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Denver Real Estate Introduction

[0:00] So, I've been in real estate in Denver for 15 years. I've sold hundreds of homes. I've flipped hundreds of homes. And I help lots of people move here every single year to the Denver area. And I'm going to compress 15 years of brutal lessons about Denver and Colorado into this one video. Number one, what you look for, you find. Look, we're absolutely a melting pot from people all over the country. And yeah, we do get a bad rap in the media for being on one side of the coin or the other. Um, and lots of people complain about it, right?

[0:31] But honestly, what you look for is what you're going to find here. And it couldn't be any more true than in Colorado. I mean, whatever your type of people are, I joke about it all the time, right? If you're a mountain biker, unicyclist, right? There's going to be a Facebook group here that meets weekly, right? you're into pickle ball, uh, tennis, all your classical sports, kayaking, uh, playing baseball, football, like we are an extreme melting pot, and people love to move here for the lifestyle. And so, you're really going to find what it is that you're looking for. Now, on the opposite end, if you're looking for a bunch of shitty people with shitty attitudes, you're going to find it. And if you're looking for people that are really willing to help out and willing to go the extra mile for people, you're gonna find it here. I mean, I can tell you stories of being on the side of the road during a crazy traffic jam and seeing someone open up their trunk and getting out their climbing gear uh to put on a harness to like repel down the side of a mountain because somebody just went off the side of the road. You're going to find what you look for here. Uh, and you know, myself, I look for amazing people and that's what I tend to find. Now, if you are thinking of moving here, uh, and you need help navigating our crazy market, you can call me, text me. Here's my cell phone number. Uh, or you can scan this QR code, get on my weekly email. Number two, politics here aren't as crazy as you're going to hear. Uh, they're just not. But with the media having to run this 24-hour narrative, uh, they just take things way out of context. And I mean, perfect example, last year, uh, there was some thing about Aurora gangs taking over these apartment buildings. So, I knew exactly where this neighborhood was. I really needed to find out. I mean, I had my mom in Chicago reaching out to me asking, you know, hey, what's going on? Are you safe? Is it okay? And so, I dug into it a little bit more. And, you know, it just kind of made for a really good headline. No, there weren't actually gangs like making their way into this apartment building to take it over and take people's rent from them. No, there were some incidents and yeah, stuff does happen and there were some drugs involved and you know there was some breaking and entering involved, but for that neighborhood, it actually wasn't too out of context. Um, but that's all you hear from the media is the craziest of the crazy here. I've been here for 25 years and you know, if you're looking for uh a super Democratic base, you're going to find it. If you want uh you know, super Republican friends that are conservative, you're going to find it.

Denver Lifestyle Activities

Politics and Neighborhoods

[3:10] You know, we're Colorado. We're not a typical Midwest blue city. Let's take it like Chicago is. You know, what you have here is you have more heavily blue, the city center, right? That's how most cities are structured. I mean, look at Texas. Texas is a Republican state, but yet their cities vote blue. You're going to have blue right in the inner city. You're going to have more purple as you kind of get out towards the outer loop and then you're going to get more red, you know, outside of that. But because we're not a huge city, you know, you can find, of course, comb back to point number one, you're going to be able to find your people here. Uh I haven't had an issue with the politics here, uh I kind of stay pretty middle of the line and that's me and most of my friends haven't either. So take it what take it how you will. Number three, no one moves here because it's cheaper. Okay? You move here because you want a better quality of life. And you know, think about this in any aspect of your life.

Cost of Living

[4:06] If you're going to buy a good couch or a good desk, you're probably not going to go to IKEA, right? You're going to go somewhere that, you know, maybe you're going to go to an Amish furniture store knowing it's handmade, uh, knowing it's custom for you. Like, you spend good money on good things. Why? Because you want good things in your life. You don't buy Patagonia because it looks great, right? You buy it because the name associated with it equals quality. And it's the same way here in Colorado and Denver in general. Uh but you know, I would honestly tell you to really dig into what your current expenses are, how much you're paying. I've like just right now I've got a couple moving here from Atlanta and you know, they're looking at houses going, "Man, you guys actually aren't that much more expensive." And then you calculate everything in property taxes being the biggest one here because they're the third cheapest in the country. And you might actually find that we're not much more than 5 to 10% more expensive uh than most cities in the country. You might actually find that we're cheaper. I would highly urge you to do the math on it. Um but people don't move here because it's cheap, right? They move here for the quality of life. If you want to be 15, 20 minutes from some worldclass hiking, mountain biking, climbing, four-wheeling, like it's all right here. And if that's not what you want in life, there's nothing I can tell you that's going to make you want to move here. That's why people move here. It's a higher quality of life. And yes, you're going to pay more.

[5:38] Number four, you will buy lots of stuff here to only use once, right? kayaks, mountain bikes, uh climbing gear, and you're going to find Facebook is an amazing place to get your feet wet uh on things. Skiing, snowboarding, right? We are the land of uh opportunity when it comes to uh your hobbies. We just are. And you know, you're going to want to dabble into stuff. You're going to try something once, right, with rental gear or something. Oh my god, kayaking is the best thing in the world. And then you're going to go out and buy all the gear.

[6:10] Uh, I would just highly urge you check out Facebook Marketplace first. You're going to find some screaming deals from many people that have tried something once and then moved on to something else. I mean, just in my 25 years here. Now, that's a long stretch of time, but man, I've been an avid mountain climber, avid hiker, mountain biker. There was a two summers there, man, we were mountain biking five days out of every single week. Uh, snowboarding. Then I switched over to skiing. So, what did I do with my snowboarding gear? I sold it off. And I had only ridden that stuff for a couple of times. Kaying, you know, you name it. Most people here have tried many things and yeah, you're going to fall into that same rut where you buy a bunch of stuff, you know, only to only to use it once. So again, Facebook Marketplace is going to be your best friend. Number five, and people always kind of, you know, raise their eyebrows at this a little bit, uh, but the job market here is absolutely amazing, okay?

Work Ethic Culture

[7:04] Especially if you're in the trades and you're willing to work. And what I mean by that, if you're from the east coast, you probably have a different work ethic and hustle than somebody from the west coast, right? Seattle, San Francisco, LA. Um, in Denver, we kind of fall into that West Coast feeling of things. And what I'm always amazed at, and even in real estate, right, the white collar jobs, uh, engineers, is that if you're willing to work and you're willing to show up and put in the effort, like literally the sky is the limit. Uh, buddy of mine just started a painting company last year, right? Painting not as simple as you get in the trades, but it's pretty darn simple. You can learn painting in a season, right? Sorry if you're a painter out there and you think that it takes 10 years to master the craft, but you can learn it and get pretty darn good within one summer of painting houses. And he started a painting company. Within a year, he's already kind of evolving onto another business. Why? Because he does what he says when he says he's going to do it and they produce a decent product and he's as busy as he can get and he can't get enough people to work for him that are quality. I've had handymen, right, that uh, you know, have been starting out and I go, "Okay, man. Like, you serious about doing this? Like, I'll make a few phone calls and introduce you to people, but you got to do what you say you're going to do." Within 1 to two months, they're charging 50 to 75 bucks an hour or more and they're booked up for the next one to two months, right?

[8:34] It is not that crazy difficult. You want to be a plumber, electrician, HVAC, there is work to be had here at really, really high wages. Most construction companies right now are hiring starting at 25 bucks an hour with no experience. If you have experience, 30 to 35 an hour is not uncommon. So, if you have the work ethic and you got the hustle, like you can easily make six figures here within your first 12 months of living here. Don't think that that's out of line. Number six, uh we're not a very diverse city, right? Compared to other big cities. And you know, that's that's similar for this kind of middle stretch of the country, right? Wyoming, New Mexico, uh Montana, Utah, um Arizona gets a little bit more diverse, but in general, if you're used to that East Coast feeling, um you're not going to find it here with diversity. If that's a big important thing for your kids going to school, uh with a really diverse school, you're going to have to dig into it a little bit more. Yeah, you're going to find it out there, but in general, I I would not categorize us as a highly diverse city. Number seven, you know, everybody talks about it, but the sun is going to catch you off guard one day, and you're going to burn the crap out of yourself. Uh, you're going to be burned more than you ever have by being on any beach because the elevation here is higher, more of the UV rays get through.

Sun and Skin Care

[9:54] And then if you do end up going for, you know, snowshoeing, let's say, you got some big four, five, six hour hike that you want to do, uh, and you screw up, you're going to be in pain fast. You know, some of the most pain I've ever been in was when I actually sunburned the roof of my mouth. I was snowshoeing. We weren't doing a 14er, but we started at about 10,000 ft and we were going to about 12,500 ft. It was the deepest blues I've ever seen in my entire life in the sky cuz it's cold. It was crisp.

[10:23] You know, it was 20 30° out. Uh, no wind, super bluebird day. And you know, somebody to think about when I was hiking and breathing through my mouth is that your mouth is open and you can get sunburned on the roof of your mouth. So, be warned, it's not just a summertime thing. Uh, you got to you got to really pay attention to it and make sure you know you have sunscreen. I grew up never ever wearing sunscreen. I couldn't remember one time in my life that I wore sunscreen cuz I'm darker complexion. I'm half Hispanic. Uh, and so that was never generally an issue. Um, here in Colorado, every summer I'm putting it on a few times if we're going to be doing something outside consistently. Number eight, the dryness here along with the sun is a very real thing. Uh, if you don't know what 10 to 15% humidity feels like, you really don't know the complications that come with it, right?

Dry Climate Effects

[11:17] You're going to fall asleep with water next to you. You're going to have your water bottle, you know, that you drag around like a wooby, uh, like a little kid all the time. everywhere and you're going to see everybody else in that same exact boat. It's not a bad idea to invest in, you know, water bottle companies here um because of how often they're used. You know, you're going to be buying chapstick all the time. It's super common thing. We find it in our dryer all the time, right? Melting to clothes. Uh because it's literally my wife and daughter's clothes all the time. If they don't have chapstick on them, like we're turning around going back home because they are going to have a bad day. Uh and on your skin, right?

[11:54] Complexion-wise, your hair. uh it's going to be quite a bit different um than what you're used to if you're from the east or the west or the south. Pretty much anywhere except outside the mountains. And everybody's going to tell you to drink, right? You get off the airplane, you get into your Uber to go to wherever you're going and you're going to find that the Uber driver is like, "Oh man, make sure you drink enough water." You're going to go to the bar and you're going to say that you're from Boston or whatever and somebody, oh, make sure you do one beer and one glass of water. one beer, one glass of water, uh because you're going to wake up hung over tomorrow worse potentially than you've ever been. Uh because of how dry it is and how much your your body just just, you know, sweats off the water instantly. You're not even going to know you're sweating because it's so darn dry here. Number nine, now tied into that, our weather is literally some of the most amazing that you can have.

[12:40] If you want all four seasons, um you're going to be hardressed to find anywhere that's going to be better, right? Montana is much colder. Wyoming is much windier. New Mexico is much hotter and we're in this great little pocket that you know, yes, we have stretches where it'll be 10 to 20 degrees, but that's probably comparable if you're from, let's say, the Midwest, the East Coast, that's comparable to you're 30 to 40 degrees. Not even joking. Uh 30° here is sweater weather, right? It's it's the middle of December right now. We're about 40° during the day, and I don't go outside in a coat. And in fact, I actually don't have a winter coat. I have a ski jacket, but I will very, very rarely wear that uh going out and about.

Winter Weather

[13:25] Other than that, I have kind of a spring jacket, as you would call it. Um kind of a heavier windbreaker, and that's what I use all the time. I do not have a winter jacket because it's not that bad here. And on the opposite side, 90° really isn't that hot here. You know, you could step into the shade and it's going to feel like it's 75, 80° right away. That dryness uh helps make our summers and winters extremely mild. And everybody thinks, "Oh god, you're Denver." Like, "What about the winters?" Man, you have no clue. If you're from New York, from Illinois, from Ohio, from anywhere pretty much that has a winter. Ours are more mild. I can almost promise it. You You can ride a bicycle here 12 months out of the year, right? There's going to be days and weeks that you can't, but for the most part, every single month, you can ride your bike at least one day out of the month. Now, number 10, because we're dry, which makes the weather amazing, uh, we also do get wildfires. And yes, there have been summers where I've felt like there was a bonfire in my backyard. And you just can't really avoid it. We've had a few good years. 2020 though was really bad.

[14:34] Everybody was on lockdown, and then we had this wildfire breakout. And man, we did have brown hazy smoke coming in off of the foothills. Um, and it just kind of hovers there once it gets outside of the mountains. Uh, and so if you do have, you know, respiratory issues, asthma, you should be warned like that is an issue. And even if it's not us, you know, the wildfires in Wyoming, Montana, uh, Washington, Canada, sometimes those jet streams come down and, you know, they just they just have smoke sitting over us. So, you'll have like weeks where things might be really hazy. And so, it's just something to to be on alert for. If you do have respiratory issues, you're going to move here, uh, you really want to make sure you have things in place that's going to help you get through it because there's almost no escaping it. Now 11. You know, if you are from a big city, what you're going to find is that we're actually not a big city, right? Some people call us a big city. People had in rural Colorado or, you know, from Wyoming or even New Mexico, right? They call us this big city in Denver because we are one of the biggest cities in the middle of the country here. But we're not a big city.

City Size and Safety

[15:42] Okay. Within 45 minutes during rush hour, I can be from Golden, Colorado all the way on the western side to Aurora all the way on the eastern side. Right. straight across the city at 4:00 on a Friday because we're not a big city. Now, on the plus side, you know, because we're not a big city, there's lots of perks there. Traffic being one of them. Yeah, everybody complains about traffic everywhere in the world, but we're not bad whatsoever. Uh, and if you have any perspective, Washington DC, LA, like you're going to come here and you're gonna be like, "Oh my god, you guys have no clue what you have here. This is absolutely amazing." Um, but on the downside, you know, because we're not a big city, we don't have that huge cultural diversity yet. You're going to be able to find your people. Um, for sure, but not like big cities, you know, we don't have parts of town that you associate with certain ethnicities like I did in Chicago, like there is in New York. We just don't have that. And number 12, you know, homeless is a real issue here. uh because we have incredible weather, uh because we're not this massive city, uh and because we are primarily, you know, Democrat voting by about 80% of at least Denver proper. Um we do have rules and laws in place that make it easier to be homeless here without having to break the law, right?

[17:03] Places where you sleep. Um and of course that attracts things, you know, drug issues unfortunately with that. Yeah, you're going to see it. And especially the closer you get to downtown Denver, uh you're going to see pockets where you're going to see some streets that are lined with homeless encampments, right? It's just kind of a thing. And that's for the most part on the entire west coast of the country. Um I've heard it from some cities on the east a bit.

[17:27] Uh but the weather there kind of sucks a bit more. And so if you have the opportunity to move yourself west, a lot of people do. So it is something you know that you should be aware of. Um, you know, is it a major issue in my everyday life? No. Do I see homeless people every single day at the at I25 where we get on the interstate? Yeah, unfortunately I do. So, you can either turn it into a learning opportunity for your kids, uh, you know, and be compassionate to people who really have an issue, you know, or if it is some isn't something you want to deal with, like just stay away from Denver altogether because it is a thing. Now, 13. If you're not a dog person, Denver's not going to be your jam. There's probably as many dogs as there are people. I I kid about that, but only partially. We've got two dogs in our household. We've had two dogs in our household for the last 15 years. Um, so there's almost as many dogs as there are people in our house. Uh, but you're going to see it everywhere that you go.

Dog Culture

[18:24] There are dog parks everywhere. You're going to see people walking dogs every hour of the day. No matter what neighborhood you're in in the entire Denver metro area and in Colorado in general, you're going to go to mountain towns, right? You're going to go to little towns like Leadville and you're going to see dogs off leashes just kind of walking down the street chilling. You know, their owner might be within earshot, but they might not be. So, you got to be careful on the roads there. Uh you don't want to do something dumb and end up hitting a dog. Um but there are lots of dogs here, man. You're going to go to a bar at happy hour and you're going to see two or three people with their dogs hanging out. You're going to go shopping on the 16th Street Mall.

[19:00] You're going to go up to Pearl Street in Boulder, you're going to see outside of every other shop, dog bowls. Every mountain town we go into, you know, whenever we go camping, uh, yeah, there's dog bowls in front of just about every single store there because of how many dogs are here. Now, trying to navigate a cross country move is not an easy thing. So, if you want help getting through it and just have some questions about what our market's like, just feel free. You can call me, you can text me, or scan this QR code, get on my weekly email, and you'll be kept up to date on the most amazing things that are happening in our Denver market. Number 14, and this is really something you shouldn't be concerned about if you are thinking of coming here because 50% of the people here are transplants. You all hear about this Colorado native stuff. I think it's the most ridiculous thing in the world being proud to be a native.

Transplant Community

[19:47] What? Because you're born somewhere, you have the ability to be proud. I don't buy into that. But since the '60s, over 50% of the people who live here moved here, right? What does that tell you? Well, that tells you that the majority of people move here for the lifestyle. And so where you might see online a bunch of keyboard warriors, I mean, I get comments all the time about, you know, people moving here ruining the state from California, from Texas, from Chicago, from you name it, right? Um, but the truth is this is how this state has been for 75 plus years. So, yeah, my daughter's born here. She's considered a Colorado native. Uh, but that doesn't give her any more right to complain about anything than anybody else, you know? So, I wouldn't really be concerned about it because it's it's it's it's a non-issue, right? All these nasty people who want to look for the worst in the world, you're not going to see them out hiking or biking or camping. They're the ones that are stuck in their house, right, being a keyboard warrior, complaining about life. Um, so you're just not going to run into them. So, I wouldn't even worry about it. Now, of course, we're not this massive city, but there are some parts of town that you might want to avoid, and I get asked about it all the time. So, it's why I put together this video. You can watch it, and you can see the areas that, you know, you might just be best off avoiding.