A4HB Homebuyer's Blog

What to do after an Urban Fire

What to do after an Urban Fire After the Marshall Fires destroyed so many homes in 2021, the lucky people whose homes were spared from the fire but still suffered from smoke damage were left wondering, what is the next step for us? Weecycle Environmental has provided their suggestions for the best cleaning protocol to make your house safe and healthy again. What When combustion occurs during a fire, not all materials burn cleanly, resulting in smoke and soot. These waste products – solids, liquids, and gases – may be composed of various chemicals which are harmful to your health.

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Market Update for March 2021

Market Update for March 2021 Eight years ago, in March of 2013, we suddenly found ourselves conducting most showings with 3 to 10 groups in the house with us. It felt like all the buyers who’d put off buying during the Great Recession had re-entered the market the same week, fundamentally transforming our business and the challenges buyers faced. Rather than adding contract clauses that gave our clients additional leverage or protection, we were drafting clauses that limited our clients’ rights to negotiate over inspection issues, low appraisals, and other issues. Rather than trying lower the price through negotiations, we

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Uncategorized
A4HB Team

Home Prices Way Up, but Interest Rates Keep Costs Down

Home Prices Way Up, but Interest Rates Keep Costs Down Home prices have increased dramatically in Boulder County and the Denver Metro area over the past 10 to 20 years, but lower mortgage interest rates have limited increases in housing costs for most home buyers. For the lucky few who can pay cash for their home, home prices and buying costs are essentially the same. But for most home buyers, the interest rate on their home loan has a big impact on buying costs.Check out the chart below and you’ll see that the median price for what we call a midsize home in Boulder

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2020 Market Stats

2020 Market Stats For a year that started out with a 6-week prohibition on home showings, what jumps out from our real estate market stats is that they show very little change from the strong seller’s markets of the past decade. The insanely tough market we’ve had since 2013 quieted just a bit in 2018 and 2019, with price increases dropping from 10% a year to about 3%. But despite the pandemic and slowing economy, the average price increase for single family houses in the communities we cover jumped from 3.2% in 2019 to 5.7% in 2020. Consistent with this, more properties sold

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Comparative Housing Prices in Local Communities

Comparative Housing Prices in Local Communities Anyone familiar with the our real estate market knows that Boulder has always been the most expensive city in the area and that home prices have consistently increased there year after year. When we started tracking housing prices in 1997, the median price for midsized house in Boulder was $260,000, a price that had jumped to $960,000 by June of 2020. This is the pattern of price increases we’ve seen for other communities in the area as well, with Louisville prices moving from about 200K in 1997 for this size home to 700K now,

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Remodeled front view of house, Agents for Home Buyers, Boulder, CO
Home Improvement
A4HB Team

Creating Value Adding Curb Appeal

Creating Value Adding Curb Appeal by Shannon Weissleder Creating major curb appeal greatly increases your home’s value. When selling your house, you want to grab buyers from the moment they pull up to the curb. Most buyers are looking for a house that instantly looks like a “H-O-M-E”. Here are my top ideas for creating maximum impact: #1: Update the exterior with paint.    Choose a bright exterior color to warm up a tired looking house. In this example, I selected a classic white and black color scheme and accented with warmer wood tones through cedar fencing, cedar wrapped posts

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It’s a Good Time to Purchase an Investment Property

It’s a Good Time to Purchase an Investment Property Millennials are Waiting Longer to Buy In July 2016, U.S. homeownership rates hit their lowest percentage on record at 62.9%. What is the major cause of this trend? The dip in homeownership is most likely due to millennials waiting longer than ever to purchase their first home. Factors that influence the home buying decisions of the younger demographic are increased student debt, delayed marriage, and waiting to have children. As a natural result, this has impacted rent and vacancy numbers across the state. According to the Colorado Department of Local Affairs,

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The Fascinating World of Dryer Lint

The Fascinating World of Dryer Lint It’s not unusual for home inspectors to find dryer ducts packed with lint in the course of an inspection. When they do, they strongly recommend dryer duct cleaning. This is not a trivial issue because the lint is potentially combustible and a somewhat common source of house fires. Do Your Clothes Take Forever to Dry? But with that knowledge, it still didn’t occur to Norris to have the dryer vents cleaned at his home or the rental condo he owns. Shortly after a new tenant moved into his condo last year, they called to

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Lindsey Buys a Fixer-Upper: Part 6, Termites

Lindsey Buys a Fixer-Upper: Part 6, Termites By Lindsey Wolf Lunney Last May, my husband and I unintentionally bought a major fixer-upper. In earlier posts, I talked about some of the problems we uncovered during our routine and not-so-routine inspections of the home. I hope my story will make the process easier for others who are thinking of taking on a big project like this one. Termites! It’s a common belief that there are no termites in Colorado, right? Wrong. We have found throughout our remodeling process that inspections can only uncover so much. For example, the family room had

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Lindsey Buys a Fixer-Upper: Part 3, Water Everywhere!

Lindsey Buys a Fixer-Upper: Part 3, Water Everywhere! By Lindsey Wolf Lunney Last May, my husband and I unintentionally bought a major fixer-upper. In earlier posts, I talked about some of the problems we uncovered during our routine and not-so-routine inspections of the home. I hope my story will make the process easier for others who are thinking of taking on a big project like this one. Goodbye Swamp Cooler, Hello A/C We bought our home knowing the previous home owners did not have A/C and used a swamp cooler instead. The swamp cooler was full of mold and had

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