Many years ago, I was a young high school kid with a Sociology Class Project due. Like kids in 2023, 2 of my buddies shared the same class and three heads are better than one, right?

Anyway, we had a Super8 Camera and a handheld recording devise. With little to know thought, we agreed we would interview the “Hobos” down by the tracks. Sounds good doesn’t it?

Before we knew it, we had gathered our gear, parked and began our mission. Over the next day and a half we figured out how to find, interview, record and film the events. Keep in mind, we had no idea if anyone would even talk to us. But, they did, and as Paul Harvey would say, “and, this is the rest of the story”.

We could only find men ‘down on there luck’. Over our day and a half, we found no female “Hobos”. For some context here, as a country, we were toward the end of US involvement in the Vietnam War, the three of us were 17, we were rolling in my mom’s car, and we were clueless!

As we stumbled around the railroad yard in Tulsa, OK, we literally had responses like, “What are you kids doing down here” to “Do you have any money for us” to “You better watch yourselves ‘round here”. We literally didn’t know any better. One of us did play on the football team.

As we would start up conversations, we would try to sync imaging with sound as best we could. We would ask questions like, “What’s up”?, and “How’s it going?”, and surprisingly, we had conversations lasting longer than we cared for, but remember, we were clueless!

Jumping ahead, when we arrived back at the ‘office’, we had the hardest part in front of us. “How do we edit the mishmash of film and tape into a story. This was early in the 1970s and we had lots of folk music and war cries to choose, we had voices to edit in, and we had the most important thing, Super8 film of our events from a day and a half of cluelessly wondering around where we had no business being. The naivety of youth was our guardian Angel!

After some window of time, we had pulled together which to us seemed to be a reasonable story of our time on the tracks. We watched through it a couple more times, presented to one or more of our parents, and then, carried it back to our Sociology Class for the reveal…

Well, I’m here to tell you, our story of men back from war, men who had lost everything, men seriously diluted with alcohol and men living life on the rails, struck a cord. When the lights came on in our class room, our teacher asked us to stay and play it for his next class. (He would square up with our other teachers.)

After the positive and deeply moving response, the 3 of us gathered our things and walked home together. We hadn’t put a man on the moon, but we took responsibility, created a plan, carried out the plan, presented our findings and received an ‘A’ for our efforts. It was a great time for us!

What we learned was probably far more meaningful, and it is as true today as it was 50 years ago. Some people, want to live unconventionally, with freedom of movement, and no responsibly. Back then as opposed to now is the scale and the impact of today’s homeless. Blame it on public handouts, ease of access to drugs, or a thousand other stories. The more things change, the more things stay the same…

Everyone has a story to tell, we just have to listen.

That’s right, can you believe it? #BacktoSchool already! Seems like summer weather is finally here, and kids are off to school. When I attended the University of Denver, I loved the “trimester” system where we didn’t start ’till mid september!

The #AugustMarket? Somethings you’ll never hear or read… When August rolls around we will always face the prospect of millions of kids heading off to school. Tuition has to be paid in one form or another. Stocks will be sold, credit cards will be employed, savings will be tapped and loans will be grabbed; it’s a time when most families have take a deep breath and say, “We’ll get through this!” How impactful do you think this is on markets? I’d love to read your comments.

Almost every morning, I open my #CNN App and my #FOX App on my trusty phone to get a sense. Without fail, the two news producers lead with different stories, until today. #Trump was in big letters everywhere. Is this impactful? I’d love to read your comments, but I believe this to be a diversion. Big News always hides the little things that slip through. “Keep your eyes on the road and your hands upon the wheel….”

This week, Denver’s MLS looks something like this…

Market Watch

New Listing
1236 This is a solid week for new listings!
Coming Soon
167 This is lower than weeks past.
Back On Market
284
Price Increase
173
Price Decrease
1377 We just can’t seem to get it right on the first try.
Pending
1081 This is average at best. Is it August malaise or mayonnaise?
201
Leased
87
Closed
976 Now this is the first week we’ve dropped below 1,000 in quite some weeks?????
Expired
198

How are we fairing on Active Listings compared to weeks past?

No big changes here, and the market is creating it’s typical “flat top” just like years past. I’m anticipating more of the same throughout the month of August (Everyone is paying those tuition bills)…

Anyway, today, I’m leaving you with a peek into our summer, enjoy!

Over the last 10 years, this has been the trend of active listings. Coming off the financial crash of 2008, we had to clear a lot of inventory. We cleared it and more. We finished July with 5,631 Active Single Family Homes. June was 5,858, May 5,198 and April 4,719. August and September should feed into this trend with slow absorption with little or no growth in inventory.

In the last week, we’ve seen a mantra of “Nothing to see here, move along”, as the pattern is so similar to weeks past.

New Listing
1271 Nothing to see here…
Coming Soon
179
Back On Market
297
Price Increase
107
Price Decrease
1381 Still too many adjustments have been made here.
Pending
1196 A good week, but not a great week.
Withdrawn
225
Leased
74
Closed
1092 Buyers and sellers continue to find there way to the closing table.
Expired
387 Sellers giving up in larger numbers???

Denver can’t be expected to react like other cities in the US. We are 500 miles from nowhere. In any direction, we don’t have a lot to influence our local economy. This is why real estate markets are local.

What’s all this have to do with peaches and cool summer nights? Well, Palisade Peaches have arrived, and cool summer nights are back! It’s a good life.

We had a great experience working with the Cryer team! Dee kept in communication often and kept the process moving, often working outside of business hours to do so. We felt like she was always available to help. She gave helpful advice along the way and truly made the stressful experience of buying a home manageable. We would absolutely recommend the Cryer team!

Yes, it is #TestimonialTuesday…

We’re here for you…tc