Articles from a private mortgage and hard money lender on insurance costs, property taxes, condo trends and Colorado housing laws.
Colorado property insurance costs have roughly doubled since 2020 placing Colorado in the top spot of insurance increases in the entire country. What is the top factor driving Colorado insurance rates much higher than the national average (it is not...
I’m amazed that there hasn’t been a bigger emphasis on the financial cliffs that most major cities will soon face. Most cities are heavily funded by property taxes and most importantly commercial property taxes. How will cities fund their budgets that...
Condos were once the hottest real estate in Denver and throughout the front range and now suddenly the tides have turned. Days on the market have jumped, prices are down, and sellers are now in a panic to dump properties. Is now a good time to...
There is yet another law coming out of the Colorado statehouse on affordable housing. This new law allows state and local governments the first right of refusal on most multifamily property and requires notice to the government of any intent to sell prior to listing...
Why is it so expensive to rent and live in Colorado? Every time I open the news, I’m amazed at what is happening in the Colorado legislature. As a rental property owner, I cringe as it is becoming next to impossible to cost effectively operate a rental property. The...
In the last several weeks, I’ve had two deals fall through due to insurance. One was on a rural property that they could not find reasonable insurance on, and the other was on a condo in Denver that was under insured due to the huge jumps in insurance costs for the...
Condos were once the hottest real estate in Denver and throughout the front range and now suddenly the tides have turned. Days on the market has almost doubled, prices are down, and sellers are now in a panic to dump properties. Is now a good time to...
It is crazy that in Colorado we should be looking at a third world country on how to solve our affordable housing crisis. Is Colorado making the same mistakes as Argentina made in the past? What did Argentina learn that drastically lowered rental prices and increased...
The Colorado Rocky Mountains were blessed with abundant snow over the holiday season and unfortunately ski traffic was also brimming with accidents snarling traffic throughout the high country. At one point I saw i70 shut down an entire day leading to 90...
Denver county approved hundreds of millions of dollars in new taxes for hospitals, schools, and everything in between, but they voted down an affordable housing bill in the November election. Along the same lines, Steamboat also recently voted down an affordable...
The primary argument in nightly rental regulation debates is that locals who rent their properties would not be able to stay in the community so any regulations would drastically hurt locals. How true is this argument? A new study sheds substantial light on this...
With house prices over 65% higher than condos in Denver, I would believe there would be considerably more demand for condos and in turn higher appreciation. The data is telling the opposite story with house prices easily beating condo prices. What is causing condo...
Wow, 2024 has been quite the year in real estate. The beginning of the year started out good but as interest rates rose substantially volumes dropped off a cliff and prices began falling in some markets. At the same time, we are seeing substantial increases in...
I learned the hard way about investing in mountain towns. I successfully lost over 100k on my first ski investment property! Hindsight 20/20 I violated 1 of the 4 golden rules of investing in mountain property. I developed these 4 rules after evaluating thousands...
I continue to hear that Colorado has a huge shortage of housing, at the same time Colorado just reached a milestone where current inventory handily surpassed prepandemic levels. What do the 6 states have in common with the biggest increases in inventory? What does...
Denver has finally released their sidewalk fee schedule that voters had approved two years ago. The new fee schedule will have huge consequences for property owners around Denver with some getting new fees of 2400+/ year. What is the sidewalk fee? How is this...
Having lived and worked in the Colorado mountains for almost 25 years I have witnessed first hand the radical transformation that has occurred in every single ski town. How have ski town demographics changed? Is the moose a harbinger for big changes in each mountain...
It is crazy to think that every major ski town in Colorado has made the same major mistake and that nobody has noticed until or done anything until now. What caused every ski town to duplicate the same mistake? What does this mean for property owners? When...
No doubt the presidential election was the most talked about in history, but the huge changes in Colorado are even more profound and will have major impacts on your daily life and wallet. What initiatives do you need to know about that will impact your wallet and...
Zillow analyzed appreciation over the last 4 years (basically the pandemic real estate gold rush) to see the cumulative appreciation. Which markets performed the best and which ones the worst in Colorado and even more importantly why? Why are some markets hotter...
Wow, it seems Colorado real estate has turned on a dime. Even with interest rates coming down inventory is increasing throughout the country. What does this mean for Colorado real estate? When I zoom into some of Colorado’s biggest cities, there is one other trend...
There is a new proposal by the Denver city council to prohibit the construction of gas stations. The new bill puts forth several proposals that would make it increasingly difficult if not impossible to build new gas stations in Denver County. Ironically it will...
The most recent data in Crested Butte tells an interesting story. Single family homes continued to increase in value while town home median prices have decreased 13%. What is happening in Crested Butte and other mountain towns causing property declines? Why are...
A lot happened last legislative session and I totally missed a recent law that could have huge impacts on property owners. A new Colorado law that went into effect in May allows fire districts to levy “impact fees” on any property without a vote. What does this mean...
