5 Criteria for Pricing A Home

In my last post, I included a link to a National Realtor Association tool that shows listings are up this year! Last year things seemed to be leveling out. This year it appears consumer confidence is improving as more houses went on the market in January than at the comparative time last year. This is good news for Buyers as it means more homes are available to purchase. It is also good news for Sellers as more competition will help them sell their homes at the best price.

If you are thinking of selling this year, you are probably wondering what is a good price to sell your home? When you put your home up for sale, one of the best ways to determine the asking price is to look at comparable sales. There’s rarely a perfect apples-to-apples comparison, so a pricing decision often relies on comparisons to several recent sales in the area. Here are five criteria to look for in a sales comparison.

1. Location: Homes in the same neighborhood typically follow the same market trends. Comparing your home to another in the same neighborhood is a good start, but comparing it to homes on the same street or block is even better.
2. Date of sale: It varies by location, but housing markets can see a ton of fluctuation in a short time period. It‘s best to use the most recent sales data available.
3. Home build: Look for homes with similar architectural styles, numbers of bathrooms and bedrooms, square footage, and other basics.
4. Features and upgrades: Remodeled bathrooms and kitchens can raise a home’s price, and so can less flashy upgrades like a new roof or HVAC system. Be sure to look for similar bells and whistles.
5. Sale types: Homes that are sold as short sales or foreclosures are often in distress or sold at a lower price than they’d receive from a more typical sale. These homes are not as useful for comparisons.

All this information can be overwhelming and may be difficult to interpret. If this is the case for you, you might consider asking a Realtor to prepare a Comparative Market Analysis or CMA for you. It's usually free of charge. The Realtor will not only use the above criteria but can provide you with information that is specific to your neighborhood and help you to understand what the comparable information means for the selling of your home.  If you’d like to determine the best price for your home, I can work up a CMA just for you. Give me a call at 303-888-1587 or email me at cheryl@lawsonpropertysolutions.com

Market Update

If you are wondering if this is the year to buy a home, then check out this cool tool from the Colorado Association of Realtors http://www.coloradorealtors.com/…/regional-and-statewide-st…. For example, if you click on Jefferson County, you will see there are 45 more single family listings on the market this year compared to last year at this time. For condos and townhouses, there are 42 more units available this year compared to last year. We definitely need the inventory! I can tell you from personal experience that consumer confidence also appears to be up as there are more buyers also. If you are considering buying or selling a home, give me a call and let's set up an action plan for you!

Winter Lawncare in Colorado

During most winters, I consider the wintertime a

 vacation from lawn care. This year I see that brown turf called my lawn every time I go out or come home and I find myself asking “Should I be doing something?” Are you having the same thought? Today I want to share what I found out about winter lawn care in Colorado. 

Winter Kill 

Well cared for turf is resilient and strong, but winter weather can be unforgiving to even the best lawns. Serious damage from ice, wind, extreme temperatures and freeze/thaw can be done to the sensitive crown of the grass. The crown is the place where the plant stem meets the roots. These conditions could result in winterkill. Recovery could take longer if winterkill occurs. 

To prevent winterkill in Colorado, make sure the grass is prepped in the fall.

 • Use a fall fertilizer. Mow the grass and apply fertilizer after the grass has stopped growing, about six weeks before it goes dormant. 

• Rake up the leaves to prevent them from smothering the grass and giving rodents a place to live. 

• Slowly lowering the cutting blade of your mower with each mowing. Make sure the grass is as short as possible at the end of the season. This will protect any new growth that is more fragile near the end of the growing season. Long grass is also a warm place for mice and other burrowing creatures. They can create dead spots where they spend most of their time. 

• Monitor the weather and deal with conditions as they occur. 

Winter Watering 

In winter the bare grass can become desiccated or dried out when exposed to winter winds and extreme temperatures over long periods of time. When you water when your sprinkler is turned off it’s called “winter watering.” For most homeowners that would be between November through mid-April. 

Try to water 1-2 times per month during this period. Pick a day when the air temperature is above 40 degrees and the soil is not frozen. Watering at mid-day is also a good idea so the water doesn’t freeze and the water has time to soak in the ground before it freezes at night. If the water freezes, solid ice could suffocate your lawn and leave it matted. 

If lawns are not watered during the winter then root damage can occur Root health affects the wellbeing of the entire plant. With the dry air of winter, there is very little moisture in the soil. This can cause distress to your trees, plants and lawn. The damage may not be noticeable until the spring. 

Colorado lawns that are exposed to the south or west are especially susceptible. To prevent damage, water from October through March. 

Ice and Snow Cover 

If we are having periods of snow followed by warm temperatures, then freezing temperatures, it can create a thick layer of ice on a lawn. Most Colorado grasses can handle it but if the ice persists for more than 30 days the grass could be damaged or killed. 

It hasn’t been a problem this year, but a persistent snow cover can create insulated conditions near the soil surface. This could cause gray or pink snow mold. Snow mold is likely along the north side of the building and along driveways where snow has been piled up.  Remove the snow from the these areas and avoid large piles in the grass. You can also protect your grass from snow mold with a final application of fertilizer appropriately timed. 

Mice love these insulated area and can create noticeable trails in the grass in the spring. Mouse activity may also occur and leave noticeable trails in the grass in the spring. 

Keep it Clean 

Remove items such as lawn chairs, toys, before the first snow. This will prevent the possibility of stunted thin or even dead spots in the spring. 

Avoid Excessive Lawn Traffic 

When the grass is brown and short, people don’t think about the damage that too much foot traffic can do to a lawn. Even though grass is relatively resilient, it will still have a difficult time recovering if a path becomes well worn across the lawn. 

So there you go. I know that a nice lawn is going to help the curb appeal of my home and it’s resale value. I guess I can’t take the whole winter off from caring for my lawn.

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Visit houselogic.com for more articles like this.

Copyright 2018 NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®

Welcome to the Internet of Things

I’ve talked about my geekiness before.  I can’t help it, I love gadgets.  I love that they just keep improving our lives. For example, my father had a pacemaker put in last week.  The hospital gave him a box that just plugs into an ordinary wall outlet. But what it does is far from ordinary.  The box gets information from his pacemaker and sends it to the Cardiology group wirelessly.  He doesn’t have to connect to it or hit any send buttons.  How cool is that!

Because of my love of all things technology, I’ve written in the past about home tools like iRobot. Today’s article is a continuation of that theme as it’s about home automation. 

You have probably heard the phrase “Internet of Things” or IoT. It’s currently transforming the way we live. Our lives are no longer connected to the internet through just computers and smartphones – we’re now able to connect to any device in our home, from refrigerators and security systems to thermostats and baby monitors.

The list of IoT devices gets longer by the day and will only continue to grow. What exactly is IoT? According to Business Insider, the IoT is “a network of Internet-connected objects able to collect and exchange data using embedded sensors”. To put it simply, any device that connects to the internet (but isn’t a computer, tablet, or smartphone) is considered an IoT device. IoT devices will lock your front door, activate your sprinklers, vacuum your living room, purify your air, manage your washing machine cycles, start dinner for you, and remind you what you need to pick up from the grocery store.

IoT and Connected Home automation are becoming the norm. Forbes projects that 71% of consumers are expected to own at least one smart home device by 2025. By 2020, there will be over 24 billion IoT devices on earth – that’s four devices for every person (Business Insider). By 2021, according to Statista, smart home revenue will reach $32.2 billion. As consumers continue to buy smart home devices, non-smart options will become less and less available over time.

Transforming your entire home into a smart home can leave a small dent in your wallet. But smart home devices such as thermostats and air conditioners can save you money on your electric bills, meaning bigger savings in the long run.

Of course, there is also a dark side to having all this connectivity. Hackers are using it to get access to homeowner’s personal information or to listen to our personal conversations. Gary Davis from McAfee says that the most vulnerable part of any smart home system is the mobile device that controls it. Make sure your mobile device and any other devices communicating with it have 128-bit encryption or higher.  Because Wi-Fi and Bluetooth devices can have security vulnerabilities, Davis says that both baby monitors and home monitors create the most risk.  This is the nature of technology.  The bad guys keep trying to abuse it and manufacturers have to constantly come up with new ways to try and prevent these intrusions. 

What the heck is Gars and Grapes?

Colorado may be more widely known for its craft breweries, but it also produces some great wines. The Colorado winery business is relatively young with the earliest wineries only going back to the late 1960s to early 1970s. Most of the State’s wines come from vineyards on the western slope where the low humidity, long warm days and cool evenings create just the right environment for the grapes to retain the acids for premium winemaking. Today, I’d like to introduce you to one of my favorite sources for wine, the Gars and Grapes/Avanti Winery. 

Whenever I can I try to buy from local producers to return money back to the community, so I was happy to find Avanti Winery one day while at the Farmer’s Market at Southwest Plaza.  That day they were offering tastings of a couple of their excellent dessert wines, Peach Moscato and Raspberry Rose.  I learned they have had their retail location since 2001 across the street at 9046 W. Bowles. They offer local and national wines.  They also have an extensive tobacco and cigar selection-hence the “Gar” in their name.  Inside the store is also a cozy tasting room in the back where they have wine tastings Thursday through Saturday.

You can buy wine from over 30 wines from all over Colorado at Avanti including:

• Bookcliff
• Boulder Creek
• Plum Creek
• Garfield Estate
• Grande River
• Graystone
• Hermosa
• Meadery Of The Rockies
• Mountain Spirit
• St. Kathryn
• The Winery at Holy Cross Abbey
• Talon Winery
• Whitewater Hill

I have tried the St. Kathryn from Palisades and Graystone wines from the Clifton area. I enjoyed both. I can’t wait to try some of the other Colorado wines.

If you are looking for some great Colorado wines, checking out Gars and Grapes/Avanti Winery at:

9046 W Bowles Ave
Littleton, CO 80123
303-904-7650
303-972-9995 (fax)
avantiwinery@aol.com

Hours: Monday Closed, Tues.-Sat. 10-6, Sun. 11-4

Dinosaur Ridge

One of the great things about living in Colorado is the many historical locations that are available to visit. To most people, early Colorado history means gold mines or frontier towns. Today I want to write about a place that is literally filled with ancient history called Dinosaur Ridge. This natural landmark located near Morrison, Colorado features real Jurassic dinosaur bones and footprints.

Early History

• The first discovery of bones was in in 1877 by Arthur Lakes, a professor at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden.
• While constructing Alameda Parkway in 1937 workers also discovered hundreds of dinosaur footprints. 
• Up until 1973, the area was not managed. People would remove the bones as souvenirs. That all changed in 1973 when the area was recognized as having historical significance by the National Park Service and was designated as a National Natural Landmark. The State of Colorado has also named the area a Colorado Natural Area. 
• The Friends of Dinosaur Ridge organization was formed in 1989 to work for the preservation of the site and offers educational programs. 

Location

Dinosaur Ridge consists of two locations-the Main Visitor Center Complex and the Discovery Center Location.

Main Visitor Center Complex Location

Located at 16831 W. Alameda Parkway is the Main Visitor Center Complex. This is where you should begin your visit to Dinosaur Ridge.

At the Main Visitor Center you will find:

• Benton Seaway Box- a hands on experience where you can uncover dinosaur bones and try your hand at Sluice Mining.
• Exhibits such as Trek Through Time’s paleo-murals as well see Triceratops skull, T-rex teeth, thumb spikes, and displays of fossils and bones.
• The Main Gift Shop where you can purchase shuttle bus or Trek through Time tickets as well as souvenirs and snacks. 
• The Stegosaurus Snack Shack with items such as granola bars and water. 

Discovery Center Location

At 17681 W. Alameda Parkway is the Discovery Center and the start of Dinosaur Ridge Trail. Located on a 1.1-mile section of West Alameda Parkway the Trail is open to pedestrians, bicyclists, and hikes but is closed to through traffic. More than 15 fossil and geologic sites are located on the Trail.

During the months of May through October, free outdoor events called Dinosaur Discovery Days are open to the public. They are held monthly at Dinosaur Ridge on either the second or third Saturday of the month.

Doesn’t Dinosaur Ridge sound like a fun and educational place to spend some time exploring the past?