A buyer I was working with in Parker last month asked me something I don't get very often. Her lender kept steering her toward one specific title company, and she wanted to know if that was even allowed. It turned out the lender and the title company were part of the same ownership group. That's not illegal in Colorado. It's called an affiliated business arrangement, and disclosing it has been required for...
I had a showing in south Aurora last week where the sellers pulled me aside afterward and asked why nobody was writing offers the way they had eighteen months ago. I've been getting some version of that question a lot this month, and the numbers that just came out from REcolorado for August give a pretty specific answer. Denver Metro homes took a full week longer to sell in August than they did in July....
A buyer I was working with last month sat down at a builder's sales office in one of the new communities out past Parker, ready to write on the floor plan she'd circled twice. Instead of the Colorado Real Estate Commission contract she'd used on her last purchase, the builder's rep slid over the builder's own agreement, eleven pages, single-spaced, with a name at the top that wasn't the state's. She asked...
A seller called me a few months into a listing with another agent, ready to make a change. She'd read her contract before signing, or thought she had, but she'd never actually clocked the word “irrevocable” printed near the top of it. She wanted to know if she was stuck. She wasn't, not exactly, but the real answer took longer than a text message. It's a fair question, and one more sellers should ask...
A client of mine moved here from a city where the trash truck just showed up every Tuesday, no signup required, paid for through property taxes. Her first week in her new Parker home, she called me a little panicked. No bin, no pickup, no idea who to call. I had to explain that in most of the South Denver suburbs, there's no truck coming unless you arrange one yourself. This surprises more new residents...
A buyer client asked me something at a showing in Highlands Ranch a few months back that I get more often than you'd think: "Has anyone ever died in this house?" I told her the truth. I didn't know, and under Colorado law, the seller isn't required to tell either of us even if the answer is yes. That surprises most people. It sounds like exactly the kind of thing a seller should have to disclose. But...
I had a showing in Parker last week where my buyer client asked if we should come in low, since the house had already been sitting for three weeks. I told her the truth: at three weeks, that home wasn't sitting. It was actually moving close to the current pace for a detached home around here. She was surprised. A lot of people are, right now, because everyone's heard that homes are taking longer to sell...
A renter I've been working with in Aurora has never paid rent late. Not once, in four years. She assumed none of that mattered for buying a home, because until recently, it didn't. Your credit score has always been built from credit cards, auto loans, and student loans. Rent, the largest monthly payment most people make, was invisible to it. That changed this spring. If you've been quietly building a...
A client called me a few weeks ago thinking about listing her house in Parker. She's owned it since 2015, raised her kids there, and figured selling would be simple: pay off the mortgage, pocket the rest, move on. Then she asked me what she'd actually owe the IRS. I told her the honest answer is "it depends," and she was surprised that depended on anything at all. Most sellers never run this math until...
I was running the numbers on a house in Parker with a client last week, comparing it against a similar listing in Highlands Ranch, and she stopped me when I mentioned E-470. "Wait, how much is that actually costing me?" She'd budgeted the mortgage, the HOA, even the higher property tax. The toll road she'd be crossing twice a day never made the spreadsheet. She's not unusual. Most buyers treat E-470 as...
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