Growing up in NY teaches you a nice lesson that each can of soda equals 5 pennies. You horde those cans then one day you haul a big frickin bag full of soda cans down to Waldbaums and get PAID. You were recycling and getting paid all at the same time. There’s one catch. You pay those five cents up front so a 6 pack of soda would really cost you an additional 30 cents.

As I’ve gotten older I hardly drink soda yet somehow the lesson of not throwing cans into the garbage has stuck. Ever since I moved to Denver, I received a big purple bin. It was picked up once a week by the city’s recycling service. Once a week all the cans, bottles, plastic, and newspapers I collected were hauled away. I’m probably paying for the service but I don’t seem to mind. If it can be reused, why not make the effort.

Apparently I’m part of a miniscule minority in Colorado:

U.S. recycling rate: 28.5%

Colorado recycling rate: 12.5%

That’s pathetic!

If you’re shocked, here’s the Denver Post article where I get these numbers.

Live in Denver? Recycle Now

I’ve been blogging for well over a year here at Denver Lender. It’s my third blog iteration. My first blog was on blogspot, google’s blogging platform, however, I didn’t like the platform. My second blog was on Active Rain, a real estate networking site. Active Rain is a neat place but again, I didn’t like the platform. For my third blog, I chose wordpress as the platform since I’m quite proficient in PHP and MYSQL. For the name of my blog I had to choose between www.Denver-Lender.com and www.denvuh.com. Would people get the NY pronunciation of Denver? I wasn’t too sure so I went with a domain name that was fairly easy to say and even easier to remember.

In a few weeks, I’ll get to meet others who blog about Colorado at the first ever Blog Fiesta.

Here are the details:

Blog Fiesta will be held at Garcia’s Mexican Resturant, on July 18th, from 11-3. Garcia’s is in the Denver Tech Center (South Metro Denver), near I-25 and Belleveiw. We have a room reserved to seat 60, and can spill into another room to support as many 100 attendee’s.

Appetizers, soft drinks, lunch & expert blogging will be provided!

11:00-12:00 – Meet & greet with appetizers

12:00-1:00 – Our expert panel on starting your own blog with Q&A

1:00-3:00 – Have lunch and socialize!

The event is free, but registration is required if you want to guaranty a seat. Register Here

There are several definitions of the word BILL:

• an itemized statement of money owed for goods shipped or services rendered; as in “pay your bill“
• a piece of paper money; as in “dollar bill“
• the entertainment offered at a public presentation; as in “what’s on the bill“
• player for the National Football League team based in Buffalo, NY; as in “Jim Kelly will always be a Buffalo Bill“
• Nickname for William; as in “Bill Clinton“
• a brim that projects to the front to shade the eyes; as in “bill of a baseball cap“
• beak: horny projecting mouth of a bird; as in “pelicans have big bills“
• a statute in draft before it becomes law; as in “I‘m just a bill. Yes, I’m only a bill. And I’m sitting here on Capitol Hill.”

Bill Ritter recently signed five mortgage and foreclosure bills into law. Here’s a rundown of these BILLS from the Rocky Mountain News:

1. HB 1322, MEASURE TO PREVENT MORTGAGE FRAUD

Summary: Mortgage brokers and others involved in real estate transactions must act for the benefit of the borrower, including making reasonable inquiries into the borrower’s financial situation and using best efforts to obtain a loan that takes into consideration the borrower’s situation.

2. SB 85, PROTECTS CONSUMER REAL ESTATE TRANSACTIONS

Summary: Prohibits brokers from trying to influence the judgment of a real estate appraiser through coercion, intimidation or compensation.

3. SB 203, MORTGAGE BROKER LICENSING

Summary: Brokers must be licensed by the Division of Real Estate and must get adequate training, testing and continuing education and are prohibited from engaging in 24 specific activities, including fraud and conflicts of interest. A broker who has a license revoked for violating this legislation would not be eligible to be reinstated unless he or she provides full restitution to individuals he or she has harmed.

4. SB 216, MORTGAGE LOAN ACTS PRACTICES

Summary: Requires brokers to act in good faith and deal fairly, including: not to recommend the borrower enter into a transaction that “does not have a reasonable tangible net benefit to the borrower, considering his circumstances; to make reasonable inquiry into the borrower’s financial circumstances; not to make loans where there is no reasonable probability of repayment.”

5. SB 249, REAL ESTATE TITLE ESCROW SETTLEMENT

Summary: The Division of Insurance is required to provide annual reports on the number of enforcement actions taken, the market trends with title insurance and real estate transactions, and consumer complaints generated by market analysis, investigation and enforcement efforts regarding title insurance.

While this is a start but there are several areas that still need to be addressed:

What about the borrowers? Aren’t they culpable? If Joe and Jane Borrower buy a house and refuse to pay their mortgage simply because they racked up a lot of debt what’s their penalty?

What about banks? In Colorado, state and nationally chartered banks are exempt from registration: bank, saving bank, savings and loan association, industrial bank, industrial loan company, credit union, or bank or savings association holding company organized under federal law, and subsidiary or employee of the above. This is a large population of the mortgage community.

What about the Account Reps? They represent the mortgage lenders who end up buying your loan. Some will say just about anything to get mortgage brokers to send them business. In other words they’re part of the problem. Somehow there’s no law where mortgage lenders have to police their own employees.

If you’re new to my blog, you’ll notice a definite sarcastic tone. That being said, here are some noteworthy links dealing with real estate and/or Denver:

• Out with the old governor of Colorado (Bill Owens) in with the new governor of Colorado (Bill Ritter). Inauguration day is today, January 9th.
• Metro Brokers here in Colorado has launched a feature laden real estate website called Colorado Home Stop. According to the site, these are the main features:
  • Save & view your favorite listings.
  • Receive RSS search updates via your favorite RSS Reader.
  • Save & view your recent home searches.
  • Schedule automated E-mail updates and more
• If you’ve ever watched the Apprentice, you should be familiar with past winner Kendra Todd. She writes for Yahoo Real Estate. In an article called Best Places in the US to Buy a Home, she lists the following places:
  • Iowa City, Iowa
  • Lewiston, Idaho
  • Olympia, Washington
  • Spokane, Washington
  • Panama City, Florida
• It takes a corporation to buy a village. Albeit a very expensive village.
• Colorado Attorney General John Suthers is in the news (Denver Post) twice: Appraisal Fraud Targeted and Proposed Law Targets Appraisal Fraud
• Caribou is coming to DIA. Now if DIA could only get the security lines straightened out, I might fly more often.

Despite living in Denver, I’ve remained a loyal Jets fans. Recently I caught a Jets game at he Lazy Dog on Pearl Street in Boulder with my buddy Adventure Guy. Much to my surprise there were plenty of Jets fans and the Jets chant (J-E-T-S, Jets, Jets, Jets) was started each and every time the Jets scored.

Someone captured the chant and posted it on youtube:

The Christmas blizzard of 2006 is now over. According to the National Weather Service, the Denver area was hit with 18 – 28 inches of snow with snow drifts measuring 4 – 8 feet. Over 3000 people were stranded at Denver International Airport. As quickly as it arrived, it left just as quick leaving a massive cleanup effort in it’s quake.

Here are some sites that might come in handy:

• Colorado Department of Transportation
• Road conditions Recorded info: 303-639-1111
• Power outages Phone: 1-800-895-1999
• Denver Water Phone: 303-893-2444
• RTD
• Denver International Airport

As for me, although the blizzard aborted my holiday plans, I am grateful for having the opportunity to spend quality time with my family watching the following movies: Remember the Titans, There’s Something About Mary, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, and Caddyshack.

source: imdb

I came across Parvez Osman’s Boulder blog a few months ago. Parvez is an articulate real estate agent with some of the best insight and analysis on the Boulder real estate market. Recently Parvez blogged about a MSNBC article listing Boulder, Colorado as America’s smartest cities.

With the only NY Jets friendly bar in Colorado (Lazy Dog) Boulder is definitely the smartest city in Colorado!

• The Denver Post has an article entitled Poor priced out of homes which examines a recent report of the rental and housing situation for the less than affluent Denver inhabitant.
• Zillow is at it again, this time the innovative and controversial online AVM has created a feature called Make Me Move. With this feature you basically broadcast to the world what it will take financially for you to move out of your home.
• Greg Swann of Bloodhound Realty has added numerous contributors to his blog including Dan Green of the Mortgage Reports. The BloodhoundBlog evolved from a Phoenix based real estate blog to a lively discussion group on real estate. Good reading!
• How the Light Rail converted Englewood from a drab Cinderella City to upscale City Center is explored in this article by the Real Estate Journal.

When Governor Owens has signed House Bill – 1161 into law, it required all mortgage brokers to get licensed in the State of Colorado. It’s quite easy process that required three simple steps:

1. Get fingerprinted and send in for a background check.

No worries for me, I’m one of the good guys.

2. Get a Surety Bond in the value of $25,000

Again, no worries for me. The bond company I used, Above All Insurance was local and listed on the Colorado Association of Mortgage Broker site.

3. Register with the State of Colorado, Division of Real Estate

It was a snap and my license was sent to my inbox within seconds of hitting submit.

According to the Denver Post, home prices in the Denver area have taken a tumble:

• Metro Home Sales Plunge
• New Home Sales Down Sharply

Other articles of interest include:

• Seniors moving to yuppieville.
• Buying an older home? These five building materials are deemed historic failures:
  1. Single-strand aluminum wire
  2. Masonite Woodruf roofing
  3. Polybutylene supply pipe
  4. Federal Pacific electric panels
  5. Asbestos insulation
• Foreclosure is still a hot topic:
  1. 16000 foreclosure filings through October.
  2. The effects of foreclosure on neighborhoods can be devastating.
  3. Are online auctions (www.realtybid.com) the best way to sell foreclosed properties?