DIA Great Hall Update

Now that travel seems to be back in style, we figured it might be time to look at our beloved airport to see when all the construction might be done.

If you have been to DIA lately it seems patently obvious to us that this will take a while.

We have discussed this debacle in past newsletters. This project has been plagued by issues from the start, including a snafu with the original vendor.

Back in 2017, DIA started a $1.8B project (yes billions) to renovate the Great Hall. The agreement with the original contractor fell apart and Greeley-based Hansel Phelps picked it up and started work again in March of 2020.

From the article:

“The project is meant to increase passenger capacity, improve the experience of people passing through the airport, and reduce security vulnerabilities, outgoing DIA CEO Kim Day previously told Denver City Council members. It’s also creating more ticketing and baggage drop-off space to accommodate the airport’s two biggest carriers, United Airlines and Southwest.”

We wish we had good news, like the project will be done soon. It won’t.

It appears this project will take at least two more years to complete, and a potential phase three is being contemplated, so this could drag on for a bit.

How will this impact us as travelers? In August, the airport will close four of the 12 security lanes at the north end of Level 5 to allow work to proceed on the new checkpoint at the northwest corner of Level 6.

As they say, forewarned is forearmed, so we can at least plan for some disruption going forward.

For the complete piece by the Denver Business Journal, visit them here.

Selling Your Home?

Guest Writer Suzie Wilson at happierhome.net

Looking to Sell Your Home Quickly? Start With These Projects 

If you need to sell your home quickly, you’ll need to make sure your home is looking its best. You can get your home in top shape and encourage more offers by focusing on some key home improvement projects. Wondering where you should begin? Start your upgrades with these basic home tips.

Give Everything a Deep Cleaning  

The most important project you can complete before you list your home is a good, deep cleaning. Buyers love to walk into a home that looks, feels and smells fresh and clean, so take a day or two to go through and tidy up your home. Put away any clutter or get rid of it, even in storage areas. Then, clean everything from top to bottom, including ceiling fans, vents, curtains, countertops, and of course…the floors and carpets.

If you’re working with faulty equipment, this difficult task will be that much harder. Do a quick assessment of your cleaning appliances before starting. If you need to upgrade your vacuum, be prepared for a dizzying array of options. Do your research to figure out what vacuum best suits your needs.

Need your home professionally cleaned before selling? The premier house cleaning service in the area, Denver Concierge has the expertise to deliver exceptional results. For a quote, reach out to us today!

Freshen Up the Front   

When potential buyers take a look at your home, they pay attention to the exterior first, so you should pay attention to your curb appeal. Tidy up your yard and make sure your lawn is neat. Then, look at the exterior to see if you need to make improvements there as well. If you have siding, brick, or stone in need of repair or an update, take care of those upgrades before you begin showing your home. Now is also a good time to address more hidden elements around your home like having your gutters and downspouts cleaned. This could even make a difference in your inspection. Use an online search like “gutter cleaning services near me” to connect with seasoned professionals who can remove debris and even alert you to necessary repairs. 

Update Your Kitchen  

Kitchens are king when it comes to showing a home. Buyers look for well-maintained, updated kitchens. If you’re only going to renovate a few things around your home, put your kitchen at the top of that list. A major overhaul will cost the most, but even smaller upgrades can make a difference. You can switch out fixtures or invest in some new appliances. Need to update kitchen cabinets? Try painting them a different color, adding some new hardware, or even replacing wood panels with glass for a more boutique feel. 

Freshen Up Your Bathroom 

Another room that buyers always pay extra attention to is your bathroom(s), so add it to your list of home renovations if it’s in need of repairs or updates. If you have multiple bathrooms in your home, seriously upgrading one may be enough to boost your home sale, but bathroom improvements can be inexpensive and easier than you think. You can change out faucets for different colors or materials, or change up your mirror. Even switching out lighting fixtures can make your bathrooms seem brand new. Play up special features, like a deep soaking tub or large windows, with some effortless bathroom staging.

Replace the Roof    

If your roof is getting old, replacing it may be a good move before you try to sell your home. Depending on the material and composition of your roof, it should be replaced every 15-20 years. A new roof can also make your home appear cleaner and more appealing from the outside. This is also a home project that adds value to your home. If your roof is fairly new, still make time to check it over for issues that may need repair. Clear off any leaves or junk that has accumulated there over time. Patch up any holes and replace any damaged or missing shingles. Ensuring your roof is in good shape can help sell your home more quickly.

Making improvements around your home and property is the best way to help your home sell quickly. By focusing on the areas buyers care about the most, you can be sure to attract more attention and get an offer on your home much sooner. Before you know it, you’ll be closing on your home and enjoying the profits of all of your hard work!

Our Dangerous City

In the first six months of 2021, a person was shot in Denver every 36 hours.

Yes, you read that correctly. In fact, violence in Denver is set to surpass 2020, which was the worst year on record since 1981. It seems the easing of the pandemic restrictions is not our only issue.

The Denver Post did an informative article on this and covered many key statistics.

From the article:

“In the first six months of this year, 43 people were killed in Denver homicides — a few more than the 39 people killed in Denver in the same period last year.

Denver police Chief Paul Pazen said in January that he didn’t want the 95 homicides recorded in 2020 — a 51% increase from the prior year — to become the norm. But the violence hasn’t abated.

“We’re trending even above where we were last year, and last year we had too many people who lost their lives in our city,” Pazen said in a June interview.”

“The city looks great from the outside with all the development, but it has internal bleeding,” said Gerardo Lopez, executive director of violence prevention organization Homies Unidos. “We didn’t develop youth programs and mental health programs at the same pace.”

We find this very concerning as our once safe city seems to be getting a little edgier. Certainly, as we grow we will have more “big city” problems, but we all want to feel safe when we go out downtown.

The complete piece from the Denver Post can be found here.

For Denver violent crime statistics, check-in here.

Are you a Good Tipper?

Most of us probably think we are. We aren’t sure about you, but we have been “overtipping” our service providers just because we are glad they are still there through all of this.

We saw a catchy headline about tipping and which generation is worst at it. We had to share.

The answer and from the article:

“The younger generation was found to be the worst culprit, specifically millennials, ages 25-40, and Gen Zers, ages 18-24, who were both found to be the worst tippers.”

“The study also found that there is a strong correlation between income and how much people tip. Almost 85% of higher-income households with an annual household income of over $80k, who go to sit-down restaurants, were found to always tip. On the other hand, only 77% of middle-income households, with an annual income between $40-80k, were found to tip, and only 65% of lower-income households, who make less than $40k annually, leave a tip.”

TD Ameritrade did a survey and found that 59 percent of baby boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) are likely to tip 19 to 25 percent. Meanwhile, only a third of millennials – ages 23 to 39 – and Gen X (born between 1965 and 1980) do the same.

We loved the data in the TD “etiquette survey” report, so we are providing it here for your reading pleasure.

We hope you join us in making sure our restaurant staff and servers are still there when this is finally over.

Interesting data for sure! The full piece by Fox News can be found here.

Monthly Award Winners

Our monthly award winners for June were Maria Zapata, Fidelia Bautista, Sandra Vidales, Aurora Dominguez and Josefina Quinonez.

In the Team Leader ranks, it was Isela Mendoza and Simona Estrada.

We are so proud of our winners, and of all the folks that are in and out of your homes each week.

We continue to be grateful to you for allowing us into your lives during these challenging times.

Please join me in congratulating our best performers for the month of June.

Queen Bee Corner

by Angela

This month as we welcome new clients into the Denver Concierge fold we realized that each one had come to us through recommendations from current clients.

This is a huge compliment for our teams and a huge compliment to the way we do business as a company. Even more so when taking into account that several of the new clients actually preferred to wait for an opening with us rather than go to another service.

As an aside, we are very careful in our hiring and sometimes there is a short wait to get on our schedule. We don’t hire to fill an urgent need.

Over the years we have tried to create a niche in the market that has served us well.  We treat our clients like family and are always upfront and candid in our dealings. Most importantly, we listen.

We are always just a text away.  This approach has brought us some truly great clients.

Thank you to those who recommended us.  It was a kind gesture and much appreciated.

Bee

Guide to Summer 2021

We made it to Summer. Sadly, no one seemed to tell Spring, which evidently took a wrong turn and never made it here.

But that’s ok because the nice people at 5280 Magazine came out with a bunch of fun and interesting things to do in our wonderful state.

They covered nearly everything, from road trip gear to the best rooftop patios in Denver. We didn’t know that Le Meridien hotel actually has the highest open-air rooftop deck in Denver, the 54thirty lounge.

We also love to eat so seeing the best BBQ joints in Colorado made our mouths water.

From the best bike rides to try to improving grilling skills, they did a great job of encapsulating all that is Colorado in one place, and that can be found here.

We hope you have a wonderful Summer!

Colorado Income Tax Cut

You read that right, income taxes are going down in our state.

Amazingly and despite COVID, Colorado now is expected to exceed the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights revenue cap for both this fiscal year, which ended on June 30, and for the next two years as well.

From the article in the Denver Business Journal:

“Colorado will have to employ all three of its methods for giving back excess revenues — reimbursing local governments for Homestead property-tax exemptions, reducing the state income tax rate from 4.55% to 4.5%, and offering sales-tax refunds directly to state residents.”

Great news for all of us, and the article also goes into Colorado’s unemployment numbers and why we are still slightly behind the national average.

The full piece from the Denver Business Journal can be f0und here.

Is Working from Home Here to Stay?

Last month we asked how much working from home was worth. In many cases, $30,000 wasn’t enough.

We wanted to dive into this issue further, more specifically what are most companies planning as they move forward? What are the pros and cons for both employee and company?

In a great article, Stanford Business published a piece on how the pandemic “Blew up the American Office, for Better and Worse.”

As the graphic in our header shows, working from home increased eightfold in 2020 from 2017. Where will it go from here and how will it impact business going forward?

What are the takeaways? For starters, it seems that a consensus is emerging about a hybrid approach where employees would work both from home and at the office in a split.

More fascinating to us was the belief that innovation would be impacted by working from home in the long run, due to the creative collaboration that it requires.

Finally, this shift has harmed cities’ downtown areas in many ways, as people remain at home in the suburbs and not spending money downtown.

Very informative piece and it made us think about this tricky issue. You can find the entire article here.

How’s Your Sleep?

Hopefully, it’s getting better as life is getting back to normal around us.

When we found a simple sleep assessment tool, we took the leap to see just how many bad bedtime habits we really have.

The answer? A lot.

The quiz took us only a minute or so to complete, and then gave us a score of 10 out of a possible 18 points.

Normally scoring a 10 is perfect, but in this case, it told us we have some work to do.

At the end of the survey, you can provide your email and you will get a five-part series on improving your sleep, along with exercises, videos, and the like.

If you aren’t sure about your sleep, the stats say it can probably be better. The most recent data shows that in America, 70% of adults report that they obtain insufficient sleep at least one night a month, and 11% report insufficient sleep every night.

With thanks to the folks at Better Humans, you can link to the quick sleep survey here.

For more data on sleep habits and the state of sleep in America, visit the American Sleep Apnea website here.

Good luck improving your sleep, we are surely working on ours!

Monthly Award Winners

Our monthly award winners for May were Simona Estrada, Rosario De La Rosa, Maria Zapata, Aurora Dominguez and Patricia Rodriguez.

In the Team Leader ranks, it was Laura Varela and Isela Mendoza.

We are so proud of our winners, and of all the folks that are in and out of your homes each week.

We continue to be grateful to you for allowing us into your lives during these challenging times.

Please join me in congratulating our best performers for the month of May.

Queen Bee Corner

by Angela

This month I celebrate 20 years with Denver Concierge. 20 years!! Yikes!

I doubt many people can say that their job is so closely aligned to their personality that the two actually mesh and the word ‘work’ ceases to apply.

It’s a tough business we’re in and can be stressful if not handled with care, respect, and endurance. A sense of the absurd is always handy; a sense of humor is essential.

I applaud our clients for offering me all of the above.

As I accept this gold statue of a giant bee, I’d just like to say that I have been inordinately lucky to work with the best in the business and for the best in the business.  Bar none. I love you all!

Bee

Just How Risky is Thanksgiving?

Ah, the tradition. We love getting together for Thanksgiving (and any other holiday where we can eat).

So much controversy this year about Thanksgiving being “cancelled” and everyone being discouraged from getting together.

That said, nearly 40% of people say they will likely attend a Thanksgiving gathering with 10 or more people despite the risk of catching COVID-19, according to a recent survey by Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center.

Another survey of parents nationwide found nearly a third say the benefits of gathering with extended family for the holidays are worth the risk of spreading or getting the coronavirus. The survey, conducted by the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital in partnership with the University of Michigan, says almost 3-in-5 plan to see extended family in person.

We get it.

Should you decide to expand the guest list, we wanted to provide a resource that will help guide you regarding exposure risk.

Denver 7 published an interesting, interactive map created by professors at the Georgia Institute of Technology, that shows the likelihood that at least one person would test positive for COVID-19 when gathering with a group of 10 or more people in a given area.

For example, under current case rates, a gathering of 10 people in Denver would have a 38% chance that one person there would be infected.

Fascinating data and you can look anywhere in the US to determine the risk.

The source interactive map and planning tool can be found here.

Upsizing Your Home? 

By Guest Writer Bob Shannon, Seniors Meet.org.

Downsizing has become an incredibly popular retirement trend in the past few years. While many benefits come with sizing down into a smaller home—lower costs, less maintenance, and simpler living—there are also many good reasons to go against the grain.

Depending on your retirement goals, upsizing to a larger home and property might be the better choice! Keep reading to learn more about upsizing in your senior years and how to make it happen.

If you’re selling your existing home to help pay for a larger one, use a site like Redfin to learn how much comparable properties in the Denver area are selling for.

If you’ll be taking out a mortgage for your new space, increase your borrowing power by paying off debt and boosting your credit score.

Having a larger home in retirement comes with many perks for seniors. For example, you can set up a hobby farm your grandchildren will love visiting, and you can rent out the basement for some side income.

Once you’ve made your move, unpack strategically by setting up your living room and bedroom first. You can dive into bigger projects later, like setting up a sewing room, so you’re not overwhelmed with laying out your new home.

Downsizing isn’t for everyone. If your dream is to spend your golden years on a big, beautiful property and you have the financial means to make it happen, go for it! As long as you take your time to plan your big purchase and prepare for your move, your transition to a larger space will be smooth, stress-free, and, most of all, exciting!

How Expensive is Denver? 

Last month we were happy to report that Colorado fared very well in the annual Best Places to Live survey.

With all that excitement, we thought we would take a look at just what it takes to survive in our fair city.

For example, if you are a renter and want to live in Denver, you need north of $100k annually to do it. Wow.

In Albuquerque, NM, in comparison, you would “only” need $73k annually.

Interesting data and a fun list to pore over.

The complete listing of 50 metropolitan areas and what it takes to live comfortably was published by GOBankingrates.com and Yahoo Finance and can be found here.

Oh, what is the most expensive metro area to live in?

San Francisco, where one would need $164K annually just to rent. Plus, it’s foggy there and they have no mountains.

Just sayin’.

Things to (safely) Do this Holiday Season

We thought planning for Thanksgiving was tough. December is coming and it has even more complexity.

Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzaa, or something else, December is full of reasons to gather.

So, what exactly will be going on around Denver this year?

Some things will remain, such as the Blossoms of Light festival at the Botanic Gardens. The Mile High Tree on the 16th Street Mall, and the Parade of Lights.

The nice folks at Denver.org published a complete list of everything going on around Denver starting Thanksgiving weekend.

They also put out a clean and safe guide that you can provide to any guests that might be visiting about just how things are working downtown these days.

We hope whatever you decide to do you have a wonderful holiday season and stay safe!!

Monthly Award Winners

Our monthly award winners for October were Josefina Quinonez, Aurora Dominguez, Martha Garcia, Cecilia Reyes, and Paz Jimenez.

In the Team Leader ranks, it was Rosa Chavez and Juana Olivas.

We are very proud of our winners, and of all the folks that are in and out of your homes each week.

We continue to be grateful to you for allowing us into your homes.

Please join me in congratulating our best performers for the month of October.

Queen Bee Corner

by Angela

According to a recently published book, hunter-gatherer societies worked less than people in other modes of subsistence, while not only providing for their needs but also enjoying a substantial amount of leisure time.

This has raised some questions and opened discussions about our current work hours, which driven by the increase in what our society considers basic needs, has resulted in chaining us to extremely long work hours with minimal leisure time. Theories abound.

With Thanksgiving upon us, however, let’s put the theories aside, and pause to be grateful for the benefits of our labors, as is fitting.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Bee