When Buying or Selling a Pre-1978 Home, Lead-Based Paint Is a Big Deal

You might think that nearly 40 years after lead-based paint was outlawed that it would no longer be an issue, but you’d be wrong.

Over the past decade I have witnessed an increased rather than decreased attention to this issue.  Just read Section 10.10 of the current state-mandated Contract to Buy and Sell Real Estate (emphasis added):

“Unless exempt, if the improvements on the Property include one or more residential dwellings for which a building permit was issued prior to January 1, 1978, this Contract is void unless (1) a completed Lead-Based Paint Disclosure (Sales) form is signed by Seller, the required real estate licensees and Buyer, and (2) Seller receives the completed and fully executed form prior to the time when this Contract is signed by all parties.”

It’s not uncommon for this requirement to be fudged by the parties and their agents, but doing so can create serious problems.

In order for this rule to be followed, it is critical that the listing agent make available to prospective buyers a lead-based paint disclosure, signed by the seller, prior to them submitting their offer. This can be done by making it a “supplement” to the MLS listing. The buyer’s agent must then have their buyer sign that form — and sign it themselves — and submit it with their offer.

Notice that the deadline for all parties signing is not upon submission of the contract, but upon the contract being accepted (signed) by the seller. Therefore, the listing agent should take care to see that all parties have signed the Lead-Based Paint Disclosure before allowing the seller to go under contract with a buyer.

 

Not only can the violation of this rule subject the buyer, seller and both agents to a fine of $16,000, it also creates an opportunity for a seller to get out of a buyer’s contract, which is otherwise very difficult for sellers to do.

 

Imagine, for example, a scenario in which a seller who is already under contract to sell his home receives a much better back-up offer. If it can be shown that the current contract was fully executed before the Lead-Based Paint Disclosure was signed by both parties and their agents, it is conceivable that the listing agent could cite Sec. 10.10 of the contract and declare the contract void for that reason alone, allowing the seller to accept the better offer.

 

The buyer would have no recourse, because, for starters, he would be admitting that the disclosure had not been signed on time, resulting in that $16,000 fine.

 

Check Your Sprinkler Zones After Your Lawn Is Aerated

   I’m glad I did!  I was careful to put little flags in the lawn to mark the location of each sprinkler head, but, as luck would have it, one of my lines was punctured by the aeration machine, something I wouldn’t have discovered if I hadn’t run each zone for a couple minutes and watched for water bubbling up through the grass where it shouldn’t.  I recommend that you do the same. If you find a leak, I have a sprinkler guy who can repair it, so call me.

This Talk About Self-Driving Cars Makes No Sense to Me

I use the “autopilot” feature on my Tesla every day, and, as I do, I ask myself, “Could this car drive itself?” I don’t think so. I predict that over time, the automotive industry will abandon talk of totally self-driving cars and use what they’ve learned to make driving safer — with drivers always behind the wheel.

Every day I encounter situations that no software, however much improved, could handle. For example:

* Avoiding a cat or other small animal that darts across the street.

* Recognizing rough pavement and choosing the best path through or around it.
* Executing an alternate merge when two lanes reduce to a single lane by effectively anticipating other drivers’ actions.

* Making the right decision — ditch vs. median — when a wrong-way driver suddenly comes toward you.

* Moving left or slowing down, as required by law, when approaching a stopped emergency vehicle.

* Avoiding debris or potholes, especially debris that has just fallen off a vehicle you are following.

 

These are only a few of countless unforeseeable situations that we as drivers encounter every time we get behind the wheel.

 

Proponents of self-driving cars point out that 90% or more of accidents are the result of human error and say that computers could do better. Computers aren’t distracted like we are — no phones, no snacking, no radio adjustments, no texting, no looking at passengers or scenery. But the answer is not to replace us as drivers but to keep improving the assistance we are already getting, such as adaptive cruise control and emergency braking, but we should never take our hands off the wheel.

 

Not to be overlooked is whether or not passengers will feel safe and secure in a driverless automobile. Planes fly themselves, but pilots stay at the controls.

Just Listed: Remarkable Lakewood Home on ½ Acre

 

7470 Pike View Court, Lakewood 

$475,000

Narrated Video Tour at www.LakewoodHome.info

You won’t find a better brick ranch, inside or out, than this 3-bed/2-bath home just east of Wadsworth Boulevard, between 24th and 26th Avenues. Inside you’ll appreciate the gleaming hardwood floors and beautiful porcelain tile floors, the included appliances (especially the super high-end Samsung washer & dryer with steam cycles and pedestals), the amazing sunroom, the five-zone mini-split heating and cooling system, and the Anderson windows. Outside, the landscaping will draw equal or greater admiration, including the 3-tier water feature, flagstone patio and multiple other gathering areas. Best of all, the $14,000 worth of high-end chairs, tables, umbrellas and more is included in the purchase price of this home! Watch the narrated video tour to appreciate it all! Thanks to the May hail storm, the roof and extra-wide gutters are brand new, too. The half-acre lot is irrigated by ditch water costing only $70 per year. You really don’t want to miss this fine home!  Open House: Saturday, Sept. 23rd, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Seller’s Market Shows Continued Strength — How Long Will It Last?

The charts below show the continued strength of Jefferson County’s and Denver's residential real estate market. The number of sold listings keeps rising despite a decline in active listings. The median sold price has doubled in just 5 years from about $200,000 to $400,000, and the average home now sells for about 100% of its listing price. 

The decline in active listings is not due to a lack of new listings. The problem — if you want to call it that — is that new listings go under contract so quickly. Median days on market has been under 10 most of this year. As I’m writing this on Monday, there are 1,228 active Jeffco listings, but another 1,299 listings are under contract.  In Denver, there are 1,837 active Denver listings, but another 1,605 listings are under contract. Call me for statistics on your section of Jefferson County or Denver.

Jefferson County statistics:

Denver statistics:

What Should and Shouldn’t You Fix When Preparing to Sell Your Home?

When I’m interviewed by prospective clients about listing and selling their home, one of the most common questions they ask me is whether they should make a certain improvement or repair or replace a particular fixture or appliance.

This week I’d like to share with you my response to such questions.

Periodically, the National Association of Realtors does a “cost vs. value” analysis which determines the return on investment (“ROI”) for different renovations or improvements that a homeowner might make. Consistently, the ROI is under 100%.

If you’re not going to increase what you get for your home by at least what you spend on an improvement, why do it? 

Homeowners will often make expensive improvements when they want to sell their home. My advice is to make only those improvements that you would enjoy yourself, and make them sooner, rather than later so you have an opportunity to enjoy them. Of course, you’ll want to make these improvements with an eye toward whether a future buyer might like them, but make them to enjoy yourself since, when the time comes to sell, almost no improvement you have made will return more dollars than you spent on it.

 

My advice to homeowners who are ready to sell is to concentrate on eliminating negatives instead of making improvements. Look for the things in your house which are bound to create a negative impression on a buyer.  I call them “eyesores.”

For example, replace worn carpet, especially older shag carpets. If the carpet is okay but rippled, have the carpet stretched. Refinish hardwood floors that show obvious wear. Repair and repaint damaged walls.

Replace your kitchen counters only if they would draw a negative comment in a visitor’s eye, but not just because they aren’t updated. Formica countertops of a neutral color that are in good condition may be outdated, but they rarely diminish a buyer’s interest in your home.

 

Does your bathroom have those 1970’s (or earlier) fixtures with matching pastel colors? Replacing them will probably not give you a return on your investment.

 

Of course, these are generalizations, and you really should have a set of “fresh eyes” to give 

you advice on your floors, walls, kitchen and bathrooms. We have 10 broker associates at Golden Real Estate and often I will bring one of them with me on the first meeting with a prospective client. Two of my broker associates are staging consultants and one even has a degree in interior design, so they can provide valuable insight.

 

What if one of the issues is something that is not obvious but will become an inspection issue, such as an extremely old furnace or aluminum wiring that hasn’t been mitigated?

 

These hidden defects need to be disclosed but it’s not typically necessary to address them in advance. Instead, save them for possible use as negotiating points when responding to inspection demands.

 

Let’s say that your buyer submits an inspection objection asking you to replace the 20-year-old furnace (which is working okay but beyond its useful lifespan) and to “pig-tail” your aluminum wiring. If you haven’t mitigated the aluminum wiring before listing, you can respond to the buyer’s demands by saying, “I’ll fix the aluminum wiring, but I won’t replace the furnace,” and the buyer will probably be happy.  But if you had mitigated the aluminum wiring before listing, you can’t play that card and may have to replace your furnace to keep the buyer from terminating.

 

Keep in mind that an old furnace and aluminum wiring are not visible to buyers the way a worn hardwood floor or rippled carpet are, and replacing the furnace or mitigating the aluminum wiring before putting your home on the market will not bring you more offers, and not doing so won’t reduce the number of offers you receive.

 

Sellers also ask me if they should buy a transferable home warranty before listing because of their older appliances. Again, I urge sellers to save that move as an effective response to an inspection objection requesting replacement of those appliances.

 

If you’re wondering what you should or shouldn’t do before selling, invite us to meet with you in your home.  Call me at 303-525-1851.

Find Consumer-Oriented Real Estate Videos on Our Website

One of the many resources you’ll find at www.GoldenRealEstate.com are several professional videos created to educate buyers and sellers about real estate. Find them under the “Buyers” tab on our site.

The titles of the videos are:

· Selecting Your Real Estate Agent

· Pricing Your Home to Sell

· Preparing Your Home to Sell

· 8 Steps to Buying a Home

· Financing Options

These videos are provided under license from noted real estate trainer David Knox  Let me know if you find them useful.

It’s Not Rocket Science...

I think we all know the following, without being overly educated in meteorology or other sciences.

As water gets warmer, it evaporates more readily.

Warmer ocean water both fuels a hurricane and puts more water vapor into its clouds which is then released as rain. A hurricane is essentially nature’s biggest mechanism for desalinating ocean water.

Question: Knowing this to be true, do you think maybe we should be concerned about slight increases in average global temperatures? Would it be smart to see what we could possibly do both individually and collectively to reduce our contribution to the rise in global temperature?  I do.

Denver Residents Think Often About Moving to Western Suburbs & Foothills

By JIM SMITH, Realtor ®

As a “semi-native” of Denver — my family moved to Capitol Hill from Maine when I was in kindergarten — I have always loved Denver, but I recognize the yearning of Denverites to “go further west,” either to Jefferson County or into the foothills. 

As a kindergartner at Dora Moore School, as a 1st and 2nd grader at St. Anne’s Episcopal School, and as a 3rd grader at Stevens Elementary School, I developed fond memories of life in Denver during the 1950’s and driving into the mountains to picnic along Clear Creek. At that time, Arapahoe Basin was about the only place to go skiing. I remember playing with my battery powered boat on City Park lake and attending Easter sunrise services at Red Rocks.

I remember living at 721 Marion Street, when President Eisenhower would stay at his wife Mamie’s home a block away. There was none of the security we see today, of course.  The Secret Service set up shop in their garage on the alley, and none of the streets were closed off. The good old days!

I remember all my addresses when we lived in Denver — 1020 7th Avenue, 2100 S. Josephine St. (later the Lamont School of Music, where my second wife took classes!) and 1444 St. Paul Street (later replaced by an apartment building). 

The weather is what I remember best. That was when the Denver Post boasted on its front page banner that it was “The Climate Capital of the World.”  I couldn’t wait to move back to Denver from New York as a 41-year-old and experience again that great climate and wonderful life that I remembered as a child!

Six years later, in 1997, I felt the pull of the mountains and moved again, this time to Golden, where I bought the first of six homes I have owned in or near that one-time territorial capital, still the county seat for Jefferson County.

Denver’s founding fathers felt that pull too, creating “Denver Mountain Parks,” 14,000 acres of parks and conservation areas that include Red Rocks, Winter Park, Genesee and Lookout Mountains, even part of Mount Evans — all outside Denver’s city limits! No other city in America has made such an investment.

Since becoming a Realtor in 2003, I’ve observed a migratory pattern among metro home buyers.  It starts in Wash Park and arcs through Highlands and Berkeley and ends in Golden. Some buyers skip  and move straight from Wash Park to Golden, although the inventory is rather limited now — just 13 active listings and 22 under contract as I write this on Tuesday, Sept. 5th.  (Those figures are for the City of Golden. There are another 140 active listings and 87 under contract with Golden addresses but outside Golden.)

What draws buyers to Jefferson County, not just Golden?  First and foremost, it’s our proximity to the mountains. Indeed, roughly half of the county is in the mountains!  The air is cleaner here, crime is minimal, and traffic is lighter.  Despite increasing home values in Jefferson County, Denver buyers are finding that real estate is more affordable here, too.  I’m happy to help them find their dream home in Jefferson County.

The schools are good, even great. Jeffco Schools has a week-long Outdoor Lab, which every 6th grader gets to participate in, at one of two mountain retreats for all kinds of outdoor education and experience. Learn about it at www.OutdoorLabFoundation.org.

Jefferson County has the nation’s first sales-tax funded open space program. The 1/2 percent sale tax passed in 1972 has led to the purchase of 53,000 acres of park land with over 230 miles of trails. Learn more at jeffco.us/open-space/.

National Drive Electric Week Kicks Off This Saturday

Perhaps you have noticed that all manufacturers are now racing to introduce electric vehicles (EVs) following the introduction of the Chevy Bolt, Tesla Model 3 and 2018 Nissan Leaf.  With both France and the U.K. announcing plans to outlaw the sale of cars with internal combustion engines by 2040, auto manufacturers are scrambling to create multiple lines of EVs. Volkswagen, for example, has already announced it will introduce 30 all-new EV models across its various nameplates by 2020.

This coming week is your opportunity to get ahead of this trend by visiting one of nearly 300 Drive Electric Week events being held at various locations throughout the world.  In case you can’t make it to, say, Sydney or Buenos Aires, there are three local events. The first one will be held in the Golden Real Estate parking lot (17695 S. Golden Road) on Sunday, Sept. 10th, 10am to 3pm. Next comes one in Denver’s Civic Center Park on Tuesday, Sept. 12th, 11am to 2pm.  The final one will be held at the Boulder Farmer’s Market on Wednesday, Sept. 13th, 4 to 8pm.

At each venue, EV owners will display their cars (or other electric vehicles), answer questions and even give rides. In addition, I’m devoting my Saturday radio program (3 pm on AM 630 KHOW) to the EV revolution, answering questions and debunking some of the mistruths being circulated about EVs.

If you already own an EV, bring it to one of these events (but you’re asked to register online first at www.DriveElectricWeek.org). If you’re just curious about EVs and want to learn more and possibly go around the block in an EV, be sure to come, whether you register (which is requested) or not.

There’s Never an Excuse for a New MLS Listing Not to Have Any Photos

Does it annoy you when you see a new listing and there are no photographs?  The Denver MLS can fine agents who don’t upload photographs within 3 business days of their listing going active, but, frankly, there’s no excuse for not posting photos immediately with any new listing.

When our current MLS platform was introduced a few years ago, one of its features was the ability to save a listing as “incoming” — not yet visible to the public or other brokers — until all data has been entered and all photos uploaded.

Yet, time and again, we see new listings — even of million-dollar homes — with no photos. This is disappointing indeed, particularly when it’s so easy to wait until a listing is complete before changing it from “incoming” to “active.”

 

An agent who activates a listing before uploading photos does a disservice, not only to their seller and to potential buyers, but to their profession. Even if the final photos were outsourced to a professional photographer, agents can at least upload a few keys photos from their smartphone in the meantime.