Denver Real Estate

February 5, 2008

Stunning Castlewood Ranch Value

CASTLE ROCK-For those who can afford the luxury of a custom residence, but don’t have the time or patience to go through the painstaking process, look no further than Mountain Plain Homes at Castlewood Ranch. The ultimate statement in luxurious living, Piñon Bluffs at Castlewood Ranch offers the best of the Mountain Plain Homes collection, all on oversized, half-acre sites near parks, open space, and the northern rim of Castlewood Canyon, with breathtaking views of the southern Front Range.

Mountain Plain Homes is nearing completion on an exquisite ranch home at Piñon Bluffs in Castlewood Ranch. The PebbleCreek, priced at just $641,900, is a turnkey opportunity, with a complete landscape package with extensive trees and shrubs, plus a fully finished, garden lower level.

The Pebblecreek offers 1,864-square-feet on the main level and an additional 1,613-square-feet on the garden level. This open design is perfect for entertaining, whether on a grand or intimate scale. Exclusive features encompass high vaulted ceilings throughout the main level, extensive hardwood flooring in the living areas, with tile inlays at the entry and rear sliding door. The kitchen is a gourmet’s delight with duel-fuel appliances, light, knotty alder cabinetry with crown moulding, dark slab granite countertops, a huge pantry, plus a designer Minka-Lavry pot rack with built-in lighting over the kitchen island. The master bedroom has a lavish, five-piece bath and walk-in closet. An adjacent study includes French door entry. A deck is accessible from the great room.

The garden level is the perfect informal retreat, complete with a rec/media room with full surround-sound including speakers and a 50-inch flat panel television.Rounding out the lower level is a guest suite with private bath, two secondary bedrooms sharing a Jack and Jill bath, and additional storage.

Non-represented homebuyers at Piñon Bluffs at Castlewood Ranch can take advantage of great money-saving, list assist-programs from Storm, Inc. on the sale of their previous home. The professional Realtors at Storm, Inc. will list your prior residence at no cost, with the exception of a 2.8 percent co-op offered to the agent that brings the buyer. If Storm, Inc. finds the buyer for your previous residence, they’ll reduce the co-op to 1.8 percent.

To visit Castlewood Ranch, from Castle Rock take Highway 86 east to Ridge Road and turn right. Proceed 1-1/2 miles to Mikelson and turn left (east) and then right on Mitchell. Follow Mitchell around to Piñon Bluffs, on your right across from the Elementary School. For information on opportunities from Mountain Plain Homes at Castlewood Ranch, contact community manager Rhonda Cartrite toll free at 888.814.0999, or visit Mountain Plain Homes online at www.mountainplainhomes.com.

To obtain an industry report titled “13 Extra Costs to be Aware of Before Buying a Home,” call our 24-hour Free Recorded Hotline at 888-814-7227, and enter option 1313.

February 3, 2008

The For Sale By Owner (FSBO) Insider Selling Tips Tutorial

Filed under: FSBO Tutorial — Scott

The Mile High Real Estate Blog is the resource for Denver Metropolitan home buyers and sellers. In addition to articles on various Denver real estate projects, Denver area builders, state of the market addresses, and the like, we will also be providing education related articles and series. The FSBO tutorial is our first such series. We hope you enjoy.

In each of the articles, you’ll learn proof-positive tips on how to sell your own home efficiently. You’ll learn how to implement the most effective and affordable marketing techniques; how to set the right asking price; how to negotiate effectively with buyers; and much more!

Here we go….

Have you been trying to sell your home on your own, without much success? Over the next several weeks this Tutorial series will provide for you an all-in-one help guide on the For Sale By Owner process. Some of the information will be specific to the Denver Metro and surrounding areas. Much of the information will be relevant regardless of where you live. Each part or article will have a well researched package of valuable insight. Below is a brief outline of what to expect during the weeks to come.

Part 1 - Top 10 Tips On Selling Your Home On Your Own

This first article may actually have the greatest impact on your home-selling efforts. We’ll provide a detailed top-ten list of the most critically important tips you must know in order to get your home sold!

Part 2 - Guidelines For Pricing Your Home

In the second article, we’ll help you make sure that your asking price is right where it should be. We’ll help you come up with a balanced sum that will both attract buyer’s interest and ensure that you come out on top! Skeptical? Stay tuned!

Part 3 - Writing An Effective Advertisement

At this point, it’s time to review your advertising efforts. Together, we’ll analyze the various characteristics that comprise an effective ad, and make sure that you’re generating the most interest per dollar spent!

Part 4 - Marketing Your Home For All It’s Worth!

Now that you understand the basic principles of advertising, it’s time to explore your options. In this issue, we will share with you many effective and affordable marketing techniques, and tell you how and where to implement them to the greatest effect. (If you can’t wait for this article, check out www.MileHighFSBO.com for the best FSBO marketing program available for Denver Area homes. FREE advertising, FREE signs, sign riders, and FREE Internet Marketing for Homes in Denver and the surround suburbs)

Part 5 - Preparing Your Home For Selling

As your phone begins to ring, it’s time to make sure that you prepare your home in the most favorable way you can. This article’s e-mail will contain a variety of helpful tips that will help you make sure your home is looking it’s best, without having to do any costly renovation.

Part 6 - Showing Your Home

By now, you have buyers knocking on your door, and you’ve prepped your home in all the right ways. You’ll likely be getting offers already. This article will ensure that you’re prepared to present your home in just the right way, to maximize your sale price. In addition, we will give you some tips on safely showing your home.

Part 7 - Negotiating With Buyers

With all of these offers on the table, do you know which one to choose? Are you comfortable with the negotiating process? Should you hire an attorney? Do you know where to get the right one? The knowledge in this article will equip you with the price-haggling weapons that all of the best real estate agents use! You’ll be guaranteed to meet all of your sale-price expectations.

Part 8 - Closing The Sale

Almost a month into the process, you’ll have a tentative deal already made. Just to make sure that there isn’t anything you’ve forgotten, we will provide for you a checklist summary. As we review with you all of the strategies you’ve implemented up to this point, you’ll be able to close the deal with total confidence.

Part 9 - Using A Professional

In the unlikely event that you’ve reached this point and your home is still on the market, perhaps it’s time to take the next step. Professional real estate agents offer a variety of services that will be able to help you achieve your goal. Worst-case scenario: you will have so much knowledge about the whole home-selling process that even after the agent takes their commission, you’ll still be reasonably close to your sale-price expectations. If you get to this point, we can refer you to agents with proven track records that will provide you full service for a low flat fee or even free. Exciting stuff, stay tuned…

Part 10 - Moving Tips

Well, if you started reading this program at day one, you are on target to close your sale in just a little over a month, but we’re not done yet! As the icing on the cake to this article we’ll provide for you a valuable list of moving tips to ensure that the move to your new home is as painless as possible.

Stay tuned for ‘Part 1 - Top 10 Tips On Selling Your Home On Your Own’…

January 31, 2008

Denver Buyer Chooses Light Rail Access

Filed under: Denver Real Estate, Transit Oriented Developments (TOD's) — Scott

Put Away the Car and Take Advantage of Transit Oriented Development in Denver

DENVER – From New York’s revered subway system to the “L” train in the Windy City, great American urban centers depend on public transportation to keep citizens moving at an equitable pace. As the desirable lifestyle and vibrant economy continue to draw more and more people to Colorado’s Front Range, government entities prudently partnered with area businesses, developers, and residents on one of the nation’s most ambitious transportation projects.

Off to an auspicious start, metro Denver’s FasTracks has buoyed growth along every corridor the new rail lines service, inspiring residential and commercial development on a grand and sophisticated scale. Single-family residences are giving way to high density, mixed-use developments, from the fringes of downtown Denver to the terminus of the southern rail corridors in suburban centers like Aurora, Lone Tree, and Littleton.

Growing up in the age of the automobile, metro Denver’s infrastructure evolved to accommodate the popular transportation mode of the day. But in the half-century from 1950 to 2000, the population in the metropolitan area grew fourfold, from just over 600,000 to nearly 2.5 million. Continuing to add to that infrastructure without offering sensible, cost-effective alternatives would have cost the city dearly. Denver businesses, residents, and local and regional governments recognized problem, discussed the possible solutions, and out of those exchanges were born the FasTracks and T-Rex transportation programs.

With these dynamic programs comes a huge demand for small urban centers
providing easy access to transportation, housing, employment, shopping and entertainment venues. These Transit Oriented Developments (TODs) continue to thrive and grow in popularity among homebuyers, even as the rest of the residential real estate industry experiences difficulties.

“As Denver’s population ages and young, sophisticated, highly-educated urban dwellers continue to make up a large portion of the growth and influx in metro Denver, the demand for highly walkable, vertical, mixed use communities with great access to public transportation will fuel the growth,” said Scott Thompson, Broker Owner of Denver-based Storm, Inc., a leading residential real estate firm. “New Transit Oriented Developments continue to outpace the rest of the Denver market, and it’s an area in which we are actively specializing.”

The huge scope of the T-Rex and FasTrack transportation measures provided developers and homebuilders with ample lead time to conduct market research and put together exceptional choices for homebuyers.

“It can sometimes be very frustrating traveling within the city by car,” said Julia Sherman, Community Sales Manager at Vallagio at Inverness, one of metro Denver’s largest Transit Oriented Communities from Metropolitan Homes. “From scarce and pricey parking at work or sports and entertainment venues in downtown, near the city center, or at Park Meadows, Light Rail provides a very practical choice for getting around town. Our extensive research prior to the creation of Vallagio pointed to its potential popularity, and ultimately, a long-term value enhancement of the neighborhood.” Vallagio at Inverness

When FasTracks is completed, combined light rail and commuter rail will allow riders to travel over 122 miles of track, from Longmont in Boulder County to RidgeGate in northern Douglas County, to Denver International Airport in Adams County.

Carl Burnell is among the 250 individuals and families to purchase a home at Vallagio at Inverness during the past year. Burnell and his wife, Becky, traded their single-family home in southeast metro Denver for one of the golf villas at Vallagio.

“We loved the area around Vallagio, the restaurants, shopping and future potential of the commercial aspects of the project, and we didn’t see the value of our former home increasing in the foreseeable future,” Burnell said. “It’s great having Light Rail at our doorstep. Our son has a pass, and takes the train to school, and heads to Park Meadows without having to ask us to drive him. He loves the freedom, and so do we. Having the restaurants and shops right at our doorstep is incredibly convenient, and its only going to get better as the community is built out.”

To learn more about the opportunities to live in metro Denver’s most desirable, Transit Oriented Developments, call Sean McAleavey with the Storm, Inc. Team today at 888/814-0555 or visit the website at www.stormsells.com with links to exciting Transit Oriented Developments in metro Denver from builders like Century Communities and Metropolitan Homes.