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Are your home renovations quietly destroying your property value—and your future plans? On this episode of https://FixItRadio.com, John Rush and Larry Unger reveal the hidden dangers of common remodeling decisions. From overly personalized design choices to removing bedrooms or converting garages, the hosts explain why certain upgrades could shrink your pool of buyers and lower your resale potential. Is that luxury kitchen really worth it if it outpaces your entire neighborhood? Callers from across the country weigh in, offering insights into shifting home expectations, the loss of modest “starter homes,” and the generational pressure to own more—sooner. And when
SPEAKER 03 :
Walter? Upstairs! Are you alright?
SPEAKER 11 :
In the floor behind the chair.
SPEAKER 05 :
This is America.
SPEAKER 01 :
Does everybody know what time it is? Fix It Radio!
SPEAKER 06 :
And it’s that time, Fix It Radio, KLZ 560. Thanks for joining us on this fine Saturday morning, the 19th of July. Myself, Larry Unger, Charlie Grimes, of course, and it’s a beautiful morning, Larry.
SPEAKER 08 :
It is very beautiful. You know, another Colorado weather.
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Yeah, it’s 71 degrees as we speak. Going to be a beautiful day. So good day to get out, do a few things around the house. We’ll talk about some of those things today as well. As always, any questions, text line is open, 307. 200-8222, so 307-200-8222. And, of course, the studio line here live, 303-477-5600. If you’re listening to a replay of this program, of course, you can’t call in live, but you can sure send a text message, and I’ll get that answered as quickly as I can. And, again, that number, 307-200-8222. So I’ve got several things to talk about today in regards to some things to do around the house for the time of the year that it is. One thing, though, Charlie had sent me an article, I want to say, last week. Week before last, I should say. And it’s titled, 10 Common. Home renovations that lower your property value. Now, we’ll talk about some of these because I read a lot of these articles, and are they all right on the money, and are they exactly true? Well, keep in mind that in a lot of cases, these are very personalized according to the person that’s writing them. But in a lot of cases, I don’t always disagree with some of the things that we read. In fact, some of these things coincide with some of the things that we talk about here today. on a routine basis and for all of us and i think this is you know this is true for pretty much across the board you know you want to maximize the assets that you own your house being one of your if not the largest asset in some cases it could be you know your business or other investments you have but in a lot of cases for most people your home is is the largest or one of the largest you know quote unquote investments that you have there’s some scuttlebutt out there today where people are talking about, and this comes around every now and again, as to, you know, is your home really an asset or is it a liability? Well, I still look at them as an asset. I think for most people it is. And you’re either going to spend money on your home, living in it, or you’re going to rent. And the argument is, well, if you rent, then somebody else is taking care of all of your maintenance and things along those lines and so on. And yes, that’s true. There is that. But you also are paying somebody else’s, you know, mortgage and and appreciation and so on when you do that so again two schools of thought but for most people owning a home is a part of the american dream it’s a part of what what people do even to get towards retirement that’s factored into retirement as you downsize you can take some of that money and again i’ve talked about that many times even during the weekly show but let’s talk about some of these things that could affect and or lower your property’s value now number one on here And I agree with this one 100%. Overly personalized design choices. Yes. That could be everything from how you remodel a room to the paint to the flooring that you choose to the carpet you pick to you name it. And I will agree with that one. a thousand percent you have to be careful and and while you may like something greatly and there’s either these are decisions you have to make if you think listen i’m going to own this home for the rest of my life okay well you know what if that’s your if that’s what you think you’re going to do then personalize it to your heart’s content just know that if something were to come up and you go to sell it including some of you that have heirs where you may die in the home but somebody else may have to pick up the pieces and then go about selling it just remember that the more personalized it is the smaller the pool of buyers it’s not that it’s not sellable but your pool of buyers begins to shrink it’s like you know larry and i both come out of the automotive world and this isn’t and i did this for years and years and that was the customizing of vehicles i did a lot of that for the off-road end of things but also did it for some street rods and hot rods and things like that but anytime you customize something you take it from what is is generally accepted to multiple buyers and you customize it for you you’ve now shrunk the pool of buyers down considerably because everybody has different tastes exactly yep And that’s not a bad thing. We want people to have different tastes. That’s the joy of having the world we live in and having people with different tastes. That’s great. Just remember that when you do those things, you’ve now shrunk the pool of buyers down. And it’s true even with certain automobiles and even certain homes. And what I mean by that is the more unique the home or the more unique the car. So exotics, for example, in the car world. Exotics are great, and they typically will do a pretty good job of holding their value, but there’s a very small pool of buyer for an exotic versus a, you know, a Chevy Malibu.
SPEAKER 08 :
Right.
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Or a Chevy Malibu or most of your SUVs, you know, take a, you know, a Chevy Blazer or something along those lines, you know, the smaller SUVs. Reality is there’s a large pool of buyers for that where the exotics there is not just because there’s not as many people that can even afford that. to buy that particular vehicle. Well, the same thing can happen in homes. And this is one of those things where, you know, the three keys to business is location, location, location. Well, there’s three keys to homes, in my opinion. Location, location, location. And what I mean by that is, for some of you that have homes here in Colorado, and I get it, some of the transplants don’t realize this, but north-facing houses… Um, that’s a no, no in Colorado because all winter long, you will have a icy cold front step driveway, all of that. And yes, I know you can get out there and get it shoveled and so on, but it will be very cold and icy all year long. And frankly, in the summertime, because of the way our sun is, it will actually be warmer on that side than it is on the south side because the sun moves to the north in the summer. So not only is it cold in the winter months, but it’s hotter in the summer months. That’s why typically buying north-facing is not suggested. Now, with some of the transplants we have coming in, some of them may not know the difference. And it’s interesting when you talk to certain individuals along those lines that, you know, You’ll hear some people say, well, I prefer that. No, you don’t. You’re just saying that because you own one.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, they prefer it in their state they came from.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, there you go. Yeah, exactly. Not in this one. But again, these are things where when you buy a home and you have a home, you need to think about some of those things. But bottom line, number one on this list is overly personalized design choices. So be careful when you’re remodeling even the color of certain things that you’re picking out. And here’s the rule of thumb, and most of you already know this, and probably all of you know this. Neutral things are… always will stay in style. So, you know, for example, a beige-ish colored carpet, you know, a Berber carpet, things along those lines, will that always be in style? Yes. Will dark green always be in style? No.
SPEAKER 08 :
You mean my shag yellow carpet?
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, the shag yellow, Larry, no. No, not really in style. And while there’s very beautiful choices of colors and things like that, and this is true even when it comes to tiles and things like that. Now, there’s also a lot of folks out there, and I follow some of these design guys because of the show here. And some of them are really against some of the grays. They’re saying that some of the gray flooring and things that people have picked over the last decade or so are starting to phase out. I disagree with that. I think that comes down to a taste issue more than anything. If it’s done correctly and it looks good, I don’t think there’s any issues with some of those things. But, again, just be careful because in some cases certain things can be long-lasting and in other cases not be. So when you pick out colors for walls and things like that, those are things that you also have to be careful of. So that’s number one. Number two. Removing bedrooms to create larger spaces. Yeah, that’s a big one. While a nice large space might be really cool and it might be great for you, and losing a bedroom might even lower your property taxes, reality is normally people look at homes because they’ve got families and they need a bedroom for somebody to occupy and sleep in.
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On the other side of that is the bigger the area, the less… The less comfortable it feels. The less warm it feels.
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Yes.
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In a conversation. You can’t even have a conversation with people.
SPEAKER 06 :
Very true. In fact, the style now, and even a lot of the newer homes, believe it or not, as things go down the road, things tend to repeat themselves. We’re now getting back into a design trend. in some newer homes where the big open floor plans are starting to trend away. We are now starting to cycle back to having separate spaces, to Larry’s point, to do different things in. And now I wouldn’t tell you that that has caught on fully. I think some people still like the nice open area, open floor plans, you know, kitchen, family room, things like that. But the trend right now currently is the styles going back to having more individual spaces. But this one here on the list is don’t remove a bedroom to create a larger space. Now, here’s a caveat to that. If you’ve got a home that maybe somebody created some bedrooms and such in and it’s got five or six bedrooms and you can take one of those out and make a nice larger space and make it more usable and you’ve still got four or five bedrooms You’re probably okay in that. That’s an exception to this rule. But if you’re a four-bedroom house or a three-bedroom house and you’re taking a bedroom away, therefore going from a four to a three or a three to a two, yeah, that’s a problem because there’s a lot of people out there that look at those bedrooms. And people look at bedrooms for different reasons, by the way. Some look at that bedroom for somebody to actually live in and sleep in, kids, things like that. guest rooms, people coming to visit. Others also look at those rooms as offices or game rooms or sewing rooms or whatever you might do along those lines, craft rooms, things like that. So, you know, in some cases, they still want that room separate from everything else so they can do something else with it. And they also know that leaving it a bedroom, meaning that, you know, Size-wise. Yeah, size-wise. And then for those of you listening and you know these rules, but might as well go over it, to have a legitimate bedroom. It’s supposed to have, of course, an egress window. Otherwise, it’s not coded as a bedroom. So you have to have an in-out window in case there’s a fire. You can get in and out of that room. That’s sleeping arrangements. That’s code. And then typically also a closet. Now, I don’t know if closet is necessarily code because you can put some self-contained closets and things like that. And so I don’t know if it actually has to have an actual sliding door, walk-in door type closet. But that’s the rule of thumb. Closets and an egress window. egress window being code because if you can’t get out of the bedroom with with the fire it’s not considered a sleeping room by code right so that’s something to think about so don’t take out a bedroom to make a larger space and devalue your property in the process. Now, here’s another one that’s interesting, and I think there’s some exceptions to this one as well, but converting the garage into living space. That was a big deal when I was a kid, by the way. People that had smaller homes, but they might have had a single or a two-car garage, they would convert the garage into some living space, and they’d add to the house, but then they didn’t have a garage anymore. So here’s the exception to that, if you ask me. As long as you’ve got the ability to add another garage, an external garage, a shop, whatever, another two- or three-car garage outside of your current space, if you can do that, then turning garage space into living space, knock your socks off.
SPEAKER 08 :
You’re talking about unattached.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, if you’ve got the ability to put, well, or even if you’ve got a layout of a house where you can even put another attached garage on and convert your existing garage into space, okay, fine, knock your socks off. But if you’ve got the ability even to have a detached garage and you want to turn some of your existing space over to living space, garage space into living space, okay, again, knock your socks off. That’s fine. Providing that, this is where it gets a little bit dicey, I think. providing that when you’re done, it looks natural. In other words, if it looks like you converted a garage around and you’ve even left the garage door in and you’ve just sort of dry walled, you know, on the backside of the garage door, but the garage door is still there. Yeah, and those are cheesy things that a lot of guys will do. And no, that is not benefiting you at the end of the day. If you can make that, you know, naturally blend in with the house, even matching, you know, stucco siding, whatever, and take the garage door out and really make things look natural, then okay, I’m all for that. Then off you go. That’s an exception to the rule. And they have other space, by the way, have the ability to put another garage, and I think that’s the exception to the rule. But I would not convert garage space to living space and lose a garage because to a lot of people, having a garage is very important.
SPEAKER 08 :
To most people because not only do they park their cars in there, but they also work.
SPEAKER 06 :
They work, and they’ve got other things they can store there. And, you know, you take the garage away, you’re losing other type of space that you can utilize, you know, utility type space. And, yeah, somebody like me personally, yeah, I want a garage. I have, and some of you listening know what I mean by this, I’ve gotten so spoiled over the years, I don’t think I have parked outside now in probably three decades, nor do I want to.
SPEAKER 08 :
I’ve got two cars. One’s never seen a garage and the other one has. Because the other half of my garage is my workshop.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, and that’s fine. But you still have at least one spot to go ahead and pull into and use and not have to scrape your car off in the winter and all. That’s what I’m talking about. People want to use a garage for those purposes and at least have one stall where… You know, one of you, you know, one of the family members can at least park inside and not have to go through all of that, you know, scraping the snow off and the frost and all of that. And those of you that have garages and you know what I mean by that, you’ll never go back to not having, like me, you’ll never go back to not having one just because you get used to it. And, yeah, I’m not going back the other way, Larry. I, you know, for the first few houses, because you’re starting out and you can only afford certain things. And the first house I had had a single car garage. Yes, I could still park in it, but it was really dicey because they weren’t very big back then. Second house had a two car garage, still could get one car in it. Like you still had some workshop stuff, but you get one car in it. And as time goes by, you’re able to get a little bit bigger. And then what I started doing is when I looked at buying houses, the garage had to be a certain size or I didn’t buy the house. That was me because I’m a car guy. So I wasn’t going to buy a house that didn’t have the right garage set up, depth, height, all of that. And literally, we would look at a house and I would go look at the garage. I’d get a tape measure. I’d carry it with me. And if the garage wasn’t even a certain depth. I was out. Count me out. I’m not buying that house. I don’t care how nice the rest of the house is. If it’s not, you know, X deep. And my rule of thumb is if it’s not 21 feet deep, I’m not buying it. A lot of garages today, believe it or not, are built about 19.6 deep. That’s all the deeper they are, which is great for cars and smaller SUVs, but put a full-size pickup truck in there that’s about 20-foot long. Do the math. It ain’t fitting.
SPEAKER 08 :
Nope.
SPEAKER 06 :
So that’s the reason why when I started looking at houses and so on, as I would get into my third and – I think I’m on my seventh house now, but as I got into the third and fourth house, yeah, that became – actually, I think by the fourth house, that became very important for me was I wanted to make sure it had enough depth. Now, for all of you listening, that can be different and – That’s not a standard for everybody. But a lot of you that are car guys will understand everything that I just said. And that, again, goes to number three, converting that garage space into living space. Again, you’ve shrunk your market of people now that want to look at that house because anybody that has a car that they want to put inside, you’ve just eliminated them from even looking at your home, period.
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Yep.
SPEAKER 06 :
especially if there’s no other ability on that site to put another garage in. And in certain situations, certain layouts of the neighborhood, depending upon what your setbacks are and how close you are to the property line and so on, you’re probably not putting another garage in and you’re really limiting who you could sell that house to. So again, we’re going over things that will devalue your home i’ve got several more of these that we will talk about as well so don’t go anywhere questions anything you want to add feel free 303-477-5600 don’t forget the text line 307-282-22 our website fixitradio.com we’ll be right back fix it radio klz 560.
SPEAKER 01 :
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SPEAKER 06 :
All right, something else, too. Larry and I were just talking about when talking about garages and layouts and when you’re looking at different homes and so on. Don’t forget, and most of you, of course, would be sharp enough to know this, but might as well make sure we talk about it. If you work in your garage and you’ve got a workbench or anything along those lines. make sure you’re measuring things out to where that’s being included in your measurements. So if you’ve got a, you know, two foot deep, you know, bench that you want to bring with you or put one in the new place and still want to park in the garage and it’s a 21 foot garage. No, it’s not. It’s a 19 foot garage. In fact, probably need a little more room than actually don’t want to run into the bench. So it’s probably, yeah, 17 and a half to 18 foot garage at best. So That’s something else to think about when you look at these things and measure things out. And those of you that are building homes, and some of you still, you know, still people out there doing that if you’re building a home, I will tell you that I think some of the biggest mistakes that happen when custom builders and architects and stuff build homes is they don’t build enough garage depth. Not width or anything along those lines, but the depth side of it. They don’t build them deep enough because there’s, you know, cars have not gotten smaller. In fact… this is more of a drive radio, you know, topic, but it fits into this because we’re talking about storage and garages and so on. Most cars, trucks especially, there’s a great little video. I think it’s a video or it might even be printed material, but I think there’s a video showing because it’s a progression where you go and look at, you know, early Ford or early Chevy trucks, look at where they were back in the day. You know, take a, you know, 73 Chevy. They were all, you know, Well, there’s some crew cabs. Most of them were standard cab long box trucks. And they have that standard cab long box. And they do the progression from each generation to where we are now. And the trucks have grown, especially in cab size. And yet beds have shrunk down some. But overall, the trucks are wider. They’re longer. They’re just larger than they ever have been because that’s what the market has shown. So something to think about where a lot of the older homes weren’t built to accommodate some of those types of vehicles. So, again, if you’re building a home or you’re looking at a home or you have the option to have that garage be a little bit deeper, if you’re building a home, make sure you’re looking at that for the few thousand dollars or so that it may take to build a deeper garage. Build it.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, and look at the height also because you’ve still got to get that truck into the garage one way or another. And like you said, these trucks not only are taller and longer or wider and longer, but they’re also taller.
SPEAKER 06 :
They’re taller too. Yeah. And again, that’s where if you have the ability to do an eight-foot door, then go ahead and do so. Okay, this next one is – and by the way, here’s – Here’s a message. I have made realtors mad both in Wyoming and Colorado because the garage isn’t deep enough for my eight-foot bed. One time, yeah, going back to the conversation that we just had, had one realtor who said, just park it outside. And that was probably the rudest response I’ve ever given to a person, especially a lady, when I responded to her and fired her. By the way, I’m with you on that one. If there’s a realtor that isn’t respecting what I have and what I own and what I want to do and they’re trying to force me or squeeze me into something that’s not going to work, yeah, I’m going to fire that realtor as well because they should know what my standards are and what I’m looking for. And if they’re not willing to uphold my wishes, my standards, my wants, then why would I employ them?
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, they’re working for you. So if they’re not going to abide by your specifications, why use them? There’s plenty of them out there.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, and this person also adds that not only do I want to pull into the garage with a full-size truck, I want to be able to walk around that full-size truck at the same time, which makes total sense. So I would agree with that wholeheartedly. Thank you, by the way, for that text message because I would agree with you wholeheartedly. So number four. our list things to things not to do that will potentially devalue your home high-end kitchen upgrades that don’t match the neighborhood yeah you need you know you typically you know your neighborhood or you should know your neighborhood if not i would encourage you to get to know your neighborhood and the reason for this is you don’t want to do upgrades by the way this is true i would add that This isn’t just for the kitchen. This could be kitchen. This could be bathroom. This could be flooring. This could be all sorts of things. You don’t want to upgrade things that will make your house much more expensive than everything else around you because you’ll never get that money back out of it. Now, again, if you want it just for you and you’re going to use it and you don’t care about losing money on it, then knock your socks off. But just realize that if you’re doing a high-end kitchen, that is double what everybody else’s in the neighborhood would be, that’s fine. Just remember, you’re not going to get double that price of that kitchen back out of it down the road because you’ve actually raised your price higher than what all of your competition would be. exactly and not only that in some cases the kitchen may not be to the liking of the average person so it’s going to make that market even smaller as you were talking earlier yeah thank you for saying that larry because you again you need to be you need to know your market you know this is like going back to the car example you need to know the market who’s actually going to be looking at this particular asset in this case it’s a house and the thing about a car that’s different than a house is a car is movable. The house is not. The house is in a neighborhood, and whatever is around you is what you’re going to be marketed off of. Now, if you’re somebody that, you know, you live out in the country, you’re on an acre plus of ground, and your next closest neighbor is a ways away, well, okay, that doesn’t make any difference then. At that point, your house literally becomes a standalone house, and what you have is yours, and it doesn’t make any difference. But if you’re in a neighborhood where there are, you know, where the builder might have given you six options for homes or four options for homes or at best maybe eight options for homes, and the entire neighborhood is one of those four, six, eight, whatever models they built, The reality is that’s what you’re up against. You’re going to compete with, in fact, the way it’s going to work is you don’t even get to compete with, let’s say, for example, you buy the lowest model of the home and there’s six models. So there’s one that’s on the low end and there’s one that’s on the high end. If you have the low end model home, you’re not even competing with the high end model. You’re going to compete with other models like yours. That’s how this works. Trust me when I say this. i know exactly how this works when they go to do the comps and the realtors are looking and the buyers are shopping they’re looking at you know if you’ve got model a you’re not going to be compared to model c you’re compared to model a yep that this is how it works you don’t you don’t have that option of being compared to model cd or e you’re compared to the other model a’s that are in the neighborhood and what they’re selling for and that’s what your price is gonna be based on. It comes down to that model, the square footage, some of the upgrades and so on. Now, if you’ve got in a neighborhood where let’s say there’s, I don’t know, maybe there’s 20 of your homes in a neighborhood and there’s three or four of them that are on the market and three or four of them have done some nice upgrades, okay, if you’re competing with them and they’ve done some nice upgrades, okay, guess what? You can do the same thing because you’re gonna be competing against those same homes that are selling on the market. But that’s not always easy to know on the front side as to who’s going to do what when it comes to remodeling and the like. So that’s where you’ve got to be a little bit careful when it comes to some of the remodeling stuff. Jeff, go ahead.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hey, good morning.
SPEAKER 06 :
Good morning.
SPEAKER 09 :
From your twin in western Montana, your twin living conditions in western Montana, we’re at 72 degrees, a beautiful day, cloud cover. I often say the only difference between this part of Montana and your part of Colorado is that we have fewer people and more oxygen.
SPEAKER 06 :
Gotcha. The fewer people part isn’t so bad, actually.
SPEAKER 09 :
More oxygen isn’t bad either. Actually, it was the oxygen part that more convinced us to come here because I knew a guy from Divide who had to move out of his custom home. and moved down to Colorado Springs, believe it or not, because of COPD. It’s kind of heartbreaking for him. So we just decided that when we retired, it would be to replace with more oxygen.
SPEAKER 06 :
Makes sense.
SPEAKER 09 :
2,000 feet seems to be good right now.
SPEAKER 06 :
That makes sense. No, I don’t… Jeff, you or anybody else, I don’t fault that at all. I totally understand that. Those of us that have lived at this elevation our whole lives, myself included, we sort of get used to it. But I can tell you this much, and myself included, and maybe it’s because I’m getting a little older, but when we go to sea level, oh, man, Jeff, my energy level automatically goes up. and literally i can get by with one or two hours less sleep at lower elevation i don’t sleep a lot already i’m a seven hour a night kind of guy already but literally i can go to lower elevation and live on five or six hours no problem yeah it’s amazing what oxygen can do it really is so i am not faulting you on that at all i totally get it makes total sense yeah um you know
SPEAKER 09 :
I believe everybody should own a house eventually. I mean, most people can’t afford it. You should buy it.
SPEAKER 06 :
I am, by the way, I am, I am with you. And I think I was ingrained that way by my grandfather. He was one of those, you know, my grandfather and my, my grandmother on my dad’s side, uh, went through the depression and all of that, believe it or not between the two of them, they had three jobs through the depression. My grandfather worked two jobs. My grandmother did bookkeeping. So had a job. Very few people had a job. They had three between the two of them, meaning they were very hard workers and knew what all that meant. But also to my grandfather and all of his employees and family members and so on, it was a really big deal to him to have everybody he knew own a house.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah. Because it doesn’t go once you buy a house and pay it off. You’re set. You don’t have to worry about your housing costs anymore. Now, you do have property tax. I don’t know how it’s evolved in Colorado, but here in Montana, property tax has been a bugaboo. My house has gone up in value 150% since we bought it in 2017. it’s just ridiculous. And property taxes have gone up commensurate.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yep. Same here. It’s not much different here, Jeff. Now, what I do know, for those of you listening, kind of a different topic, but it’s a good topic. We complain about our property taxes in Colorado, and they are high. They’re higher than what they used to be. Although, Jeff, as I talk to other people and I meet and You ask them, you know, just different things and subjects come up and cost of living and houses and property taxes and so on. And depending upon the state and where you’re going and what their tax structure is like income tax wise and so on. Here’s the thing, Jeff. The states are getting it one way or the other. Whether you have a higher income tax and less property tax or you have more property tax and less income tax. Reality is they’re getting it one way or the other. And it’s pretty equal across the board when it’s all said and done.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, and I could go down that rabbit hole and vent my spleen, but I think I was going to talk more about the, when I was growing up, we had ultimately nine of us living in a 1,200-square-foot house in the basement.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, I raised seven kids in 1,300 square feet, so I know fully what you’re talking about.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yep, and so the idea of a house has, what you need in a house has evolved. And back in the 60s and 70s and 80s, you know, if you were buying a house and you needed more room, converting that garage made sense. Because people weren’t buying a house. Those were tract homes.
SPEAKER 06 :
That’s right.
SPEAKER 09 :
They weren’t buying a house to try to impress people or worrying about resale value. They were just trying to house their families. Survive. Yep. And so now, I mean, can you, you know, To tell a newlywed couple that they need to live in a house that’s 1,200 square feet, I think they would look at you like you’re from another planet.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, it’s just funny you say that, Jeff. I talked about that this past week on The Daily Show some because it always bugs me when I see all of these financial gurus and all of these reporters and they’ll talk about how the cost of living is so high and it’s so hard to buy a house today and How are these young people going to do it and this, that, and the other? And while that’s true, face value, yes, that’s true. Things have definitely gotten to where they cost more. The cost of living is higher. Your percentage of what you’re actually paying in that mortgage versus what you make is definitely higher than it’s ever been. But to your point, Jeff – So are the expectations and what people want to live in. I talked about this past week how, you know, my first home that I bought, first home, not where I lived first, but my very first home, 900 square feet was all. The reality, Jeff, to your point, could you get a newly married couple to date even buy a 900 square foot home? I highly doubt it.
SPEAKER 08 :
No, we call those starter homes back in those days.
SPEAKER 06 :
That’s what they were. Jeff, my point is the expectations that I’m going to own what my folks own are so high today that most of these young people wanting to move into a house the first time won’t take anything less. That’s why the builders build what they build, why there’s not a lot of the 900-square-foot homes on the market. And the reason why the prices are higher is because the per-square-foot price is still there.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, because a lot of the labor for $1,200 or $2,400 is the same as the $1,200. That’s right. It’s not twice as much labor, so you’re going to be able to sell it for more, yeah. But can you imagine growing up if you went into a house with granite countertops or stone countertops or… Self-closing closet, cupboard doors, or, you know.
SPEAKER 06 :
Jeff, we were doing good to have really decent linoleum that wasn’t peeling up.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, exactly. I’m being honest. And if you had wall-to-wall carpet, oh, my God, you were. Yeah, top dog, man.
SPEAKER 06 :
Or wood paneling or anything along those lines. I mean, man, you were living.
SPEAKER 09 :
That’s right, living large. So it’s a lot of that. And in current houses, you’re not going to want, you know, given that houses are growing so much, if you enclose your garage for another bedroom, people are going to kind of look at you, I think, funny. Yeah. Why did you need to do that? Why didn’t you just buy a house with another bedroom?
SPEAKER 06 :
Move. I mean, yeah, really, at that point, why didn’t you just move? I mean, you should have just sold what you had and moved somewhere else and had a larger home if that’s what you were looking for. I agree, Jeff.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah. Right, so I just think expectations have kind of changed.
SPEAKER 06 :
Oh, they are. No, Jeff, you are, again, I talked about that specifically this past week, Jeff, because, again, the expectations, and, you know, I grew up and finally, you know, we moved out and got married and all that, and the home that my folks had, and I thought the home was large at the time. I mean, I thought we were living large as a family. We had 1,700 square feet.
SPEAKER 08 :
Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER 06 :
And I thought that was a big house in the day.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, it was.
SPEAKER 06 :
And it was probably at that time. Yeah.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, you were probably in the upper 5%, 1700.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, and we thought, man, and today, Jeff, there are starter homes that are larger than that, and I’m not exaggerating.
SPEAKER 09 :
I know. And I think I’ll just leave with the expectation, I think, of this generation, and this isn’t to bug Gen Z or to criticize Gen Z or anything. It’s just because I think we can all fall prey to it to some degree, but I think kids see how they grew up and see what their parents had in their 40s, and that’s what they want in their 20s. That’s right. And I’m sorry, but they need to go back and see what their parents had in their 20s. When my parents got married, one-bedroom apartment, they brought me home. They didn’t even have a crib. They put me in a chest of drawers, a drawer in a chest of drawers, because that’s what they had. available they went out and got a crew very quickly but i mean you know it’s that kind of mentality that you make do with what you got you know yep and uh i don’t know maybe that couple of days in a chest of drawers drawer uh worked me for life i don’t know i can’t say for sure but um i don’t think so somehow well as long as it wasn’t a sock drawer you’re okay Yeah, just make sure they’re all washed.
SPEAKER 06 :
There you go. There you go. Jeff, as always, man, I appreciate you very much. Thank you. And he is spot on. And, again, I talked about this this past week on how the expectation level is so much higher than what it ever has been. Rarely do you find somebody willing to lower those expectations and get started and get a cheaper house because that’s just not the way of today. Mark, go ahead. You’re next.
SPEAKER 10 :
Hey, good morning, John. So I bought my first home in 2007 after I got out of the military for the purposes of not paying rent while going to college. And after that, I got married and we sold our house and moved to our current home. And we’ve been here for probably the last eight years now. And I think I’ve listened to this show for the last 10 years.
SPEAKER 06 :
I think you have.
SPEAKER 10 :
But yesterday I heard something you talk about that I’ve never heard of, or at least never really had crossed my mind. And it really shocked me that I didn’t know it. And it’s really, I don’t want to say it panicked me, but it definitely concerned me to a high degree. And that was when you were talking about total loss from a fire and how the insurance company does not pay out until… later on when you’ve paid things off and or you know gotten a loan to rebuild and i thought there’s no way i could do that i don’t have the ability to go out and get another loan to rebuild what i have
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, and that’s a great topic. And now keep in mind that in some insurance companies or in some instances, you may be able to get some front money from the insurance company, but typically not. Because what the insurance company wants to do is make sure that you’re going to rebuild properly and that you’re actually using the money properly. for that and now one thing that they will do typically and this is something that again i’ve got personal experience with this so the first thing that they will do typically is if you’ve got a total loss and you’ve got you know let’s just use round number say you’ve got a i don’t know six hundred thousand dollar house with a three hundred thousand dollar mortgage we’ll just use easy math here What I do know the insurance companies will do, if your mortgage is $300 and you’ve got a total loss, they will get you a check fairly quickly to get your mortgage paid off. So now you’re starting from zero. The mortgage is paid off. You no longer have a house payment, meaning, Mark, that now that there’s no house payment, the ability to now go do what you need to do financially speaking to start the rebuild process and have a construction loan or whatever you need to do along those lines, knowing there’s still another – Depending upon what you’re insured for, you’re still going to have X amount of money coming in on that end of it. You can typically do it that way. But no, what was said yesterday in that regard is 100% true. If you have a total loss, you’re going to get some claim money from the insurance company once they determine personal property, the whole nine yards, and you’ll get settlement checks from the insurance company. But they are not paying the contractor for you when you decide to rebuild. That’s on you. You are doing that on your own.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, that’s something I really had not considered. You know, I, in the past, you know, you had mentioned taking a video of everything, you know, every drawer of tools, every, you know, piece of equipment, every TV, every computer, everything. And I used to do that probably every other year. And I don’t know if I ever actually uploaded it to the cloud. I think I uploaded it to a hard drive, which is in the house. So if the house burned down and I’m not here, all that’s gone.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you need to load it either to a cloud or you need to put it on a jump drive or something along those lines where that’s stored somewhere outside of your home, another family member maybe, or maybe even make a couple of those and a couple of family members have that jump drive or get a safety deposit box or whatever the case may be. Because, yeah, to your point, Mark, if you don’t have that outside of the home, And you’ve got one of these fire situations like we’ve seen happen here in Colorado. We’ve had two in Colorado that wiped out tons of homes. California lost a bunch. Hawaii lost. I mean, reality, Mark, is it can happen to anybody, any place. And if you don’t have your ducks in a row, you’re going to be on the short end of the stick.
SPEAKER 10 :
Right, right. And I remember years ago you had mentioned – call your insurance agent and ask, am I fully covered for today’s law?
SPEAKER 06 :
Annually, you should do that. Annually.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yes. Yes. I started calling. I call Paul. That’s my insurance agent. And yearly, around February, March, I would ask that question. And we have adjusted it some years and some years not. But what came to my mind was, you know, I wanted to call because I figured, you know, this is fix it radio but you were talking about ready radio and i thought you know what there may be people listening today that were not listening yesterday they don’t know about this topic and and the other thing that came to my mind was they’re not going to rebuild for the code when this was built they’re going to build to the code that’s current which may make the price go up significantly
SPEAKER 06 :
Yep. And keep in mind, I just got a note from somebody talking about, or a text from somebody talking about how even a full tornado loss, how that worked, how the insurance company paid, and so on. And these are questions, by the way, that you should be asking your agent on that particular company. If I have a total loss, how does this work as far as me getting repaid? How do I get my mortgage paid off if you have one? If I decide to rebuild… How does that work? These are specific questions to ask because it’s not totally blanket from insurance to insurance company. Although, Mark, I will tell you that my experience with the majority of is until you actually decide what you’re going to do. Now, let’s say, for example, you decide that you’ve got in this case, you have a $600,000 house, you’ve got $300,000 mortgage, and maybe you’ve got… insurance that covers the full 600 let’s just say you’re really lucky in fact maybe you’ve got contents and so on that make the insurance policy 700 because you’ve got 100k of other contents if you decide to not rebuild and you’re just going to go ahead and sell your lot off or do something different you can negotiate and this is where a public adjuster really comes in and becomes handy you can negotiate and typically get from them that entire check and then you can decide moving forward am i going to rebuild am i going to just go buy something else Am I going to sell my lot off? And so there is that option as well. But I’ll tell you this right now, you will rarely get to that point without a public adjuster.
SPEAKER 10 :
That’s really interesting. And the other thing that I wanted to bring up too, John, was yesterday you had talked about, you know, like if that’s the case and it’s a total loss, where’s all your documents? Was your wallet in the house? Was your, you know, your deed, your birth certificate? And so something else that I hadn’t really thought of was you were talking about online storage, like taking a picture of your driver’s license and taking a picture of this, that, and the other and putting it online storage so that if you do have a total loss, you have something to be able to prove that, A, who you are and, B, where you live. That’s right.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, I finally decided for other reasons, travel and so on, that, you know what, instead of having to fumble around even inside of my picture albums and so on, you know, where’s my passport photo, where’s my driver’s license photo, I finally just took a note and put those things in there. I’ve got mine, my wife’s, everything’s all dialed in, passport, driver’s license. I know you can put that in your Apple wallet, those of you that are Apple users as well. But for me, having the wife’s and everything and everything in one place, Mark, where literally I can make one or two clicks, it’s all in the cloud as well. So even if my phone was destroyed and run over, I can go to anybody’s computer, log into my account, and get that information printed out if I had to.
SPEAKER 10 :
So I jokingly said, you know what, maybe our next house is going to be a pyramid.
SPEAKER 06 :
i’m just kidding i mean well you know and this is funny because you know it was you mentioned even yesterday that you know in some cases building codes after fires and so on they want you to do all brick or stucco or whatever but honestly here’s what i don’t think most people even the even the people that are setting the codes realize and it’s something i’ve come to realize after losing a house in a fire and then watching some of these other fires and what they do Honestly, Mark, as much as that’s great and it sounds good and having all of this non-flammable material on the outside of your home, it sounds great. The reality is fire seeks oxygen. Your home is full of it. It’s a complete box full of oxygen, meaning all that fire has to do, and it has the ability to do it. is pick up a stick or something large and throw it through a window, and believe it or not, it kind of becomes and takes on its own personality, and it will. As soon as those windows blow out, guess where the fire goes? Right inside the house, and it’ll burn it from the inside out. So even though it’s got all this non-flammable material on the outside, it still has windows, meaning… game on it doesn’t make any difference at that point i’m sorry i will argue anybody on the code side of that all day long because i’ve watched it with my own two eyes i’ve seen what these fires do and the reality is they are seeking oxygen and if they can get through a window and figure out how to get that oxygen and get that everything inside of your home by the way is more flammable than the outside in most cases and there are still some sort of wood structures i mean i guess if you built one completely out of you know out of concrete or something you might have the structure standing but keep in mind everything inside still going to burn up
SPEAKER 10 :
Yep, there’s a house, well, what’s left of a house up in Estes Park, probably a stone’s throw away from downtown that is on a walking trail that I think was in the early 1900s built by one of the Denver newspaper guys that he had up on, you know, it’s between like downtown and Stanley, kind of in a little valley there. And you can walk up a trail to it because it sits on one of the hilltops up there. And the stone foundation and the chimney is still there. You can walk in there. They built the frame. But the story goes that I think the builder or somebody went to light a fire and it burned the whole building to the ground, unfortunately, because of the way the fireplace was built. But the rest of the stone foundation is still there.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yep. Proving that point, Mark, that that is exactly what fire does and anything that it can consume, it will.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yes, sir. Thank you for your time.
SPEAKER 06 :
Great point. Mark, thank you very much. Let’s take our last break. We’ll come right back. Fix It Radio is our website, fixitradio.com. We’ll be right back. KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 05 :
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SPEAKER 06 :
All right, we are back. Fix-It Radio, KLZ 560. Myself, Larry Unger, Mark Guernsey joining me now as well. Accountable Automotive up in Broomfield will be with us during drive radio hours coming up here in a moment as well. Of course, Charlie Grimes, our engineer, we were talking through really this last half hour, got into the insurance side of things because yesterday on Ready Radio, I started talking a little bit about fire, fire preparation, one of those things being, you know, are you properly insured, which, you know, definitely can carry into this particular program which I appreciate all of Mark’s you know questions and comments and I was just telling you know Mark and Larry during the break that I’ll be straight up honest had I not gone through a complete total loss situation on a home that I owned I I wouldn’t know a lot of these things either because, frankly, unless you do it, there’s no reason for you to know. You’re just assuming on the front side that the insurance company is going to do X, Y, Z. Well, again, these are questions that you really need to ask your agent, especially those of you where you may have a broker, which Paul Leuenberger now, he is a broker. And depending upon what your insurance company is on any given year, because, by the way, that could change if rates change dramatically and he feels like, hey, we can get you into a better policy with a better company by by switching over, then by all means, you know, do so. And my point there is some of the questions that you need to ask, though, is how does this company handle X, Y, Z? And is it different from the last company I was with? Because not again, not all of them are equal there. As far as how, if there’s a total loss, how the payout works and so on. And yes, in some cases, depending upon your payout and your loss and so on, you may have some out-of-pocket expenses that you will get reimbursed for. But you may still have to front some of that on the front side until you actually get reimbursed. Again, this will vary from insurance company to insurance company. So that’s something that you really need to check on the front side to know if I have any kind of a total loss, how’s that going to work? John, you’re next.
SPEAKER 11 :
Hey, John. So going back to what you were talking about, about the garages.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 11 :
We had to build a freestanding one, pole barn style. But a couple of tips. When we built, we were gonna do a 30 by 30, and then for the cost difference, it was so much better, and the extra room to do the 30 by 40 was night and day. And it wasn’t that much of a price difference, really. We went to Menards and had the whole thing delivered as a kit, and then we had a separate contractor. The other thing that a lot of people will do early, and I don’t recommend it, find the extra money is put the concrete floor in, especially if you’re rural and you’re going to use it as a garage.
SPEAKER 06 :
Absolutely.
SPEAKER 11 :
My old neighbor did gravel, and it was okay, but there were always issues with that, that he’d have to get settling, fill in holes, stuff like that. The other thing, the only thing I regret, and you’re right, my contractor, he’s a guy from our church that did it for us, but he’s a contractor. He looked at the plans, and he said change that to an 8-foot door for the garage door opening. But the other thing I regret, and I wish I would have done it, was went with a 12-foot wide instead of a 10-foot wide if you have the opportunity.
SPEAKER 06 :
In fact, if you have the option, just do 12-12.
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, our walls are 10-foot. That’s where the cost difference came in, John, was the – The additional height on the walls were way more expensive.
SPEAKER 06 :
That’s right.
SPEAKER 11 :
But the other thing is, talking about fire and stuff, if you have to replace your roof, look at a metal roof just because you get a discount on your insurance for both hail and fire. Because a hailstorm’s not going to destroy a metal roof. It might make it look like a golf ball up close. But there’s so many new styles of metal roofs out there.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, there’s now metal roofs that look like shingles, as you know.
SPEAKER 11 :
Right, yeah.
SPEAKER 06 :
You wouldn’t know the difference.
SPEAKER 11 :
No, and they’re 50-year guarantee on most of them.
SPEAKER 06 :
That’s right.
SPEAKER 11 :
At least 25 because they’re metal. They’re made out of steel.
SPEAKER 06 :
That’s right.
SPEAKER 11 :
And the other thing on that is fire. A lot of house fires will start with embers hitting the roof. and go and try to start the shingles on fire. But if you have a metal roof, you need a lot hotter to melt the metal roof. You know what I mean? Right. So, I mean, I’m not saying that that’s for everybody, but if you’re looking at a new roof, and I’m sure your guy Dave from RoofMax would agree.
SPEAKER 06 :
Oh, yeah, Dave would. Yeah, no, he would agree with that.
SPEAKER 11 :
Because the other thing is, you know, how there’s insurance companies are saying, well, we want you to do a new roof after 10 years. We’re going to cut your cost. You got a 25 or 50 year warranty on a metal roof. They really can’t do that to you. I mean, they can. You can find another agent. But they can’t say, well, the roof’s 12 years old. We’re going to, you know, we’re going to… We’re going to nick you. Cut the price.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, we’re going to nick you by 50% if we have to replace it. You’re going to look and say, it’s a steel roof. It’s not… So just a couple of things, but really if you’re going to build a pole barn, I say shop around, but the concrete floor and the wider door are my two biggest things that I would do definitely.
SPEAKER 06 :
Nope, you’re right. Have a good day, John. You too, John. Appreciate it very much. He’s right, too, on the height. That’s where a lot of the extra expense comes in. Now, I will say this. For those of you that are do-it-yourselfers, and we had conversations on Drive Radio a couple of weeks ago about shoplifts and things along those lines. If you’re thinking about doing anything along those lines where you want to raise a car up, be able to get underneath it, put your own rack at home, and so on, you need to make sure you’ve got at least a 14-foot clearance to the bottom of your trusses. Otherwise, you’re not going to raise anything. You’re going to be raising things up, but you’ll be on some sort of a roll-around stool working on it because you can’t stand up underneath it if you don’t get that 14-foot height. And ideally, you’d like to have 16, but 14 is kind of that minimum. I’ve seen some guys do it with 12. 12 can get a little bit dicey depending upon the car. Cars are typically okay with that, but if you get any kind of a truck or SUV… That gets really short if you’ve got that lower of a ceiling height. So that’s something else to think about. And John’s right on the door width as well. If you’ve got the ability to do that larger door, and this is true whether you’re building a custom home with just a two- or three-car garage or you’re doing any kind of a barn, the bigger the door you can put in, I’ll just say it this way, the bigger, the better. And I don’t know that you ever have a big enough door. door all of us that have owned shops were all these two guys are laughing at me because they know exactly what i mean i don’t know if you ever have a big enough door because there’s always that occasion where you’re trying to get something extra large into the shop and you just wish things were just a little bit larger because you wouldn’t have to have near as many people involved in getting something in and out of it yeah you can usually squeeze something through but it’s sure nice having that bigger opening when it comes to putting certain things in and out of the shop so Something to think about is you guys maybe do external pole barns or garages or you put a metal building up or whatever the case may be. And I would say this. This is just my own opinion. if you’ve got the option of deleting windows and putting in bigger doors delete the windows and put in the bigger door because here’s the reality you’re going to put enough stuff along all the walls and everything of your pole barn and so on the windows don’t make a hella bean bit of difference at that point in time it isn’t going to matter if you want to look out you open the door and look out anyway so the reality is it doesn’t matter if you can if you can eliminate windows and put a bigger door in or even raise it up some by doing some of those things absolutely go that direction so That’s it today for Fix It Radio. You can find our website, fixitradio.com. This is KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 04 :
The views and opinions expressed on KLZ 560 are those of the speaker, commentators, hosts, their guests, and callers. They are not necessarily the views and opinions of Crawford Broadcasting or KLZ management, employees, associates, or advertisers. KLZ 560 is a Crawford Broadcasting God and country station.
