By Julia Weichselbaum, Legacy 100 Real Estate Partners
I grew up hearing all of these things at the dinner table, on family vacations, and in the car. (My dad had a carphone before most people knew they existed.) My father, Jim Weichselbaum, has been in construction and real estate in Colorado since the 1970s, and some of what he says has become so woven into the fabric of how I think about this business that I forget not everyone knows it.
This post is our attempt to fix that.
Not everything here is original. Some of it is wisdom that any experienced broker in any market would recognize. But a lot of it is specific. To Denver, to Colorado, to the way Jim built homes before he sold them, to five decades of watching buyers and sellers make the same mistakes and also, continually, make the exact right call.
Blog Post number fifty felt like the right moment to put it all in one place. Fifty things. Fifty years. Here they are.
On Pricing
1. Price it low, watch it go. Price it high, make you cry. Jim has been saying this for decades. It is still true in every market. The sellers who price correctly from day one almost always net more than the ones who start high and chase the market down.
2. Your home’s price is not a reflection of your memories. Sellers attach enormous emotion to their homes and believe, sincerely, that the kitchen where they raised their children is worth more because of what happened there. It is worth more to them. Buyers are buying their own future, not your past. The market does not pay for memories.
3. Sellers want to believe a story about their home that is not always true. We hear it constantly. “This neighborhood is up and coming.” “The updates we made are worth more than the comps suggest.” Sometimes those things are true. Often they are not. A good broker tells you which is which before you list, not after you have been sitting on the market for 60 days.
4. Try like hell not to sell real estate unless you have to. This one surprises people coming from a broker. But it is true. Transaction costs are real. Moving is expensive and disruptive. Investments in real estate usually pay off. If you love where you are and can make it work, staying put is often the financially sound choice. We will tell you that even when it costs us a commission.
5. The days on market number tells you something. It just does not tell you what most people think. A home that has been listed for 30 days is not automatically a problem. In today’s Denver market it is sometimes an opportunity. The buyer who understands this has an advantage over the one who scrolls past anything that is not brand new.
On Buying
6. Carpet and paint color will stop a buyer cold even when they swear it will not. We hear it every time. “Oh, I can look past that.” Rarely true. Buyers make emotional decisions and they make them fast. First impressions are made in seconds and undone slowly if at all. Sellers, take note.
7. Unless there is a very compelling reason, do not buy a house with structural damage. There will be another house. There is always another house. The one with the cracked foundation and the settling walls is not a project, it is a financial trap with a very uncertain bottom. Jim calls these homes poltergeisted. He is not wrong. The ghosts coming up through the floors are damaging the home and the home’s saleability with every move.
8. Never buy a house that backs to an insanely busy street and expect to sell it easily later. We have watched buyers fall in love with a home and dismiss the six-lane arterial behind the fence as something they will get used to even when we advise stronlgy against it. When it comes time to sell they are always surprised that buyers don’t feel the same way and are usually disappointed with the price they ultimately get.
9. Location is the most important thing. We know you know this. We still have to wrestle some people into believing it. Obvious in theory. Surprisingly negotiable in practice when someone falls in love with the kitchen.
10. Marry the house, date the rate. Everyone says this one. We say it too because it is true. Rates change. The right house in the right location is harder to find.
11. Always get a sewer scope. Always. No exceptions. No matter the age of the home. No matter how clean it looks. Sewer line replacement costs $10,000 to $30,000 and is completely invisible without a camera. We have seen buyers skip this to save a few hundred dollars and deeply regret it. Always get the sewer scope. Even on a new build. Yes, we have seen that too.
12. Always test for radon. Colorado has some of the highest radon levels in the country. Radon is invisible, odorless, and the second leading cause of lung cancer in the United States. Testing is cheap. Mitigation is effective. There is no excuse for not knowing.
13. Get a general inspection, a radon test, and a sewer scope on every home. Every time. These are not optional extras. They are the baseline. Everything else is situational.
14. The inspection report will be long and alarming. Most of it is not a crisis. A fifty-page inspection report full of photos of dark crawl spaces is normal. The skill is knowing which items actually matter and which ones are routine maintenance findings that every home of that age would show. This is where an experienced broker earns their keep.
15. 2×6 exterior walls make a real difference in insulation. Jim has been saying this since he was building homes. If you are comparing two houses and one has 2×6 framing and one has 2×4, the difference in heating and cooling costs over the life of the home is meaningful. It is worth asking about.
16. If you can avoid an ejector pump, do. Ejector pumps handle wastewater from below-grade bathrooms and laundry. They work fine when they work. When they do not, it is exactly the kind of mess you do not want in your finished basement. Jim considers this a quality of life issue and we have adopted his position in most cases.
17. We know where the water table runs high in southeast Denver. And we will steer you away from it. Forty years of selling in specific neighborhoods gives you knowledge that no database captures.
18. Termites exist in Colorado. Specifically in southwest Denver. People do not believe us until they do. Get a termite inspection if you are buying in areas where we flag it.
19. In Colorado, we pour the slab separate from the foundation walls because of our expansive clay soil. If you are coming from California or another state where a monolithic pour is standard, this surprises you. Our soil moves. The way we build accounts for that. Jim can make this genuinely fascinating in a showing, I promise.
20. Buy west of busy streets when you can. Particulate matter from tires and exhaust travels east with the prevailing winds along the Front Range. It is an air quality consideration that most buyers never think about. We do. Probably too much.
On Selling
21. Disclose, disclose, disclose. Jim says it is all going to come out in the wash anyway. You might as well do the right thing and avoid the legal consequences of not disclosing. We have seen non-disclosure situations end very badly for sellers. The short-term discomfort of disclosure is nothing compared to the long-term cost of concealment.
22. “I will only sell as is” almost always becomes negotiable when the buyer is about to walk. We have watched sellers draw firm lines on this, hold them for weeks, and then become remarkably flexible the moment a real offer is in jeopardy. Know your actual position before you announce it.
23. Pet smell will lose you a buyer faster than almost anything. We have watched sellers agonize over a scratch on the refrigerator handle while their home smells powerfully of parrot. The refrigerator handle does not matter. The parrot smell very much does. Buyers decide in the first thirty seconds whether they want to be in a home. Smell is a large part of that decision.
24. Buyers say they can look past things. They often cannot. Carpet, paint color, dated light fixtures — buyers regularly tell us these things will not affect their offer. They regularly affect their offer. This is not a criticism of buyers. It is human nature. Sellers need to know it.
25. Your broker should walk through your home before listing and give you a specific punch list. Not a general reassurance that everything looks great. A specific, written list of what to address before the first showing. If your broker cannot or will not do this, find one who can.
26. Pre-listing inspections: Jim is not always a fan and here is why. The conventional wisdom says get a pre-listing inspection so there are no surprises. Jim’s view is more nuanced. Once you inspect and discover an issue, you are legally obligated to disclose it. Sometimes it is better to let the buyer’s inspector find things and negotiate from there rather than handing the other side a roadmap of your home’s vulnerabilities before you even have an offer. That said, if you have genuine concerns about what might be lurking — a roof that has seen better days, a furnace that is aging — knowing ahead of time gives you options. It is situational, and a good broker helps you decide which approach serves you best.
27. The right buyer for your home is not always the first buyer. Sometimes they show up on day 32. That does not mean your home is wrong. It means the market is doing what markets do — finding the right match.
On Denver Specifically
28. Sloan’s Lake and the Highlands surprised us. We have been in Denver long enough to remember when those neighborhoods required more courage than most buyers had. The transformation has been one of the most dramatic we have witnessed in four decades. The lesson: do not write off a neighborhood because of what it was.
29. RiNo and Five Points surprised us too. We have been in Denver long enough to remember when these neighborhoods had genuine safety concerns that kept most buyers away. The transformation has been one of the great Denver real estate stories of the past two decades — areas that were avoided are now among the most sought-after zip codes in the city. Twenty-somethings paying top dollar to live in converted warehouses and Victorian bungalows where few would have invested not long ago. It is a reminder that neighborhood trajectories can change dramatically and that the brokers who pay attention to early signals serve their clients best.
30. Southwest Denver and Athmar Park are still doing it. The westside of Denver continues to evolve and surprise. We have watched neighborhoods transform in real time and we have learned to pay attention to the early signals.
31. The mountains are closer than people think and farther than people remember. Buyers move to Colorado for the mountains and then discover that a weekend ski trip from Denver requires some planning. The mountains are also spectacularly accessible. Both things are true. Managing expectations on this one is part of the job.
32. Every market has people who need to buy or sell. Death, divorce, new jobs, growing families, downsizing, relocation — life does not pause for a slow market. If you are trustworthy, meticulous, and genuinely helpful, there are always clients who need you. This has been true through every cycle Jim has experienced since the 1970s.
33. Colorado clay soil is a real thing and it matters more than buyers realize. Expansive clay soil causes foundation movement, drainage issues, and plumbing problems. It is concentrated on the west side of town but pockets exist everywhere. We know where the problem areas are and we factor it into every recommendation we make.
On Brokers and the Business
34. Mediocre brokers put commissions first and clients second. It is a fiduciary duty to put the client first. We consider it a moral obligation as well. We see brokers sell their sellers out by sharing confidential information with the other side. We will not do this without written authorization from our client. The line is clear and we do not cross it.
35. A good broker tells you hard things before you list, not after you have been sitting on the market. The broker who validates your price without questioning it is not serving you. The broker who shows you the comps, tells you the truth, and then helps you decide what to do with that truth is the one working for you.
36. If people trust you they will be your clients for life. Repeat clients and referrals are the foundation of this business done right. Jim has clients who have bought and sold with him across multiple transactions spanning decades. That does not happen by accident.
37. Integrity is all you have. Lose it once and it is gone. Protect it fiercely and it compounds over time into something more valuable than any single commission. This is not a soft observation. It is the core business strategy.
38. If you have been in this business long enough there will be people who do not like you. Usually because you called them out on something shady. Be appropriately skeptical of people who dislike brokers with sterling reputations. There is generally a reason.
39. Jim started with a franchise brokerage and it served him well. The company name offered credibility when he was young and the beard and three-piece suits could only do so much. He learned from it, grew because of it, and eventually outgrew it. An independent brokerage means he answers to his clients rather than corporate directives. That evolution took decades and was worth every step.
40. You do not need a big brand name for people to trust you. You need to earn trust. Legacy 100 is an independent brokerage. We are not Keller Williams, RE/MAX, or Compass. We are ourselves, and our clients trust us because of what we have done, not because of a logo.
On Homes and Life
41. Homes are beyond investments. They are where you make memories. They are where you raise a family, have a dog, host parties, cry, celebrate, and build the texture of a life. That matters enormously. It also cannot be the only lens through which you evaluate a purchase. When it is time to sell, the market does not pay for memories.
42. The real estate business is like working in a hospital. There are profound lows and genuine highs, often in the same week. The Ds of real estate — death, divorce, debt, displacement — require a broker who can hold space for grief while still moving a transaction forward. We take this seriously.
43. There are also fun Ds. Diapers. Dogs. More clients have moved to accommodate a dog than you would believe. We celebrate every one of them. Getting someone into a home where their dog has a yard is one of the genuine joys of this work.
44. You will sometimes learn terrible things about families after a death. Gambling debts. Hidden second mortgages. Estranged relatives. Estate sales reveal family secrets that the living did not know existed. We handle these situations with discretion and care, and we have become quite good at it.
45. Being a broker means being there for people during some of the most significant moments of their lives. The first home. The last home. The home sold to pay for a divorce. The home inherited from a parent. These are not transactions. They are chapters in people’s lives and we are privileged to be part of them.
The Things Jim Says That We Have Never Stopped Saying
46. Surround yourself with good people and never stop protecting that standard. The people around you determine everything, the quality of your work, the experience your clients have, and the culture that either attracts great brokers or drives them away. Jim has always been deliberate about this. The administrators who have been with Legacy 100 for decades are not just support staff, they are the backbone of every transaction that closes smoothly. The brokers who stay are the ones who share the values. The ones who do not share them do not stay long, and that is by design. A brokerage is only as good as the people inside it, and protecting the standard of who those people are is one of the most important jobs a principal broker has. Clients feel it the moment they walk in the door, even if they cannot name exactly what they are feeling.
47. The best clients become friends and the best friends become clients. After fifty years the line between professional relationships and friendships gets beautifully blurry. Some of our longest relationships started with a transaction and turned into something that looks a lot more like family. That does not happen in a business built on transactions. It happens in a business built on people.
48. Disclose or face consequences. It is all going to come out eventually. Do the right thing. Every time.
49. We genuinely love what we do. The hard days remind us why the good ones matter so much.
50. Our experience. Your legacy. This is not just a tagline. It is the actual transaction. Everything Jim learned building homes in Colorado, everything we have accumulated across five decades of buying, selling, negotiating, inspecting, and caring about the people on both sides of the table — it exists to serve you. The experience belongs to us. What you do with it is your legacy.
That is what 50 years has taught us. We hope some of it helps.
Contact Legacy 100 Real Estate Partners — we would love to put 50 years to work for you.
Related reading:
- Who Should I Hire to Sell My House in Denver?
- Home Inspection in Denver: What Buyers and Sellers Are Actually Afraid Of
- Home Staging Denver: Is Your Home Having an Identity Crisis?
- Downsizing Your Home in Denver: 7 Surprising Things Nobody Tells You
- The Real Estate Transactions Nobody Prepares You For
External Lnks:
- Colorado Division of Real Estate broker standards: https://dre.colorado.gov/consumers
- EPA Radon information Colorado: https://www.epa.gov/radon/find-information-about-local-radon-zones-and-state-contact-information