About Centennial's The Knolls

A Picture is worth a thousand words or You only have one shot at making a first impression! - I see this over and over and over again and I still do not understand it, everyone knows that you only get one shot at making that first impression, and yet agents continue to list a home, go on and on describing in great detail how fabulous the home is and yet they do not upload any photos when they activate the listing. Apparently they are not really working in their clients best interest.

I primarily work with buyers and I see this every single day. Let's walk through the eyes of a buyer that is getting homes emailed to them every day, especially when they first come on the market. The first thing they do is look at the picture, guess what? If there is no picture they just go on to the next home and never know how fabulous your home might be.

Now although I do primarily work with buyers I will list homes as well, especially if these are buyers that need to sell their home first. I love to use these photos, or lack of, as ammunition when I have a listing appointment, I have no problem showing "examples" of the listings by the other agents that do not use photos. ^^^Is this what your house looks like^^^ If these are also buyers they truly understand how critical it is to get the first impression out to the world.

I have buyers right now that tell me they skip right over listings I send them that do not have any photos.

Sellers do yourself a HUGE favor and ask to see the listing agents past listing photos. You know when searching for homes the more the merrier, so why on earth would you hire and agent that can't even upload a photo when they make the listing live, or worse yet they do not even take any photographs.

PS This is not a rookie mistake, I see this over and over again with long time agents and I am still amazed they are in business. Very unprofessional.

The 4 and 1/2 Holidays that effect real estate - As we all know every day can be a productive day in real estate, you can show houses every day of the week, list homes every day of the week. Work 24/7 at your office on all sorts of different time consuming projects, but. There are 4.5 holidays every year that bring most of the industry to a screeching halt.

The first three are very well known and should be a time for everyone to take a break regardless of where you are in your business, they are Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. The other 1.5 Holidays are not official holidays but they do make a major impact on activity, ironically both are happening this weekend in Denver.

The Super Bowl has become as big a non-functioning real estate day as the other three mentioned above, I rarely have had the opportunity to show houses on super Sunday, but even when I have had the opportunity I have been turned down or refused to be let in by sellers on this "Holy Day".

The other 1/2 Holiday is more of a function of the weather and can actually effect real estate several times through out the year. Today in Denver and along the front range we are getting a major snow storm, all schools are canceled, many businesses have closed and many cities have also closed for the day. Air travel is very limited if at all and there is no way a seller wants to step out of their house for two hours today when the buyer that scheduled the showing yesterday more than likely will n ot be able to keep their appointment anyway.

Real estate is funny, when we have severe weather changes whether it is a heat wave, a monsoon rain, or major snowstorm we seem to get a lull in activity, however once the weather has remained constant for a couple days, unless its just impossible to get out and about, things get a little bit back to normal.

Enjoy the Holiday weekend.

Friday the 13th: My Lucky Day! :-) - 23 years ago today Friday the 13^th of January 1989 was my Lucky Day!

It was a typical cold January night, I went out with the usual crowd to a new bar in southwest Denver called Shout. I loved the bar mostly because they had the best happy hour in town, 2 for 1 beers from 4-7 and all the bar food you could eat for free!

As the night went on I saw an old friend who introduced me to one of his new friends, who almost immediately, in a very good natured but challenging way made the comment “you’re really cocky, you think you are something don’t you, you think you can pick up any girl in this bar, don’t you?”

I told him I was not cocky, just confident!

As the night progressed I danced with a couple girls and had a couple come up to me and ask for a hug because as they said “you just look like you would give a really good hug”, I have to admit that I like hugs and I think that goes a long way to being a good hugger. All of this really planted the seed deeper in my new friend that I was a cocky bar hound. I was not and never have been!

Then he challenged me! We both looked around the bar to see who might be the toughest girl to meet, there was a pretty girl, with long curly dark red hair sitting with a group across the bar, and I said, “how about her” He laughed and said “No Way”

I waited to get her attention and when she looked my way I tipped my beer and she responded with a tip of her drink. My new friend could not believe what he saw, although nothing really happened for a while until I noticed she was leaving, I stopped her and asked where she was going and she said she was leaving, I told her that I was hoping to dance with her and that I was sorry she was leaving, but she left.

My new friend was glowing, “Ha-ha! Mr. Smarty Pants, not so great after all are you?”

I was not shaken and continued to enjoy the night, a couple hours passed and the pretty lady returned and came up to me, I checked her coat and her new friends coat and we went on the dance floor. This lady was wearing a very form fitting dark brown dress and man could she dance, I have never really enjoyed dancing until that night and honestly I did not want to leave the dance floor. We had a lot of fun and I gave her my card and told her to call me if she wanted to see me again, I really wanted to see her but I did not want to see her unless she was willing to see me again, by asking her to call me the ball was in her court.

A week or so passed and I had not heard from her so I was beginning to think I blew it by not asking for her number, at least I would have known if there was something there. Then the phone rang and it was Jennifer, “who?” I asked my roommate, Jennifer! I was not sure who Jennifer was and it took me a minute to realize that Jennifer was Jenny from Friday the 13^th at Shout. We went out a few times and not only did I fall in love with her but I fell in love with her 3 year old son at the same time. We are still happily together today, Friday the 13^th, 23 years later to the day.

Never really knew what happened to the challenger that night, although we got to know each other afterwords, and I still thank him to this day for challenging me.

Young Rockers putting on encore Charity performance - The band, The Fairgrounds, consists of four young rock and rollers form Littleton and Centennial Colorado. One year ago this week they performed there very first concert, a charity benefit for an orphanage in Ghana. They raised over $1000.00 for the orphanage and decided they want to make this an annual concert. So tonight starting at 6:30 PM at the Littleton Church of Christ one block north of Arapahoe Road on Colorado Blvd, The Fairgrounds and a couple other young bands will put on their second annual charity concert.

This band has played at various venues around Denver since their initial show a year ago, including The Gothic Theater, The Bluebird, The Marquis as well as a few others. They have sold out several of their concerts and are looking forward to a fruitful 2012. The band currently has four members, ranging in ages from 15-17, including three original members and they write all of their own music. It has been fun to watch them grow over the past 12 months both in performances and professionalism on stage.

I would encourage everyone to "like" them at their facebook home page, apparently they will get booked at larger and larger venues based partially on this popularity.

December 31 Day Challenge - Yesterday, December 11th was a good day to recover and watch some football. Our annual Christmas party the night before is an all day affair and Sunday was to be our day of rest, then I took this crazy challenge and realized I needed to make an effort every day. Being the Bronco fan that I am, I was born the same year as the Broncos and I am a native of the Denver area, so naturally I love the Broncos, and there is more excitement around here than we have seen in a while. Watching the team rally around Tebow and never give up is a great model for anyone to follow, and at the end of the game (as well as after every score) Tebow raises his hands and gives thanks...AHA... I can be giving thanks as well as I sit here and watch some games. So that is precisely what I did, I went through our list of those that were able to attend and sent them all thank you notes, and those that were not able to attend I plan on reaching out to them and seeing if I might be able to meet them for a cup of coffee to catch up.

Today, December 12th, I am hoping I did not make a big mistake, but I will be attending the first official board meeting as a new inductee onto the neighborhood HOA this evening. I say I am wondering if I made a mistake because I served on the board 10 years ago and it really is a thankless volunteer position, however there are some things that need to be addressed in order to mainitain the neighborhood values, and I am hoping I can help with that. I love this neighborhood, our kids have all had great experiences here, it is one of those rare neighborhoods, with pool, tennis, greenbelts, cul-de-sacs, hiking paths and connects to miles of canal trails all within a great proximity to the Denver Tech Center and light rail.