Denver's Oldest House

from fourmilepark.org



Nestled on the banks of Cherry Creek, the Four Mile House was the last stop coming west to Denver along the Cherokee Trail. It was a welcome site for the weary travelers, a place to wash off the trail dust, have a drink of cool fresh water, find a home-cooked meal, or spend the night before heading in to Denver. The house was built in 1859 by the Brantner brothers who planned to settle in the area. The Brantners sold the Four Mile House to the widow Mary Cawker in 1860. Mary and her two teenage children opened the house as a stage stop from 1860 to 1864, when she sold the property to Levi and Mille Booth. The Booths continued to offer the same hospitality to travelers, while building a thriving farm. The arrival of the railroads in 1870 eventually ended much of the stage and freight business, but the Booths property grew to 600 acres. Millie Booth, one of the area’s first female entreprenuers, added greatly to the family income through her honey and butter production. At one time the property contained enough hives to produce four thousand pounds of honey in a single year. The Booth family continued to live on and work the land until the 1940s. In 1975 the City of Denver purchased the house and the remaining 12 acresof the farm, designating the property a Denver City Park. With the support of a number of organizations including the Park People and Junior League, Four Mile House was restored and the Park was opened to the public in 1978.

Today, our twelve-acre site serves as a portal into Denver and the West’s pioneer past. The Four Mile House, a Denver Landmark, is the centerpiece of the Park and is listed on the National Registrar of Historic Places. Visitors can tour the historic house, say hello to our horses, goats, and chickens, learn about the craftmanship of the historic barns and outbuildings, or just spread a blanket under a shady tree and enjoy a beautiful day. Guests can enjoy a horse-drawn ride around the Park on most weekends. Also, don’t forget to come out for all manner old-fashioned family fun at one of our special events throughout the year.

Four Mile Historic Park offers nearby urban dwellers the chance to “get away from it all” in a farm setting in the middle of the city. Open year round, we offer programs and events for the young and old alike. Come see us soon and often to see the new additions and ever-changing scenery.

Happy Colorado Day! August 1st, 2014, Colorado is 138 Years Old! Free & Discounted Entrance To Attractions...

HAPPY COLORADO DAY!

Colorado celebrates the 138th anniversary of its entry to the Union on August 1, a date known as Colorado Day. To celebrate, the History Colorado Center is offering FREE admission on Friday, August 1 and Saturday, August 2 — from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on both days. The family-friendly festivities include lots of performances and hands-on activities — American Indian dancers, Taiko drummers, adobe brick making, panning for gold and more. It’s even better because the FREE admission includes its newest exhibit Food: Our Global Kitchen. 1200 Broadway, Denver, 303-447-8679.

free entrance to www.fourmilepark.org

Water World Discount for Colorado Day

Need an excuse to escape the heat? Head to Water World on Friday, August 1. To celebrate Colorado Day, the water park is offering $10 off admission. To get the deal, just print out this page or show the post on your smartphone at the entrance. You can also find a post on its Facebook page or Twitter page that you can show on your smartphone to get the discount. FREE birthday cake (Water World is 35 this year) will be served each day at noon. Water World boasts 48 water attractions across 70 acres. The park is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Admission for adults 48″ and taller is $40.99 (plus tax) and under 48″ is $35.99 (plus tax.) Seniors pay $9.99 (plus tax) and tots smaller than 40″ are FREE. Mile High Cheapskates will note that you can bring your own picnics (including sealed, non-alcoholic beverages) into the park and parking is FREE. 1800 W. 89th Ave., Federal Heights, 303-427-7873.

from milehighonthecheap.com

Here's some other 2014 Free Days

Here’s the complete list of 2014 free days at Denver attractions! For the latest cheap and free things to do, visit our Events & Entertainment category.

Denver Zoo (2014)

Friday, January 10th
Saturday, January 11th
Wednesday, January 22nd
Sunday, February 2nd
Monday, February 3rd
Thursday, February 20th
Monday, November 3rd
Friday, November 14th
Thursday, November 20th

Visit their website for more information.

Denver Art Museum (2014)

Saturday, January 4th
Saturday, February 1st
Saturday, March 1st
Saturday, April 5th
Sunday, April 27th (Dia Del Nino/ Day of Children)
Saturday, May 3rd
Saturday, June 7th
Saturday, July 5th
Saturday, August 2nd
Saturday, September 6th
Saturday, October 4th
Saturday, November 1st
Saturday, December 6th

Visit their website for more information

Denver Museum of Nature and Science (2014)

Monday, January 13th
Sunday, February 2nd
Sunday, March 2nd
Sunday, April 13th
Saturday, April 26th (Dia de los Ninos)
Monday, June 2nd
Monday, June 30th
Sunday, July 20th
Monday, September 8th
Sunday, September 28th
Monday, October 27th
Saturday, December 1st

Visit their website for more information

Denver Botanic Gardens (York Street, 2014)

Monday, January 20th (Martin Luther King Day)
Monday, February 17th (President’s Day)
Monday, March 3rd
Saturday, March 22nd (World Water Day)
Tuesday, April 22nd (Earth Day)
Monday, August 4th
Saturday, November 8th
Friday, November 14th (Holiday Sale)
Saturday, November 15th (Holiday Sale

Visit their website for more information

Denver Botanic Gardens (Chatfield, 2014)

Tuesday, January 7th
Tuesday, February 4th
Tuesday, March 4th
Tuesday, April 1st
Monday, May 5th
Tuesday, June 3rd
Tuesday, August 5th
Tuesday, November 4th

Visit their website for more information

Denver Children’s Museum (2014)

Tuesday, January 7th from 4 – 8 PM
Tuesday, February 4th from 4 – 8 PM
Tuesday, March 4th from 4 – 8 PM
Tuesday, April 1st from 4 – 8 PM
Tuesday, May 6th from 4 – 8 PM
Tuesday, June 3rd from 4 – 8 PM
Tuesday, July 1st from 4 – 8 PM
Tuesday, August 5th from 4 – 8 PM
Tuesday, September 2nd from 4 – 8 PM
Tuesday, October 7th from 4 – 8 PM
Tuesday, November 4th from 4 – 8 PM
Tuesday, December 2nd from 4 – 8 PM

Visit their website for more information.

Denver Firefighters’ Museum (2013)

The museum has not yet updated their 2014 free day schedule. We’ll keep checking and update this page when we find out the info!

Visit their website for more information.

Colorado Railroad Museum (2014)

Saturday, January 4th
Saturday, March 1st
Saturday, May 3rd

from DenverBargains.com

Denver home prices rising at double the U.S. rate

I am seeing this trend as well, article from Zillow....

Metro Denver home prices are rising at double the national pace but should slow significantly in coming months, according to a report Tuesday from Zillow, an online provider of real estate data.

U.S. home prices were up 5.8 percent on a year-over-year basis in the second quarter, reaching a median of $161,100, according to the U.S. Zillow Home Value Index.

Home-price gains for metro Denver shot up at an annual rate of 12.1 percent over the same period, reaching a median of $240,100, Zillow reports.

Double-digit annual gains were common across the metro area, led by a 16.7 percent increase in Aurora and a 15.7 percent jump in Englewood. Denver proper prices were up 11.7 percent annually.

The second quarter, after a sluggish first quarter, was the most robust for the U.S. housing market since 2004, Zillow said.

A "normal" rate of home-price appreciation is 2 percent to 3 percent a year, and the sharp increases have some analysts worried that another housing bubble could be forming.

But Svenja Gudell, a senior economist with Zillow, offers several reasons why home prices won't run away as they did last decade and said Denver's hot streak may end earlier than most.

Higher prices are luring more sellers to list their homes while also pushing investors, a significant source of demand in recent years, to pull back as their potential returns decline.

The spike in mortgage rates last month, one of the sharpest in two decades, has forced buyers to recalibrate what they can afford at a given price range.

"All of that will serve to regulate home values," Gudell said.

The regulation may occur sooner in Denver, where home prices were more stable and hence don't have as much room to rebound.

In Las Vegas, for example, about 20 percent of homeowners carry debt double or more of what their homes are worth, even after a 29.1 percent run-up the past year.

Recent price increases, combined with higher mortgage rates and relatively stagnant incomes, have reduced metro Denver's affordability, she said.

Metro Denver home prices matched the 2.4 percent first quarter to second quarter increase for the U.S. and are expected to start lagging in the months ahead.

Zillow predicts that metro Denver home prices will rise 3.3 percent over the next 12 months compared with a 5 percent gain for the U.S.

Buying Unique Homes: What You Need to Know

a good perspective on unique homes from realtor.com

Imagine living in a missile silo located in New York’s Adirondack State Park, or at the top pyramid of the Smith Tower, once the tallest building in Seattle. Buying unique homes like these comes with challenges, however.

Buying an unusual house can be the adventure of a lifetime. The character and charm can express your creativity. But that creativity holds its own challenges, from financing your purchase to selling your house.

Unique Homes: Weird and Wonderful

Unique homes elevate your everyday experience. Entertaining guests takes on new meaning under an old barn’s soaring rafters, or as the sun sets behind stained glass.

If you are revamping an abandoned farmhouse or renovating a church, you’ll benefit from the enjoyment of seeing your vision emerge. You may also reap benefits that a more conventional home couldn’t supply. The acoustics of an old church, the lofted space perfect for a home office in reclaimed barn, the hand-carved molding of a cottage that’s almost impossible to find—those are hard to build new, much less a home in a cave or the purple princess Victorian of your dreams.

Other homes may reflect a cutting-edge futuristic village, such as the tiny house movement (which crams a lot of life in a very small footprint) or creating living space out of discarded shipping containers.

Resale Values

If you’re interested in buying a unique house, what you need to know can be summed up in one word: resale.

You may not want to spend your retirement in your houseboat, quarry or renovated submarine—or raise a child in a cave. Whatever the reason, at some point your lifestyle may call for a more traditional home. Finding a potential buyer for your underground abode, dream castle, or haunted house (with or without tennis courts), may prove tough.

You can get lucky. Because your new home is likely a rare find, like-minded individuals could pay a pretty penny if you sell: just look at the missile silo home put up for auction on eBay. After a handful of TV shows worldwide featured the curious abode, a winning bid put $2.1 million in the homeowner’s pocket.

However, just because your strange house is meaningful to you and your creative spirit, don’t count on it being the hottest property on the market.

Uneasy Lenders

How easy will it be to sell the property in the case of foreclosure? This is the main question that looms in lenders’ minds. If the borrower defaults on the mortgage, the lender needs to be able to resell the property within a reasonable amount of time. Because of this risk, buying a unique house may be a challenging process.

Determining the resale value of a house relies on finding similar home sale prices for comparison—but what if no other home is quite like yours? How many converted nightclubs could one find in the same district?

Generally, a larger lender will not want to take a chance on a non-mainstream property. Sometimes small local lenders, familiar with an area’s unusual properties, will offer a loan.

Locating a Lender

To find a lender to finance the unique house you want to buy, consider doing a keyword search online for the best deals—or approaching a mid-sized bank.

Custom builders may be a resource as well, as they often have good relationships with banks, online lenders or other sources of financing. You can consult a broker whose knowledge of lenders can save you precious time so you can move forward with your purchase.

You may receive a high interest rate or need to put down down payment of more than 20% cash, however.

The Downside

Perhaps living in a strange house seems inspiring at first, but the reality is eccentric floor plans can make day-to-day living a more frustrating experience than living in a more traditional setting.

Will your grandmother’s antique dining room table fit in a curved great room? Can that small door accommodate a modern sofa? How do you light a soaring vaulted ceiling?

Try grocery shopping in the Adirondacks—not so easy sometimes. If dusting the tops of your bookshelves is rough now, imagine having to sweep spider webs from the gables of a gothic cathedral.

Consider what life in the unique house of your choice would really require. Calculate how much money it will cost to maintain this place over time.

Finally Home

Whether you dream of living in a lighthouse, having an ice-cream parlor in your living room or enjoying a wedding chapel in your backyard, you can find all kinds of unusual homes for sale.

Whether you decide to market it for resale—or treasure it as your home for the rest of your life—with a little homework you can choose a home to suit your practical needs and creative spirit.

How to Do Real Estate Investment Right

interesting article from realtor.com

While we can’t all build a portfolio of hotels, condos and resorts with our names on them like Donald Trump, plenty of individuals include real estate investment in their long-term strategy to build wealth.

For most people, their home is their biggest asset, particularly after they’ve owned it for a decade or more and have paid down their home loan to build equity. Of course, most people also appreciate the inherent value of living in a place they own and love.

From an investment point of view, your primary residence not only builds in value over time, it also provides you with a tax benefit when you write off your mortgage interest payments on your taxes. In addition, you receive protection (up to $250,000 or $500,000 if you’re married) from capital gains taxes when you sell it.

If your home has increased in value over time, you may be thinking you’d like to own more real estate. If so, you can look into purchasing a second home or vacation home for yourself—or purchasing a property you intend to sell or rent.

Vacation Home Purchasing as Real Estate Investment

A second home you use for vacations can be treated the same way as your primary residence, with your mortgage interest payments tax deductible, but typically you’ll need to make a down payment of at least 20% to 25%—and you must have good credit along with the income to handle the additional mortgage payments.

If you opt to rent out your home for more than 14 days a year, the property will be considered an investment property and the tax treatment changes. You’ll only be able to deduct the expenses considered part of the investment—such as mortgage interest and maintenance or repair costs—proportional to the number of days the property is rented.

A vacation home can be an excellent investment both for your quality of life—but also as a future retirement home or an asset to earn income or to sell when you retire.

Buy and Flip or Buy and Rent?

If you’re more interested in owning real estate for purely investment purposes, you’ll need to think carefully about how much time and money you want to put into a real estate investment.

You should work with a REALTOR® who invests in property and knows about your local market, but you also should educate yourself about your current market conditions. Ideally, you should buy when prices are low and sell when prices are high, but market timing can be difficult.

Some investors opt to buy property that needs repair, do the work and then sell it within a short time period (“flip”). Whether that works for you depends on whether you can do some of the work yourself or have reliable contractors available.

In addition, you need to be fairly certain you find a property at the right price and then find a buyer willing to pay enough so you make a profit beyond the money you put into it. You should have funds available for a down payment of 20% to 25%, good credit, and funds for the repair work—as well as to make the payments until the property sells.

Many real estate investors prefer to buy a home and rent it, but you need to be prepared for the possibility your property could remain empty in between renters. You’re also responsible for all maintenance and repairs, so you need to be prepared financially and emotionally for that commitment. You need to educate yourself about home prices in your area—but also about rental rates and demand to see if you can keep the property rented at a rate to cover your mortgage payments (or most of it).

Acquiring and managing a real estate investment requires a team of professionals including a REALTOR®, a tax advisor and good contractors you can rely on to renovate or repair a property to keep it attractive for renters or buyers.

Top 10 Questions to Ask When Touring a Home as a Buyer

excerpts from trulia.com article...

1. How many offers have been made?

Does the agent look suspiciously happy? They might have received word that an offer is coming in any minute. If they’ve received offers, they’ll probably be eager to tell you, in hopes that you’ll bid as well and drive the price up.

2. How stable has the price been?

Your agent can find out how many times the price has changed since it was first listed, but the seller’s agent will likely jump at the chance to explain why. Perhaps the price dropped because the seller has to move on a tight timeline. Info like this might even clue you in that the list price is somewhat flexible.

3. Why do the sellers want to move?

If the sellers are moving because the area is unsafe, the schools are terrible, or the neighbor practices the drums at midnight, their agent is unlikely to tell you. But ask this question anyway, and try to read between the lines.

4. How long has this property been on the market?

Ask your agent to check the local multiple listing service, but the seller’s agent will be able to put this information in context. Perhaps it’s been on the market for a long time, but only because the sellers received an offer from a buyer whose financing fell through. Or, perhaps the house went on the market this week, but the sellers have had a lot of interest and expect it to sell quickly. All of this is useful when you’re deciding whether to make an offer.

5. What issues does the house come with?

The seller is required to tell potential buyers about any known structural problems or code violations. It’s standard to ask for a written seller’s disclosure, so request one – and if you’re lucky, a talkative agent might reveal more in person.

6. When was the house last updated?

Clearly visible updates, like new appliances or a fresh coat of paint, are easy to identify. However, features like the age of the roof and wiring which can’t be easily seen, are equally as important and need to be asked about.

7. How much do utilities cost?

Know what you’re getting into before you make an offer by asking to see recent utility bills. If you’re moving from an apartment into a house, you might be surprised at the impact utility bills have on your budget.

8. What’s the seller’s timeline?

Sometimes sellers choose a buyer’s offer simply because of timing. Perhaps they want to sell quickly, or delay the sale so their kids can finish the school year. The more you know about what the sellers want, the more easily you can work around it — and put together a tempting offer while getting a good deal on the price.

9. Where can I get a bite to eat?

Getting directions to a local eatery or coffee shop will tell you a lot about your neighborhood. If there’s a retail strip close by that locals frequent and feel proud of, chances are you’ll love it too.

10. What are the neighbors like?

Is the neighborhood kid-friendly? Are there lots of retired people? Is there a thriving bar scene on the weekends? Some people are fine doing their own thing and don’t require (or want) a tight-knit neighborhood community. But other people are much happier if they’re surrounded by kindred souls who are in a similar stage of life. The seller’s agent will be able to give valuable information about who you’d be rubbing shoulders with, if you choose to buy.

And don’t forget: while open houses are great venues to ask questions and listen, be careful not to give away more than you want about your own situation. Being discreet about your finances and how much you love the home will benefit you when it’s time to bargain for a good price.