Blogs by Author - Brian Lee Burke

Nov 10, 2026 • 5 min read

How Buying a Home Changes Your Life: 8 Benefits of Owning in Colorado

The benefits of buying a home go far past a front door key. Homeownership in Colorado changes your monthly budget, your long-term wealth and your sense of stability. Here is how buying a home changes your life, the case personal-finance author Dave Ramsey makes for owning, and how our Home Loan Readiness Program gets you there if your credit or debt is not quite ready yet. If you are looking for

Home Buying

Tips & Advice

Recent Blogs

Feb 24, 2022 7 min read

Renting With Roommates in Colorado: The Rules

Splitting rent with roommates in the Denver metro cuts a household's housing cost by 30% to 45% compared to renting alone, and it works best when the lease, the deposit, and the utility split are all written down before move-in, not worked out after a dispute starts. Colorado law sets specific rules for deposits, landlord entry, and lease terms that apply the same way whether one name or four nam

Feb 21, 2022 8 min read

5 Serious Issues That Make Colorado Homeowners Sell

Five problems push Colorado homeowners to sell before they planned to: foundation movement on expansive clay, water damage and sewer backups, fire damage and the insurance bills that follow it, pest damage, and a location under a flight path or next to a highway. Each one has a known repair cost on the Front Range, a disclosure rule, and a buyer pool. This page gives you all three so you decide w

Feb 21, 2022 5 min read

New Siding Benefits for a Colorado Home

New siding on a Colorado home earns its cost back in three ways: it stops hail and wind-driven rain from reaching the sheathing, it cuts heating and cooling bills, and it removes one of the most common repair items a buyer's inspector writes up. On the Front Range, where the sun is stronger, the hail is harder and the temperature swings faster than almost anywhere else in the country, siding does

Feb 17, 2022 4 min read

When Is the Right Time to Start a Real Estate Agency?

The real estate market is often fluctuating, and it can take time to determine when it is the right time to start your agency. How do you know when to start making plans for your new business?The sometimes unreliable real estate market is simply a part of the job, and you must be prepared for it if you hope to start your agency. So, let’s look at the current real estate market.If you dream of sta

Feb 15, 2022 3 min read

State of the Denver Rental Market

Talk to any Denver renter, and you’ll likely hear horror stories about their soaring rent prices over the past few years. It’s for good reason. Compared to this time last year, rents in Denver have risen dramatically. Currently, the year-over-year rent price increase stands at a steep 16.5%. After this year of rent growth, median rents for Denver apartments currently stand at $1,468 for a one-bed

Feb 14, 2022 7 min read

Selling Your Colorado House to a Friend or Relative

Selling a Colorado house to a friend, a relative or your tenant is a good idea when the price comes from an appraisal or a written market analysis, the deal runs on the state-approved Colorado Contract to Buy and Sell Real Estate, and every deadline, disclosure, appraisal and title step happens exactly as it would with a stranger. Skip any of those and you trade a saved commission for a lost frie

Feb 8, 2022 8 min read

Signs You're Overpaying for a Denver Metro Home

The fastest way to tell if you're paying too much for a Denver metro home is to compare the listing price against three to five closed sales of similar homes within the past 90 days, within a half-mile to a mile of the property. If the listing sits 5% or more above those closed comps with no upgrades to explain the gap, you're looking at an overpriced home, not just a confident asking price.Front

Feb 1, 2022 3 min read

Denver Foreclosure Process Explained, Timeline and Procedure for Foreclosing on a Colorado Home

The foreclosure process in Denver is complicated and unique. Here is a breakdown of the process, from filing to closure:In Colorado, lenders may foreclose on a property by a judicial or non-judicial process, depending on whether the mortgage includes a "power of sale" clause. By agreeing to a "power of sale" clause, the borrower has pre-authorized the sale of the property to pay off the balance o

Jan 31, 2022 7 min read

5 Ways to Stage a Colorado Home for a Winter Sale

A Front Range home staged for a winter sale needs warmth, light and clean sightlines to the front door, since buyers touring in December and January judge a house against gray skies and an early sunset. Homes staged well for winter still move fast across Denver, Aurora, Lakewood, Littleton, Centennial, Colorado Springs and Fort Collins: the trick is fighting the season instead of hiding from it,

Jan 31, 2022 6 min read

Radon Testing for Colorado Homes: What to Know

Colorado sits inside the area the EPA maps as Radon Zone 1, the highest-risk category, which means most Front Range counties carry a predicted average indoor radon level above the 4 picocurie per liter (pCi/L) action level the EPA uses as the threshold for mitigation. Testing a Front Range home for radon costs $15 to $200 depending on the method, takes a few days to a few months depending on test