09-30-2026 Tim, the Boss, and the Long Scam I Still Can't Crack

Bridger goes to the gym now. In the mornings. On purpose. Friends, I don't know who replaced my teenager, but I'm keeping him.

It does throw my mornings into a tizzy, though. Three days a week, Sterling takes the bus to school, I drop Bridger at the gym, and then I hustle into the 7 am CrossFit class. The other two days I get my beloved 6 am class back. It's like someone rearranged the furniture in my brain and I keep stubbing my toe. I'll get used to it. Plus side: he's going with a friend, which is my secret weapon for making a habit stick. Nobody bails on their gym buddy. (Okay, some people do. Hopefully not my kid.)

Lemme be honest for a sec. He's been a little quiet and moody lately, a little quick-tempered, and that's with REALLY good grades. I'm not totally sure how to help. Maybe we're just in that phase of teenhood where they go a little dark for a while. He hasn't disconnected. He just seems... down.

I wish he had something he loved to do outside the house besides video games. He's floated an e-bike. He's also mentioned learning piano. Maybe I'll get him a keyboard. Worst case, we get a lot of very loud Chopsticks.

Also! Next week Sterling and I are heading to Florida to check on our house there and finally figure out a leak that keeps playing hide and seek with us. Annnnd I invited a buddy of his who moved away to join us with his mom. Looks like they're coming. Sterling has no idea. I am DYING. Keeping a secret from a kid for a whole week is an Olympic sport, and I am in training.

This Week in Real Estate: My Real Estate Life

By my count, this is the third, fourth, or fifth "long scam" to land in my lap, and I'm sure a few more slipped by unnoticed. Apparently being a realtor in Evergreen makes you a very popular pen pal. Meet Tim from Wisconsin. Tim has a nut business. (Yes. Nuts.) His Denver location wasn't working out, so he wanted to move it up the hill, quickly, and buy a residential home while he was at it. Commercial building, mountain house, cash in hand, rush on everything. Red flag, red flag, red flag.

The moment I really KNEW was the dinner story. Some guy bought Tim dinner (which gave Tim food poisoning, naturally) so Tim would take the guy's daughter to look at condos in Denver, because Tim knew what she was looking for better than she did. Sure, Tim. Later he told me he yelled at her because she was stupid... but he was going to hire her to work for him. I'm sorry, what? This man clearly does not know how to run a business. #yellthenhire

Then a colleague and I compared notes and realized we were talking to the same guy. He wanted to see a different property with my colleague. Of course he did.

Here's my problem. I usually figure it out early, and then I keep going anyway because I'm DYING to know why. My hypotheses: get me to invest in their bitcoin business, buy them gift cards, or pry loose my private info somehow. But I don't know, and it's killing me. And it always ends the same way. I stop calling back, or they stop calling me. You build a whole nut empire backstory and then just... vanish? WHY???

If you run into Tim and the Boss (his wife), and you have time to kill, and you like conspiracy theories, they are a real trip. Just be careful.

In less mysterious news, I spent part of the week in Vail at KW's Rocky Mountain Summit. It's a small conference, which I love, because small means you actually get to talk to people. Next up is St. Pete, Florida, on the 12th and 13th with James Shaw, my favorite coach-slash-motivator. It's group coaching, and I'm on his call every morning at 5:30am with the same crew I went to London with earlier this year and will see in San Diego next year.

The Market: Evergreen, Conifer & Pine Market Snapshot

87.6 percent. That's the median slice of their ORIGINAL asking price that price-reduced homes walked away with this week.

Four of the twelve homes that closed took a price cut along the way. The eight that never reduced sold for a median 98.7 percent of asking. If you're thinking about how to sell a home in Evergreen or Conifer this fall, sit with that gap for a minute. On an $800,000 house, eleven points is roughly $89,000. Ouch.

Time tells the same story. Homes with a price reduction had a median of 43.5 days on market, down from 104.5 last week. Homes with no price reduction had a median of 13 days, up from 6. The gap got smaller, but reduced homes still took more than three times as long.

Twelve homes closed, down from fourteen last week: ten in Evergreen, two in Conifer, and zero in Pine. The median close price was $830,000, down from $903,750. Homes sold for a median 96.3 percent of their final list price, down from 98.2 percent. Four sold at full asking. None sold over, compared to two last week. Six of the twelve included seller concessions.

Now for the rates. We're back in the scary 7s, mid 7 percent last I looked. We've been here before and it's not great. Typically demand slows and inventory dwindles, and prices flatten or dip. Which way pricing goes really comes down to supply and demand. If inventory drops way down, prices could hold. If inventory picks up while demand cools, prices could slide. What I don't see is a crash, and the reputable economists I follow don't see one either. So please don't get sucked in by the doom porn crowd. Those terrible headlines exist to turn your views into their profits. Don't fall for the click bait.

The top sale of the week, a 1993 Evergreen home on 8.82 acres listed at $3,595,000, went under contract in three days and closed at $3,500,000.