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Archive for January 2008
January 31st, 2008
There’s a great article on 9news.com this morning - with all the doom and gloom recession talk out there, I have to say it again - now is the time. Snap up a property as a home or as an investment!
ENGLEWOOD – Since the Federal Reserve cut interest rates again on Wednesday, this time by a half point, first-time homebuyers are getting opportunities they didn’t think they would get for several years.
Autumn and Joseph Enderle fall into that category. They never thought they’d be able to buy a new home, until they came across a bungalow in Englewood.
“We can afford it. Why aren’t we doing it? It’s only 120 more than what we are paying in rent now,” said Autumn.
The Enderles thought the hardest part would be dealing with all the paperwork and getting a loan. They were wrong.
“That was actually the best thing about everything. You don’t have the ARMs anymore - the 100 percent financing - everybody thinks you have to have the 5 percent down, but there are a lot of really good programs out there for first-time home buyers,” said Autumn.
In reaction to the housing market, lenders have scaled back in recent weeks to only offer 95 percent financing in some cases, which the industry predicts will result in fewer buyers. However, for those who can swing a down payment, it could be a win-win situation.
“We think the first-time homebuyer has an opportunity maybe of a lifetime,” said Pete Lansing with Universal Lending Corportation.
Industry experts say sellers are at the greatest disadvantage, with fewer buyers in the market.
The Enderles warn, if you’re in the market for a home, especially when looking at those nearing or in foreclosure, sealing the deal can take time.
“I don’t know why they call it a short sell. It takes five months to go through,” said Autumn.
However, even with the unforeseen hassle of having to wait to get what they wanted, the Enderles say they’d do it again.
“When everything was said and done, it was worth it,” said Autumn.
Posted in Real Estate News | No Comments »
January 23rd, 2008
I love it when Suze Orman and I are on the same page. I was just telling a first-time homebuyer yesterday that I am so envious of her situation - not having anything to sell, and being able to buy when prices are so, so low. Then, on the Today show this morning, Suze Orman had this to say…
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/22799311#22799311
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January 22nd, 2008
One of the best deals in town is free admission to featured plays at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts each season! The Scientific & Cultural Facilities District (SCFD) provides the free admission, funded in part through the 0.1% sales and use tax. There’s no catch, just come on down to the DCPA and get in line around 4:00 pm the day of the play, pick up your ticket when the box office opens at 4:30, go grab a bite to eat at one of the great restaurants in the area, and then enjoy the play at 6:30. This week’s play is Plainsong, description below. Don’t miss out on this great opportunity to enjoy an award-winning play for FREE!
Plainsong
January 24 · 6:30pm · Stage Theatre
A Denver Center World Premiere
Set on the high plains of eastern Colorado, this adaptation of the New York Times best-selling novel unflinchingly portrays love and loss in a small ranching community. A school teacher is left alone to care for his vulnerable sons, while two gruff bachelor brothers – knowing little about life beyond the ranch – awkwardly offer a home to a pregnant teenage girl. As their lives intertwine, they survive harshness and cruelty to recreate family and community. Warm, stark, unsentimental, yet poetic – this story taps a deep well of human emotion.
A DCTC Commission.Producing Partners:
Jim Steinberg & Karolynn Lestrud
Terry & Noel Hefty
Recipient of an Edgerton Foundation New American Plays Award
Additional FREE plays offered this season include:Gee’s Band
March 13 · 6:30pm · Space Theatre
The Merry Wives of Windsor
March 20 · 6:30pm · Stage Theatre
Doubt
April 3 · 6:30pm · Ricketson Theatre
3 Mo’Divas
May 8 · 6:30pm · Stage TheatreA few rules, please:
- Available the day of the event at the theatre box office only
- Box Office opens two hours before performance
- House opens ½ hour before curtain
- No reservations
- First-come, first-served
- One ticket per person
- Seating is General Admission
- No children under six
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January 22nd, 2008
Good news from www.9news.com for Denver!! I totally agree - the Denver Metro area is a great place to have and raise kids!
DENVER – The stork likes Denver. Fit Pregnancy Magazine has rated the city one of the best in the country, for moms having babies. On 9NEWS 5 a.m. we talked to Peg Moline, Editor in Chief for the magazine.
Denver was in the top five, according to Moline and only beaten by San Francisco, Minneapolis, Portland and Seattle.
The magazine examined 50 areas of criteria including fertility services, maternal and infant health risk, access to hospital, birthing options and an overall quality of life for families, Moline said.
Among some of Denver’s standouts were the birthing options and the quality of hospitals the article said.
“Women are really are looking for a variety of options when choosing to have their baby. Number five is a great place to be,” said Moline. “We found that birthing and maternal rates and smoking were all really low.”
Denver has one of the worst commutes, however and families are looking for quality time with their children. The survey also found that residents want Denver to have better family leave policies and more tax breaks.
Minneapolis also did well for their birthing options and the West coast stood out in the survey for their access to parks, recreation and quality of life.
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January 22nd, 2008
I am so excited to announce that the First Ever home Buyer Happy Hour will be February 9th and is being hosted by Snooze, one of my all-time favorite breakfast/late-night joints!
Thinking about buying a home but don’t know where to start? Home Buyer Happy Hour is the place to be!
FEBRUARY 9, 2008 at Snooze, Denver’s Best A.M. Eatery!
Join us for some of Snooze’s award-winning pancakes from 1 to 3 pm - FREE BRUNCH AND DRINK SPECIALS!!
Learn about:
- Hot new neighborhoods
-Affordable properties
- Great investments
- Searching for the right home
- The lending process
- Inspections
- Appraisals
- Financial planning
- Credit rehab
- Renovation costs and returns
and much, much more!
The Second Saturday afternoon of each month
Call Stacie at 720-299-6635 or visit www.staciestaub.com for details or to RSVP
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January 13th, 2008
On January 15th, Downtown Denver’s financial district, 17th Street, will host some very unique visitors. The annual National Western Stock Show Parade will travel from Union Station to 17th and Tremont. Onlookers will be delighted by herds of sheep, wranglers, stage coaches and even a magnificent grouping of long-horned cattle (with plenty of cowboys and cowgirls to keep them in line).Come celebrate our city’s roots and welcome our four-legged friends at the kick-off of the 102nd National Western Stock Show in Denver. I love this event - it’s so great to see stockbrokers in suits next to preschoolers on a field trip next to suburban cowboy-wannabes, all lined up on the sidewalk, munching on popcorn and watching the cows, horses, wagons and parade queens go by!
National Western Stock Show Parade
January 15th, Noon – 12:30pm
Union Station to 17th and Tremont
Posted in What to do in D-Town, What's going on?! | No Comments »
January 6th, 2008
With all of the foreclosures and short sales on the Denver MLS right now, the game really has changed. In a seller’s market, you can sit back and wait for multiple offers to roll in, and often get more than your asking price for your property.
In today’s buyer’s market, buyers have to know how to write offers that will open a conversation with the lender who now owns the property. Most of the time, the listing agents who are representing these properties have so many deals working they can’t keep them straight - so it’s important to remind them, even after you have submitted a decent offer, if you are paying cash, if you aren’t asking for any concessions, if you are truly buying the property “as-is”, because, even though the Listing Broker will say that they have no influence on the speed at which a lender processes an offer, I have found that keeping yourself in their inbox and on their voice mail - and at the top of their pile of messages, really does make a difference.
If you are working with a Buyer’s Broker who is afraid to bother the Listing Agent, or a Listing Agent who is afraid to bug the lender, deals can take an insane amount of time to process.
So, sorry to all of the brokers out there who I harass with multiple messages and emails, but it seems to be paying off for my clients with closed deals at way less than list price - and that’s my bottom line.
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January 4th, 2008
For me, the answer is definitely no way. But I also have a husband, 3 growing kiddos and too many shoes, so living in a small space seems like a special kind of hell, to tell you the truth.
But for many Americans, there is a movement towards downsizing from the McMansions that represented the American dream throughout the past decade to a smaller, more eco-friendly dream. And, since I have spent the last week filling boxes marked Donate, Sell, and Store with all of the clutter we have outgrown in the past few months, I do have to say that it would be nice, once the kids have grown and moved into their own little mansions, to have a smaller place with less clutter and stuff. But I might need two of them….
Check out this article from Front Door Real Estate, powered by HGTV –
More Americans are finding they have more home than they want or need.
The reasons are too much house are many. Baby boomers, 77 million strong, are looking to downsize in retirement. Young home buyers find it increasingly difficult to afford or maintain larger homes. Urban land is at a premium. Smaller homes in desirable neighborhoods are scarce or outlawed by covenant. And environmental concerns about a residence’s “carbon footprint” have further dampened enthusiasm for spacious showpieces.
In some cases, the small-house trend goes to the extreme Lilliputian end of the scale.
Jay Shafer lives quite comfortably in a 100-square-foot house in Sebastopol, Calif. You may have a toolshed or a master bath about the same size.
Shafer’s home is on the small end of a line of compact, ready-made dwellings he designs for his Tumbleweed Tiny House Co. His designs have won numerous awards for energy efficiency and green building. The homes cost between $20,000 and $48,000, excluding land.
Though many customers use them as vacation homes or mother-in-law cottages, there are those smaller-is-better devotees who, like Shafer, simply prefer to live within their means.
Shafer, founder of the Small House Society, says “supersizing” came about when home builders hooked consumers on the one easily quantifiable aspect of every house: its square footage.
“It’s true that the cheapest thing you can add onto a house is square footage, and of course the building industry likes to build these things and people are willing to pay a lot for that not-so-expensive addition,” he says. “When the housing industry pushed for larger houses back in the ’70s and ’80s because their profits were leveling out, the banks followed suit. Then the codes followed suit, so it became illegal to build smaller than a certain size.”
Americans quickly came to believe that more square footage paid for itself in resale, especially during the run-up of housing prices in the last decade. Since 1970, the average American home has grown from 1,500 square feet to 2,450 square feet, according to the National Association of Home Builders.
Against that bigger-is-better investor mind-set, smaller homes were either shunned as fixtures from a bygone era or lumped in with mobile homes. Shafer, Alchemy Architects, the Tiny House Co. and others are attempting to change such perceptions about compact living by extolling the virtues of small houses.
Virtues of small houses:
Energy efficiency: The propane bill to heat Shafer’s cabin in frigid Iowa City, Iowa, was less than $170 for the entire winter.
Durability: Tumbleweed houses withstand winds of up to 180 mph.
Expandability: Modular design allows for growth.
Custom materials: The smaller the house, the easier it is to use cedar, rubber shingle tiles, cork flooring and other materials that would bust the budget of a larger house.
Perhaps the biggest obstacle to downsizing is where to put stuff. Jim Gauer, author of “The New American Dream: Living Well in Small Homes,” has these suggestions for maximizing storage space in a small home:
1. Install kitchen cabinets that go to the ceiling.
2. Put in drawers, drawers and more drawers. Put them under beds, in kitchen bases, in bedside tables, inside closets.
3. Include closet systems, such as those available at California Closets and IKEA.
New York designer Marianna Cusato wasn’t out to change the world when she designed the Katrina Cottage. Her goal was to help provide immediate housing to the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
But when Lowe’s executives saw Cusato’s compact, self-contained cottage at the International Builders Show in 2005, they recognized a solution to the broader need for affordable housing nationwide.
Lowe’s partnered with Cusato and made Katrina Cottages available to order at its 29 locations in Louisiana and Mississippi. The one- and two-bedroom bungalows, in four styles ranging from 544 square feet to 936 square feet, are delivered in sections for easy assembly.
The cost: $40 to $50 per square foot, or less than $50,000 for the largest floor plan.
Cusato says the availability of a durable, new, “right-sized” house touched a nerve with people tired of having to carry the financial burden of oversized homes.
“A lot of times, houses are sold because Realtors convince somebody that it’s not necessarily what they may want, but it’s what they have to have to resell. So many people are living in houses not because it’s the exact house they want but it’s the house they need to sell out of,” she says.
Ultimately, says Cusato, the solution lies in well-built communities where homes can be of a human scale, instead of stretched out of shape in an effort to fit in everything from a fitness room to a movie theater that should be shared by the neighborhood.
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »
January 4th, 2008
I am really psyched to announce that my real estate team is launching a series of events called Homebuyer Happy Hour on the Second Saturday of every month!
Stay tuned for location information - our first event will be February 9th - and it will change the way you learn about hot new neighborhoods, great investments, and the buying and lending process!
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
January 3rd, 2008
The Downtown Denver Partnership has published this list of FREE DAYS at some of Denver’s most popular attractions - I love free days!
2008 Free DaysDenver Museum of Nature & Science
Hours Vary - Check Schedule
Wednesday, January 16
Sunday, April 20
Saturday, May 3
Wednesday, June 25
Wednesday, August 13
Sunday, September 7
Wednesday, October 22
Sunday, December 7 |
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Denver Museum of Nature & Science
2001 Colorado Blvd.
303.322.7009
www.dmns.org
Hours: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Daily |
| Scientific & Cultural Facilities District Free DaysThe Scientific & Cultural Facilities District is a voter-approved special district in the seven-county metro area that provides a stable source of supplemental funding to more than 300 scientific and cultural organizations inside the district’s boundaries. The SCFD collects a one-tenth of 1 percent sales-and-use tax (or one penny on every $10 spent), providing approximately $35 million each year to area cultural attractions both small and large. The cost per capita is relatively small, only about $14.92 per resident each year.
The citizen-supported SCFD provides an exceptional return on the public’s investment. Proceeds from the tax go directly to support art, music, theater, dance, zoology, botany, natural history, and cultural history in Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Broomfield, Denver, Douglas and Jefferson counties.
www.scfd.org |
|
Downtown Denver |
2008 Free DaysDenver Zoo
Hours Vary - Check Schedule
Monday, January 14
Saturday, January 26
Thursday, January 31
Thursday, February 14
Tuesday, October 7
Saturday, October 18
Sunday, November 2
Sunday, November 9 |
|
Denver Zoo
2300 Steele St.
303.376.4800
www.denverzoo.org
Open every day 9am-6pm |
2008 Free DaysDenver Botanic Gardens
Hours Vary - Check Schedule
Monday, Jan. 21 – Martin Luther King Day
Monday, February 18 – Presidents Day
Monday, March 17
Tuesday, April 22 – Earth Day
Monday, July 21
Saturday, September 27
Saturday, October 18 |
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Denver Botanic Gardens
1005 York St.
720.865.3500
www.botanicgardens.org
Hours: 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. daily |
2008 Free DaysDenver Art Museum
Hours Vary - Check Schedule
General admission is free for Colorado residents on the first Saturday of every month.
Saturday, January 5
Saturday, February 2
Saturday, March 1
Saturday, April 5
Saturday, May 3
Saturday, June 7
Saturday, July 5
Saturday, August 2
Saturday, September 6
Saturday, October 4
Saturday, November 1
Saturday, December 6 |
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Denver Art Museum
The Museum is now open late! Open until 10 p.m. Wednesday and Friday nights, the Museum is a great place to go during an evening trip to downtown with out-of-town family and friends. The new Museum complex opens at 9 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday, allowing more time in the morning to view the collections.
100 W. 14th Ave. Parkway
720.865.5000
www.denverartmuseum.org
Tues., Wed., Thurs., & Sat. - 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.,,Fri. - 10 a.m. - 10 p.m.,,Sun. - noon - 5 p.m., Monday - Closed |
2008 Free DaysChildren’s Museum of Denver
4 - 8 pm
The Children’s Museum of Denver is opening its doors to the public for free the first Tuesday of every month. |
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Children’s Museum of Denver
The Children’s Museum of Denver offers a variety of ongoing daily programs and an exciting schedule of special events designed to nourish the relationship between you and your children.
I-25 and 23rd St. - Exit 211
2121 Children’s Museum Drive
303.433.7444
www.cmdenver.org
Monday-Friday 9:00am-4:00pm, Saturday & Sunday 10:00am-5:00pm |
| 2008 Free ShowsThe Denver Center for the Performing Arts
Jan 01, 2008 - May 08, 2008
Times Vary - Check Schedule
January 10 - Our House - 6:30 p.m. - The Space Theatre
January 17 - Lydia - 6:30 p.m. - The Ricketson Theatre
January 24 - Plainsong - 6:30 p.m. - The Stage Theatre
March 13 - Gee’s Bend - 6:30 p.m. - The Space Theatre
March 20 - The Merry Wives of Windsor - 6:30 p.m. - The Stage Theatre
April 3 - Doubt - 6:30 p.m. - The Ricketson Theatre
May 8 - 3 Mo’ Divas - 6:30 p.m. - The Stage Theatre
A few rules, please:
~ Available the day of the event at the theatre box office only
~ Box Office opens two hours before performance
~ House opens ½ hour before curtain
~ No reservations
~ First-come, first-served
~ One ticket per person
~ Seating is General Admission
~ No children under six |
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