Tag: Chuck Brown

Just Listed by Chuck Brown: One-of-a-Kind ‘Prairie Style’ Home in Denver’s Wash Park Neighborhood

The architect designed this home at 801 S. Gilpin Street in the “Prairie Style” made famous by Frank Lloyd Wright, with large roof overhangs, ribbon windows and glass brick. Chuck Brown just listed it for $1,897,000. Built in 1994 with 2×6 exterior walls, it’s located in the heart of the Washington Park neighborhood and has at least two features Wright couldn’t incorporate — Cat5 ethernet wiring and a 5-kW solar PV system which combines with the home’s passive solar design to make it highly energy efficient. The primary bedroom is on the main level with two guest bedrooms, one with wood flooring, and full bath on the second floor. The 1,000-sq.-ft. basement is 2/3 finished, with a large entertainment room and 4th bedroom plus full bath and lots of storage. On the main floor is an office with built-in desk, shelving and wall cabinets plus a private entrance, making this an ideal home for a professional or other work-at-home situation. It could be adapted for a mother-in-law, au pair, or other use, too. There will be no open house, so call your agent or listing agent Chuck Brown at 303-885-7855 to arrange a private showing. Find more pictures and floor plans for all three levels at www.WashParkHome.info.

801 S. Gilpin Street is bottom center in this picture, with Washington Park 1/2 block west.

Readers Appreciate Our Free MLS Neighborhood Alerts

Back in April 2019, I offered to set up Free Neighborhood Alerts for any reader who wanted to keep track of real estate activity in their subdivision or larger area. The response was overwhelming. I myself have 42 readers who currently receive such alerts for their neighborhood.

I’m not complaining. My broker associates and I are pleased to make this service available to everyone who wants it, and we’ve become pretty efficient at creating these free alerts.

The MLS allows members to set up an unlimited number of email alerts, designed to assist buyers in searching for homes. We have adapted it to provide neighborhood alerts. Once set up, the alerts are generated automatically by the MLS. Just give us your address and the boundaries of the area you wish to monitor. The initial alert will tell you all the coming soon, active, under contract, sold, withdrawn and expired listings in that area, going back 90 days or longer.

Future alerts will come to you within 15 minutes of a new or changed listing being entered on the MLS. You will literally be up-to-the-minute in your knowledge of real estate activity in your neighborhood!

I’m happy to handle every request I get from readers, but feel free to ask any of our broker associates to create a neighborhood alert for you. They are listed below with their email addresses and are more than happy to provide this free service. Send your requests by email only, please.

In addition to setting up the neighborhood alert for you, we can also send you valuation reports on your home using two different software packages — Realtor Property Resource (RPR), which is only available from members of the Realtor association like us, and Realist — that you will find are much more accurate than Zillow’s “Zestimates,” which home owners are used to seeing.

I also like to provide a spreadsheet of active, under contract and sold listings that are comparable to your own home, which serves as a double-check on those two software valuations.

Jim Smith, Jim@GoldenRealEstate.com

Broker Associates:

Jim Swanson, BrokerSwanson@aol.com

Chuck Brown, Chuck@GoldenRealEstate.com

David Dlugasch, David@GoldenRealEstate.com

  Carol Milan, Carol@GoldenRealEstate.com

  Ty Scrable, Tyler.Scrable@gmail.com

Downsizing Safely and Effectively in Your Senior Years

Are you thinking that now’s the time to leave your big-house life behind? If so, you’re in luck. Despite the pandemic, the real estate market is strong, interest rates are low, and it’s still a great time to sell and buy. But you can’t go into the process blindly. Here are some tips to get you started on the right track.

First on your to-do list: Work with an experienced agent like those of us at Golden Real Estate. After all, an agent who knows the area can price your home correctly and help you find the right replacement home for you. We know the local market and whether a neighborhood is senior-friendly. You can ask us questions and get knowledgeable answers about local amenities, such as public transportation, fitness centers, and local senior facilities that will enrich your life.

If you prefer to downsize into a rental unit within a senior community, we can advise you on those communities and that process too, so feel free to ask us.

We can also help you determine a budget. As a buyer, keep in mind that it’s a seller’s market, and having us on your side can help get your foot in the door. If you’re moving locally, we can also save you a bundle with our free moving truck and our in-house movers.

You want to take a look at your budget to determine what you can afford. Our preferred lenders offer free affordability calculators. They allow you to input data, such as your home price, down payment, and monthly expenses. This can help you determine your potential future living expenses.

Once you have an agent and a price range, it’s time to compare what you can afford with what you need, and then make adjustments to your list as necessary. Many seniors, according to Home Tips For Women, look for features including those which lower utility costs. These, along with things like single-level living and wide doorways, allow for greater mobility, an important consideration if you’ve already begun to experience mobility issues.

Something to keep in mind during the downsizing process is that moving into a smaller home will require downsizing your belongings as well. Once you have chosen your future home, you can evaluate the belongings in your current one. This is an emotional process which takes patience, and, ideally, you’ll have cooperation from your friends and family. It’s often best to give certain things to your children and grandchildren now so you’re not tight on space in your new home. You can use our truck for that, too (and for trips to Goodwill).

If you’re moving outside the metro area, choosing the right moving company is something else that deserves special attention. Movers charge different prices, even for what appear to be the same services. Your moving company will factor everything from whether you need an entire truck to how far you’re moving, to the overall weight of your household goods into the price. Previous clients have given us feedback on their experiences which we can share with you.

Finally, make your move while you’re in good health and don’t wait until you have to move. And let yourself enjoy the process. Your retirement is a time of change and to feel all the excitement associated with it. Moving is not always easy, but the end result of downsizing can be more financial freedom and a better quality of life during your senior years.

Downsizing as a senior presents a significant lifestyle change, but it’s one to embrace. If you still have questions, don’t be afraid to reach out to us. My broker associates and I (see below) are here to make the process as seamless as possible and can be a valuable resource not to be overlooked.

Jim Smith— 303-525-1851

Jim Swanson — 303-929-2727

Chuck Brown — 303-885-7855

David Dlugasch — 303-908-4835

Carol Milan — 720-982-4941

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Tyler Scrable — 720-281-6783

Here’s a Good Resource for Seniors

Colorado doesn’t rank high in the percentage of our population that’s 65 and over. In fact, seniors represent only 14.2% of our population, ranking Colorado 46th among the 50 states.

Recently I was made aware of a website with tons of Colorado-specific information for seniors. Here’s that website’s address: https://www.seniorhousingnet.com/seniors/senior-living-us/colorado

National Association of Realtors (NAR) Bans Pocket Listings

During its annual convention earlier this month, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) voted to ban the practice of pocket listings. Pocket listings are listings which are withheld from the MLS, thereby denying other Realtors (and agents who are not Realtors) from showing and selling the listings. The rule goes into effect on January 1, 2020, but NAR is giving MLSs until May 1st to fully implement it.

Regular readers of this column know that I have long decried the practice of selling listings without putting them on the MLS. Doing so increases the chances of the listing agent “double-ending” the sale, resulting in twice the commission, but it also runs the risk of netting less money for the seller, thereby violating the ethical and legal requirement that listing agents work in the best interest of their sellers instead of themselves.

Perhaps you saw me quoted on page 10A of last Thursday’s Denver Post as welcoming this new rule. As I stated to reporter Aldo Svaldi, the only way to guarantee the highest price for our sellers is to expose their listings to the full market of potential buyers, which is only done by putting the home on the MLS. When the listing agent convinces a seller to accept an offer before their home is put on the MLS, there is no way of knowing how much money the seller will “leave on the table.”

The purpose of an MLS is to provide “cooperation and compensation.” Members of an MLS must allow (cooperate with) any other member of the MLS to sell their listing and makes it known how they’ll be compensated — in our market, typically 2.8% of the sale price.

The new policy, called “clear cooperation,” is spelled out in the following motion passed by a 91% to 9% vote of the NAR board of directors:

“Within one business day of marketing a property to the public, the listing broker must submit the listing to the MLS for cooperation with other MLS participants. Public marketing includes, but is not limited to, flyers displayed in windows, yard signs, digital marketing on public-facing websites, brokerage website displays, digital communications marketing (email blasts), multi-brokerage listing sharing networks, and applications available to the general public.”

I can provide an example from my own practice. In November 2018 I listed a home for $1.1 million. Even before I put it on the MLS, a close friend of the seller said he would pay full price. The seller wanted to accept it, but my advice was to consider the friend’s offer the “opening bid” and to proceed with exposing the home to other buyers by putting it on the MLS.

Five days after putting the home on the MLS, bidding had driven up the price significantly and it sold (to the same friend) for $75,000 above full price. The seller was delighted, and so was the buyer, who only asked that his friend match the highest bid.

I could easily have made a quick commission and saved myself the chore and expense of marketing the home and managing competing offers, but I would have been violating my duty to the seller and, it turns out, cost my seller a lot of money.  I particularly like that, when all was said and done, the seller netted the full listing price, even after deducting commissions and the other costs of selling!

It will be interesting to see how this rule against pocket listings is implemented by MLSs and how effective it will be. One work-around we can expect is that listings will go on the MLS with the notation that “showings begin on such-and-such a (later) date.”

One of our broker associates, Chuck Brown, attended the NAR convention, including a panel of the titans of real estate — from Realogy, RE/MAX International, Zillow, Opendoor, Berkshire Hathaway Home Services, and others — and they, unlike the board of directors, were mostly against the new policy on pocket listings.  Zillow and Opendoor, in particular, say they’ll continue to list properties as “coming soon.”

Clearly the new rule will restrict but probably not eliminate the practice.  REcolorado’s Rules & Regulations Committee, on which I have served for over a decade, will discuss it on Dec. 10th. Expect a follow-up on this subject!

Lookout Mountain 2-Story Has Walk-Out Basement

This 2-story home with walkout basement at 494 Mount Vernon Circle is in the Paradise Hills neighborhood, less than one mile from I-70. It was just listed for $825,000.

It is perched high on a hillside with terrific views of Mt. Vernon Canyon and beyond. The interior was updated last month with refinished hardwood floors, new paint, and new Stainmaster carpet with a lifetime transferrable warranty. This home shows really well! The main floor features a large master suite with 5-piece bath and walk-in closet, a great room with gas fireplace, vaulted ceilings and large south-facing windows, and a study with connected 3/4 bathroom which could serve as a second main-floor bedroom. Upstairs you’ll find a large loft and two guest bedrooms sharing a full bath. The walkout basement has a bedroom, 3/4 bathroom, recreation room, and a large storage room which could be made into another office or workshop.  View a narrated video tour on the MLS or at www.ParadiseHillsHome.info, then call your agent or broker associate Chuck Brown at 303-885-7855 for a private showing.  Open on Saturday, May 18th, 11 to 3.