A seller in Parker called me last August with what she thought was a simple question. Her roof had been hit in a July storm, the adjuster had already walked it, the first insurance check was sitting in her account, and she wanted photos taken in three weeks. Could she just sell it the way it was and let the buyer deal with the roof? She could. It would have cost her somewhere north of eleven thousand...
I've had a few sellers ask me some version of the same question lately: "I got my loan in 2021 at under 3%. Is there any way to actually use that when I sell?" It's a fair question. Freddie Mac's weekly rate survey put the average 30-year fixed at 6.69% as of August 6, an 11-month high, and I'm hearing more buyers do the math out loud during showings. If your loan happens to be assumable, that gap between...
Picture this: you've accepted an offer on your Parker home. Good number, reasonable terms, everything you wanted. Then you get to the fine print and see it, the buyer's purchase is contingent on selling their own house first. Suddenly your "sold" home isn't really sold. It's sold if their house sells too. This is one of the most common questions I get from sellers who are otherwise thrilled with an offer:...
Most Colorado sellers assume they'll owe some kind of state transfer tax on closing day, the way people in California or New York do. It's a fair guess, and it's almost always wrong. Colorado doesn't have a real transfer tax at the state level. What you'll actually see on the settlement statement is a tiny documentary fee, and unless your home sits in one of twelve specific mountain towns, that's the...
A seller in Castle Rock called me in June hoping I could just pick up where her old listing left off. Her home had been on the market for four months, the listing had quietly expired the week before, and she wanted to know if she could relist at the same price with the same photos before anyone noticed the gap. That conversation happens more than most sellers expect, and it's worth understanding exactly...
A deal I was part of this spring didn't fall apart over the inspection. It fell apart over the roof, and not because the roof leaked. It fell apart because the buyer's insurance company took one look at the age of those shingles and said no. The Contingency Nobody Talks About Until It's a Problem Every buyer's contract has an inspection contingency and a financing contingency. Almost nobody thinks about...
A seller I worked with in Aurora had her home under contract in about a week, a great outcome by any measure. Then the appraisal came back, and it wasn't the value that was the problem. It was three items on the appraiser's checklist: peeling paint on the exterior trim, a missing handrail on the basement stairs, and an outlet with exposed wiring in the garage. None of those would have shown up on a...
A seller in Aurora called me a few weeks ago mid-move, a job relocation that came together fast, and realized once we ran the numbers that what she owed on her mortgage was more than the house would likely sell for even after a fresh coat of paint. She'd heard the term "short sale" from a coworker and asked me the question I hear most often about it: does this mean I'll owe money forever? The honest answer...
A seller in Highlands Ranch called me in a mild panic two weeks before her closing date last month because her buyer's lender was asking for the HOA status letter and nobody had requested it yet. It sounds like a small administrative step until it becomes the one thing standing between you and your closing date, so let's walk through what Colorado law actually requires here and how to keep it from turning...
A seller I worked with in Castle Rock this spring had her house nearly ready two weeks before she wanted to officially list it. The paint was fresh, the yard had finally greened up, and she wanted buyer's agents to know something was coming without fielding a flood of showing requests before the photos were even back from the photographer. That's exactly the situation Coming Soon status was built for, and...
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