Public transportation

One of the great things about living in a place like the Denver metro area is using public transit. Lots of folks insist that they need to live in the urban city to be able to use the public transportation and that is not true. The suburbs of Denver such as Aurora, Parker Littleton and many other areas all have great access to all of the same places. You can jump on a bus within a short walk of nearly any road and for a low cost connect with our light rail and navigate the entire city without ever needing to start your car. If someone was so inclined the park system of the metro area is also well connected and can even get you into the mountains with a little effort. For more information. On Bus routes contact RTD or for trail maps contact the local city government.

Top Real Estate Search Engines

The latest numbers from Hitwise show Realtor.com was the most popular real estate site on the Internet in April of 2011, with a 6.5 percent market share, followed by Yahoo Real Estate (6.1 percent), Zillow (5.52 percent), and Trulia.com (4.75 percent).
AOL went from number 16 in February 2011, to number 8 in March of 2011 and number 5 in April.
The Kinslow Team has you covered, we Post all of our Listings to all of these websites, plus many more. Not only do we Post them, we monitor them and make constant changes, keeping them interesting to your future Buyers.

Loan Modifications, Short Sales and Foreclosures

Thinking about doing a Loan Modification?  Be very careful!  I have been contacted by dozens of frantic home owners that are being foreclosed on due to failed loan modifications.  Sure there’s a nice little chart that shows that you fit right into the requirements to be able to qualify for the loan modification. You may only be a few days late on your payment after making years of on time payments and a representative from the big bank calls and says something like. We see you’re having trouble with your mortgage and we would like to offer you the chance to modify your loan. You are currently making a house payment of $1,500 per month, let’s bring that down to $900 per month for a trial period. Wow, that sounds great, yes of course you will do it. Even if the modification doesn’t go through, having the reduced payment will allow you to pay off some other bills or maybe fix the leaky roof. You go for many months making this easy lower payment. Meanwhile the bank ask you for tons of documents. You send them in, they say they never got them, you send them again, they say they got them now. Another month goes by, someone else calls and says they need those documents, you say they have them, they say they don’t, you send them again. This goes on for months and months. Then one day a notice comes saying you were denied because you make too much money, you don’t make enough money, you didn’t give them all the docs they need, or whatever excuse they come up with, but the bottom line is you don’t qualify. Oh well, you say O.K. you will just start making the regular payment again. Oh no, they want all back payments, Attorney fees, Bank fees, Late fees, usually more then $10,000 to get caught back up and they want it right away. If you don’t have it they are foreclosing quickly. If you don’t have it, what are you going to do? The first thing is call an Attorney and then call a Realtor. Have the Realtor do a CMA (Market Analysis) for you. If your first lien is less then the value of your house, you may be best off filing Chapter 13. Some times they can get rid of your second lien. If your first lien is not less then the value of your home, then a Short Sale may be your next best option. If they foreclose on you, you may find yourself paying taxes on the difference and the bank may try to come after you for the difference. If you Short Sale you may not have to pay the taxes and the bank may release you from the difference. No matter what you do, things aren’t great. The best thing to do, is to always talk to an Attorney from the very beginning. There is some confusion with some people I am meeting where they file for Bankruptcy and then let the home foreclose or want to sell short after the Bankruptcy. That seems backwards to me. If you’re going to lose the house no matter what, I think the Short Sale is your best option. Feel free to email me with any questions you may have. I am a Realtor, not an Attorney, I can’t advice you on what to do, I can only tell you what I have seen happen to many, many friends and neighbors. Don’t expect the Short Sale process to be easy either. The bank will play the same game with asking for the same documents over and over again. Two of the largest U.S. banks will drag the sale of your home out for many months.  You may want to stay in your home until we are close to closing on it. Many people are able to stay in their homes during the process and only have to pay their utilities since the bank usually refuses to take their payments during the process. Our Team pays a Short Sale company help in the processing of Short Sales, this help with keeping everything documented and speeds up the entire process. So far, every Short Sale we have done with them has been completed. Once your sale is complete, we can refer you to a lender who can get you on a path to clean up your credit report and get you prepared to purchase a home in the future. Some people are able to purchase another home immediately. If they have to sell short due to a job transfer over a certain amount of miles away from the home they Sold, they may be able to purchase again immediately. Our Team has become Short Sale Experts by necessity not by choice. Mark is Certified as a Short Sale and Foreclosure Expert through the National Association of Realtors. Feel free to contact us if you live in Denver or it’s suburbs and need assistance selling your home short.

NRT Colorado, LLC d/b/a Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage and The Kinslow Team are not associated withthe government and our service is not approved by the government or your lender. Even if you accept this offer and use our service, your lender may not agree to change your loan. If you stop paying your mortgage, you could lose your home and damage your credit rating.

Home Buyer Seminar

HOME BUYERS SEMINAR
Presented by Ideal Home Loans, LLC.
If you are thinking about buying a home do not miss this Seminar!
Learn about New Loan Programs, Down Payment Assistance Programs, Tax Credits and More!
Rates are low and properties are valued below market learn how to take advantage of both.
Whether you are moving up or you are buying for the 1st time this seminar will answer all your questions.
Please join us on March 23rd from 6:30-8:30pm
Doors open at 5:30
Refreshments will be served.
This informative event will be held at the
Denver Marriott Tech Center, 4900 South Syracuse Street, Denver CO 80237
Please RSVP to Katie at Ideal Home Loans 303-783-3983.

Enrollment information will be sent to you after you RSVP!

Realtor Property Resource

Have you ever wanted to find out information about property just because you are curious? Do you  have a close friend of family member who is in Real Estate but not in your State? This new tool available to Realtors only is exactly what the public has needed for a long time. Sites like Zillow are great but have terrible information about lots of homes. This is not because Zillow is trying to confuse the public but it is hard to find all the information Zillow uses without getting a few bad statistics. Realtors Property Resource. RPR, a member benefit of the National Association of REALTORS^®, is a national database of assessor, recorder, and mortgage data, MLS content, foreclosure information, demographics, neighborhood data, and more.

https://www.narrpr.com/

If you have questions about this please contact a Realtor.

Charlie Sheen

With all of the news about Charlie Sheen going around out there people have not been paying as much attention to what he is doing that is not all that crazy. Buying and selling property, much like lots of people around the US Charlie Sheen is dealing with the housing market. Charlie Sheen recently signed a purchase agreement, according to TMZ, for the purchase of a home for $6.75 Million! He is also trying to sell another property that looks pretty amazing. Links to the information regarding this can be found below.

http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2011/02/25/charlie-sheen-pals-say-back-out-of-home-purchase/

http://realestate.aol.com/blog/gallery/photos-of-charlie-sheens-home-for-sale/

Charlie would likely enjoy living in Colorado a lot more if he did not have such fun in Pitkin County (Aspen) back in Dec of 2009. The home Charlie Sheen was staying at during that incident is not as grand (from the photos at least) as his places in California.

The Playboy Mansion

Yeah thats me in the Grotto.

Yes this has nothing to do with Denver but it is one of the most well known estates in the world and I have had the pleasure of attending a party at this awesome place located in Holmby Hills in CA.

Mr. Hugh Hefner is the proud owner of the Playboy Mansion but much to my disappointment we did not meet Hef on our visit in October of 2007. We did meet a few washed up Bunnys and lots of random people who wish they were Famous. LOL The Playboy Mansion is actually used mostly as a Event place. People have the ability to rent it out for Partys? Yea I thought that was kind of odd but that is what the deal is. Mr Hefner owns most of the surrounding estates and the property that is within the gates of the Historic Playboy Mansion. The mansion is home to all sorts of exotic animals and it actually zoned with the ability to be a Zoo. It has some sort of protected Trees that allow for this zoning and is one of the reasons Mr Hefner is allowed to keep so many kinds of exotic animals on the grounds. The grotto is for sure as cool as it appears on TV complete with the underwater passageway, nifty lighting and mattress’ for who knows what… LOL

The trampolines, arcade and all of the sights and sounds of the mansions are just the way they show them on TV. The building itself looks like it is Old but well maintained. The Monkey Cages and all the wildlife are really amazing to see in person. We had the pleasure of Grizzly Adams leading us around the property and that was pretty cool. Dan Hagarty (Grizzly Adams) seemed to know the grounds of the mansion like the back of his hand. There were all sorts of different areas that you could pull ropes and move tree limbs that lead through all of the grounds. Making ideal shooting locations for photographs.

I would highly suggest to anyone trying to find something unique to do for a vacation to check out a list of events online.

http://www.ticketstothemansion.com/

Xcel Energy

So we have all had an experience with Xcel Energy, most people have had positive and negative things to say and all I have to say today is GREAT JOB!!! Last night one of my Short Sale sellers called me to let me know that Xcel energy called them because they noted that they had turned off the Gas for non payment. However because of the cold weather they were contacting all of the users who would otherwise freeze and turning the heat on for them. Kudos to Xcel, what a great thing to do for people. company’s like Xcel energy often get a bad rap for the sheer volume of things they deal with and this was an amazing way to give back to the community that supports them.

Down Payment Assistance

Down Payment Assistance is a option that is available for lots of home buyers and can greatly help with the home buying process. DPA, as it is refered to for short, can be found from many different agency’s in each state but here in Colorado we have some very popular options. There is a “Fear” that people have with Down Payment assistance because it operates much like a second mortgage. The term Second mortgage is often placed in the Blame for our current market as people in the past used inflated appraisals to get second mortgage’s on their homes which were not worth what they were financing. Lucky for us we have lots of very very strict regulation on this process now and it is very hard to end up in a terrible situation using DPA. ALL of the DPA programs our buyers have been using in Colorado require the buyers to take a class on home ownership. This does lots for the knowledge needed to own a home without becoming upside down. The appraisal process that is used with all of the DPA programs is also very strict and will not allow for the property to be over financed. This means that if someone is looking at using DPA and they find a over priced listing they will likely not be able to purchase that house. It works in the opposite direction as well. If a home is in need of to much work the appraiser will make note of the repairs needed and if the sellers are not willing to put the house into an acceptable condition the buyers can not purchase the home.

When buying a home there are a lot of things people are going to want to spend some extra money on and that could be Paint, Carpet, Appliances, repairs the list is never ending. If you look at it from a logical standpoint and you put down money on the house but have no money to make the needed changes VS financing the entire house and having the money to do the things needed to live in the home. Which scenario is a buyer going to be more likely to walk away from? The house that they have a tiny bit of Equity in that needs repairs or the perfect home? The payment difference between the 2 options is usually under $50 per month (under $200,000 where most DPA people are looking) range. If the market were to take another loss after the purchase in our current scenario that should be of little concern for our DPA buyers. The Focus of DPA lending is to get people into homes for long term and the ever changing market of Real Estate should not bother someone who has no intention of selling their home. If you are looking to live in the house for 2-3 years then DPA would likely not be the best option. The reason I say this is because of the ability to sell the home for a profit in that short amount of time as the first few years of home ownership dont typically pay down enough of the principal on the loan balance to afford paying the fee’s involved with selling a home in Colorado.

All of the DPA programs require a certain amount of $ to be paid for by the Buyer. Usually $1,000, this means the buyer would be putting up the $1,000 as Earnest money in most cases and applying it to the transaction at closing. The other fee’s that the buyers should be considering would be the Appraisal fee (normally $400) and the fee for the Buyers Inspection (normally around $300) This makes the total out of pocket expense for a lot of buyers only $1700 and that gets them into a home. There are other ways to structure this where you could only put up $500 Earnest money and show your payments of the inspection and appraisal to be enough for the requirements for most of the DPA programs. This would bring the out of pocket expense down to $1,200! Ish.

Below are some links to some of the different DPA programs available in CO.

http://www.chfainfo.com/

http://www.coloradohousingassistance.org/

https://www.auroragov.org/AuroraGov/Departments/Neighborhood_Services/Community_Development/021459?ssSourceNodeId=967&ssSourceSiteId=621

http://www.crhdc.org/

There are others as well and each city government should have information on programs in the areas you are looking for. You will need to make sure the lender you are working with is able to work with the different programs, if they don’t know what you are talking about then you should find someone who does understand the programs as well as the Lenders I have listed below!

Virtual Realtor?

With technology ever-changing the way we live and work it does make lots of sense that using the tools we have is the way our Real Estate market is heading.

Lets pretend you are relocating to a new city and you have no idea where to buy your new home. Most relocation departments for corporations have assistance for finding a Realtor. Do you know who or where they get these people? Usually not, you are just told that they are going to be the person who is assisting your move and you go with it. Most company’s will fly you out to your new location for a home finding trip! Because we all know how likely it will be that you have less than a week to find and purchase your new house and you make it happen! LOL Lets think about the age we live in, we are all using computers and technology to help us find the areas and homes we want to live in but being in a different state, time zone or even country can make this process complicated at best. As a service to our clients we offer Virtual showing’s. We can narrow down your home search fairly quickly and you never have to leave your couch. schedule showings that work for your time frames and we can do a live tour via Skype or similar programs so you can actually see the homes LIVE via internet and ask questions just like you would in person. Now when you fly out for your short time frame to see the homes in person you will have wasted little time and only see the homes you really want! Coldwell Banker is on the leading edge with Real Estate and as our company is one of the largest in the country we can are likely available to work with your company’s Relocation Dept, just ask and we can look into it for you. Happy House Hunting,

http://www.skype.com/intl/en-us/home