.

Realtors in Steamboat Springs were keeping a lookout for entry-level buyers this month, as the Routt County market showed signs of a late summer upswing. During the two-week period from Aug. 6 to 20, records on file at the Routt County Assessor’s Office reflect 20 real estate closings, not including timeshare sales.

Price reductions and an opening buy-down of mortgage payments have helped the Aspens at Walton Creek townhomes find a little August sweet spot, with three closings and a fourth under contract. “It’s kind of become a buyer’s market. They were able to be a little more flexible on price and they helped buy down the interest rate for the next three years, which will (temporarily) lower my payments,” recent buyer Brad Luth said.

Slopeside Grill is for sale, and Jim Cook expects it to be in new hands before ski season starts. The restaurant is in Torian Plum Plaza along the slopes of Steamboat Ski Area. Chris Corna owned the restaurant. When Corna died in May, Slopeside went to his parents, the beneficiaries of his estate. Cook, of Colorado Group Real­ty, is handling the sale.

The biggest possible advantage to the plan is that homeowners won't need to come up with any up-front money to pay for improvements – which can range from upgrades to insulation, windows, furnaces and water heaters to rooftop solar panels. Instead, homeowners would take out a loan from a county fund, then repay the loan through an increase to their property taxes.

Specifically, the HERA provisions say that if the annual percentage rate, or APR, of a mortgage — or any loan for that matter — increases more than .125 percent, or by one eighth, the lender must reissue an updated truth-in-lending statement and give the customer an additional three days to study it.

Greg Danziger and Eliese Pivarnik of Colorado Group Realty  recently earned the designation of Certified Distressed Property Expert (CDPE) following completion of training in foreclosure avoidance and short sales.  Their development of a new specialty comes at a time when the Steamboat market is seeing distressed homeowners being confronted by the foreclosure process.

The promise of a free meal, a $100 gift card or even a few nights gratis lodging may pull you into the sales presentation at a timeshare resort. The question of whether it makes sense to invest tens of thousands of dollars may send you away puzzled — or worse, second-guessing the decision you made to sign the papers.

Although there is very little variance among the seven studios, seven one-bedroom and 24 two-bedroom units, there is a substantial range of prices within each category.

The variety of prices can be attributed to the quality of the view, Pearson said. Some units look out on the white whale that is the public Tennis Center at Steamboat Springs, while others have views of Thunderhead or across the South Valley to Blacktail Mountain.

The new formula is based on construction costs of $145 per square foot, land costs that are calculated at 20 percent of construction costs and other smaller factors. City staff had previously suggested that construction costs be calculated at $200 a square foot and that land costs be calculated at 25 percent of construction costs.

“Until foreclosures have been significantly reduced and housing inventory reaches a more normal level, there can be no true housing recovery. The FHA–HAMP program will go a long way in achieving these important goals by helping FHA servicers bring mortgages current, buy down loans by up to 30 percent of the unpaid principal balance, and defer these amounts until the first mortgage is paid off.

One of the best angling spots on the Yampa River is back on the market for $28 million — and just 22 months after it sold for $19.4 million. Realtor Brian Smith, of Hall & Hall, has co-listed the Yampa Tailwaters Preserve 514-acre ranch with Randall Hannaway, of Colorado Group Realty. The listing is on behalf of Alpine River Club and investors in a private fishing operation. The property straddles the Yampa River where it pours out of the Catamount Dam, about seven miles south of Steamboat Springs.

On Tuesday, an activist group in Minnesota filed a lawsuit seeking to stop home foreclosures in that state. Mark Ireland, an attorney with the Minnesota-based Foreclosure Law Relief Project, said the government has failed to establish the procedures needed to ensure the fair and uniform administration of the program. Loan servicers are not required to tell a homeowner why they were denied a loan modification.

City Planning Director Tom Leeson said Thursday that the new fee will be the prevailing fee at closing, presumably the amount council approves during a scheduled Aug. 4 vote on revisions to the city’s community housing ordinance.

New U.S. home sales rose by the largest amount in more than eight years last month, in another sign the housing market is finally bouncing back from the worst downturn in decades. The Commerce Department said Monday that sales rose 11 percent in June to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 384,000, from an upwardly revised May rate of 346,000.

The U.S. housing market has started to recover from the most far-reaching crisis since the Great Depression, data released Thursday shows. Sales of previously occupied homes rose for the third month in a row in June, the National Association of Realtors reported. That hasn't happened since early 2004, during the boom.