March 2016 Highlands Ranch Newsletter



Highlands Ranch CO Neighborhood

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Green Homes in Colorado: Saving Rain Water

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Colorado’s hot, dry summer’s weather may mean another round of water shortages. With water restrictions in place, keeping your family’s backyard flower and vegetable gardens moist and viable could be a serious challenge. Consider purchasing a rain barrel. These heavy-duty plastic or wood barrels catch rainwater and store it until you need it. A rain barrel allows for the practical reuse of water that otherwise would run down your driveway into a street drain, form puddles in your yard or feed into area streams. Reusing rainwater doesn’t just help the environment; it can lower your water bill and teach your kids about the importance of water preservation. The federal Environmental Protection Agency estimates that lawn and garden watering comprise nearly 40 percent of household water use during the summer, and that a rain barrel can save most homeowners about 1,300 gallons of water during peak summer months. Because it’s naturally soft and doesn’t contain minerals, chlorine, fluoride or...
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Hail-Resistant Roofs: Fact or Fiction?

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Colorado often experiences severe  hailstorms  that can cause devastating property damage. The Rocky Mountain Insurance Information Association reports that Colorado’s Front Range and Wyoming’s eastern plains, commonly referred to as “hail alley,” receive the highest frequency of large hailstones in North America. Over the past 10 years, hailstorms have caused nearly $1.7 billion in damage to roofs and automobiles in hail alley. The damaging hailstorms generally occur mid-May through late July. Damages incurred to roofs during hailstorms can, however, be reduced with proper roof design and roofing product selection. A properly designed roof structure can substantially reduce hail damage. Several testing agencies have developed the following recommendations for the roof designer: Shingles made with polymer-modified (SBS) asphalt have better resistance to hail damage than shingles made from oxidized asphalt. Reroofing over an existing shingle system greatly increases the ...
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IDXpro 3.0 vs 2.3

The long awaited IDXpro 3.0 is finally here, and sadly I am here to report that it is lagging behind many of the competitors in the market. I am speaking from my own experience using this system to search for homes in Metro Denver ( Metrolist MLS ). 1- Slow. The Search by map option is slow to say the least, in an attempt to show all the listings on the map, it takes 5-10 seconds for the map to populates (an eternity in Internet time), and every time the capture is changed the map has to go through the process of repopulating for another eternity. The advanced Home search function is not as friendly or as advanced as it should be: the search options are better than basic but they are still limited. 2- Subdivision search. This is one of the most important search features to both Realtors and Home buyers. This search option has two problems it did not have in version 2.3: This option has it's own page in the advanced search section eliminating the possibility of searching by city...
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How would Amazon HQ2 affect rent in Denver?

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With Denver on the short list for Amazon.com Inc.'s second headquarters, concerns are being raised about the impact of a $5 billion, 50,000-worker campus in an area that is struggling with housing affordability. Rental costs are on the rise, and a study today from Apartment List shows that Amazon HQ2 would increase those costs an additional 0.8 percent to 1.1 percent per year with the Amazon HQ2. That percent range translates to between $7,751 and $11,452 for a typical Denver renter household over a ten year period. To clarify, the 0.8 percent to 1.1 percent increase in rent is in addition to the baseline rent growth Denver has experienced without HQ2, which according to Apartment List averaged 4.8 percent per year from 2005 to 2015. With low inventory on both homes and rental vacancies, a new headquarters could strain housing further. Most impacted by these increases would be lower wage workers, many of whom would be needed to support Amazon HQ2. However, Denver would not be...
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9 home repairs to complete before negotiating a sale

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There’s something that I see generated in almost every transaction — a list of repair items found during due diligence inspections that buyers would like completed before closing. This can cause heartaches for sellers, who have negotiated their best deal and then feel “put upon” because they’re being asked to make repairs to close the sale. Read Article
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