Build a Tiny House in Your Backyard in Colorado

Posted on February 26, 2019 by blogeditor

Backyard Tiny House

Do you own a house in Colorado? Need an extra space for relatives to stay? Wanting a detached home office? Looking to supplement your income by renting a space? Is your backyard large enough for a tiny house on wheels. If you answered yes to any of these questions, then there are some things you should know. There are some zoning regulations in Colorado that may effect your decision for building your backyard tiny house. Technically speaking, Colorado law does not define what a tiny house is. When it comes to zoning, tiny houses are usually considered a dwelling or an RV.

Tiny houses on wheels (or THOW, as they are known in the community) are classified as RVs in Colorado. Whether a THOW backyard tiny house is legal will depend on your local zoning regulations. Therefore, you need to carefully review the applicable zoning ordinance or talk to someone at your local planning department. Also, if this is not an option for you, try talking to a Colorado land use attorney.

Researching Tiny Houses

Colorado’s local governments individually set up zoning regulations. These development standards control the use of land in their area. These rules can be found in land use codes or zoning codes. For example, Fort Morgan’s zoning ordinance may be called “City of Fort Morgan Land Use Code.”

In other words, zoning is how land is separated into districts. Each zone has different regulations that affect land development. To determine what zone your property is in and what uses are lawful, review the appropriate land use code. The codes usually have zoning maps that shows the different zones in your area. To search through over three thousand homes and land for sale, check out Colorado Horse Property’s search page. Stay tuned to our blog for more information on tiny houses in Colorado.

Photo by Geran de Klerk on Unsplash.

20 Things To Look For When Buying A Colorado Horse Property

Posted on November 6, 2018 by blogeditor

Buying a Colorado Horse Property

(1) Be prepared. Buying a Colorado horse property will be one of the most significant decisions in your life. Colorado has seen a broad trend in horse property ownership in the last decade with people making a move out west to learn how to care for horses and build their own equine legacies. If you are looking for a horse property in the state of Colorado, contact Colorado Horse Property today. As horse-person realtors, let us be the first to tell you that not all horse properties are equal. Below is a list of things to keep in mind when searching for a horse property. For more information, check out our article What to Look for When Buying A Horse Property.

Things To Look For When Buying A Colorado Horse Property

You can also ask, how old are the existing horse stalls and buildings on the property?
What surplus buildings does the property have, such as tack rooms, feed storage, and a grooming stall? Depending on how many horses you have or how many you plan to get, this is important to know.
Do the buildings have electricity and hot water? You don’t want to buy a property without these necessities.
What percentage of the acreage is wooded vs. pasture?
Do you have any problem with flooding or standing waters?
What work has to do done in the future? Like we said, getting a horse property is a big responsibility and looking ahead a few years with the property should factor into your decisions.
Is that a bank barn, pole barn or shedrow? Know what you are getting into so that if you need to make repairs or construct your own buildings, then you will know where to start.
Does the property have proper fencing?
Are there nearby riding trails or areas on the property?
What is the composition of the area? Some soils are better than others for keeping horses.
Also, what are the accesses to vets, farriers, and trailers?
Look for farm equipment storage and parking.
Always have a severe weather plan in mind when looking into Colorado horse properties.
Evaluate the safety of existing horse stables—if the building were constructed years ago, they may need repairs to be safe and/or brought up to code.
What type of feed and tack stores are nearby?
The effect any possible zoning laws will have on your plans—not all areas are the same so make sure to bring this up with your horse-person realtor to avoid problems down the road.
Is there an adequate supply of water is on the property?
How much acreage you’ll need to accommodate each horse?
Has the property been adequately maintained over the years?

What to Look for When Buying A Horse Property

Posted on October 31, 2018 by blogeditor

Buying A Horse Property

Before contacting an agent, there are some things that you can look for that might save you some time. If you want to look into buying a horse property, but don’t know what to look for, this is the article for you! When searching horse property sites like Colorado Horse Property, which boasts over three thousand listings in the state, there are a few things to keep an eye on in prospective horse properties. You will want to know that the property has the appropriate amount of space, including the condition of the barn or stables and the size of the included pastures. You should also look at the property as a whole and consider its overall layout.

What to Look for

The first thing you should do, is figure out how much land you will need before you start looking at properties. This will all depend on how many horses you have, or plan on getting in the future. Colorado Horse Property horse people will recommend two acres for the first horse and one additional acre for each additional horse. If the property already has a barn or horse stables, there are a few things you should look into. You should know the size of the stalls, the strength of the stall partitions, and the design of the hayloft.

When it comes to the pastures on the land, look at the quality of the grass. This may be hard to do when looking at pictures online. If you can’t tell what the grass quality is by the photo, sign up with the website and talk to an agent—it’s free to sign up with Colorado Horse Property and costs nothing to talk to a qualified horse person professional. Also, look at the overall layout. The barn should be located behind the house so that any visitors need to drive past the house to access the horses. For more help, contact Colorado Horse Property today!

Photo by John Reed on Unsplash

Horse Property Market Value

Posted on April 2, 2018 by blogeditor

If you are selling or buying a horse property in Colorado, then you should be aware of how market value works. This explanation of the Colorado market value is simple enough, but there are certain nuisances that make it more complicated. For example, homeowners could order an appraisal before they put their home on the market. However, they would incur the expense of it themselves. Also, it can’t be used by the buyer or their lender in the home buying process.

Licensed appraisers look at Colorado market value in three ways—The market data, the replacement cost and by income. A part of being an appraiser is determining which of these three ways they will use. The replacement cost looks at what it would cost to rebuild the property. The income way uses a capitalization rate based on the net operating income of a property to determine value. The market data way relies on recent sales of similar properties nearby.

Colorado Market Value

Real estate agents use a similar approach to determine fair market value. They perform a Competitive Market Analysis or CMA. This analysis it looks at recent sales of similar properties, considering properties currently for sale and what homes actually sold. Both appraisals and Competitive Market Analysis reports have a distinct advantage. One is based on the personal opinion of a professional and the other is based on online website estimates using raw data and mathematical formulas.

Though this information is important when selling a home, it is not the “end all, be all” so to speak. Regardless of which method is used, it is just an estimate. Obviously, some estimates are more accurate based on the experience of the person making the estimate. If you need help finding an experienced appraiser that can give you accurate Colorado market value estimates, contact your friends at Colorado Horse Property today.

Colorado Horse Property Inventory

Posted on March 21, 2018 by blogeditor

This fluctuation in the Colorado home inventory goes up and down depending on supply and demand. The NAR, National Association of Realtors, defines a market as balanced when it has a six month supply of homes for sale. The National Association of Realtors is America’s largest trade association. The NAR represents 1.2 million members. These members include NAR’s institutes, societies, and councils. Members are involved in all aspects of the residential and commercial real estate industries. Likewise, if it takes longer than six months to sell, it is thought to be a buyer’s market and less than six months, a seller’s market.

Colorado Home Inventory

When it comes to looking at the market, the inventory of existing homes has been reducing. This reduction is by approximately 1.5 million houses. This accounts for 10.3% lower than a year ago. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis there are 5.7 months’ supply of new homes currently on the market in the United States. Therefore, inventory has a direct impact on price.

When demand is constant, but inventory is reduced, price tends to increase. This is because the same number of people are trying to buy a smaller than normal number of homes. It is definitely a good think to be able to spot the direction prices will be moving, whether you are buying or selling a home. When prices and mortgage rates rise, buyers might not be able to afford the same price or size of homes. Colorado is a great state to live and raise horses. For more information on how to get a horse property, contact the professionals at Colorado Horse Property.

Lender and Borrower Relationship

Posted on March 20, 2018 by blogeditor

For most transactions lenders and borrowers have a formal relationship. However, when the lender and borrower know each other, whether they are family or friends, is an entirely different story. The Internal Revenue Service has specific rules that govern the transaction especially when the parties know each other.

Colorado Lenders and Borrowers

For starters, the loan must be done in a business-like manner. Even though you know one another doesn’t mean that you don’t have to do everything that you would normally do. You are going to want to have a written note specifying the loan amount, interest rate, term and collateral. The Internal Revenue Service requires that the mortgage be a recorded lien to allow the interest deduction.

You may be in a situation in which you have a less than normal interest rate on your mortgage. Though this is a great thing, remember that there are restrictions on this as well. The rate charged in the note is regulated by the minimum applicable federal rate which is published monthly by IRS based on current Treasury securities. You don’t want to make any of these agencies mad, so make sure you follow the guide lines they specific as closely as you possibly can.

Your tax professional can guide the transaction whether you’re a buyer or a seller and your real estate professional can help arrange to have the documents drawn and filed. If you are looking for a lender, contact Colorado Horse Property for assistance.

Renting for Horse Owners

Posted on March 19, 2018 by blogeditor

Do you own your own horse in Colorado but don’t own your home? Do you rent an apartment and board your horse? There are many reasons why a horse owner should own their own home. Colorado Horse Property has over 10,00 horse property listings. Also, we are committed to getting you into the horse property you and your horses deserve. Here are a few problems with renting in general.

Rending As A Horse Owner

The problem with renting is that you payment is higher that what home owners are paying for their mortgage payment including taxes and insurance. The experts in the field are saying that we may never again experience the incredibly low mortgage interest rates currently available. When you rent, you do not have the same advantage that homeowners have by using their home as a leveraged investment.

If you are renting, consider looking for loans that could help you buy your own home. Talk to a loan professional to find out exactly what types of loans are available and the specific down payment required. Remember, down payments can be a whole lot less than twenty percent, and therefore very affordable. Contact Colorado Horse Property for a referral to a loan professional near you.

It Costs to Wait on Your Horse Property

Posted on March 14, 2018 by blogeditor

It costs to wait when it comes to purchasing your horse property.

It costs to wait in respect to buying property. The last thing you want to do is pay more later for a property that you are looking at now. There are many things that can affect the price of a home just as there are many reasons to wait and not wait on buying. Here are a few things that you need to know.

Colorado Horse Property knows that buying a home is one of the biggest decisions you’ll make this year, but did you know that waiting could be costing you more money? Financial experts have been expecting interest rates to increase along with home prices. While homes have definitely increased over the past five years, the mortgage rates today are actually lower than they were a year ago.

Consider the following scenario. Interest rates have increase by 1% over the next year while homes appreciated at 5.5%. That means that a $260,000 home would go up by $16,000 and the payment would be well over two hundred dollars more. The increased payments alone would amount to $17,800 for the next seven years. When facing a decision to postpone a home purchase, you should ask yourself: “how will it feel to have to pay more to live in basically the same home?”

Use the Cost of Waiting to Buy calculator to estimate what it might cost to wait to purchase you horse property based on your own estimates of what interest rates and prices will do in the next year. This cost of waiting calculator is a great tool that you can use to get yourself prepared. Finding out how much it costs to wait on buying a home should be your first step in the home buying process.

Mortgage Interest Points

Posted on March 7, 2018 by blogeditor

Did you know that when loans are quoted by lenders, there is little to no notice of the mortgage interest points that may be charged along with the rate? You may not even realize that these points exist if you are not familiar with the home buying process. Also, if you are looking for a horse property for sale in Colorado, contact Colorado Horse Property today and speak with one of our horse-person realtors.

Mortgage Interest Points

Mortgage interest points correspond to one percent per point of the mortgage amount. This is the previously paid interest that affects the loan’s return. Buyers and sellers can elect to pay these points to reduce rates. However, you should be aware that there can be limits on paying for points based on underwriting guidelines. These can be easy to miss because they differ from types of loans.

Lower note-rates would obviously make the payments less, but with a little analysis you can discover some helpful information. Knowing how much points paid up-front can save a borrower. Also, whether they can get back additional costs is very useful. If a buyer stays in a home for ten years, they can save $2,000 over the cost of the point. A less obvious advantage will be realized because the unpaid balance on the lower interest rate loan will result in an additional savings.

Tax Refunds and Home Buying

Posted on March 5, 2018 by blogeditor

Tax season can be very stressful, but for a lot taxpayers the reward is receiving a refund. Though refunds differ from state to state and person to person, the average tax refund is around three thousand dollars for most Americans. Tax refunds and home buying go hand in hand. Colorado Horse Property would advise you not to use your tax refund on just anything, especially if you are thinking about buying a home.

Tax Refunds and Home Buying

While the average tax refund might not cover the down payment on a median priced home in Colorado, it definitely helps out. Ranging from two to three percent of the the purchase price, closing costs for originating new mortgages can be expensive; that’s where your tax refund can come in handy. Most lenders will let you pay part or even all of the closing costs on your new home based on what is agreed upon and outlined in the sales contract.

Just have it written in the agreement that you will pay for your closing costs with your refund. If you are able to get a low down payment, then your refund can certainly go towards that cost as well. Many buyers think it takes 10% or more down payment to purchase a home, and though that could be the case it is oftentimes lower than you might thing. There are VA and USDA mortgages that have no down payment for qualified buyers. FHA has a 3.5% down payment program and FNMA has 3% down payment mortgages for qualified creditors.