A4HB Homebuyer's Blog

Even if you don’t have children and don’t plan to, you should be hesitant to buy a home in an area with poor schools. Good and safe schools are an important criterion for many home buyers. When you are selling your home, you want the schools to be a selling point rather than a hurdle to be overcome. In general, the schools in the area are very good, but there are certainly differences between various districts and schools. Check out our section on School Information for some good resources for data on schools and school districts.

Crime is a consistent and legitimate concern for home buyers because it has implications for personal safety as well as resale values. It does not emerge as a central concern for most of our local clients, because crime rates in the area are comparatively low. If you are concerned with crime rates, I would recommend comparing the crime rates in our communities to other communities you are familiar with nationwide. Check the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports (Crime in the United States) for reliable information. Their chart that reviews crime statistics for all cities in the country with populations of 10,000

In Colorado, much of the money raised to support basic public services like schools, water and sewer districts, and city or county government is raised through local property taxes associated with special purpose taxing districts. The standard Colorado purchase contract urges buyers (see Section 8.4) to review these districts prior to purchasing a home and provides the right to terminate the contract if the tax liabilities are unsatisfactory. The presence of this language in the contract derives, in part, from a series of financial disasters that occurred in the late 1980’s in Colorado in connection with taxing districts called “metropolitan

A home backing directly to a busy street is one of the most difficult resale hurdles to overcome. My advice to clients when we find a home located on a major arterial street is not to go inside. In many cases, these homes will have larger backyards and better views than other homes in the same neighborhood, but they are still much more difficult to sell, particularly in a slow market. In many cases, these homes sell only when a buyer is forced to buy during a brief home buying visit financed by the employer and this home is the

Coal mining was an important part of the local economies in the Colorado Front Range through the first half of the 20th century. Many of the towns in our area, including Superior, Louisville, Lafayette and Erie, as well as Frederick, Firestone, and Dacono to the east in Weld County, began as coal mining towns. Nearly 50,000 acres were undermined along the Front Range. This becomes a concern for home buyers because underground shafts can collapse and cause subsidence on the surface. If this subsidence were to occur under the foundation of your new home, you might have problems. The State

Homeowner’s insurance will generally cover you for water damage resulting from a broken pipe in the bathroom, but it will generally not cover you for damage from water that originates outside the home. Flood insurance is available nationally through FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and typically costs one to two times the cost of normal home owner’s insurance. Flood insurance coverage is available whether you are in a high risk zone or not. It can be valuable if your house is flooded by a break in a water main in the street, since you home owners insurance generally won’t

While this can be a very difficult issue to investigate, buyers of rural, mountain and commercial properties in particular should consider how the property may have been used by previous owners. For example, if you find a dump site with old barrels, you could be buying into a hazardous waste site that could quickly bankrupt you. Issues of prior use can impact more urban subdivisions as well. Homeowners in an unincorporated area of north Boulder discovered several years ago that a film processing plant had contaminated the ground water. The EPA threatened to make the area a Superfund site unless

Boulder, Broomfield, and Jefferson Counties, as well as most of the towns and cities in the area, have purchased substantial property to preserve as wildlife habitat and open space. Combined with the relatively dense housing development in many of our towns, this has put a substantial premium on homes backing to undeveloped farmland or natural terrain. If you are looking at a home that is near undeveloped land, meet with the city or county planner, locate the property on a map, and find out what the current status of the property is. Also ask pointed questions about what the possibilities

One of my clients found a great home in the Boulder foothills surrounded by scenic open space. It turned out that that this “open space” was a Boy Scout summer camp, which meant bugles all summer at 6 AM and camp songs until 10 PM. My client actually liked the idea of living in proximity to the camp, but he bought the home knowing he might have bought a resale problem. If the house next door is used as a rehabilitation center for recovering drug addicts or sex offenders, you may want to know that. If the airport, landfill, or

When you’ve found your dream house and are walking through it, admiring the maple floors and checking the water pressure, keep in mind that unlike your car or stereo your house can’t be moved to a new neighborhood or community if you discover problems later. You are not just buying a house. You are buying the neighborhood, the community, the school system and even the geological structures underlying them. Look around! Drive around! Talk to neighbors and meet with the city planner! Point to the house on the map and tell the planner that you are buying it. Ask the