5-20-26 Week in Review: Baby Gazelles, Bench Press PRs, and Why the First Price is the Right Price

Life in the Foothills: Rugby, Rage, and Really Good Tea

Let's start where all good stories start: a rugby field where a very sweet, very non-aggressive kid is holding a ball and immediately handing it to someone else.

Sterling had his first Rugby Jamboree this week, and I cannot overstate how entertaining it was. The field was full of kids throwing themselves at each other like   tiny, feral warriors. And then there was Sterling, moving with the gentle energy of a baby gazelle encountering its first Tuesday. Every single time he got the ball, he passed it. Immediately. Like it was on fire. That consequence he was avoiding is called a tackle, and Sterling was not about that life.

There was a girl on his team who led the entire jamboree in tackles. Absolute force of nature. I watched her and thought, that is who I was at that age. I was always getting in trouble at recess for roughhousing with the boys. I genuinely think I would have been a natural. Unlike Sterling, I came factory-equipped with aggression. I've offered him ten dollars per tackle and fifty per point scored at the next game. We'll see if financial motivation unlocks something his mother apparently didn't pass down.

On Friday, I spent the day reconnecting with past clients and a friend in Lakewood, and it was exactly the kind of day I need more of. Real conversation, no agenda, just people. I also hired a new VA this week who is genuinely fantastic, new clients are coming on board, and I had tea with a top-producing agent from Chicago who is setting up shop in Boulder. We connected through the James Shaw Inspire Network, a group of agents nationwide who Zoom together every morning at 5:30am my time to share strategy and motivation. Same group I went to London with, and the same crew heading to Safety Harbor in October and San Diego next April. Turns out she and I have basically everything in common: saunas, not drinking, hiking, micro events. I left feeling like I'd known her for years and hoping to hang out with her again. 

Fitness update: I added two pounds to my bench press and fifteen to my back squat, which puts me seven pounds from my all-time PR at a lower bodyweight. By year end I'm chasing a 100-pound bench, 185-pound squat, and 225-pound deadlift. Still waking up at 3:30am (not on purpose). Still surviving.

Real Estate Life: Wells, Half-Builds, and Good Momentum

It was a solid week on the listings front.

2317 Wieler Rd, Evergreen had a great showing, the well is now in, and we have two interested buyers. Raw land with infrastructure underway in Evergreen doesn't come around often.

11156 Wallace Ave, Conifer has a couple of interested buyers circling. A half-built home is a unique opportunity: not starting from scratch, but still getting to make it yours.

1023 Chippewa Rd #80, Jefferson picked up an inquiry this week. Indian Mountain is one of those communities people discover and immediately wonder why it took them so long.

Also, KW Red Day was May 14th and our office spent the day painting the Beaver Ranch Community Center. We didn't get to the trim, but you can already tell it's going to look great. There's something grounding about spending a day doing something that has absolutely nothing to do with square footage.

The conversation I keep coming back to this week: adult children navigating the sale of a parent's longtime home. Whether mom or dad is moving to assisted living, into a family member's house, or a care facility, the home is always the most complicated piece. Not because of the real estate, but because it holds forty years of a life. The paperwork, the trust and estate questions, the decades of accumulated stuff, the emotions, I help families work through all of it. If that's your situation anywhere from Evergreen to Littleton to Arvada, please reach out. You don't have to figure it out alone.

The Market: Mimosas Won Again, and Price Is Still Everything

Mother's Day weekend did exactly what it always does: buyers chose brunch over open houses. Showings and pending transactions both softened, which is completely normal and completely temporary.

The First American Title Metro Denver Snapshot for May 6-12 shows 10,834 active units (up 1.9% week over week), 934 pending units (down 12.9%), 753 closed units (down 31%, though the holiday explains most of that), and a median days on market of 21 days (up 31.3%). Inventory is climbing. Buyers have more choices and more patience than they've had in years.

The bigger story is pricing. Overpriced listings are sitting while correctly priced homes are still moving. The mistake I keep seeing is death by a thousand tiny price cuts, small reductions that slowly chase the market downhill like a shopping cart with a bad wheel. A decisive correction early almost always outperforms a slow bleed. If activity isn't materializing after the market has had time to respond, you have to act. Waiting to catch a declining market is like trying to outrun a toddler on birthday cake. You think you're close. You are not close.

Well-priced, well-presented Colorado mountain homes are still selling. The fundamentals of why people want to live in the foothills haven't changed at all. The strategy just matters more now.

Victoria Merchant is a realtor in Evergreen, Colorado serving Evergreen, Conifer, Pine, Morrison, Golden, Lakewood, Bailey, Littleton, and Arvada. She specializes in helping adult children navigate the sale of a parent's longtime home during major life transitions. victoriamerchantgroup.com