Mile High Trout
Elite Member
- Joined
- Feb 13, 2008
- Professional Status
- Certified Residential Appraiser
- State
- Colorado
The trick to boosting your home value in the denser urban areas, especially diverse housing denver, is to toss a heated addition onto your property and record that with the assessors office.
Your home sizing jumps to an equivalent of the next segment higher, or several segments higher, and like magic, the avm utilities line you up equivalent with superior housing.
Or in the case of a human researcher whom cuts straight to agla narrow range search criteria within a mile rather than judging visually with stature, height, building materials, very local proximate location limits, you comp out with categorically dis similar homes.
Take a google maps street drive down MLK (martin luther king avenue) east of the Denver zoo (Colorado Blvd S). You'll see the premier customs on MLK, and then if you crawl four to five blocks N or S along the E or W side of the main MLK corridor, you'll see remarkable difference in housing quality. That's where this original topic story takes place, along MLK blvd if I remember correctly. Yet on paper some of them could technically comp out with each other. Then you get into the actual custom builders, where they operated, how home characters change over time, and well, basically one of your best research criteria is land sizes. The customs went on slightly larger lots, the regulars went on slightly smaller. Enter Denver's annoying pattern of allowing parcels to be split or combined depending on the need of the individual home builder at the time, a practice which carried on from pre turn of the last century to after the 1960's. Sometimes they offered land in such small increments, one needed more than two or three plots to put a regular sized home upon. The customs were on naturally larger plots. So that's only a general framework to start the research off anyways. In Denver, homes are worth what people say they are worth.
One has to rely in instinct and visual recognition, knowing the difference between customs, semi customs, tract homes, and occasionally the kit home or mixed quality conversion add on home as well. Being able to eye the difference of substantial home renovation vs average. Functional considerations. Furnishing. Custom landscaping. Parking! Walking score. You're not one of the cool people unless you live within three to five blocks of popular restaraunts, parks, or other fancy folk type destinations. You'll know when you're in the zone, the homeless and graphatti will make way for yuppies, joggers, people dressed in fancy business attire and an endless procession of dog walkers. If you're lucky you'll see one proudly put that bag into their hands and pick up a warm steamy, satisfied they're saving the planet and keeping the streets clean in their upscale areas. Think of it like a hand warmer is the best I can gather, otherwise the practice seems mysteriously like the dog is walking the human rather than vice versa. What do I know though, I live in the burbs. What they do in the big city will remain one big mystery to me.
Last month I had the fortune to end up in Denver again. Had my daughters and wife with me. It was an adventure in identifying the stereotypical activities and all the characters in the big city. 'Yes, we are officially in denver. There is the hooker or at least a highly inappropriately dressed lady, there is the auto wreck, the man getting arrested, bum on the corner, beggar, gangsters, punks, scary looking people, overly nice fashionistas and the occasional city professional buzzing too and fro, young love, and old love too. Every time, without fail. Colorado is reportedly the second most dangerous state in the union of late, mostly due to concentrated Denver crime, much of which is not officially reported. Yet what I found most fascinating were the tamed pigeons which came right up to me like my bff bird friends. Of course I thought of the pigeons are not real theory but dismissed that off hand as that simply could not be true. Yet, it got me thinking... Anything is possible in Denver, you never know. They were not normal pigeons.
That's why the little enclaves here and there matter so much. It's a different animal in terms of appraising than anywhere else. Denver's zoning code is among the most complex zoning codes in the country. If you're an appraiser in doubt for comparable valididty, or a concerned reviewer, look no further than the block by block zoning code differences. In some segments the zoning is congruent. In others it changes block by block. H&B is always in play, so are property investors whom know the residents are not as informed as they are. Twice the complexity and ten times the volume of incompetent coasting on easy street sales agents, with a few pro's in the mix here and there if you're lucky enough to get their attention for more than two seconds.
Denver Zoning Code
View the Denver Zoning Code, the Former Chapter 59 zoning code, and related zoning code interpretations, and learn about text amendments to the city’s zoning code and rezonings.
www.denvergov.org
