Toby Kamps, a fantastic curator at the Menil Collection, will be jurying. The New Mexico Museum of Art will host the exhibition in January 2013. Here is a link to the prospectus: http://www.nmartmuseum.org/artontheedge/.

I happen to be on the steering committee of FOCA (Friends of Contemporary Art) at the museum, and see first-hand that this show is generating more interest for a competition than any other show here in recent memory. It’s going to be a great show, and what a thrill to have Toby Kamps curate it.

Art is certainly one of the huge reasons that people move to New Mexcio and Santa Fe in particular. It would be quite an eye-opener if we saw just how much the artist world and the creative worlds in total contribute to the Santa Fe real estate market. David Rosen and Christopher Rocca (Home Team Santa Fe) are thrilled to be part of this endeavor. It represent the best of our lives outside of real estate.

The high marks Santa Fe received for various quality of life markers help our residents keep their New Year’s resolutions, according to the site. Other cities ranking with Santa Fe were West Des Moines (Iowa); Richmond (Virginia), Omaha (Nebraska), Madison (Wisconsin), Fort Collins (Colorado) and Charlotte (North Carolina).

While there is not any real data about Santa Fe real estate, we thought you might be amused by this newest honor!

Santa Fe has over 7 ½ times more “artists and related workers” living here for its population size than the national average!

The short article can be found here.

We can’t help but wonder how many times the national average Santa Fe has for Santa Fe real estate brokers!

It is heartening to see that Santa Fe keeps being named among the top city lists this year.  Not too long ago it was Travel + Leisure’s list and around the same time Santa Fe was awarded the third highest ranking city in a closely watched Conde Nast Traveler reader survey.

During his 35-year career, James Drake has worked with equal fluency in video, photography, sculpture, drawing and printmaking. He has had over 60 one-person shows and has been included in numerous group exhibitions, including the 2000 Whitney Biennial and the 2007 Venice Biennale. Drake is the recipient of a Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, two National Endowment for the Arts grants, and a Nancy Graves Award for Visual Arts. His most recent accolade is a Texas Medal of Arts (2011). His work is in more than 30 museum collections, including the Albright-Knox Gallery, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, Blanton Museum of Art, Dallas Museum of Art, Denver Art Museum, Phoenix Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the New Mexico Museum of Art.

Born in Lubbock, Texas, in 1946, Drake lived for many years in El Paso, Texas, and presently lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

The above text is directly from the New Mexico Museum site (click here) where you can find many images from the show.  This is a splendid show by a remarkable artist.  We urge you to find the time to go in person.  The Drake work is beautifully installed and juxtaposes incredibly well with the “Past Present Future: Michael Berman, David Taylor, and Connie Samaras” photography show which you can explore here.

The local data comes from U.S. Census Bureau, the Labor Department and HUD data, as well as statistics from state and local municipalities as well as “housing industry sources”, according to the announcement from HUD. Please visit their site here to seem more specifics.

Here, using a simple pull down menu you can access some of the market data specifically about Santa Fe real estate, housing, labor statistics and so forth—their “Market at a Glance” page.

While you can’t find this weeks “Santa Fe Arts” openings—(this is not “Pasatiempo”)–the HUD site does offer an interactive map of the U.S., divided into major regions. You can drill down to county-level data too.

Major catagories for the site:

1. Market at a Glance reports: Economic and housing market data trends for county and metro areas, with monthly employment data.  This is to be updated regularly.

2. Regional housing market profiles: Employment, population and construction stats.

3. Regional narratives: Economic and housing market trends within 10 U.S. regions.   These are rather detailed PDF documents on each larger region, i.e. Southwest Region.  You can download the latest quarter’s report for the Southwest Region at this part of the site.

4. Comprehensive housing market analysis: City-specific housing market reports prepared by HUD field economists.

The new trail will be about three miles in length, over land that the Santa Fe Conservation Trust now owns and is conveying to Santa Fe County in order to accomplish this extension.  The name of the trail is going to be La Piedra Trail.  Work is going to begin this month (October) and should be completed by the end of December if all goes according to expectations.

The Santa Fe Conservation Trust was begun in 1993 by Stuart Udall and Dale Ball, among others.  Its purpose is to protect open spaces and wildlife habitat in Santa Fe county as well as other adjacent counties. 

When newcomers to Santa Fe ask about which local groups work with the the environment we try to tell them about the Santa Fe Conservation Trust.  They are a good group and a major asset to those of us who work in the Santa Fe real estate market.

Besides the new World Health ranking Santa Fe has been on the American Lung Association’s “State of the Air” Annual Reports ranking  as the second best city to live in with regards to particle pollution, just behind Cheyenne, Wyoming for several years.

This has always been a very important data point to make to people who are moving to Santa Fe or who are considering relocating to Santa Fe.  Air quality is one of the things that people looking at Santa Fe real estate are happiest to hear when we discuss the general area and Santa Fe’s best attributes.

One can extrapolate from this change the idea that perhaps they don’t have a whole lot of homes that they plan to foreclose on and try to sell at a discount to the market.

The four classifications for property are as follows:

Market Class 1 – Stable

Market Class 2 – Soft

Market Class 3 – Distressed

Market Class 4 – Severely Distressed

We will post more about this change once we have data or further explanations from Wells Fargo.  But at the moment it seems like very good news for the Santa Fe real estate market as a whole.

A grand living room overlooking the garden welcomes you. A handsome fireplace, wood floors and coved ceilings with vigas grace this room. The stylish use of low walls and standing vigas distinguish the living room from the den/dining room. Beyond is a wonderful kitchen with room for informal dining.   Take a further look here

The median price of existing homes, meanwhile, rose 0.3 percent in 2010 after a 12.9 percent drop in 2009, and is expected to rise 0.5 percent this year, to $173,800, and another 2.4 percent in 2012, to $177,900.

Sales of new single-family homes are expected to rebound faster, rising 17.7 percent this year, to 374,000 sales, after a 15.5 percent drop in 2010, and then rising 51.1 percent in 2012, to 565,000 sales. In an earlier forecast, released last month, NAR anticipated that sales of new single-family homes would climb 20.8 percent in 2011 and 30.9 percent in 2012.

The new-home median price rose 2.2 percent in 2010 and is expected to climb 1.8 percent this year, to $224,700, and 1.9 percent in 2012, to $229,000.

NAR expects that 30-year-fixed mortgage rates will average 5.1 percent this year, up from 4.7 percent in 2010, and rise to 5.9 percent in 2012.

The group also forecasts the U.S. unemployment rate to fall from 9.7 percent in 2010 to 9.4 percent this year and 8.7 percent in 2012, while U.S. real gross domestic product is expected to dip from 2.8 percent in 2010 to 2.6 percent this year, rising to 3.2 percent in 2012.

Also today, NAR reported a 2 percent month-to-month rise in December for its index tracking pending sales of existing homes, though the index was down -4.2 percent compared to December 2009.

The Pending Home Sales Index tracks homes for which a sales contract has been signed but the transaction has not yet closed. Typically, a sale is finalized within one to two months of signing, so the index is considered a leading indicator.

Regionally, the index fell 10.7 percent in the West, 5.3 percent in the Northeast and 5.1 percent in the Midwest while rising 1.7 percent in the South in December 2010 compared to December 2009.

And the index dropped 13.2 percent in the West while rising 11.5 percent in the South, 8 percent in the Midwest, and 1.8 percent in the Northeast from November 2010 to December 2010, NAR reported.

Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist, said in a statement, “Modest gains in the labor market and the improving economy are creating a more favorable backdrop for buyers, allowing them to take advantage of excellent housing affordability conditions. Mortgage rates should rise only modestly in the months ahead, so we’ll continue to see a favorable environment for buyers with good credit.”

NAR reported last week that the sales rate for existing homes rose about 12.3 percent from November 2010 to December 2010, but fell 2.9 percent compared to December 2009. The median price of existing homes dropped about 1 percent year-over-year in December, to $168,800.

Sales of new single-family homes were up an estimated 17.5 percent from November 2010 to December 2010 and fell about 7.6 percent year-over-year in December, the U.S. Census Bureau and Housing and Urban Development Department reported Wednesday. The median price rose about 8.5 percent year-over-year in December, to $241,500.