Today I would like to talk to you a little bit about a foundation that is near and dear to my heart, the Professionals Miracles Foundation.

The Professionals Miracles Foundation was founded by local Realtors about 15 years ago, and I’ve had the privilege of being on the Board of Directors for more than nine years. We have helped so many families, and it’s been truly amazing.

In 2016, the Professionals Miracles Foundation was fortunate enough to give over $80,000 to local families. Believe it or not, we accomplish our fundraising goals each year by holding one event, our annual golf tournament.

This year, the Professionals Miracles Foundation Golf Tournament will take place Monday, August 21st at the Pinehurst Country Club, and I would love for you to consider being a part of our event.

The Professionals Miracles Foundation provided $80,000 for kids in need in 2016.

If you are interested in golfing or sponsoring, we would love to get you involved in this organization. Sponsorships start at just $250 and go up from there.

Please help us get the word out about this amazing foundation. If you know anyone who has a child who is chronically ill or is suffering from a life-threatening illness, you can go to our website and file a grant request, or simply let their family know. Oftentimes, parents are so overwhelmed with doctors visits and bills that they may not be able to find the time to fill out a grant application, so you can do that for them with some information about the child.

One of the easiest ways to give is to go to smile.amazon.com and designate the Professionals Miracles Foundation as the charity of your choice. The Professionals Miracles Foundation will then receive the rebates from your purchases.

Another way to help is to call your local HR office and find out if your employer does any sort of charity organization matching, in which they will match every dollar you donate.

Our foundation relies heavily on volunteer work, so if you are interested in volunteering, we would love for you to come out to our golf tournament. Also, we feel it’s important for you to know that 95% of all donations go straight to the kids. Our overhead is so low because of the utilization of our many volunteers.

In the above video, you can take a look at some pictures of kids we have helped in 2016.

If you have any questions or would like some more information about the Professionals Miracles Foundation, please reach out by giving me a call or sending me an email. I look forward to hearing from you.

Today we’re here with a tour of this incredible property located at 7663 Buffalo Trail, Castle Pines.

In the video above, you’ll see an example of our 3D Matterport camera in action. This technology allows you to walk through a home without ever leaving your chair.

Spanning 8,753 sq ft and 1.8 acres, this home features seven bedrooms and seven bathrooms. The dining room offers a fantastic view of the surrounding area, and the kitchen is fully updated. A large, luxurious fireplace connects the kitchen to one of two living spaces, and there is a second fireplace on the main floor as well.

Don’t miss out on this beautiful custom home!

The family room has fantastic windows that provide a gorgeous view of Daniels Gate Park. The main floor also features a mud room and a laundry room.

The guest wing upstairs is perfect for in-laws or visitors, complete with a second kitchen, dining area, bathroom, two bedrooms, and an upstairs patio. The third floor has a cozy reading nook, the master suite (complete with a third fireplace), as well as other bedrooms and an office space.

Every inch of this custom home is exquisitely designed. For more information on this home, click here or give us a call or send us an email. We would be happy to help you!

Today I’d like to let you all know about some of the client appreciation events coming up this holiday season and beyond.

Our team has made a commitment to supporting our local community, and one of the ways that we do this each year is by donating turkeys to the local Douglas County Task Force Food Bank. I donate these turkeys in the names of each of my buyers and sellers from the past year. Our goal this year was to donate 55 turkeys and we’re happy to say that we reached that goal!

In addition, we also have some great client appreciation events coming up, so be sure to save these dates:

Tuesday, November 22, 2016, join us at our monthly mixer in Castle Rock at Sienna between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. This month is a little bit different because you can also stop by the mixer to get your free Thanksgiving pie. As a thank you to all of our clients, we’d like to give you a choice between a free apple or pumpkin pie this year. Just RSVP at 720-506-3001 and let us know which one you’d prefer.

Save these dates!

Saturday, December 17th, 2016, join us at our 9th Annual Cookies and Martinis “What Are We Thinking?” holiday party in Castle Rock. You can choose to participate in the cookie exchange or you can just come for the martinis and fun! We’ll have roulette, poker, and prizes as well. Please RSVP at 720-506-3001 and let us know if you can make it. We also ask that you bring an appetizer to share.

Saturday, February 11th 2017, join us for a pre-Valentine’s Day couple’s dinner at Cherokee Ranch and Castle in Sedalia to commemorate my 10-year real estate career anniversary. This is the event that I’m most excited about and guests are invited by invitation only, so if you’ve been a client this year or referred me to someone who was, you can expect an invitation soon.

Thank you all so much for your business, support, and referrals this past year. Without your help, we would not have been able to reach our goals and put on these great upcoming events. If you have any other questions about these events or anything else related to Denver real estate, give me a call or send me an email. I hope to see you soon!

As we enter the fall season and move toward the end of the year, I wanted to ask you for help. We love being able to bring you educational videos twice a month, and we are actively looking for new topics for future videos.

Rather than just imagine what you are thinking, I would love for you to reach out to us with any questions you have about real estate or any topics you would like some more clarity on.

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We want to answer your questions.

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To sweeten the deal, if we use your topic in one of our upcoming videos, I will send you two tickets to Regal Cinemas. I would love to get your feedback!

If you have any questions, please give us a call or send us an email. We would love to hear from you and we look forward to seeing you soon!

In this edition of Rock Talk, I wanted to talk about the top three things buyers should look for when purchasing a home. Today I'm joined by Andrew McClish from Pillar to Post Home Inspectors to help with this topic.

What should buyers be looking for in this market? Start with the foundation - if you're walking around a house and see large cracks in the foundation wall, that can be an indication of foundation issues that need to be repaired. This requires a professional; it's certainly not a DIY job!

Likewise, buyers should look at the system of the house. The water heater, furnace, and AC may all look old, but you should know that it's a marginal percentage of the overall cost of the house. Replacing a water heater would only cost about $800 to $1,200 to replace, which is by no means a reason to think about not buying the house.

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If foundation walls have cracks, the issue could be significant.

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Thirdly, think about permitting. Remodels, major repairs, or major systems upgrades are going to require some sort of permitting from the government municipality. Most of these permits are readily available through an online search, or you can give the building department a call. You can find out if things like the basement finish, or electrical upgrade, or new roof were permitted.

Andrew is an example of a great inspector who is proactive and is the only inspector I know who actually pulls permits for a property before he gets there. It's very helpful and can actually make his inspection go easier. If you need a top-of-the-line inspector, Andrew is your guy, and can be reached at (303) 586-1494 or at [email protected].

If you have real estate questions for the Denver market or topics you'd like to see covered in my video blog, send me an email today.

Do you know how foreclosures and bankruptcies affect your credit and your ability to buy property?

I'm joined by Jennifer Thompson to discuss the breakdown of your FICO score and how these situations affect your ability to get a home loan. Here's how the FICO score breaks down:

People can get still get loans if they've had a bankruptcy or foreclosure; there's just a time period they have to wait out. A lot of people were hit hard by the terrible market, so this affects a lot of people.

Depending on the type of loan you're seeking, the waiting period varies. Talking to a qualified lender is the best way to find out which timeframe applies to your unique situation.

People in this situation commonly seek an FHA loan since it requires minimal down payment. For an FHA loan, there is a minimum waiting period of three years after foreclosure - which includes short sales. There is a two-year waiting period for bankruptcy from the date of the discharge for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

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You can still get a loan after bankruptcy, but there will be a waiting period.

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If it's a Chapter 13 bankruptcy, though, as long as you have a 12-month history of paying back the bankruptcy, you can still get a loan while you're in Chapter 13, since the courts state that it's okay for you to take on new debt.

If you have more specific questions about seeking financing after bankruptcy or foreclosure, you can call Jennifer at (303) 448-0436.

As always, contact me with any questions about the Denver real estate market. I'm always happy to help!

In this edition of Rock Talk we’re joined by Andrew McClish, owner of Pillar to Post Home Inspections, to help us go over the top five myths about home inspections. Andrew is a licensed engineer here in Colorado who worked in structural engineering in the consultant world for seven years before starting his franchise.

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If nothing else, doing a home inspection gives you peace of mind.

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If you have any questions about what we’ve just gone over, or need an awesome home inspector, feel free to reach out to Andrew anytime. If you have ideas for our next topic, please drop us a line and we’d be glad to make it the subject of our next edition of Rock Talk. Make it a great day!

When selling a home, most people will focus the bulk of their attention on the inside and don’t consider the potential of their outdoor living area. In this edition of Rock Talk, Dusty Hettinger, of both Rocky Mountain Ponds and Waterfall as well as The Sprucery Garden Center, is here to explain how water features and outdoor landscaping can significantly reduce your home’s days on market by extending your living area and adding value to your property.

Do water features actually add value to your home? Installing a water feature and adding some simple landscaping to your yard not only looks attractive, but can also significantly decrease your home’s days on market and extend your living area by essentially adding square footage outside of your home.

Here’s a quick example. A few years ago we had a client who was trying to sell his house without any sort of outdoor landscaping. His house sat on the market for about a year, and then he asked us to come in and take a look at the outdoor area. Without making him sink a whole bunch of money into an expensive renovation, we just added a simple water feature as a focal point. The house sold within a month.

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We added a simple water feature as a focal point and sold fast

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How difficult is a water feature to maintain? A lot of people ask this question having heard horror stories about waterfall maintenance in the past. The most common water features installed today are ponds. We make our ponds about three feet deep and install the pump down at the bottom to create flow. The key is that we’ll only put a few inches of water into the pond so that when the sun shines onto it, the rocks will absorb more sunlight than the water. This prevents the formation of algae. This way, the only step you’ll have to take in order to maintain the pond is to occasionally place a bit of algaecide in the water.

We’ll also install a high-efficiency pump and a float-valve in the pond. This will automatically add water from your irrigation system so that in the summer, the pond stays filled at all times. If you decide that you’d like to turn the water feature off in the winter, just unplug it and it will self-drain without any need to take the pump out of the water. All of this makes maintaining your water feature very easy.

Which landscaping options are best for the local area? After adding your water feature, the next step will be to complement it with the right landscaping as a backdrop. The problem that many of us have is that local deer love to eat a variety of flowers and colorful plants.

Luckily, we know of certain perennials that flower for a long time, which deer tend not to eat. Salvias, yarrow, and most types of daisies are all perennials that add a splash of color in spring, summer, and fall. At The Sprucery, we actually have an entire section of deer-resistant plants.

If you have any other questions about this topic, feel free to contact Dusty by phone at 303-237-9919 or emailing him at http://rmpw.com/contact-us/. And if you have an idea for future episodes of this blog, please send them to us and we’ll make them the focus of our next topic. Thanks for watching, and make it a great day!

Want to sell your home? Get a FREE home value report.Want to buy a home? Search all homes for sale. We are very excited today to introduce you to our brand new real estate video blog. We’re going to be sharing our real estate expertise with you through this blog and we want to make sure to include all of you on the content. Each month we are going to be sending out two emails and writing two blog posts addressing trends in our local market. We’ll also be talking about changes to the lending and title world (which affect us all) and tips for navigating the constantly growing world of real estate. All of these worlds are intertwined and to take full advantage of what the market has to offer, you need to know about them all and we are here to help.  Rather than simply guess what’s on your mind, we want to hear from you what you want to know about. Whether it’s a confusing concept, a step in the home transaction process, or if you’re just curious about the market in your neighborhood, we would love to answer your question in a future video.  In addition to answering your questions, we also have two great links on our page. One is for a free, automated home valuation and the other is for a full MLS home search. They should be of great use to you on your home buying or selling journey.  So give us a call or send us an email if you have any questions, and we look forward to speaking with you soon!

Want to sell your home? Get a FREE home value report.Want to buy a home? Search all homes for sale. Many people are completely unaware that the winter season is a great time to sell. Here's why: 1. January is the biggest corporate relocation month of the year. 2. Some people have to purchase a home by the end of the year for tax purposes. 3. Serious buyers look for homes during the holidays. 4. We can provide an extended closing. These are four very good reasons for making your move this winter. If you have any questions about the many benefits of selling now, or if you need real estate assistance of any kind, please don't hesitate to reach out to us. We would love to give you a hand!