save money in gunnison county

3 Ways to Save $100 a Month

By | Crested Butte Real Estate, Gunnison Real Estate | No Comments

3 Ways to Save $100 a Month

If you’re like most people, you find it hard to save money. Maybe you’re trying to put aside a nest egg so you can make a down payment on a chunk of Gunnison County Real Estate, but you find there’s just, to use the time-worn expression, too much month left at the end of the money.

save money in gunnison countyIf you’d like to save a hundred dollars or more each month, there are three areas to work on.

Groceries

This is the biggest area where you can save money, and there are ways to trim your grocery bill that are so easy you won’t even notice you’re doing it. And no, you don’t have to clip coupons. Forget the tired old idea that you’ll save by planning menus ahead. It’s better to shop the sales, and build your menus day by day according to what you’ve been able to buy cheaply. When you can, stock up – and don’t be a weenie about it. All stores offer what they call “loss leaders,” which are items they actually lose money on in order to entice you into the store. If there’s a staple, like rice or pasta, on for half price, don’t just buy a few bags – buy a few cases. And don’t miss daily markdowns – items that are getting a little old but still perfectly good to eat.

Credit Cards

It goes without saying that you should pay down your highest-interest cards first. If you can, you might also consider getting a loan to consolidate your credit card debt at a lower rate. If you do this, though, get rid of the cards – it’s too easy to charge them up again.

Change

The word on change is, don’t spend it. When you get change back, put the coins in a jar and count them up at the end of the month. You won’t even have missed not using them, and you’ll be amazed at how much you’ve saved.

These three suggestions are bound to save you money – at least $100 a month and maybe more. Start saving today!

Sources:

http://www.echoesoflaughter.ca/2012/01/10-best-ways-to-save-money-on-groceries.html

http://consumerist.com/2013/11/18/save-money-without-thinking-about-it-dont-spend-dollar-bills/

http://www.nomoredebts.org/debt-help/getting-of-debt/solving-debt-problems-tips-for-paying-off-credit-card-debt.html

Why Should Your Realtor Do An Open House?

By | Crested Butte Real Estate, Gunnison Real Estate, Mt. Crested Butte, Open Houses In Gunnison County | No Comments

Why Should Your Realtor Do An Open House?

Some realtors don’t want to do open houses. They may consider it a waste of time, or they may have heard the horror stories, or maybe they don’t think they produce results. 

If your realtor doesn’t want to do an open house, you may have to push a little, because an open house is definitely to your benefit.

You might share your realtor’s concern about the safety issues surrounding open houses. Perhaps you’re uncomfortable having total strangers wander about your house. Or maybe you’d just rather not have curious neighbors wandering over trying to find out how you live.

However, there are times when open houses do make sense. If your little piece of Gunnison County real estate really is too amazing to describe in an online listing, an open house is the way to get potential buyers to see what’s special about what you’re offering. You’ll want to make sure, though, that your house is well-staged – meaning that you’ve removed everything that is personal and left an essentially blank canvas on which a potential buyer can project their hopes and dreams.

Additionally, if your home is listed in an area where the market is suppressed, a good look around could make all the difference in the world to someone who is looking to buy a home. As a seller in a buyer’s market, you’ll need to take advantage of every possible way in which you can convey the advantages of your particular home – in other words, you’ll have to insist that your real estate agent arranges an open house, whether they like it or not.

Sometimes, too, a photo just doesn’t do a home justice. You want to attract a home buyer who will fall in love with what you have to offer. If safety and security are a concern, bring along your 400-pound cousin Bubba. Tell him to bring his friend Louis. Short for Louisville Slugger. But get that open house in the works.

Sources:

http://realestate.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=13108451

http://www.lotuslandrealestate.com/benefits-of-a-real-estate-open-house/

Crested Butte Mountain Resort Purchased by Vail

Vail Resorts Buys Crested Butte Mountain Resort

By | Crested Butte Real Estate, Gunnison Real Estate, Gunnison Valley, Mt. Crested Butte, Vail Resorts | No Comments

When the news broke that Vail Resorts purchased Crested Butte Mountain Resort, we must say the excitement and shock all came at once.  This is a great move for business and will certainly bring additional eyes on our little town.

Crested Butte Mountain Resort Purchased by VailAs a leading Real Estate firm in Crested Butte, we immediately started having the conversations with our clients about what this will mean to the market and how to best use this to their advantage.  For our sellers, hold the price and being firm is important as the value of our little piece of heaven is going to go up.  When talking with buyers, we try to impress on them the importance of making an offer right away.  What you see today will not be here tomorrow, don’t get stuck out in the cold!  This article has a lot of information about the purchase and what to expect going forward.

https://www.bizjournals.com/denver/news/2018/06/04/vail-resorts-in-buying-spree-acquiring-crested.html

As always stay tuned to our blog and social media outlets for all the latest Crested Butte, Gunnison, Almont and Colorado news.  Our realtors are working hard to keep up with market conditions, emerging information and of course what’s going on around our beautiful valley.

To view current homes for sale in Gunnison Click Here

To view current homes for sale in Crested Butte Click Here

To view all homes for sale in the Gunnison Valley Click Here

What Should You Plant in Your Garden This Year?

By | Crested Butte Real Estate, Gunnison Real Estate, Home Gardening | No Comments

What Should You Plant in Your Garden This Year?

It’s late spring early summer, and you’re getting seed catalogs in the mail. You’re pondering whether to dig up a bit of land and add a vegetable garden to your very own sweet piece of Gunnison County real estate. But what to plant?

Well, it really depends on what you want. That sounds simplistic, but think about it. What do you want from your vegetable garden? Are you looking to supplement your diet? Do you just adore crunchy, fresh veggies and want to have them as close as your doorstep? Or are you a wannabe farmer who just loves the idea of telling your local grocery store to stuff it; you’ll do just fine on your own, thank you very much?

If it’s freshness as near as your back yard that you want, you might do well with a simple salad garden augmented by a few snow peas, some string beans and tomatoes. With salad greens and peas, you can start early, as soon as the frost starts to come out of the ground. Tomatoes are less tolerant and need to be put in when the ground is warm. With just a few seeds and a small area of tilled soil (enhanced with a quality fertilizer), you can get growing quickly and enjoy fresh produce well into early fall.

Perhaps you’re horrified at the price you have to pay for veggies at the supermarket, and you’d like to store a bit for the winter. Beans, peas, squash and tomatoes all lend themselves well to canning or freezing, and you can save a bundle on your grocery bill during the winter.

Whatever your purpose, the main thing to remember is, if you don’t like it, don’t plant it. Spinach, for example, will grow like crazy and just a few plants will feed you all summer long and leave you plenty left over to freeze or can. But if you’re not all that fond of spinach, it won’t do you much good if you just leave it in the garden to bolt and go to seed.

Gardens are great fun, so feel free to experiment. Oh, and if you live in an apartment, all is not lost – many nice little kitchen gardens have been grown in containers.

Sources:

http://www.moneycrashers.com/how-to-save-money-with-a-home-garden/

http://www.eatingwell.com/food_news_origins/seasonal_local/gardening/13_easy_to_grow_vegetables_and_herbs

Home decor mistakes

Home Decor Mistakes Anyone Can Make

By | Crested Butte Real Estate, Summer | No Comments

Home Decor Mistakes Anyone Can (But Shouldn’t) Make

So, you’ve got yourself a Gunnison County real estate gem, and you’re thinking about decorating. Like most people, you’re planning on doing it yourself, with maybe some ideas from magazines – no decorator. Your enthusiasm is commendable, but we know you don’t want to make mistakes. With that in mind, here are some of the more common home decor mistakes anyone can make, and how to avoid them.

The Furniture Doesn’t Fit: This is the most common decorating mistake. Furniture displays in stores are set up to sell you the maximum amount of pieces. The extra night table won’t do you much good if you don’t have room for it. Measure the room, and determine how much furniture you can handle. Oh, and while you’re at it, measure the width of the door – you don’t want pieces that are going to require you to take out a wall.

Too Many Colors: Contrary to past belief, it’s perfectly OK to mix florals, plaids and stripes as long as they’re in the same color family. That said, too many patterns can also be overkill. Resist the temptation, though, to play it safe and be all “matchy-matchy” – you don’t want the room to look as if you opened up a catalog, picked up the phone and said “Send me page 47.”

But Mom Insisted: Family heirlooms are fine, but realistically, you can end up with too much of “You’ll want this; it was your grandmother’s.” Kindly but firmly tell Mom that you just don’t have room for everything, and graciously accept a few accent pieces.

Hang Your Art Properly: Nothing says “I don’t know what I’m doing” quite like paintings hung so high you have to crane your neck to look at them. Art is meant to be viewed at eye level.

We have covered just a few common home decor mistakes that are easily avoided. Now you know – have fun decorating! If you have questions about how to properly stage your home for sale contact us here

Sources:

http://interiordec.about.com/od/articlesonbasics/a/topdecornonos.htm

http://idiva.com/news-work-life/6-common-home-decorating-mistakes/1800

Mt. Crested Butte Concert Series 2018

By | Crested Butte Real Estate, Mt. Crested Butte, Summer | No Comments

Sponsored by the Mt. Crested Butte Town Center Community Association, the Live! From Mt. CB Summer Concert Series returns for the summer of 2018 with an exciting lineup of amazing musicians. Join the fun every Wednesday evening between June 27 and August 15 for an evening of free music at the base of Mt. Crested Butte.

All shows will take place at the Stage in Mt. Crested Butte from 5:30 – 7:30 pm

2018 SCHEDULE AND LINEUP:
June 27 – New Orleans Suspects (Swamp/Mardi Gras)
New Orleans Suspects began playing together in 2009 as a pick-up band at the Maple Leaf in New Orleans. Comprised of some of the most seasoned, highly respected players in NOLA, the group called themselves The Unusual Suspects. Their chemistry was undeniable and by the summer of 2011 they decided to tour full-time, renaming the band New Orleans Suspects. They quickly began attracting large crowds from San Francisco to New York. In five short years they’ve released four CDs and established themselves as one of New Orleans’ best supergroups.

July 4 – Fourth of July on the mountain, sponsored by the Crested Butte/Mt. Crested Butte Chamber of Commerce and the Town of Mt. Crested Butte

Live music all evening from 5:30 until 9:00 PM featuring the Kitchen Dwellers (Psychedelic Bluegrass)
Bozeman, MT-based bluegrass quartet Kitchen Dwellers are riding the wave of their sophomore release, Ghost in the Bottle, an album produced by Leftover Salmon’s Andy Thorn. The album also features Twiddle’s Mihali Savoulidis​, who joined the band in the studio to record the album’s first single “Vision of More.” The band continues to relentlessly tour the country, captivating audiences with their own unique style, dubbed “Galaxy Grass.”

Formed while attending college at Montana State, the group has burst onto the bluegrass scene sharing the stage with acts such as Railroad Earth, Greensky Bluegrass, The Infamous Stringdusters and Twiddle. In recent years the band has begun to tour nationally, hitting notable venues and festivals around the country including The Brooklyn Bowl, The Fox Theatre, Delfest, Telluride Bluegrass Festival, Northwest String Summit, and The Frendly Gathering.

Fireworks Display at 9:15 PM

July 11 – Billy Strings (Bluegrass)
Billy Strings plays hard and he lives hard, picking so fast and intensely that he’s known to break multiple strings per song, and basing the songs he writes on the hard lives he grew up around in the abandoned rural communities of America. His new album, Turmoil & Tinfoil, taps into a deep vein of psychedelia in Americana, referencing everything from the Dead to Sturgill Simpson, but all underlaid by Billy’s undeniable virtuosity and his knowledge of the roots of American music. He’s one of the most beloved young bluegrass guitarists today within the bluegrass community, and his front porch in East Nashville is constantly filled up with Nashville’s best roots musicians just picking up a storm.

July 18 – Matthew Curry (Blues)
Matthew Curry delivers electrifying blues and blues rock along with amped-up shows. Matthew, already a veteran performer at 17, is astonishing audiences with his blazing guitar playing, original songs, and soulful voice. Matthew has played with blues greats Coco Montoya, Tommy Castro, and recently with Ronnie Baker Brooks, Bernard Allison, and Bryan Lee. Often referred to as a cross between Stevie Ray Vaughan and Eric Clapton, Matthew Curry is a triple-charged musician in his own right and firing up the scene.

July 25 – Lowdown Brass Band (Brass/Street Funk)
Lowdown Brass Band (LDB), hailing from Chicago, is a horn-driven ensemble with strong roots in the New Orleans Second Line Tradition. A fierce sousaphone sets the foundation for trumpets, trombones and saxophones that intertwine in a cacophony of tight lead lines, spontaneous call-and-response and bombastic brass attacks. While taking a page from the jazz and blues giants of the past, LDB melds modern funk, hip-hop, reggae and pop into a unique style. Always a party, Lowdown forges new ground with original compositions that create a high-energy deluge of danceability!

August 1 – Dave Jordan & the NIA (NOLA/Roots Rock)
Dave Jordan is a New Orleans based singer/songwriter/bassist and guitar player. Over the course of nearly 20 years and 3 bands, he has produced or co-produced 6 albums, played nearly 2000 shows nationwide and performed or recorded with some of the most esteemed musicians in New Orleans and across the country; including recording with Art Neville, Anders Osborne, Joe Krown, Bill Summers and more; and performances with such bands as the Meters, Little Feat, Widespread Panic, Bob Weir’s RatDog, Los Lobos and many more. His work as founder and frontman of the long running funk/roots band, Juice, landed the band a Best of the Beat award for “Best Emerging Funk/Soul/R&B Band” and nominations for “Best Roots Rock Band” and “Best Roots Rock Album” for 2000’s Anders Osborne produced,

August 8 – Con Brio (R&B/Soul/Funk)

The night before Con Brio headed into the studio to record their first full-length album, 23-year-old Ziek McCarter had a dream. In it, the singer received a visit from his father, an Army veteran who died at the hands of East Texas police in 2011. His father delivered an invitation: Come with me to paradise.

McCarter woke up with a song in his bones. “It was one of the most spiritual moments of my life,” he recalls. It was up to him, he knew, to rise above injustice, and to perform in a way that lifted up those around him as well. To make Con Brio’s music a place of serenity, compassion — even euphoria — right here on earth.

Paradise, which saw the San Francisco band teaming with legendary producer Mario Caldato Jr. (Beastie Boys, Beck, Seu Jorge), is the result: a declaration of independence you can dance to; an assertion of what can happen when the human spirit is truly free.

Formed in 2013, Con Brio is the offspring of seven musicians with diverse backgrounds but a shared love for the vibrant Bay Area funk and psychedelic-soul sound pioneered by groups like Sly & the Family Stone.

August 15 – The Dustbowl Revival (American Roots Orchestra)
A sort of new-wave jug-band or “little big band”, The Dustbowl Revival’s tunes range anywhere from Bob Wills style western swing to Dylan inspired folk romps to Sister Rosetta Tharpe gospel stomps to Howlin’ Wolf Chicago Blues. Big band ballads, western swing hoe-downs, bebop breakdowns, vaudevillian theatrics even mariachi-flavored marches – the whole kitchen sink is thrown at you during their raucous live shows.

Rent or Buy: Either Way You’re Paying A Mortgage

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Rent or Buy: Either Way You’re Paying A Mortgage | Keeping Current Matters

There are some renters that have not yet purchased a home because they are uncomfortable taking on the obligation of a mortgage. Everyone should realize that, unless you are living with your parents rent free, you are paying a mortgage – either your mortgage or your landlord’s.

As The Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University explains:

“Households must consume housing whether they own or rent. Not even accounting for more favorable tax treatment of owning, homeowners pay debt service to pay down their own principal while households that rent pay down the principal of a landlord plus a rate of return.  

That’s yet another reason owning often does—as Americans intuit—end up making more financial sense than renting.”

Christina Boyle, a Senior Vice President, Head of Single-Family Sales & Relationship Management at Freddie Mac, explains another benefit of securing a mortgage vs. paying rent:

“With a 30-year fixed rate mortgage, you’ll have the certainty & stability of knowing what your mortgage payment will be for the next 30 years – unlike rents which will continue to rise over the next three decades.”

As an owner, your mortgage payment is a form of ‘forced savings’ that allows you to have equity in your home that you can tap into later in life. As a renter, you guarantee your landlord is the person with that equity.

The graph below shows the widening gap in net worth between a homeowner and a renter:

Rent or Buy: Either Way You’re Paying A Mortgage | Keeping Current Matters

Bottom Line

Whether you are looking for a primary residence for the first time or are considering a vacation home on the shore, owning might make more sense than renting with home values and interest rates projected to climb.

-Keeping Current Matters

What If I Wait Until Next Year To Buy A Home?

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What If I Wait Until Next Year To Buy A Home? | Keeping Current Matters

As a seller, you will be most concerned about ‘short term price’ – where home values are headed over the next six months. As either a first-time or repeat buyer, you must not be concerned only about price but also about the ‘long term cost’ of the home.

Let us explain.

There are many factors that influence the ‘cost’ of a home. Two of the major ones are the home’s appreciation over time, and the interest rate at which a buyer can borrow the funds necessary to purchase their home. The rate at which these two factors can change is often referred to as “The Cost of Waiting”.

What will happen over the next 12 months?

According to CoreLogic’s latest Home Price Index, prices are expected to rise by 5.5% by this time next year.

Additionally, Freddie Mac’s most recent Economic Commentary & Projections Tablepredicts that the 30-year fixed mortgage rate will appreciate to 4.5% in that same time.

What Does This Mean to a Buyer?

Here is a simple demonstration of what impact these projected changes would have on the mortgage payment of a home selling for approximately $250,000 today:

What If I Wait Until Next Year To Buy A Home? | Keeping Current Matters

-Keeping Current Matters

2015 Real Estate Summary & Start of 2016

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The Crested Butte real estate market finished on a steady pace and displayed a 9.36% increase in transactions at an 11.35% increase in total dollar amount. While there have been several $1 million+ transactions in 2015, the bulk of the activity was seen in the condominiums and vacant land segments. This kept the average transaction cost at $451,841, which is just slightly higher than the average in 2014.

Interestingly this time last year, there were 628 active listings with 35 properties under contracts. Listings are down 5% starting in 2016 while properties under contracts are up 100%.

Residential listings in the town of Crested Butte are down 24% making it a good time to list for those interested in selling, with the opposite being true in Mt Crested Butte as residential listings are up 13%.  This is on par with the town of Crested Butte real estate market being the first to stabilize followed by Mt. Crested Butte and the surrounding areas of town.

(Keep in mind that statistics do not recognize the unique and special properties that exist in the Crested Butte market as they do not necessarily fit the mold of generalized statistics.)

 

Link: http://www.coloradorealtors.com/colorado-regional-statistics/

What You Really Need To Qualify For A Mortgage

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The survey revealed that consumers overestimate the down payment funds needed to qualify for a home loan. According to the report, 36% think a 20% down payment is always required. In actuality, there are many loans written with a down payment of 5% or less.

Below are the results of a Digital Risk survey done on Millennials who recently purchased a home.

Millennials & Down Payments | Keeping Current Matters

2. FICO Scores

The Ipsos survey also reported that two-thirds of the respondents believe they need a very good credit score to buy a home, with 45 percent thinking a “good credit score” is over 780. In actuality, the average FICO scores of approved conventional and FHA mortgages are much lower.

Below are the numbers from the latest Ellie Mae report.

Average FICO Score | Keeping Current Matters

Bottom Line

If you are a prospective purchaser who is ‘ready’ and ‘willing’ to buy but not sure if you are also ‘able,’ sit down with someone who can help you understand your true options.

(Source: Keeping Current Matters)