Tiny House Regulations in Colorado

Posted on March 5, 2019 by blogeditor

Tiny House Building Regulations

Though the tiny house community continues to grow, it still isn’t legal to build them for full-time use. Zoning laws and tiny house regulations require a minimum square footage for new-construction homes. The journey to reduce this minimum is a slow and arduous one. But don’t give up just yet. You can count with your fingers how many cities have directly addressed tiny houses. Though there’s a lot of enthusiasm on tiny house living the zoning codes and tiny house regulations are often confusing. Most people feel intimidated to go to their local governments with their questions.

The recent activity in the community has been ran by grassroots organizers. They have pushed cities to accommodate tiny homes all by themselves. These small town groups asked their government officials for changes to local building and zoning codes. Therefore, new tiny house ordinances are very specific to the town or city they are approved in. We also now have the American Tiny House Association. This association has rounded up regulations for many states, as well as contact info for state chapter leaders. For the states without new regulations, your only option is to petition your own city for tiny house friendly zoning changes.

Tiny House References

We have gathered a lot of information on tiny houses for your convenience. In the state of Colorado, tiny houses on wheels are recreational vehicles in the eyes of the law. For more information on the legality of tiny houses on wheels in Colorado, read “Is Tiny House Living Illegal in Colorado.” Your other option is to build a tiny house on a foundation. For more information on this type of tiny house living, read “Additional Dwelling Units in Colorado.” If you are looking for a horse property in Colorado, contact one of our horse-person realtors at Colorado Horse Property.

Image by WinnieC on Pixabay.

Finding Tiny House Parking in Colorado

Posted on March 5, 2019 by blogeditor

Tiny House Parking in Colorado

As we discussed in “Is Tiny House Living Illegal?“, tiny houses on wheels (THOW) aren’t legal in Colorado as a permanent structure. However, you can always travel with your THOW and park it legally. This is a strategy that many THOW owners have adopted. So you’ve registered your tiny house on wheels as an RV and plan to travel with it, now what about tiny house parking? You could stay in a friend or family member’s backyard or park on their driveway. You could pay to stay at a camping or RV site. The latter will be temporary.

Also, Colorado prohibits RVs as full-time residences in zones other than RV parks. Rules are only enforced when your tiny house on wheels is reported or complained about. This rarely occurs. Building a tiny house on a foundation is more permanent. Zoning and building regulations will prohibit you from buying land and building your own tiny house on it. Instead, you’ll have to build an additional dwelling unit. For more information, read our article on additional dwelling units. ADUs are sometimes built around one larger structure. This is known as a tiny house community.

Tiny House Building Codes

Local building codes have been adopted from the International Residential Code (IRC) for one and two-family dwellings. This specifies that bedrooms must be at least 70 square feet, while ceiling height must be at least 7 feet. However, zoning regulations are based off more local factors, and determine the size requirements of your home based on what zone it’s located in. However, you will need to call your local zoning or planning department to find that info. Most local governments require a minimum size requirement of 1,000 square feet or more for construction of a new home on its own land. If you are looking for a horse property for sale in Colorado, contact Colorado Horse Property today.

Image by ArmbrustAnna on Pixabay.

Additional Dwelling Units in Colorado

Posted on March 1, 2019 by blogeditor

Additional Dwelling Units

Affordable housing is a priority for many Coloradans in this current economic climate. Tiny houses on wheels are not legal in Colorado. Good news, there is another option. You can take advantage of tiny homes built on foundations in your backyard, called ADUs. These Additional Dwelling Units (sometimes called granny flats) are self-contained apartments in an owner occupied single-family home or lot. Homeowners who want to make the transition into tiny house living can construct an ADU in their backyard, and live in the ADU while renting out the house.

The number of ADU permits issued annually in Colorado has risen and the trend is still on the rise. Make sure to research your city’s land use code to insure there are no hidden restrictions. In the past, cities have been known to ban ADUs. Likewise, some areas can have restrictions on size, owner occupancy, and parking. While many states are lagging behind, Colorado cities have adjusted their regulations to encourage more ADUs.

Benefits of ADUs

There are a lot of social and economic benefits of living in a tiny house. ADUs are great because they allow people housing flexibility over time. You can design your ADU to be more accessible to the elderly. This will allow you to stay in your neighborhood as you grow older, and at less cost. ADUs are also great for parents, caregivers, adult children, and grandparents. ADUs use fewer resources like gas and electricity due to their size. They’re often built in walkable and bikeable areas, so their residents generate less of an environmental impact. This includes traffic, harmful emissions, and noise pollution.

They greatly reduce the per capita residential footprint. ADUs help fill the need of one and two person households in cities. ADUs have a significantly less infrastructural impact on a city than most apartment buildings. Read more on Tiny Houses in Colorado on our blog. If you are looking for a horse property in Colorado, contact one of our horse-person realtors at Colorado Horse Property.

Is Tiny House Living Illegal in Colorado?

Posted on February 27, 2019 by blogeditor

Legal or Illegal?

The Tiny House Movement has been gaining a lot of momentum in the past couple of years. Many Coloradans are leaving the busy city life to a more quiet life in a small home. With fewer bills and material things to worry about, tiny house living might be for you. However, tiny houses are a controversial topic that begs the question: Is full time tiny house living illegal in Colorado? For some, the answer is just as controversial.

Despite the growth in the tiny house community in Colorado, is tiny house living illegal in Colorado? Technically, yes. If you have a tiny house on wheels (or THOW), Colorado considers that structure an RV. RV’s are not legal as a permanent address. Tiny house living is a legitimate means to address affordable housing problems in Colorado. However, they unfortunately have not gained widespread acceptance. A tiny house built on a foundation is legal, while a tiny house on wheels is illegal. You can still have a THOW, just not as a permanent address (in most zoning districts in Colorado). For example, in Parker, Colorado, a tiny house built on a foundation is legal despite its small floor size.

Land use codes differ by the district in the state of Colorado. If the land use code distinguishes between a THOW and one on a foundation, then the foundation option will be the legal one. For more information on tiny house living in Colorado, check out our article Build a Tiny House in Your Backyard in Colorado. Stay tuned to our blog for more information on tiny houses coming soon. If you are looking for a horse property for sale in Colorado or land for sale fit for a tiny house, contact Colorado Horse Property today!

Photo by Jessie Renée on Unsplash.

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.