84% of Jefferson County Is Unincorporated But Has “City” Addresses

As a Realtor and resident of Jefferson County, I wince when I see a listing that’s many miles outside the City of Golden advertised as being “in Golden.” It may have a Golden address, but it’s in unincorporated Jefferson County.

Another example of this confusion is Evergreen. Evergreen is not a city or town, it’s just a postal address with its own ZIP code, 80439, serving 177 square miles of unincorporated Jefferson County — and a portion of Clear Creek County. Residents could use “Upper Bear Creek CO 80439” (or similar) in their address if they wanted, because the ZIP code is what matters to the Postal Service, but that’s not common. It doesn’t make your neighborhood a “city,” either.

It’s understandable that the Post Office wants to use a city name for every address, no matter how remote. After all, what’s the alternative?  All mail has to go through post offices with city addresses, but that doesn’t mean the address is within city limits.

 

Littleton is another example. Although Littleton is Arapahoe County’s county seat, much of south Jeffco has Littleton addresses.  Littleton 80127 and 80128 cover 70 sq. miles and 30,000 homes, all of them in Jeffco and virtually none of them in the City of Littleton! 

 

As we all know, Littleton’s reputation was damaged by the 1999 mass shooting at Columbine High School, when in fact that school is a mile from the city limits of Littleton and is part of Jeffco Public Schools.  Such is the power of postal addresses!

 

At right is a graphic from Jefferson County’s website showing the incorporated and unincorporated areas of Jefferson County.

 

It may surprise you to know that Golden’s two ZIP codes – 80401 and 80403 -- cover more square miles than the entire City and County of Denver. The City of Golden itself,  covers only about 10 square miles – about 5% of the area and just one-third of the homes which have been assigned Golden addresses.

 

Golden addresses span 187 square miles compared to Denver’s 155 square miles.. If you exclude the airport, Denver, with its 41 ZIP codes, covers only 101 square miles – about half the size of “Golden” with its two ZIP codes, and smaller, too, than “Evergreen” with its one ZIP code.

 

Because ZIP codes with large rural components are so big, statistics about individual neighborhoods are not generally available, and statistics for the ZIP codes as a whole are meaningless. Some marketing companies, including Zillow, promulgate statistical reports by ZIP code as if they were neighborhoods, which works fine when the ZIP code is one square mile, but not when it’s 20, 50, 100, or 150 square miles! As I was writing this article, I got an email with the following meaningless information about my ZIP code:

Fortunately, REcolorado.com, which is our local MLS, allows real estate professionals like me to draw boundaries around actual neighborhoods when generating statistics or searching listings. I do that a lot.

 

There are pros and cons of being in unincorporated vs. incorporated areas of the county.  The county has no sales tax, but many of the cities do.  At the Golden King Soopers, you pay 3% city sales tax on groceries which you don’t pay in other King Soopers.

 

Property tax is another matter. In unincorporated areas you have separate mill levies for law enforcement, fire protection, and other taxing jurisdictions.  Golden, as one example, provides all those services for a single mill levy that is much lower than those combined levies.

Where Should Zillow Fit Into Your Home Search Process?

Zillow.com offers home buyers (and sellers) some compelling reasons to use them when searching for homes, but it’s important to realize Zillow’s number one drawback — it’s lack of accurate listing data.

It used to be that Zillow received a direct feed from our MLS, as it still does from other Multiple Listing Services.  However, for more than a year now, Zillow has not been receiving listing data from the Denver MLS.

As a result, you’ll find many “for sale” listings on Zillow that are no longer for sale.  With today’s limited inventory of homes for sale, that can be really frustrating for buyers.

As a Realtor, I frequently get calls from clients and others asking to see a home listed for sale on Zillow, only to inform them that the house they saw on Zillow sold a month ago or even longer. 

 

Fortunately, there’s an easy solution to this problem. The Denver MLS is available to the general public, not just to licensed real estate agents like me. 

It’s at www.REcolorado.com. Although you won’t see all the information about each listing that agents see and can’t search on as many fields, you’ll have the assurance that if it’s “active” on that website, it is actually for sale, and your broker can show it to you.

That’s not to say that Zillow shouldn’t play a role in your home search. Just don’t go there first when looking for available listings. Go to Zillow after you find a home for sale on Recolorado, to benefit from details not available to you on the MLS.

I’m not talking about Zillow’s home valuation numbers, which they call “zestimates.”  Those are notoriously inaccurate — again, because Zillow doesn’t have access to MLS data for comparable sales to determine home values.

The one thing which Zillow offers that I find useful on occasion is property lines drawn over a satellite view. The other data and advice you need to take with a grain of salt.

Look up your own home address on Zillow and see what you think. In the case of my own home, Zillow is very accurate about the details of my house, but it describes the real estate market in my neighborhood as “cold,” which couldn’t be further from the truth. And Zillow’s valuation of my house is off by about $100,000.

Another statement on Zillow with which I disagree is the following: “June has historically been the best month to list a home in your area. We estimate that listing your home in June would increase your sale price by $3,303 over listing in February.”  If our market were truly “cold,” that might be true, but, as I’ve written before, winter can be the best time to list a home in our current seller’s market.  There are fewer listings with which you’re competing, and nearly as many buyers jumping on each new listing that comes on the market.

 

Zillow does contain school ratings from Great Schools, which is nice. It also has more rentals than our MLS.  And, of course, Zillow displays “Premier” agents who pay to be featured next to listings. 

 

What about other websites? The only national website that is linked to every MLS is www.realtor.com. I use it for searching outside the Front Range of Colorado, knowing that if it’s active on that website, it’s actually available to buy.

 

The brokerage websites which display listings — for example, remax.com or redfin.com — get their information directly from the MLS as well, and they’re pretty much all the same.  We have that same feed on our website, www.GoldenRealEstate.com.  But it is possible for brokerages to opt out of displaying their listings on brokerage websites, so the only source for all active listings is www.REcolorado.com.

 

There are multiple MLS’s in Colorado, and it is not uncommon for sellers to list their homes with agents who aren't members of the MLS’s that are local to their property. For example, occasionally I’ll see a listing of a Jeffco home that is on the northern Colorado MLS, called IRES, instead of on REcolorado. This is not smart, because few Jeffco agents are members of IRES and, even if they were, those agents wouldn’t search IRES for Jeffco listings. The result, obviously, is much less exposure for your home, not just to agents, but also to buyers who, increasingly, do their own online searching before calling an agent.  .

 

Similarly there are many northern Colorado listings on REcolorado that aren’t on IRES, which means those listings don’t get the exposure they deserve. I am a member of IRES for when I list homes in our northern suburbs or in our northern foothills, such as Coal Creek Canyon.

Published Feb. 9, 2017, in the YourHub section of the Denver Post and in four Jefferson County weekly newspapers.

Here’s a Free & Innovative Real Estate App That You’ll Love Using

The real estate business has had some pretty wonderful technology advancements in recent years, but this one is rather amazing, and once you start using it, you’ll want to make it your go-to real estate app!

Imagine seeing a “For Sale” sign in front of a house that interests you. You pull out your smartphone, point your camera at the house, click, and up pops all the MLS information including all the interior pictures. Using GPS technology, this app knows which house you are pointing at, including which side of the street you’re facing. I’ve tried it myself, and it’s amazing!

If the house is not on the MLS, the app pulls up all the public information about the house — square feet, beds, baths, property taxes, lot lines, the year it was built, rental analysis, and the last time it sold and for how much, plus a current valuation. It also pulls up at least one picture of the house, plus school information. If the property had sold within the last few years, it will show you all those MLS pictures and data.

 

The app is great for house hunting too, allowing you to enter all sort of criteria — price, bedrooms, bathrooms, location, elementary or other school, etc. Best of all, this app is directly connected to the MLS and downloads the information in real time. The information is literally up to the minute. The app will only show a home as active on the app if it is — at that very minute — active on the MLS. 

 

Coincidentally, as I was writing this article, I got a text message from a client asking to set a showing for a home she saw on Zillow. That home went under contract several days earlier. If you’ve used Zillow, you’ve experienced the same problem. With this app you won’t experience it again.

 

Because I’m an MLS member, the app gives me additional information not available to you as a consumer. I can see who the listing agent is and, if it was sold, who the buyer’s agent was. I can see who to call to set a showing and just touch an icon to set the showing online. For my own safety, I can set a timer, and if I don’t leave that property within a set period of time, the app will notify my office (or whoever I specify), which can then take appropriate action for my safety. It also has a panic button.

I have only scratched the surface of this app’s many features. For example, it has automated marketing features which will, for a fee, advertise Golden Real Estate’s new listings on Facebook and Instagram within minutes of each listing becoming active on the MLS.

Some of my agents and I spent a couple hours last week being trained on this app, and we have created a web page where you can download this app free — www.HomesnapAgents.com (see screen shot at right) -- linked to the agent of your choice.  The agent you select is then notified when you are interested in a house and can give you additional information or set a showing.

 

I’m impressed at the thinking which went into creating this app, and I’m impressed at the ongoing refinement of the app’s functionality. Try it, and I think you’ll find it both informative and fun. Call me or any of the broker associates above if you have any questions about it.  You can reach all of them at 303-302-3636

Published Nov. 24, 2016, in the YourHub section of the Denver Post and in four Jefferson County weekly newspapers.