Buyer Guides

I work with a lot of buyers who have served, and one thing comes up again and again: they have no real sense of how much their VA benefit can actually do for them. Some have carried it for years and never used it once. If you are active duty, a veteran, or a surviving spouse, this is one of the strongest loan programs out there, and Colorado is a great place to put it to work. Here is what I want every...

I was walking a buyer through a brand-new home in one of Parker's newer subdivisions last month, and she stopped cold when she saw the property tax estimate. A similar-sized house two streets over had a tax bill almost $2,000 a year lower. The home wasn't the difference. The metro district was. If you're shopping for new construction along the Front Range, this is one of the most expensive things people...

If you are shopping for a home above about $862,500 in the Denver metro this year, you are most likely looking at a jumbo loan, and the rules work a little differently than most buyers expect. I work with a lot of buyers in Cherry Creek, Greenwood Village, Castle Pines, and the higher end of Lone Tree, and the question I hear most is some version of "why is this loan harder to get than my last one?" The...

Here's something I've noticed more this year: buyers who'd written off "the ugly one" are coming back to it. With more homes sitting on the market across the Denver metro, that dated kitchen or the house that needs a new roof isn't the dealbreaker it was two years ago. It's an opening. And if you use the right loan, you can buy the house and fund the repairs in one shot, without draining your...

Colorado now requires a written buyer agency agreement before you tour homes. Here is what it covers, what is negotiable, and how to protect yourself.

Family can help with your Colorado down payment. Here is how gift funds, gift letters, and the paper trail work, plus how to pair a gift with state help.

Affordability is not the sticker price. A 2026 look at payments, the 28/36 rule, down payment myths, and the Colorado costs buyers forget.

Most mortgage advice assumes you get a W-2 and a steady paycheck. If you run your own business, that advice can feel like it was written for someone else. I hear it all the time from clients in Parker and across the south metro: "I make good money, but every lender treats me like a risk." You are not a risk. You just have a different paper trail. Once you understand what lenders are actually reading,...

Here's a number that surprises almost everyone I work with: the gap between the average mortgage rate from 2021 and what you'd pay today is wide enough to change your whole monthly budget. A buyer who locked in around 3% back then is sitting on a payment that looks nothing like what a new loan would cost in 2026. So it's fair to ask the question more buyers are asking me lately: can you just take over that...

Most people I talk to about home loans have never heard of the USDA Rural Development loan. Or if they have, they assume it's only for farmers. It isn't. And in a lot of Colorado, you can use it to buy a regular suburban home with zero down payment. I had a client last spring who almost passed on a great house outside Elizabeth because she thought she needed a 5% down payment she didn't have. Turns out...