If someone asked you to explain escrow right now, could you do it? Most people can't, and honestly, that's fine. It's one of those real estate terms that gets tossed around constantly but rarely gets explained in a way that actually makes sense. I hear it come up with almost every client I work with. "What exactly is escrow?" "Where does my money go?" "Who's holding all of this?" These are completely...
Quick answer: Low appraisals are happening more often in Colorado as the Denver market cools and offer prices don't always match the comparable sales. The five most common reasons are limited recent comps, missed value-add features, conservative market-conditions adjustments, condition issues flagged by the appraiser, and offer prices that simply exceeded fair market value in multiple-offer situations. You...
Quick answer: In Colorado, the rights to what is under your land can be owned by someone other than the person who owns the house on top. These are called severed mineral rights, and they are extremely common across the Front Range and the eastern plains. The mineral owner generally has the legal right to access and extract oil, gas, or other minerals from below your property, even if you own the surface....
Quick answer: If you are buying a home in Elbert County, parts of Douglas County like Franktown or Elizabeth, Park County, or rural Larimer County, there is a good chance the home runs on a private well instead of municipal water. Colorado's Division of Water Resources issues the permit that controls what the well can be used for, and the permit transfers with the property. During your inspection...
Quick answer: A backup offer is a secondary contract that automatically becomes the primary contract if the first deal collapses. Colorado uses a specific addendum to make it official, and once signed, the backup buyer puts their earnest money up too. Backup offers can protect a seller from a re-listing nightmare, but they only work in your favor if the backup buyer is genuinely qualified and the primary...
Quick answer: Many new-construction subdivisions in suburban Denver sit inside a Metropolitan District (often called a metro district or Title 32 district). These districts add an extra mill levy on top of normal county, city, and school district taxes to pay back the bonds that financed roads, water lines, sewers, and parks. The extra cost can be anywhere from $3,000 to $8,000 or more per year, and it can...
Quick answer: Active inventory across the Denver metro is meaningfully higher this spring than it was a year ago, and median days on market has climbed from the low teens into the 30 to 40 day range. Price reductions are more common, and the supply-demand balance has tilted toward buyers in most price bands. But the under $500,000 segment is still moving fast, and the $1M+ tier is the slowest. The...
Quick answer: A reserve study is the HOA's professional assessment of long-term capital needs (roof, elevator, paint, parking lot, boiler) and how well-funded the reserve account is to cover them. A reserve account that is less than 30 percent funded is high risk for special assessments. Above 70 percent is strong. Colorado's HB22-1137 requires reserve studies every 5 years for many HOAs as of 2022. Before...
Quick answer: Spend $1,500 to $3,000 on cosmetic and safety fixes before you list, not $20,000 on a remodel. The repairs that consistently pay back are fresh interior paint, deep cleaning, sticking doors and squeaky hinges, missing outlet covers, working smoke and CO detectors per current Colorado fire code, an HVAC tune-up, exterior caulking, and lightbulb replacement. The ones that almost never pay back...
Quick answer: House hacking means buying a multi-unit property (duplex, triplex, or home with a legal ADU), living in one unit, and renting out the others to cover most or all of your mortgage. In Colorado, FHA loans allow you to buy a 2-4 unit property with as little as 3.5% down if you live in one unit. What House Hacking Actually Looks Like in Colorado I get asked about investment properties a lot,...
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