It seems like every ten years a baseball team comes along and makes me want to watch baseball.

1986: When I was a kid, the 1986 Mets were my team. I lived and died watching them. I couldn’t sleep when they lost and I couldn’t sleep when they won. Looking back it seems silly to lose sleep over what happens with a sports team considering it has ZERO impact on your life. When they won the World Series, it was amazing.

1996: I stopped watching baseball after the strike scandal plus I had A LOT of other things going on in my life. However, there was a Yankee team with a rookie shortstop that was more substance than style. They were different. They were helped by a kid in the right field stands against the Orioles. Then they won four in a row against the Braves.

2007: (Close Enough) Ever since I moved here, I’ve enjoyed going to see the Rockies play at Coors Field. There are no tolls, parking is super cheap and they’re surrounded by bars and taverns. Two years ago the Rockies got younger quickly. They called it Generation R and it seemed like a huge mistake until the Rockies brought up a young shortstop who’s more substance than style and who wears #2 (sound familiar). Despite the fact that major league baseball has a major league steroid issue, I’ve enjoyed the Rockies run this year and they made watching baseball fun!

Go ROX!

Miller Beer has a catch phrase called “Living the High Life” or something to that effect. The Denver Post has an articled called exactly that but it’s about living in high rise in downtown Denver.

Luxury high-rises promise to redefine the look of downtown Denver, luring tony buyers seeking their own wide-open spaces in the sky.

Denver’s skyline is about to be remade:

Among the biggest luxury residential high-rises planned or underway in central Denver: a Ritz-Carlton Hotel at 19th and Arapahoe streets topped with 25 residential units; a Four Seasons Hotel at 14th and Arapahoe with 102 private residences; the 41-story Spire project at 891 14th St.; the 31-story One Lincoln Park complex; Buzz Geller’s 31-story condo tower near Larimer Street and Speer Boulevard; and 1401 Lawrence, the Great Gulf Group’s 51-story tower at 14th and Lawrence streets.

High rises are great if… you don’t have kids, love elevators, love having neighbors above you, next to you, below you, and most importantly if you love heights.

Read the full article: Living the High life

Mortgage article from the Denver Post:

When Denver real estate attorney Ronald Thompson contacts the Colorado attorney general’s office about mortgage fraud or real estate scams, he knows his chances of getting help are slim to none.

Read the full article: Mortgage mayhem too fast for law.

I ran a quick search in Google for the term “Denver Homes”

The top ten results that Google fetched is fairly interesting:

1. The National Association of Realtor’s website, the heavyweights in the real estate game. They’ve been around for quite some time on the web circa 1997.
2. A real estate agent’s site. On the web since 1998.
3. recolorado.com, a consumer portal to the Colorado MLS. On the web since 1998.
4. American Home Guide is 4th. Not sure what’s the purpose of this site. It’s not a real estate agent, broker, or company. On the web since 2003.
5. A real estate agent’s site. Around since 2000.
6. New Home Source, a site that basically allows you to search for properties with limited ads. Around since 1999.
7. A real estate agent site. Around since 2004.
8. House.Info allows you to search for properties. Around since 2005.
9. A BLOG. Around since 2005.
10. A BLOG. Around since 2006.

Conclusions:

• The real estate agents who’s site rank well, probably paid a substantial amount of money to get ranked well and to keep their rankings.
• The 9th ranked site for Denver Homes is run by Todd Carpenter, who runs a series of mortgage and real estate blogs.
• The 10th ranked site, was a blogging project of mine that I abandoned.
• Unless you’re site has been around on the web since the late 90′s or you plan on paying a ton of money to get your site optimized, plan on blogging.
• Google loves blogs!

If you’re savvy real estate agent in Denver and want to meet with me to discuss blogging and what it can do for your web presence, contact me for a consultation. If you’re a total dumbass who whines constantly and expects me to do everything, don’t bother contacting me.

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

For some reason I get A LOT of visitors searching for “Fix and Flip in Denver” and “Fix and Flip loans.” Most people I’ve talked to regarding “fix and flips” simply don’t have a clue how much time or money is involved in a buying a house, remodeling, then selling it for a profit. People who are unprepared either go broke or wreck their credit or both. However, buying a home, fixing it, and then flipping it has always fascinated me.

Growing up I really enjoyed This Old House and Hometime. 20 years later and much to my surprise these shows are still on Public Television. The cast of characters has changed but the premise remains the same, remodel an aging house.

Today there are several shows devoted to flipping homes and I’m addicted to each and every one of them:

Property Ladder: By far the best of the shows not named This Old House or Hometime. Candidates for this show are fix and flip novices. The show is an hour long and typically the show focuses on the struggles these novices endure while flipping. They do receive guidance from Kristen Kemp a real estate investor. What I like is that follow through to the end and show some flips as complete flops.

Flip That House: If you have a short attention span, this fix and flip show is for you. It’s only 30 minutes long! Experienced and inexperienced flippers are depicted in a quick view of the fix and flip process. The show usually ends with a how much the home was purchased for, how much they spent, and the new price with the expected profit highlighted.

The Real Deal/Real Estate Pros: In one hour this show follows successful real estate flipper Richard Davis and his company, Team Trademark. It’s a pretty interesting show laden with extremely tight deadlines. Getting a house ready in a week only to get one of your employees into the property seems a little far fetched.

Flip This House: I liked this show because of Team Trademark but there was a lawsuit and Team Trademark moved on. There are other “teams” that are featured, one in San Antonio, TX, one in Atlanta, GA and the latest is in New Haven, CT. If you’re in drama you might want to skip the last team, the New Haven group seem to be as cohesive as the 2004 Boston Red Sox.

Flipping Out: Last week a new fix and flip show debuted on Bravo. It’s about Jeff Lewis, a professional real estate investor. Remember it’s on Bravo, the network that brought us Queer Eye for the Straight Guy in other words, expect a lot of drama.

Driving down Broadway the other day I did a double take as I passed what used to be a 7-11. It was turned into a Kwik-E-Mart as a promotion for the upcoming Simpsons movie. You can get your fix of Buzz cola, Krusty O’s and Squishees.

Denver is just one of handful of cities selected, the other cities are New York City, Chicago, Dallas, Burbank, Los Angeles, Henderson, Orlando, Mountain View, Seattle, and Bladensburg, Md.

It’s on 3rd and Broadway check it out today!

Interesting links from the web:

The Denver Post has a great article, Sales surge for digs over $1M, on why the upper end homes are selling like hot cakes. Denver homes in the million dollar range are doing very well because move up buyers have done well with their investments in the stock market. Moving up like George and Weezie!

Speaking of luxury properties, I ran into my friend Dan at the Denver based real estate and mortgage blogger meet up last week. He now works for LuxuryProperty.com, a site that specializes in million dollar homes nationwide. Look for their launch very soon.

Jonathan Miller of Miller Samuel discusses when prices rise, people remodel. Anyone who links to a Roxy Music clip is pure genius in my book!

Just like every kid, I grew up playing soccer. It’s the premier sport in the world. Somehow it just doesn’t have mass appeal in America. Consider that Denver just hosted the Major League Soccer all-star game, did anyone care?

Chinatown real estate is hot according to CBS. This begs the question where is Chinatown in Denver? My best guess is Alameda & Federal area with their wide array of Chinese restaurants.

Growing up in suburban NYC, there was one choice when it came to hardware stores – Pergament. When I went to college in upstate NY, there was one choice as well – Chase Pitkin. When I first moved to Denver, there were several choices including Builders Squares and Hugh M Woods.

Today, these stores don’t exist. They’ve been replaced by two home improvement mega centers: Lowes and Home Depot. These home improvement centers are growing at a rapid pace and leaving a closed hardware stores in their wake.

A few years ago we planned on remodeling our bath room but after getting two quotes from contractors we decided that our money was best spent on a Mexican vacation. This year we revisited the idea of remodeling our bath room but we decided to set a budget and keep things within reason since we’re planning to go to Mexico again next year. In order to keep things within reason, it means doing it yourself and going to Lowes or Home Depot.

To make life easier my wife and I ventured to Arapahoe and I-25 in the Tech Center where Home Depot and Lowes are about a block apart. Plus, if we didn’t like their selection, the Great Indoors, was a stone throw away on I-25 and County Line. We went shopping. I hate shopping but you don’t have to twist my arm to go to a home improvement center. We looked at flooring, vanities, sinks, counter tops, faucets, and just about everything in between.

This shopping adventure brought up a great question: How do you pick between Lowes and Home Depot? You can go with Nick Bakay’s “Tale of the Tape” method:

Number of Locations: Way too many (Home Depot) vs Not enough (Lowes) advantage Home Depot

Location of restrooms: At the Front (Lowes) vs At the Rear (Home Depot) advantage Lowes

Parking: Even on a busy day it’s not bad (Lowes) vs No matter what time you go, it’s just plain bananas (Home Depot) advantage Lowes

Checkout: Self Checkout (Home Depot) vs No Self-Checkout (Lowes) advantage Home Depot

NASCAR driver: Jimmie Johnson (Lowes) vs Tony Stewart (Home Depot) push

So far we’re even 2-2, so here’s the tie breaker:

Closing time: 10 PM (Lowes) vs 9 PM (Home Depot) advantage Lowes

So there you have it, Lowes wins 3-2!

Update: We ended up getting the vanity, sink, flooring and counter top at Home Depot. My wife simply didn’t care for my affinity to Lowes.

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