And the Record StandsSteve ScheerDenver Area Real Estate Its no secret that December and January were crazy here in Denver and we had record setting snow fall.  I had several customers throughout those weeks looking at Denver real estate from out of state that were weary and nervous that this amount of snow is normal here.  And it really isn't.  The weeks surrounding the storms were much colder than it can generally be here in Colorado and typically our snow will melt much faster than it has this winter.      But as February turned into the more milder winter that Coloradans are used to, the big question was, would the record for the most snow cover in Denver be broken?    Well yesterday, as we teetered close to the record books, that question was answered, NO!  Many local media outlets... 02/21/2007

The quality of life in the Denver area is great and here is one more reason why. According to a survey conducted by Men's Health magazine that was released this week, Denver has the cleanest tap water in the country.The magazine looked at several indicators of water quality including levels of arsenic, lead, halo-acetic acids, trihalomethanes (which are linked to cancer) and coliform bacteria.  It also looked at the number of EPA water-system violations from 1995 to 2005. Men's Health tested water from 100 cities and all of the water came in below the EPA's maximum contaminant levels for 2005, but Denver's was much father below the levels than other cities, earning it the No. 1 spot. For more information, visit http://www.menshealth.com/cda/article.do?site=MensHealth&channel=health&cate... 02/16/2007

Denver Restaurant WeekSteve ScheerDenver Real Estate So often I will have a Denver real estate client that relocates to Denver and will ask me many questions about the local area.  Steve, Where does your wife get her hair cut?  Who cleans your carpets?  And where do you go to eat?  Well, its no secret that Denver restaurants have claimed a voice of their own & we have attracted some of the top chefs in the country to open shop in Denver.     So, how do you decide where to go when there are so many to choose from.  There are the old time favorites and many new restaurants popping up all the time.  Well, here's a perfect way.  The Denver Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau announces that February 24 - March 2 is Denver Restaurant Week 2007.  Hundreds of local eateries open up with their cu... 02/15/2007

It's only January 3rd and buyers are ready to buy.  Between blizzards one of my first-time buyers bought a great home they'd had their eye on for some time.  It's in a great neighborhood, and has a great start on remodeling.  It's close to our new light rail, Whole Foods, and all the amenities of urban living.  The sellers had been at it since July and had come down from their original listing price 4.2%.  By the time we made our offer we were able to come down another 5.5% which the sellers accepted.  I wish there were ten more just like it in the neighborhood.  Several of my clients are looking in the same price range and are willing to do a little work to bring their chosen home up to speed.I have a number of clients right now who are looking for bargains, and we're finding them.  Bu... 01/03/2007

just wanted to wish everyone a very Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year. It is hard to believe that 2007 is just around the corner. Where did the year go? 12/24/2006

Earlier this week I showed houses to clients relocating from warmer climates.  They're still here.  I wonder what they thought of the Holiday Blizzard yesterday which dumped 20 to 30 inches of powdery snow in the Denver metro area.Our weather is normally very temperate.  Averages are around 45 degrees for the winter months.  When snow falls, it's usually gone in a few days (the sun shines intensely here).  It's a great place for a person from Minnesota (me) to move to.  But I'm not too sure Floridians would find it enticing. When you come from a place where blizzards are routine, a Denver blizzard is great.  You can expect the sun to come out later today, which will start to melt the snow.  I won't be able to get out of my driveway, though, till Saturday or Sunday.  My clients are likel... 12/21/2006

Hello,Welcome to my new blog! This is my first post ever so please excuse me if it isn't perfect. I had to start with something.The Denver real estate market has been soft for the last year and a half. All you have to do is read the newspaper and they will wiill be happy to tell you all the negative news about the housing "bubble". Here's a different perspective. Sales have not been the problem. They are down now only about 3% year in year over year statistics. The problem has been the number of homes on the marketd has risen dramatically. They increased from only 20,000 to almost 32,000 for a high this last summer.But, the last two months of statistics report by "Metrolist", our multilist system, show a decliine of over 12% in the number of homes on the market. See the full story on my... 12/15/2006

I've always been a math geek. As a kid I remember asking my mom to take out the math flash cards as opposed to the other cards. Addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division, it didn't matter. As I got older I was always in the advanced math classes. I even joined the Math team competing against other math geeks.  When I hit college, as the math got more difficult - calculus 1 through 3 and differential equations, I continued to excel. Then I took statistics, not the easy statistics either, and my perception of math changed. Statistics confounded every joy I derived from math as it made math confusing. My professor once wrote on the board, NUMBERS DON'T LIE, PEOPLE DO. Then crossed out people with STATISTICS.If you read the newspaper's here in Denver, the Denver market is flat. The... 12/13/2006

The election in Denver was a fiasco this month.  New computer voting at centers not precincts led to EXTREMELY long lines, hot tempers and not nearly enough apologies.  Worse yet the dedicated voters who toughed out the wait returned to their cars to find PARKING Tickets for their trouble.Turn the clock back a few years.  Remember John Hickenlooper before he was Mayor of Denver?  Recall his charmingly different political commercials with him on a Moped.  Or him putting a quarter into the parking meter?He won the election because of the parking meters...kind of.Well last week Mayor Hickenlooper made the National  News, MSNBC, FOX News, and NPR recognized and praised Mayor Hickenlooper.  Why?Because for all the voters who received parking tickets on election day, The Mayor is taking respo... 11/22/2006

Thursday Nov 02, 2006 | Today's Denver Listings UpdateThere were 120 properties newly listed in Denver on Thursday November 02, 2006. View new listings Minimum price: $45,000 Median price: $210,250 Average price: $280,297 Maximum price: $1,500,000 A few examples of newly listed properties: See all$424,000 $119,900 $119,900 $134,900 $134,900  There were 70 properties with reductions in price in Denver on Thursday November 02, 2006. View reduced listings Minimum price: $48,000 Median price: $172,500 Average price: $210,956 Maximum price: $899,900 A few examples of reduced price properties: See all$169,900 $269,900 $48,000 $195,000 $59,900 11/02/2006

Blackmail is a nasty little game some people play on each other.  Blackmail though it exists is not a nice game to play, further more, it is not really what this post is about.Art is the theme of my post.  Blackmail is just art, at least in Denver.Yesterday I was doing my normal Sunday walk around having fun shooting my Canon.  I came across 3 black mail boxes with different sayings on them.  The sayings are:"I told you  never to call me here someone will find out""I have evidence of your secret life""I'll send the negatives to the police if you don't send money"The sayings on the black mailboxes were amusing, I clicked a shot, not really thinking about it.  Later last night while downloading the pics, it came to me....black mail boxes....BLACKMAIL!Art...sometimes it's takes awhile to u... 10/30/2006

What’s happening in the Denver real estate market these days?  It depends on who you talk to (or read).According to Denver Metrolist, the database used by real estate professionals, the number of single family homes sold decreased over last month by 18.13% and over last year by 11.89%. The average sale price in September was $308,903, down from $320,092 in August, a 3.5% drop.  Compared to last year the average sale price was down a slight .97%, showing stagnant prices for the 12 month period.  The median price for a single family home was $243.500, down from $250,000 last year (a 2.6% drop) and from $252,900 in August and $259,500 in July, showing a steady trend of dropping prices.Only part of the drop since July can be explained by seasonal differences, families wanting to get into ho... 10/21/2006

 Denver Real Estate & Current EventsLast week the Denver Art Museum opened, with rave reviews.  People stood in line before the sun came up to get free timed tickets to enter.  Some even came back in the middle of the night just to be among the first to see the museum.  Have I seen it?  No.  Have I been stalking it?  Yes.  I keep trying to find the perfect spot to photograph it.  Here is it looking at it from the east on 13th Street at about 2 p.m.  Still a couple blocks away my 55-200mm pulls it in.Note the Denver Library to the right.  It too is an architectural wonder.  Welcome to Denver... 10/12/2006

Kristal, I hope I am not stealing your thunder.  But, you know we are watching.  Today or tomorrow, you'll pass the 70K mark.  Only 2 other rainers have achieved such lofty pointage.  Also, in the next day or two you will post your 200th post.  Maybe others have done that.  I have no way of knowing.  But I do know that nobody else on the blog dashboard has amassed such an impressive body of work. Your posts have elicited about 2,254 comments, if my math is right!   You've been thought provoking (to the point of being plagiarized, but we don't need to rehash that), entertaining and inspirational.  Frankly, nobody else, has been able to write so many posts and have them be both interesting and commented upon, again I refer you back to the blog dashboard as evidence. You haven't diluted yo... 09/28/2006

Remember a few days ago I posted a blog about getting ideas to share in my presentation?  Well I used quite a few of your ideas today.  The session was not nearly long enough.  At the last minute I decided to sign up a new member and do a blog, just to show everyone how easy it is.  Well it is easy, except the new member's email needs confirmation through their email!Foiled!  Gosh darn another great idea went down the tubes.  (I blamed Bonnie Cox, because she wanted the points for the new member) The reality is the plan would not have worked with a newbie.  I should have just posted a blog on my own, including this cool picture of the group, taken for this purpose.  Aren't they Gorgeous?My allotted time was not nearly long enough to do justice to Blogging.  Many in the group want to lea... 09/19/2006

Blogging is great fun.  The ideas for blogging sometimes come at a place that is hard to keep up with. When I'm on, the ideas flow and sometimes change from the time I create the title and finish my thought, it's an entirely different thought!  Why does that happen?We are products of 3 things in our lives, the people we meet, the books we read and the places we have been.  Blogging reflects all of these.  Starting out with one thought and ending up with an entirely different bent on the topic isn't so much a lack of focus but a rush of uncontrollable ideas...I want to get them all out.What is even more strange to me is how sometimes the blogs are interpreted.  I may be going for a response and end up getting something totally different.  Is that because I'm not clear in my thought commu... 09/18/2006

Selling real estate takes many skills.  Aside from the technical skills of real estate sales, Realtors need to know the housing market, distinctions of the various neighborhoods, price ranges, values, trends, construction styles, floor plans and neighborhood amenities.All these skills are packed into one package, us The Realtor.Many of these skills are learned on the job, over time.  Others we overtly must investigate, so we can relate to our clients and customers.  Not all things interest us personally, but Realtors find the more they know the better they can assist a buyer in finding the right home.As a Realtor, I often have questions directed at me, that I know nothing about.  Questions like these stir me into action, to learn more about what I don't know. Educating myself, so I can ... 09/17/2006

Inquiries from Out Of State Buyers searching for homes can be very predictable.I can't tell you how many times I've been told, I want a Log Cabin in the woods on acreage, for under $200,000 or $300,000.  I roll my eyes and try to explain nicely, "we don't have many of those in Denver."Of course we have log homes, cabins maybe but certainly not in Denver.  With all the home search sites available to the public, wouldn't it make sense to check things out, before you open your mouth to insert foot?  I know people  have their dreams, but I wish they would get real.  Sometimes I just don't have the patience to be nice...again.  But I am.  Is it only me that gets these calls?  I'm sure other parts of the country have homes most can only dream about. What kind of calls do you get and how do yo... 09/16/2006

Real Estate Talks...When working with buyers its always interesting to find out what makes them tick.I talk about lifestyles and what clients enjoy doing. For some folks enjoyment comes from doing activities outside the home; golf, running, hiking, traveling, you name it.Others reflect on things they enjoy doing around the home, reading, cooking, watching TV or puttering around the home fixing things.Home-centric folks tend to take more time to purchase. They consider angles and concepts that the active away from the home folks don't. Location and proximity to "activities" maybe more important to the active buyer.  Then again sometimes the personalities are blended and they have to have it ALL.Measuring up buyers takes more than just asking them what they want in a home.  Sometimes lett... 09/16/2006

We all remember how we began in the real estate business.  For some it was hard and others extremely easy....to pass the test perhaps.In Colorado at the time I was able to spend an additional month in class to qualify to take the Brokers Exam.  Considering the overall benefit of having a Broker's license vs. an Agent's license and the short amount of effort it would take to get it, that's what I did.  First I completed the course work for an agent, then the next month I took the Broker's exam.  I passed the exam, but still had to spend 3 weeks or so finishing up my hours.  Talk about boring...Reality set in when I went to interview.  At first I was pleased that so many Brokers wanted me as their agent.  My husband broke my arrogant bubble by telling me they would hire anyone that could... 09/15/2006