Here are three things you can do in 15 minutes each to add simplicity and joy to your life.
Clean out your purse or wallet. Get rid of old receipts, gum wrappers and anything you don’t use.
Go through your closet and find all the things you never wear and donate them.
Contact www.catalogchoice.org to remove your name from mailing lists that you no longer wish to receive.
And one more for good measure.
Make a list of 10 of your go-to dinner meals and tape it to your fridge.
My teenage years are still very vivid.
I can literally conjure up the feelings I had as a teenager, those of angst, overall frustration with my parental units, longing for someone to understand me and that horrible feeling of never being good enough.
This is a photo from junior prom..
When I look at this 17 year old girl I think she is pretty, that she looks nice, that I might like to be her friend.
Unfortunately I didn’t think those things about myself at the time.
I let the world and my peers tell me I was less than. I was self conscious, afraid and constantly intimidated.
The grownups around me all had the same message; none of this matters and someday you will look back on your high school years and it won’t effect you at all.
.In my head I would be rolling my eyes and trying to hold back the tears.
Here’s the thing.
They were 100% correct!
Those kids that were mean to me, I don’t ever think about them. Those awkward moments I had as a very tall teenager, not even on my radar.
Those times I thought I would never be accepted for who I was…. quite the opposite in my life today.
I so wish I could go back to that teenage girl and tell her “you are smart, you are kind, you are so beautiful and someday the world will see what I see”.
With gratitude.
5 things to always check out when buying a home
The roof. Two things here. What’s the condition of the roof and how many layers of shingles. If there are already two layers of shingles you will have to tear off all layers and re-roof. If there is just one layer you can probably re-roof over it.
The septic system or sewer line. It is possible to have a septic issue and not know it, especially if you are buying a home that has been used as a second home.
Latent moisture. Looks like an old leak, and it might be. But there still could be mold behind the wall.
Water quality and quantity. Will you have enough water and is your water drinkable? Not as much of an issue when you have city water but if you are on a well its important to understand quality and quantity.
Radon levels. Radon is an invisible gas that the EPA reports can cause cancer. Its has been around since the beginning of time. Some homes have very high radon levels and while it might not be a concern to you, you will have to address it when you go to sell your home.
If you have questions, hit me up!
First time buyer credits are a thing of the past. Sadly, your lender doesn’t care if you are a first time buyer or buying your 10th home.
But it’s not all bad news
If you are a teacher or first responder there are some special loan programs available to you.
Also if you a Veteran of the US Military, you likely qualify for a VA loan.
And many buyers qualify for down payment assistance and down payment grants.
A great lender will be able to figure out what programs are best for you. Please for the love of all that is good in the world, DO NOT, call one of the lenders with the fancy commercials.
You know who I am talking about. They work on volume not on repeat business. They spend millions of dollars on advertising to sell you one loan..
A local lender, recommended by your real estate agent, cares about your experience because they hope you might recommend your friends and neighbors down the road.
Do you have one of these bad boys installed in your home?
If you don’t, I BEG you to go to the hardware store TODAY and pick one (or two, or three) up.
As a guideline, Colorado law requires carbon monoxide detectors be installed within 15 feet of all bedrooms upon the transfer of property. But even if you are not selling your home it’s imperative that you are protected..
Carbon monoxide is odorless, colorless and tasteless. It steals oxygen from your red blood cells and can steal the life right out of you. You essentially drown without getting wet.
The weather is getting colder and folks are turning on their gas powered heating, so please don’t take a chance.
This is serious stuff. If you read just one of my posts all year, this is the one I want you to really take to heart.
With gratitude.
I lost a potential listing the other day. They decided to go with someone else which is totally okay. You can’t win them all, right?!
In this market it’s incredibly hard to price property. A few homes are going for over asking and often with multiple offers and some homes are sitting, and sitting.
Sometimes I feel like an agent turned fortune teller, trying to predict the future for my clients.
I am a data freak. In other words, I rely on the data to guide me. So when you ask me to list your home, I am coming prepared with the facts.
What are homes selling for?
How long are they on the market?
What are the sold comps telling me about value?
What’s the available inventory?
What’s the appropriate listing price for the current market conditions?
At the end of the day, I told these sellers a list price they didn’t like.
I want all my clients, both buyers and sellers, to feel heard, not pressured and above all respected. But part of my job is delivering professional advice.
I can promise you I won’t blow smoke.
I will tell you the straight facts.
I value transparency and being honest.
I will give you my honest opinion on price but ultimately the the list price is up to you and I will likely support it even if its over what I think is appropriate.
And I will advocate for you every step of the way.
With gratitude.
Are you a first time buyer, first time seller, downsizing or upsizing?
I’ve got a guide for that. With step by step and in-depth explanations.
After over 2 decades in real estate I have discovered that people who fall into these categories have many of the same pain points.
First time home buyers experience fear of the unknown.
First time sellers are unfamiliar with the process.
Both up-sizers and down-sizers have concerns about logistics.
Do you fall into any of these categories?
I would love to share my knowledge with you. Please comment below or send me a private message.
Take time to stop and smell the roses or in this case the peonies.
By now you have probably learned to accept there are certain things that you cannot change. As much as you want them to be different some things remain unaffected by our will and desire.
And if you are able to embrace this fact, space is made for being present.
Lingering no longer seems lazy.
Savoring now seems luxuriant.
And listening becomes easier.
In the mountains our summers are so sweet, and so short. So I really like to smell the flowers. Like a whole nose full of scent.
Because tomorrow is not a guarantee.
Groucho Marx said it perfectly. “Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I’m going to be happy in it.”
With gratitude.
The sellers property disclosure, your friendly form.
Did you know the number 1 complaint with the division of real estate is non-disclosure by sellers/?
What does this mean in plain English. “We bought a house from Mr and Mrs Seller and they never told us about the roof leak, the cracked foundation, the flood in the basement, fill in the blank.”
So how do sellers avoid this unpleasant situation?
There is this handy form we use in real estate called the Sellers Property Disclosure. This form is your opportunity to air all your homes dirty laundry.
Sometimes I have sellers balk at this form, they feel reluctant to fill it out.
But think of this form as your get out of jail free card.
The save your bacon form.
The keep you out of hot water form.
You can’t hide things from the new buyer!.
Just picture this. New buyer moves in and who should saunter over, but Karen from across the street.
“Oh welcome to the neighborhood! I was just saying to my husband that I didn’t think anyone would buy this home with the moldy attic and all.”
Your neighbors know everything! And if something is wrong with your house the buyers are going to find out eventually.
It’s best to be as thorough and accurate as possible with the disclosure. It will protect you in the long run and keep you out of trouble.
Yes, you might have to make some repairs, but I can promise you it will be a lot cheaper than a lawsuit and attorney fees.
When in doubt, DISCLOSE!
This.
This is what keeps me coming back, year after year.
This is what brings me joy.
This is what makes the hard days easier.
This is my calling - making a difference in people’s lives and being a trusted advisor.
I’m forever grateful.
My grandmother loved to make cracked marbles.
She would heat them carefully in a pot on the stove at just the right temperature. Too hot and they would be destroyed, not enough heat and they would be unchanged.
She took something ordinary and common and turned them into tiny gems. They turned from regular marbles to sparkling, complex and beautiful treasures.
Elizabeth found the stash of marbles that my grandmother gave me and is now following in her footsteps by making jewelry out of them.
It’s interesting to me that life is a little like those cracked marbles.
That the beauty and uniqueness is revealed in change.
And that sometimes, it’s in our cracks and brokenness that we discover the most about ourselves.
What’s your “One Thing”?
Okay, a little background here. By “One Thing” I mean the thing you get up for in the morning and go to work.
The thing that drives you.
The thing that is always front and center.
The thing that you don’t make compromises for.
I dug deep a few years ago to figure out my “One Thing”. Specifically the One Thing that drove my ambition and drive at work.
On the surface it was providing for my family and helping my clients with their real estate goals and dreams.
But I knew there had to be something else, something deeper. So I took an even deeper dive, and finally found what motivated my One Thing.
It’s very personal and raw, but it was so worth the personal journey to discover this about myself. So I would encourage you to take some time with this question. It only took me 13 years in the business to figure out!
With gratitude/
Show me the money!
Let’s talk about earnest money. When a buyer makes an offer on a property, earnest money is tendered shortly there after.
If everything goes as planned, the earnest money is applied towards the purchase price at closing.
However, sometimes the wheels fall off the bus! Sometimes a buyer might decide to cancel their contract, typically this is because of inspection items.
If this happens, and the buyer cancels before their specified deadlines, their earnest money is 100% refundable.
So, when might the earnest money be non-refundable? Only if a buyer passes their loan approval deadline and cannot or will not close.
This is very rare and in 700+ transactions have only had a handful of buyers end up losing their earnest money.
Questions Please leave them in the comments or DM me.
Do you have custom home taste on a Tuff Shed budget?
Well you aren’t alone and here are a couple helpful tips to overcome this pesky situation.
Homeownership is a stepping stone process. With each home purchase you will likely be getting more of what you want. Consider readjusting your expectations and recognize you might not yet own your dream home.
Lots can be done with cosmetic repairs. That run down home down in your neighborhood might not yet look like a gem but with some elbow grease and money you can turn out a diamond in the rough.
Be strategic about buying by watching the market with a trusted real estate agent. Is the market rapidly accelerating? Purchasing a smaller home or condo in a rising market and then quickly selling while the market is still rising can produce quick equity that can allow you to leap frog to your next home sooner than later.
The advice of a trusted and knowledgeable real estate agent is important to maximize these strategies. Reach out with questions.
If you’ve bought a house in the past 2-5 years and didn’t put 20% down we need to talk
It’s time to kick that private mortgage insurance payment you’ve been making to the curb!
Some lenders require you pay the insurance for a set amount of time and others will require a new appraisal to remove the insurance.
Here’s how I can help.
I have a formulated plan of attack that helps to rid you of that extra monthly cost.
I can also offer you a complimentary market analysis of your property so we know if you are in the ball park of saying good bye to mortgage insurance forever.
Please reach out if I can help or if you have any questions.
“I just called the agent on the sign.”
I hear this all the time.
Buyers that end up with the agent on the sign because they didn’t know they had a choice.
Here’s the deal.
You should interview and hire an agent to help you buy your home just as a seller interviews and hires an agent to help them sell their home.
This is not to say that there is anything wrong with the “agent on the sign”. I just believe you owe it to yourself to make a CHOICE about the matter versus someone you ended up with by CHANCE.
With gratitude.
I’m going to tell you a little secret: Negotiating inspection items can be a bit tricky.
Shows like Million Dollar Listing have not helped either. I cannot tell you how many times the agent on TV says, “We will just get the seller at inspection”. Yeah, it doesn’t work that way.
The purpose of the inspection is to reveal items that cannot be seen with the naked eye or issues that only a thorough home inspection would find.
In other words, the giant carpet stain you saw during the showing is not something that should end up on your list of inspection requests.
For the best results stick to health and safety issues.
And remember, it doesn’t hurt to ask for the things that are important to you. The seller cannot “ditch” you because you sent over a list of inspection requests. All they can do is say no.
If you have kept your list to major items that “any reasonable buyer” would find objectionable the seller is probably going to agree with you.
One of my biggest roles in a real estate transaction is helping you through this process whether you are the buyer or the seller.
My teenage years are still very vivid.
I can literally conjure up the feelings I had as a teenager, those of angst, overall frustration with my parental units, longing for someone to understand me and that horrible feeling of never being good enough.
This is a photo from junior prom.
When I look at this 17 year old girl I think she is pretty, that she looks nice, that I might like to be her friend.
Unfortunately I didn’t think those things about myself at the time.
I let the world and my peers tell me I was less than. I was self conscious, afraid and constantly intimidated.
The grownups around me all had the same message; none of this matters and someday you will look back on your high school years and it won’t effect you at all.
In my head I would be rolling my eyes and trying to hold back the tears.
Here’s the thing.
They were 100% correct!
Those kids that were mean to me, I don’t ever think about them. Those awkward moments I had as a very tall teenager, not even on my radar.
Those times I thought I would never be accepted for who I was…. quite the opposite in my life today.
I so wish I could go back to that teenage girl and tell her “you are smart, you are kind, you are so beautiful and someday the world will see what I see”.
With gratitude.
Say what?
I’m telling you, there are some days that I cannot believe the things I see in this profession.
Several years ago, I got a call from the sister of one of my clients late into the evening. We had met once, but I didn’t really know her well.
She started out saying she was so sorry to be calling but I am the only person she knows in Grand County.
Oh dear, where is this going, I thought to myself.
She followed up by saying that she needed a huge favor…. would I possibly be able to bail her son out of jail.
Huh?
He had been arrested for driving drunk over Trail Ridge Road and she just didn’t want him to spend the night in a jail cell.
Good grief, I don’t think that’s a duty that real estate agents are required to perform but some people will ask anyway!
And for those of you wondering, bail bonds are STILL not a service I offer!
“When someone is broken, don’t try and fix them. (You can’t.)
When someone is hurting, don’t attempt to take away their pain. (You can’t.)
Instead, love them by walking beside them in the hurt. (You can.)
Because sometimes what people need is simply to know they aren’t alone” by Jenny Albers
This is such a good reminder but sometimes feels hard to implement. It’s so natural for us to want to “fix” things or say the right words.
There are no right words. And while it can feel counterproductive and maybe trivial, sometimes the best thing to do is just sit with someone in their grief and be that shoulder to lean into.
With gratitude
