Heidi Ganahl fills in for Dan joind by Angel Mom Patti Fox and Kyle Malnati with Kentwood

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, hello everyone. It's Heidi Ganahl filling in for Dan Kaplis.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
It's been a little while and Shannon, it's such a
pleasure to be on.

Speaker 3 (00:06):
Air with you.

Speaker 1 (00:07):
Is this our first time together?

Speaker 2 (00:26):
I don't know if we've done a full show before,
but I got to admit some of that applause you
hear for Dan is for you.

Speaker 4 (00:33):
Oh, true.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
We've been on the radio a lot together, but maybe
not a whole show.

Speaker 4 (00:38):
So hopefully I don't disappoint you or mess anything up
really badly.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
But it's a pleasure. You've been such a great warrior
over the years.

Speaker 4 (00:48):
You're actually wearing Bronco colors today, and you told me
that you're not a huge football guy.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
Does the radio world know this?

Speaker 2 (00:55):
I'm a huge free clothing guy.

Speaker 1 (00:59):
Well, you look good in orange. You do.

Speaker 4 (01:01):
Orange and a little bit of accent of blue. And
the Broncos have a game tonight. Is that correct?

Speaker 2 (01:06):
Almost any minute now.

Speaker 4 (01:08):
Okay, I should know this. But man, it's been busy
right now. All the kids are back in school finally.
And last week was a big week. It was my
big 6-0. I turned 60 last week.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
Welcome aboard.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
Thank you. Thank you.

Speaker 4 (01:21):
I'm not sure how I feel about it. I mean,
it beats the alternative. I'm happy to be here. Happy
to be, you know, on the radio, hanging out with
everybody and able to talk about things that are near
and dear to me. But I'm excited about the next decade.
I was thinking about over the last decade. kind of
what I took on. And it was 10 years ago
in November that I won the regent race for University

(01:44):
of Colorado Regent Board.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
And it's the most important race that no one's heard of,
is what I used to say.

Speaker 4 (01:49):
And it oversees the budget at the University of Colorado,
which you know a little bit about. $ 5 billion budget
last I looked, and it's the third largest employer in
the state of Colorado. And I graduated from CU a
long time ago, and it's near and dear to my
heart But I got to be in higher education six
years on the Regent Board starting 10 years ago during COVID,

(02:12):
during cancel culture, during Charlie Kirk's rise, during free speech wars.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
It was a fascinating time.

Speaker 4 (02:20):
And one of the things I've started to notice is
that people are finally waking up a little bit about
higher education.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
So that's been an interesting journey. But then About, I
don't know, about, what was it.

Speaker 4 (02:30):
Six years ago, I ended up going through a brain
tumor and having brain surgery. It wasn't cancer, but I
had to have brain surgery at CU Anschutz. And that
came in handy knowing all the folks at CU, and.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
They took very good care of me.

Speaker 4 (02:42):
And then two years later, I ended up running for regent,
I mean, for a governor, and ran that governor's race.
That was four years ago. And, you know, people have said,
are you glad you're not in it this time? I'm like,
you know, it's a lot more fun watching it from
the sidelines.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
But that was a crazy decade. And so now I'm
kind of settled.

Speaker 4 (03:00):
Into I'm wiser, a little bit older, a little bit
more calm, a little bit... I take myself less seriously,
I guess I should say. And so I'm excited about
the next 10 years and what's ahead. But I'm still
super passionate about saving Colorado and saving America and making
sure that our kids and grandkids have a bright future ahead,

(03:21):
which it's kind of hard right now.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
There's a lot going on in the world. Last week
was a real.

Speaker 4 (03:27):
you know, going through the anniversary of Charlie Kirk's death.
And he was a good friend of mine. And I just,
the world is a darker place without Charlie. And it
makes me very sad to think that our kids and
my grandkids won't get to see him live and know what.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
A great warrior he was for our country and still is.

Speaker 4 (03:46):
He's still living on through all of his video and
Turning Point and the kids that are, you know, bringing
through his vision. And hopefully we can keep that going
strong And then 9-11. Last night, I had the pleasure
of going to see Jonathan and Deb Flora's very, very
well-made documentary, 9-11 Remembered.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
And it just, it was so touching.

Speaker 4 (04:08):
And they did such an amazing job interviewing people all
over the country that were affected by 9-11 and mostly
the first responders. And you talk about a reminder of
what bravery is and what heroes are and what courage is.
And 9-11 really did change our country dramatically, in some
ways for the worse, but in some ways it really

(04:31):
did bring us together. And they talked about the 9-12 spirit.
And they had a gentleman, his name was Craig. I
can't remember his last name, but he lost his brother.
His brother was in one of the towers. And he
talked about the 9-12 spirit and how that day, the
day after 9-11, was one of the most pivotal days
in our history for Americans coming together and being one.

(04:53):
And how right now would be a good time to
think about how we can get back to that.

Speaker 1 (04:59):
9-12 spirit, that spirit the day after.

Speaker 4 (05:02):
And everybody was flying flags. They said the flags were
sold out all over the country within a week of 9-11.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
And people were so excited.

Speaker 4 (05:10):
Just filled with pride about how our first responders reacted,
how Rudy Giuliani reacted as the mayor of New York
City and President Bush throwing out the first pitch and
getting up with that megaphone and speaking about how important
it is that we support our first responders and help
the victims and their families.

Speaker 1 (05:30):
And boy, I wish that feeling could come back in America.
And We've got a couple of great guests on the
show today. First one is here with me right now.

Speaker 4 (05:41):
I'll introduce Patty right after the break officially, but Patty
Fox has been through some devastating, devastating things in the
past year and a half and saw her daughter get
debilitatingly injured from an illegal immigrant's actions. And she's been
speaking up. She spoke at Freedom Fest, which was amazing.

(06:02):
She did such a great job. And then she testified
at Congress yesterday. I think a week ago, and is
just one of the most brave people I know. And
I just got a chance to have coffee with her
before this and chat a little bit. And I'm excited
for you to hear Patty's journey and Carissa's journey, her
beautiful daughter, and hear how she's awakening people to the

(06:24):
consequences of some of our policy decisions and how important
it is that we stay engaged and involved in the
policy decisions that are being made by our public officials.

Speaker 1 (06:35):
And Next, after that, on the next hour, we will
have Kyle.

Speaker 4 (06:40):
Who is a really cool young guy, realtor, and knows
a lot about what's happening in the housing market here
in Colorado.

Speaker 1 (06:47):
And it's not a lot of it's good, but that's okay.

Speaker 4 (06:50):
We're going to muddle through that together and find out
how young people can figure out how to buy a
house these days and how us old folk can do
it too. Or if we need to downsize, how we
can navigate that with the interest rates and the situation
in Colorado and the high cost of living here and
how hard it is for our young people to stay
here and raise families. So we're going to have some

(07:11):
interesting conversations. Ballots drop in, oh gosh, I can't remember
the exact date. I've got it written down here. We'll
talk about it in a little bit. But this is
a really, really insane election when it comes to ballot initiatives.
We've got 14 different ballot initiatives we're going to go
through today and then I'm back on Thursday and we'll
bring expert on to really dig in and go through

(07:32):
those and hopefully you'll feel comfortable on how to vote
on most of those I think it's pretty clear on
each one once you understand what they do and how
they who's funding them and how they operate but That's
what's going on on the election side. And of course,
there's some really contentious races I'm telling people to stay
local like stay really really focused on your neighborhood your

(07:53):
neighbors the people that vote in your neighborhood and educating
folks around you in your sphere of influence. Like you
are the leader that you've been waiting for in Colorado.
You can't wait around for some savior to come and
rescue you from the craziness that's happening here.

Speaker 1 (08:09):
You got to take control.

Speaker 4 (08:10):
And like Patty has done, you've got to be a
voice and a voice of reason and educate people on
what's happening and how to vote so that we can
stop a lot of the nonsense that's happening in our
beautiful state of Colorado. But You know, Shannon, I have
a good feeling about the game tonight. I think the
Broncos are going to pull it through. And boy, my
buffs are doing well. They're 2-0. And I think we're

(08:33):
going to have a good season. It seems like Dion's
on it this year. He's like ready to roll.

Speaker 2 (08:38):
He's been great to be around.

Speaker 1 (08:39):
Good, good. I'm excited.

Speaker 4 (08:41):
I mean, he went through a lot last year with
bladder cancer. I went through breast cancer last year. That
was the other crazy thing I went through in the
last decade.

Speaker 1 (08:48):
Good riddance. But I'm fine. I'm doing great. It made
me even more tenacious and mouthy than I already was.

Speaker 2 (08:55):
Well, and he's got that port-a-potty on the sidelines, so
he's doing good.

Speaker 1 (08:59):
That is crazy. It's still there. So is it painted?

Speaker 2 (09:02):
We travel with it. It was in Atlanta with us.

Speaker 1 (09:04):
You're kidding me. That's too funny.

Speaker 4 (09:08):
Well, and I love Ralphie. Ralphie is a dynamo. This
new Ralphie girl, she ran her.

Speaker 1 (09:13):
Little tail off.

Speaker 2 (09:15):
Well, she drug those kids a bit.

Speaker 4 (09:18):
I think they all survived and that they're happy to
go along for the ride.

Speaker 1 (09:21):
But who are the buffs play this weekend? I can't remember.

Speaker 2 (09:24):
We are going to Chicago. We're going to coach Barnett's
last team, Northwestern.

Speaker 1 (09:31):
Oh, that'll be fun. And Gary's going along, I assume.

Speaker 2 (09:34):
Uh-huh. I'll be there.

Speaker 1 (09:36):
Good, good. That's a fun town. I think you guys
are going to have a good time. Eat some good food.
It celebrates CU Buffalo's beating Northwestern, we hope.

Speaker 2 (09:45):
Hopefully another happy flight home.

Speaker 1 (09:47):
I like that. Well, Stan, I know it's time to
head off for a break.

Speaker 4 (09:50):
This is Heidi Ganahl filling in for Dan capless we'll
be right back with patty fox it's heidi ganahl filling
in for dan capless today and i am so honored
to have patty fox who i consider a friend now
we're getting to know each other a bit after she
spoke at freedom fest at the end of june patty

(10:11):
welcome to the.

Speaker 5 (10:12):
Show oh thank you thank you so much heidi You.

Speaker 1 (10:15):
Know, Patty, I'd like you to tell folks a little
bit about yourself.

Speaker 4 (10:19):
And the battle that you're now in and what happened
to your beautiful daughter, Carissa.

Speaker 1 (10:22):
I think it best comes out of you.

Speaker 5 (10:25):
Well, uh, prior to March of 2025, I was just, uh,
you know, a single mom that had just recently, uh,
married her best friend and we, um, were headed in
a different direction and, um, living a quiet life in
Fort Collins. And my daughter had gone off to Chicago

(10:48):
to experience life outside of the, the family wingspan and
decided that she wanted to come back to Colorado. So she, uh,
Chrissa had come back in, in February, um, of 2025.
And then, um, she turned 22 and decided that she

(11:08):
wanted to head to Blackhawk one night and, and, um,
for a night of fun with her friends. And before
then she, um, decided she wanted to do just a
quick motorcycle ride with his, her friend, uh, something that
she had just recently learned that she loved to do. And, um,
you know, she had texted me now that I'm embracing

(11:32):
all that life has to give me, I couldn't be happier.

Speaker 2 (11:35):
Oh.

Speaker 5 (11:37):
And, you know, in that moment, that's, every parent dreams
of that moment. Every parent wants their kid to just
accept and embrace who they are and look forward to
the future with, you know, with hope. And I mean,
I went to bed that night just walking on cloud
nine because I, you know, I just told her, I'm

(11:58):
so proud of you. And she said, me too. And
that was at 8.15. And at midnight, I got a
call that there was an accident and that I needed
to get to the hospital right away. And they weren't
telling us any information over the phone, and that's always

(12:21):
a bad sign.

Speaker 1 (12:23):
Oh, my goodness.

Speaker 5 (12:25):
And, you know, Daniel and I hopped in the car.
We picked up my two kids that were also living
up in Loveland, and we drove for an hour and
a half, and I just.
My heart was just crying out to God, just saying,
please not, not tonight. Please not my daughter. Please not tonight.

(12:46):
Just over and over again. I couldn't think about anything else. Um,
when we got to the hospital, um, they just said
that she was very sick, um, and wouldn't give us
really any details. They were wheeling her back for an
emergency surgery. They, they had to remove darn near half

(13:06):
her skull.

Speaker 1 (13:07):
Oh my goodness.

Speaker 5 (13:08):
Um, in order to give, you know, her brain, um,
room to swell, um, because it was pushing down on
her brainstem. And that is where, you know, your most basic,
you know, life support is this. Um, and her father
and I got to see her for about 30 seconds

(13:30):
before they took her back for surgery. Uh, and you know, it's,
I can't, I still don't know how it's possible to
live through that level of pain.

Speaker 1 (13:43):
I can't imagine, Patty. And I think it's every parent's
worst nightmare.

Speaker 5 (13:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (13:50):
And you've been so strong and gracious through all of this.
And this was a year and a half ago. This
wasn't that long ago. And you care full time for
Carissa now, correct?

Speaker 5 (14:03):
Yeah. I left my career that I, you know, just
built on the blood, sweat, and tears, uh, in marketing.
And I'm her full-time caregiver now. Uh, she did survive
and obviously, and, um, but survival and restoration are not

(14:23):
the same. Um, she is, she's severely disabled. She is
wheelchair bound, nonverbal. Uh, she eats drinks and takes medications
through a G2 that goes into her stomach. Um, And
she has very little volitional control of herself. It's hard

(14:44):
for people to understand what minimally conscious means. And basically
what that means is she can inconsistently follow commands, what
they call it. And that's things like, can you squeeze
my hand? Um, or, you know, can you brush this away? Um,

(15:06):
that kind of thing. She can inconsistently do that. The,
just those simple, simple tasks blink, um, blink twice. So
those are more often than not. She can't.

Speaker 4 (15:19):
Ah, I've seen some of the videos though. She's so
beautiful and she, she knows you there. She knows you're
loving on her.

Speaker 1 (15:26):
And, uh, It's been a crazy ride politically since this happened.
Tell us a little bit about that side of the story.

Speaker 4 (15:33):
And when the music comes on, we'll break, but we'll
come right back after the break and keep the story going.

Speaker 1 (15:37):
But go ahead.

Speaker 5 (15:39):
So when we first found out, you know, when the
detective first reached out to us, he said, you know,
sorry about the delay. And there was a language barrier.

Speaker 1 (15:52):
And at that point, I.

Speaker 5 (15:53):
Asked him, is this person here legally? And he said, oh,
she's a citizen. And I said, okay, well, you know,
Daniel and I had just gotten into an accident the
year before. So I kind of knew the process at
that point in time. Like, okay, well, I know what
to expect. And honestly, I just didn't have the bandwidth

(16:16):
to even think about the criminal aspect of this. So
it wasn't until September that our civil attorney said, oh,
immigration has entered the conversation. And I was like, why?
And that's when everybody was answering a very vague things like, well,

(16:38):
it's just not good for anybody to be on the
radar and that kind of thing. And that wasn't good
enough for me. So I really had to push. And
I just started shooting out messages to pretty much every
channel on X that I could think about, And and
lips of TikTok ended up picking up the story and

(17:00):
they had their contacts within DHS and it was confirmed
by them that she was, in fact, an illegal alien
from Venezuela that was released into the country in 2023
under the Biden administration.

Speaker 1 (17:14):
And how did that play out?

Speaker 6 (17:16):
Right.

Speaker 1 (17:17):
Does that enter into the case as far as the
prosecution and what happens legally or criminally?

Speaker 5 (17:23):
Well, yeah, it actually had a big impact on the
criminal case because, you know, you or I, if you
were to hit somebody, you would get six continuances, you know,
to help build your case, you know, for however you're
going to plead. Well, she, she got seven. Um, and

(17:45):
because she was here illegally because they, the DA had
offered a plea deal and they needed extra time to
figure out how that plea deal impacted her quote unquote
immigration status. Um, so she was actually, she actually received
more leniency than what you and I would receive.

Speaker 1 (18:08):
That's crazy.

Speaker 2 (18:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (18:10):
Uh, it, And, you know, like I said, Daniel and
I had gotten in an accident the year before. And,
you know, and it was a young man and he's
an American citizen and he had the book thrown at him.
No charges were dropped. I mean, he he faced the
full weight of the law where she was charged with

(18:33):
five charges and they were dropped it down to one
charge and with a Also with a restitution order for
$ 15, 000 for the motorcycle.

Speaker 4 (18:44):
Patty, we've got to head to a break, but let's
keep talking after the break. This is Heidi Ganahl filling
in for Dan Kaplitz with my special guest, Patty Fox.
We'll see you after the break.

Speaker 1 (19:04):
It's Heidi Ganahl filling in for Dan Kaplis today.

Speaker 4 (19:07):
And we're honored to have Patti Fox with us. A
lot of you have seen her online and watched her
posts and her testimony at Congress about her beautiful daughter, Carissa.
And she told us before the break a little bit about.

Speaker 1 (19:20):
How things played out.

Speaker 4 (19:23):
And during the break, we were talking about what happened
to the gal that hit Carissa.

Speaker 1 (19:28):
And Patti, I'll let you take it from here, but
then we can lead into it.

Speaker 4 (19:32):
The consequences of us being a sanctuary state and why
that matters.

Speaker 5 (19:37):
Yeah. So, you know, she we finally had her seventh
arraignment in January. And at that point in time, I
brought Carissa to the courthouse because. they needed to see
what Valeria had done. And, you know, the public defender
was actually like visibly shocked. And she got teared up

(20:02):
and everything like that because they had no idea, not
the victim's advocate, the public defender, the DA, nobody followed
up with us to find out what Chris's medical condition was.
So when I brought her, just kind of all hell
broke loose, really. They were all kind of talking with

(20:22):
each other really fast and hushed tones and whatnot. And
then the next thing I knew, they were bringing her
up and she was accepting the plea deal that was
offered that dropped, you know, five charges to one and
then 15,000 restitution for the motorcycle. At that point in time,
I looked up what the final charge was, which is

(20:43):
a classified felony conspiracy to flee the scene of an
accident with serious bodily injury. And it was, it carried
a maximum sentence of three years and, And at that
point in time, just kind of watching how everything went,
I knew that she was not going to face any

(21:04):
real repercussions for what she'd done. So I left that day,
and I went to my computer, and I filed a
report on VOICE, which is Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement,
which was a program put forth by— that President Trump reinstated—

(21:25):
And I reported her then. Um, and it wasn't, it
honestly wasn't that much longer before, um, I got word
that she was picked up and, uh, was deported to Venezuela.
So she is, you know, free in Venezuela, living her life. Um,
I did get a chance to meet with the ICE

(21:47):
officer that, um, took her into custody. And that was, um,
that was very healing.

Speaker 4 (21:55):
Yeah. What can you tell us about that? Did she,
it doesn't sound like she's very remorseful about things.

Speaker 1 (22:02):
No.

Speaker 5 (22:02):
In fact, when I, when we went in on in,
in January, we had passed her in the hallway. I
didn't know who she was. She didn't know who we were.
And she was, you know, laughing and joking with her,
with her boyfriend in the hallway. Like it was just,
you know, any other day. And you know, then when
she accepted the plea, and pled guilty, then of course,

(22:26):
you know, the tears and all that. When I talked
to the ICE officer, he had said when he pulled
over the Uber that she was riding in, she looked confused.
Like she had no idea that there were consequences for
her actions. And so, and then, you know, he said,

(22:51):
get out. And that's when she started crying. Like she,
there was never, it didn't seem like any way that
there was ever a moment where she had any kind
of self-awareness of what she'd done and that there were
consequences for the things that she'd done.

Speaker 1 (23:10):
I'm so sorry, Patty.

Speaker 4 (23:12):
And you have a couple other beautiful children too, who
are part of this equation. We talked a little bit
about that at coffee and This doesn't just affect Carissa.
It affects, it has a ripple effect, right? Throughout the
whole family, through generations. We talked a little bit about that.

Speaker 1 (23:29):
Tell us how your family is handling this and the
kids and the extended family.

Speaker 5 (23:35):
Well, you know, my parents, both, both my mom and
my dad are retired and they were empty nesters and
you know, we're very blessed that we had the resources
to be able to do this. And my mom and
my dad opened their home to Chris and I so
that we could live there. And, you know, my mom

(23:57):
is my right hand woman and taking care of her and,
you know, just keeping the ship going. And she's my
She's my partner in joy, I call it. But, you know,
it affects the entire family. You know, my sister has
had to make adjustments so that she could help out. And,

(24:18):
you know, at 19 years old, my youngest, this is
her future. So it wasn't only just Carissa and my
future that were altered. You know, it's Naomi's future. It's
Connor's future. Because at some point in time, I'm not
going to be able to care for Carissa and it's,
she's a very healthy 23 year old young woman. So

(24:43):
it's quite possible that she'll outlive me by a lot.
And that means that, you know, someone's got to step
up and pick up that mantle. So it's, it's very frustrating.
You know, you want your children to be able to
pursue the life that they, that they want to pursue,
but it, but this affects everything down to, you know,

(25:04):
who they marry what jobs they have you know if
they're traveling and you know they've knowing that this is
this is at the end of the day what is
facing them is needing to be able to step up and.

Speaker 1 (25:17):
Take care of their sister so.

Speaker 4 (25:21):
How much do you let's see not blame but We
are a sanctuary state, and we're one of probably the
most liberal sanctuary states, meaning the policies are extremely liberal.
And we're also very soft on crime. And those two
things together create a situation where I think a lot
more people in Colorado get hurt or affected by crime

(25:43):
than in a place maybe like Florida or Texas where
things are a bit more locked down.

Speaker 1 (25:49):
How do you deal with that?

Speaker 4 (25:50):
Like how, I know you're speaking up a lot and
you went and testified in front of Congress, but the
inaction here in Colorado must drive you nuts.

Speaker 5 (25:57):
Oh, it, it's not just the, the inaction, it's the,
the deafening silence, um, from anybody, you know, outside of,
you know, Brandy Bradley has been a big supporter as
well as Scott Bottoms and Kendegraph. Um, I'm very grateful
to them, but outside of them, it's, it's silence. Um,

(26:19):
And I'm more angry with our elected officials than I
am with Valeria, the person that hit Carissa, because I
don't believe that Valeria set out to hurt Carissa that day.
She wouldn't have been considered one of the worst of

(26:40):
the worst. We keep hearing that, worst of the worst.
And she was just somebody that didn't believe the laws
applied to her. But she wasn't, you know, she wasn't
trying to hurt Carissa when it happened. So that I
can have compassion for. I don't have compassion for our

(27:03):
elected officials who knew what was happening, who, you know,
they're not surprised by angel families. You know, we're dating
back two decades now of the destruction that has occurred
when illegal aliens commit crimes.

Speaker 1 (27:19):
They knew.

Speaker 5 (27:20):
They knew that not everybody that came into Colorado was
going to be awesome. They knew that there were murderers,
that there were rapists, that there were people that would
ignore our laws that would result in American citizens being hurt.

Speaker 1 (27:32):
They knew all of that.

Speaker 5 (27:34):
And they allowed it to happen.

Speaker 1 (27:38):
For what?

Speaker 5 (27:38):
For money and power. And that's what it comes down to.

Speaker 6 (27:42):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (27:45):
Thank you for staying strong, Patty, and speaking up about
this and trying to hold them accountable. Because, you know,
at the end of the day, this is something that
affected your family in a huge way. And I got
to be friends with Mickey, who lost her daughter to fentanyl,
one pill poisoned by fentanyl over my campaign. And And

(28:07):
I think about the fentanyl issue and how many people
here illegally bring drugs with them or are drug dealers.

Speaker 1 (28:12):
And there's just waves and waves of.

Speaker 4 (28:14):
Implications to the sanctuary policy. And your story is going
to make a big difference in this policy discussion.

Speaker 1 (28:22):
I know it is.

Speaker 4 (28:22):
And if people want to help you, I tweeted out
on X, I put out your GoFundMe page. I'm sure
you could appreciate some help and assistance in taking care
of all those crazy bills that you face because Medicaid
isn't a peach either right now.

Speaker 1 (28:37):
No.

Speaker 5 (28:39):
In fact, they had denied Carissa the wheelchair that she needs.
We make do with... She has a wheelchair that we
make do with. The one that she needs is more
therapeutic and helps her to maintain her health over time.
And she was denied that. So we're... We're looking at

(28:59):
having to self-pay on that.

Speaker 1 (29:01):
Well, let's get you some help.

Speaker 4 (29:02):
If anybody wants to help Patty and her family out
and beautiful Carissa, then you can go on X and
I just tweeted it out and I'll put it on
my other social media too. You know, we've got to
look at this as a community issue, and we've got
to be there for you as a community. And I
know the listeners on this program are extremely giving and caring,
and so hopefully we can get you some assistance.

Speaker 1 (29:23):
But, Patty, thank you again. If people want to follow
you on X, it is AngelMomPatty, P-A-T-T-I, so AngelMomPatty. And
you're pretty active on X. You're getting your game on X.
So follow Patty. Give her a like, a follow, and
share her message. far and wide. Thanks, Patty, for joining us.

Speaker 4 (29:42):
This is Heidi Ganahl filling in for Dan Kaplis.

Speaker 1 (29:45):
We'll go to break and I'll be right back.

Speaker 3 (29:51):
Hello, hello.

Speaker 1 (29:52):
It's Heidi Ganahl filling in for Dan Kaplis.

Speaker 4 (29:54):
Happy to be here with you today and so grateful
to have Patty Fox in studio. She's just a wonderful person,
a great mom, as you can tell, and has been
through the ringer and is really trying to wake people
up to the implications of what it means for Colorado
to be a sanctuary state and that sanctuary policies have
real victims.

Speaker 1 (30:15):
And Carissa is one of those.

Speaker 4 (30:17):
And, you know, honestly, for me, I mean, this isn't
about like immigrants versus citizens. It's about protecting Coloradans from
folks who don't necessarily have the values that we do
that want to follow laws like we hope that you
would if you are a citizen of Colorado.

Speaker 1 (30:35):
And for some reason, Colorado politicians don't.

Speaker 4 (30:38):
Are just, oh, got bent on making this the most
sanctuary policy-friendly state in the country, it feels like.

Speaker 1 (30:46):
We're one of the original seven, I believe. And Denver,
Denver has its own issues too.

Speaker 4 (30:52):
But, you know, we all know about the Trendyaragua situation
and Aurora and Danielle Jurinsky exposing that and everybody pretending
like it wasn't happening. But when I saw these numbers
about how many Unauthorized immigrants are actually in Colorado. In 2023,
it was 200,000. Now, FAIR is estimating about 278,000 unauthorized immigrants,

(31:14):
and that's costing state PAC taxpayers more than $ 1. 4 billion
a year. $ 1. 4 billion a year, and Carissa can't get
the money for an upgraded wheelchair after what happened to her.

Speaker 1 (31:27):
It's infuriating.

Speaker 4 (31:29):
And it's also flooding fentanyl into our community, which is
one of the ballot.

Speaker 1 (31:34):
Initiatives that's coming up.

Speaker 4 (31:35):
We have 14 different ballot initiatives that are going to
be on our coming ballots. I think the week of
September 21st, so next week, early ballot pickup begins at
some of the counties.

Speaker 1 (31:48):
And then the deadline for initial mail ballots to be
sent to all voters is October 9th. So it's happening quickly.

Speaker 4 (31:56):
And I know a lot of folks are focused on
the big races, the governor's race, the attorney general race,
secretary of state, and the legislative races that are happening
around the state. But these 14 ballot initiatives are a
big deal and they can make a big difference in
our state. We're kind of a rare state that allows
for citizens to lead ballot initiatives. And it takes a

(32:17):
lot of work and a lot of money to do it.
You've got to have I think it's 125,000 verified signatures,
which means you have to get a couple hundred thousand
in order to get the right number. And one of
the most amazing stories out of the last couple of
years was Aaron Lee getting the three ballot initiatives around
protecting kids. Protecting Kids Colorado is the name of the

(32:38):
group onto the ballot. And if you remember nothing else,
you've got to vote for these three. They are about
protecting girls in sports. They are about protecting kids from
transgender surgery. And the other one is protecting kids from
human trafficking. And we're going to do a deeper dive
on Thursday. But if nothing else, we've got to honor

(33:01):
the amazing grassroots effort that Erin Lee and all the
volunteers around the state did to get those three on
the ballot. It's not an easy feat and necessary. Now
we got to get them passed and getting them passed
costs a lot of money. So if you want to
donate or you can go to Protect Kids Colorado, I
know they could use some help. But a lot of
other ballot initiatives on on your ballot.

Speaker 1 (33:24):
Coming in a few weeks. And, you know, most of them.

Speaker 4 (33:28):
Are actually I would say the majority of them are
pretty positive if they pass. Of course, there's the progressive
income tax that's horrible, horrible. And what's funny, you guys,
is I hear a lot from people that I know,
my sphere of influence, I guess you could say, in
the business community, the political community, and nothing has ticked
people off or gotten more people excited and engaged, not

(33:50):
excited in a good way, excited in a bad way
about politics in Colorado than this progressive tax initiative. What
they're going to do is they're going to take us
from a flat tax of 4.4%, And where everybody pays
the same rate to a progressive tax, which means there
will be eight different levels of taxation. And if you're
in one of the higher taxation rates, which if you

(34:12):
have an S-corp or an LLC, like you own your
own business, that money flows through. So that money counts
as the money that's going to be taxed at.

Speaker 1 (34:19):
The higher rates. We're looking at over 8% at the
higher levels. That's insane.

Speaker 4 (34:25):
That's the quickest way to run businesses out of Colorado.
And then you look at the amount of fees that
we have in Colorado. Now, this is a little trick
that the Democrats have played over the last decade or
since Tabor was passed.

Speaker 1 (34:39):
They put things in the.

Speaker 4 (34:42):
Fee category so that they're essentially taxes. They're the same thing,
but they're categorized differently. So they're not considered monitored under Tabor.

Speaker 1 (34:51):
And so- If you look at the effective.

Speaker 4 (34:53):
Tax rate, like how much we actually pay if you
include fees, I saw some crazy number, like with the
4.4 flat tax rate, it's upwards of 14% when you
add all the fees in. All you have to do
is go to the DMV to register your vehicle and
you'll get a taste of that. But if this passes,
if this passes, it's going to be way worse, like

(35:14):
double the state income tax for a lot of people.
And most of those that are going to be affected
are small business owners that have an LLC or an
S-corp and that money flows through. So we've got to
defeat that ballot initiative. There's another competing one that will
keep the 4.4 flat tax for good, and they're competing.

(35:34):
So whichever one wins and gets more votes is the
one that will be in effect.

Speaker 1 (35:40):
So it's a.

Speaker 4 (35:41):
Little different than we're normally up against, but that's one
we've got to pay a lot.

Speaker 1 (35:44):
Of attention to.

Speaker 2 (35:46):
Oh, boy.

Speaker 1 (35:47):
Colorado, Colorado, Colorado.

Speaker 4 (35:48):
We love our state. We love fighting for our state.
I know I'm preaching in the choir here with this community,
but this is Heidi Ganahl filling in for Dan Kaplis.

Speaker 1 (35:56):
We'll be back after the break.

Speaker 4 (35:58):
To tackle some more big issues, including real estate and housing.

Speaker 3 (36:17):
Dan Kaplan.

Speaker 4 (36:19):
Well, hello, everyone.

Speaker 1 (36:20):
It's Heidi Ganahl filling in for Dan Kaplan. And it
is a beautiful Monday night. It's a little cloudy today.
I think fall is finally going to hit and we're
going to stop having 90 to 100 degree weather.

Speaker 4 (36:32):
Maybe.

Speaker 1 (36:32):
I don't know, Shannon, if you heard the forecast.

Speaker 2 (36:36):
No, I haven't. But I certainly feel it in the air.

Speaker 4 (36:38):
Yeah, I think it's getting a little fall like football
weather for the Broncos.

Speaker 1 (36:44):
Hopefully. All right.

Speaker 4 (36:46):
So one thing that fall does usually is it gets
people thinking about, I don't know, like moving. A lot
of people put their houses up for market in the
fall before the holiday seasons hit and after the craziness
of the summer. And man, Colorado is expensive right now.
It's so expensive that a lot of people are moving

(37:08):
out of state. A lot of conservatives are giving up
and leaving the state anyway. I think they should at
least give it a couple more cycles before they give up.
We've got a lot of fighting left in us. But
I just read some stats that 60% of Colorado households
cannot afford the average home.

Speaker 1 (37:24):
That's up from 47% about 10 years ago.

Speaker 4 (37:28):
And the median home price is $ 547, 000. Colorado is the
third most expensive state in the country. And how do
I know this? How am I so familiar with what's
happening in the housing market? Well, my own daughter, my
beautiful daughter, Tori, is looking for a home right now.
And she got married last year, and she's about to

(37:49):
make me a grandma. We're very excited about that. But, Tori,
I think you're on to talk about your crazy journey
in looking for a house.

Speaker 7 (37:56):
Yep, here I am. here to talk about it all.

Speaker 4 (38:00):
Well, for those of you that don't know, you've got
to follow Rocky Mountain Voice because Tori is like the
face of RMV now. She does these great videos, which
are recaps of the news, the Mountain Minute podcast, and
you can learn all about what's happening in Colorado on
our social media for Rocky Mountain Voice.

Speaker 1 (38:16):
Or you should subscribe. It's free. There's no ads, paywalls.
It's RockyMountainVoice.com.

Speaker 4 (38:20):
You sign up and we'll send you a newsletter a
few times a week that Tori leads as well.

Speaker 1 (38:25):
So thank you for that, Tori.

Speaker 7 (38:28):
Yeah, and hopefully I'll get back to my social media
videos this week, too. I've been on a little bit
of a hiatus getting through the first trimester pregnancy blues,
but we're going to.

Speaker 6 (38:39):
Get back to it this week.

Speaker 1 (38:40):
Good.

Speaker 4 (38:41):
I'm glad folks will be excited to see you again,
and I'm interested to hear your take on this. We're
going to have Kyle on in just a little bit,
who's a great realtor who's going to fill us with
lots of information about what's happening in the market, but
I wanted to hear firsthand from you what it's been like.

Speaker 7 (38:59):
Yeah, for sure. I mean, we've really been looking for,
I mean, gosh, a year and a half at this
point now, just keeping our eyes open, not.

Speaker 6 (39:07):
Ready to buy, but knowing that we needed to know.

Speaker 7 (39:09):
Specifically what neighborhood we wanted to go to when the
time came, which the time is here now. And it's funny,
last week, you know, my husband and I both grew
up in Louisville in Superior, Colorado, and we went up
and visited some family up there last weekend. And we
were just curious, as to what the housing market was

(39:30):
like up there. And in order to just get a
family home, your average family home that used to cost you,
I don't know, around half a million dollars is now
$ 2. 5 million for just your average home. And I think
part of that is partially due to because When the

(39:50):
Marshall fire happened and the rebuild happened, not a lot
of these houses are priced out of control because of
all the regulations. But we were just blown away just
at how Louisville and Superior used to be this humble
little family hometown. And now people that grew up are never,
ever going to.

Speaker 6 (40:06):
Be able to go back, especially at those prices.

Speaker 4 (40:09):
Yeah, I have a lot of friends who have just,
you know, they didn't rebuild. Like I know three different
families that did not rebuild because it was so expensive
because obviously we lived in Superior and so know a
lot of great people who were affected by the fires.
And this is happening all over Colorado. Like they're putting
more and more green codes and restrictions into the housing.

(40:31):
You look at our friend Robert on Twitter who goes
off on this a lot.

Speaker 1 (40:36):
Robert, here's a shout out, Robert Trada.

Speaker 2 (40:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (40:38):
He's a developer and he talks all the time about
the government's overbearing ability to make housing expensive in Colorado.
And I think that's one of the biggest issues. What
are you finding as far as supply and demand right now?

Speaker 1 (40:53):
Is there a lot of supply? Do you have a
lot of options?

Speaker 7 (40:56):
You know, in the places we're looking, it's pretty slim.
And even going.

Speaker 6 (41:01):
Back to Louisville, we noticed that there was just no
houses available in the areas that we would have moved.

Speaker 7 (41:07):
Really, really anywhere, to be honest. And so we did
a quick search in Google, and it said the average
age of people living in Louisville, Colorado, was 15. skyrocketing
up to like 65 plus because a lot of these
people are moving there and then never selling their homes.
So I think that's happening across the board. Like if
people are staying here, they're staying here long-term or they're

(41:28):
moving out of the state. I think that's happening a
lot too. And things are going quick if they're priced correctly.
So we're just, we're seeing a huge array.

Speaker 6 (41:38):
Of, I mean, over the last year and a half
of us looking of.

Speaker 7 (41:40):
Just different neighborhoods being priced differently, what sells, what doesn't.
You either have to be ready to buy or you,
things fit for months and months and months. I feel
like there's really no in between.

Speaker 1 (41:50):
That's wild.

Speaker 4 (41:52):
Well, one of the other stats I found was that
starter homes make up only 15% of available homes in Colorado,
but that 40% of families need that price point.

Speaker 1 (42:01):
So there's a huge gap there. And interest rates just
went up, right?

Speaker 7 (42:06):
Interest rates are unbelievable. I mean, we're looking at six, seven, 8%
interest rates, which is insane.

Speaker 1 (42:14):
Yeah, well, now it is.

Speaker 4 (42:16):
Gosh, I remember when I was a kid, I was
a senior in high school and we looked at moving
to Texas because of.

Speaker 1 (42:22):
My dad's job.

Speaker 4 (42:23):
And the interest rates were 18 to 20 percent or
something insane back then, back when inflation was crazy. I'm
aging myself, but it's still it's far too expensive to
live here in this state. And, you know, it's unfortunate
because Colorado used to be like the wild, wild west
where you come here and do big things and big
ideas and starting businesses, building families, and it's finally gotten

(42:48):
to the point where people are checking out not just conservatives,
but all kinds of people who can't afford to live.

Speaker 1 (42:53):
Here anymore and enjoy the beautiful, beautiful things that we
have here in our state.

Speaker 4 (42:58):
Tori, what about your friends? Are your friends facing the
same challenges? Do you have any friends that are also
looking or selling right now?

Speaker 7 (43:06):
Yeah, for sure. I'd say that most people my age,
I'm 31 years old, are one, either just not able
to afford anything right now or two.

Speaker 6 (43:16):
The homes they are able to afford are.

Speaker 7 (43:18):
Quite small, not good to build families in, which we're
at that age where that's starting to happen. Or I mean,
something that my husband and I are experiencing, he works
in downtown in Cherry Creek and In order to afford
a good family home, you have to be on the
way outskirts. You have to be all the way in
Broomfield or Westminster, but all the way west in like

(43:39):
a Lakewood or a Nevada.

Speaker 6 (43:41):
Or going out to Aurora.

Speaker 7 (43:45):
Or Lone Tree, Castle Rock. So it's just you're either
commuting 45 minutes to work every day to afford a
house or you're just not affording a house and you're
paying rent. And again, I haven't seen much of an in-between,
if I'm being honest. Lots of people I know buying
homes in Arvada, that seems to be like the go-to
place for people my age, which is interesting. Or Castle Rock.

(44:08):
Those are like the top two.

Speaker 1 (44:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (44:10):
Downtown Castle Rock is really booming and they've made it
really a great place for young people to live, which
back in the day, I grew up in Monument. Castle
Rock was not a place that young people lived. It
was like, you know, you lived kind of out in
the boonies and it was a great little downtown, but
certainly not for the 20 and 30 year olds.

Speaker 6 (44:28):
Definitely the young hit place to grow a family these
days or Littleton.

Speaker 7 (44:31):
Littleton's another one for sure.

Speaker 4 (44:33):
Yeah. Like that downtown Littleton area. Um, well, thanks Tori
for hopping on. And if there's, do you have any
advice based on, you know, a lot about policy now
because of Rocky Mountain Voice and you know, firsthand what
it's like looking, what's your sense? Like, do you think
things are going to get better soon? Or are you
kind of bunkering down and ready to make a hard decision?

Speaker 7 (44:54):
I mean, I think right now, unfortunately for us, we
don't really have a choice. We're here for good, and
we're going to try and save the state, and it's
going to be great. But I do think that the
policies are pushing people out for sure. I mean, we've
got some really insane ballot initiatives, ballot measures that are
going to be on the ballot this November that could
completely price people out for good. I think my advice

(45:16):
to people is do your research, know what you're voting for,
especially do research on local politics before you move somewhere.
That's a big thing for.

Speaker 6 (45:23):
Us, too. Who are the county commissioners? Who's on the
city council?

Speaker 7 (45:27):
Who's your mayor? What do those local politics look like?
Property taxes, et cetera. I mean, just the difference between
Parker and Lone Tree, we've realized is this huge, massive
difference in property taxes because of the mall. So little
things like that, know your local politics and just really
dig in and Know what you're doing before you move somewhere,
for sure.

Speaker 1 (45:46):
Well, thanks, Tori.

Speaker 4 (45:47):
You can find more about her adventure in real estate.
Watch her on RockyMountainVoice.com on our social media. We're on
all the different platforms, X, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, you name it.
And then, of course, subscribe to RockyMountainVoice.com and get our newsletter,
The Mountain Minute, and you'll be up to date on
all things happening in Colorado. This is Heidi Ganahl.

Speaker 1 (46:09):
I'm filling in for Dan Kaplis. I'm going to take
a break. And right after the break, we'll come back.

Speaker 4 (46:13):
With Kyle, who is an amazing realtor. And he's going
to give us some great tips and advice to follow
up on what.

Speaker 1 (46:18):
Tori had to say.

Speaker 4 (46:23):
Happy Monday, everyone. Happy Broncos Monday. This is Heidi Ganahl
filling in for Dan Kaplis. Happy to be here. Shannon,
you make this so easy.

Speaker 1 (46:33):
So easy. Just like playing CU football.

Speaker 5 (46:38):
I'm kidding.

Speaker 1 (46:40):
We've been through the trenches in that regard.

Speaker 4 (46:42):
I am very excited to have Kyle Malnati from Kentwood
on with us.

Speaker 1 (46:47):
I met him at an event last week, and.

Speaker 4 (46:50):
He seems so knowledgeable about real estate and what's happening
in the market. And I think I wish I could
have played Tori's section for you, but I'm sure none
of what she said is going to be a surprise
to you, Kyle.

Speaker 1 (47:02):
But go ahead and introduce yourself.

Speaker 3 (47:04):
Hi, I'm Kyle Malnati with Kentwood Real Estate, and I
specialize in Arapahoe County and Denver County real estate sales.
I've had the blessing of being a realtor for 20
years and a Colorado media spokesperson. I'm excited to be
on the show. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (47:19):
Well, thanks, Kyle.

Speaker 6 (47:20):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (47:20):
Is it a wild time to be in real estate
in Colorado? Tell us a little bit about the market overall.

Speaker 3 (47:26):
Well, it is a wild time. And if you're a
buyer like your daughter is, it can feel really frustrating
because it feels like, okay, interest rates were super low
and it was really competitive four years ago. And now
interest rates have risen and they seem kind of stuck
where they are. And it feels like, You may have
your pick of the litter. You may have increasing days

(47:48):
on market. But all of a sudden, the cost of
a home, your mortgage payment is a little bit higher
than you would have expected if you were looking a
few years ago and you're back in the market. So
it's tough for a buyer right now.

Speaker 4 (47:58):
Yeah, it feels like she shifts between neighborhoods depending on
what the interest rates are doing. And that's complicated because
you get to know, you get to fall in love
with a certain area.

Speaker 1 (48:07):
And all of a sudden, whoop, can't afford it. Have
to come back later.

Speaker 4 (48:11):
And a lot of the young people that I'm talking to,
they don't want to move a lot. Like we moved
around a lot when I was young and just newly
married and building our family. And it didn't seem to
bother us. But more and more, I hear that people
are looking for almost a forever home.

Speaker 1 (48:26):
Is that a trend?

Speaker 2 (48:27):
Well, it is.

Speaker 3 (48:28):
I think part of it has to do, again, with
the cost of someone's mortgage. I bought a house 18
years ago with my wife right after we got married.
And we were okay with doing some home remodeling. because
the cost of real estate was less expensive and interest
rates at the time were similar, but still you had
the ability to do some home improvements. It feels like

(48:49):
today's buyer expects really everything to be completely done because again,
the cost of that mortgage is so much higher. So
they don't have as much discretionary income to put into
home remodels later.

Speaker 4 (49:00):
Okay, I might sound really antiquated here because I haven't
bought a house in a while, but is it still
for young, new homebuyers? You could take 10% down, 5% down.
What are the programs out there?

Speaker 3 (49:11):
There are a lot of programs. I'm not a licensed
mortgage loan originator, but I actually had a great conversation
with my MLO today on the phone, and you can
get into... a mortgage for as low as 3% down.
FHA is 3.5%. The traditional conventional mortgage that most people
talk about is 20% down. But there are lots of
programs depending on how you want to look at your rate.

(49:34):
A lot of the lenders will actually bake mortgage insurance,
which is the traditional mortgage why people would do 20% down.
If you're under 20%, non-conventional, a lot of people have
to pay mortgage insurance, but you can actually have a
product where that's actually baked into the rates, which really
just depends. And that's the first thing I say to
all home buyers when they're working with me is that

(49:54):
you've got to get not just pre-qualified, but pre-approved by
a mortgage originator, because that pre-approval letter is your ticket
to negotiate. And if you are a buyer today, even
though it may seem a little frustrating to there's more
houses on the market than there are of you as buyers.
And so you do have negotiating power, which is really
a nice surprise.

Speaker 1 (50:14):
That is a nice surprise.

Speaker 4 (50:16):
Now, one of the texters said, Heidi, it's all the
boomers fault. They just can't let go of real estate.

Speaker 1 (50:21):
Is that true?

Speaker 3 (50:22):
Well, I will say that certain generations are stickier with
being able to sell their houses. If you're retired, you
don't have the typical things. Real estate is a simple business.
And I'm going to oversimplify it here. It's all about living, loving,
and dying, as one of my good friends says in
the business. And if you're not in the process of

(50:43):
growing a family, if you're retired, you're probably wanting to
stay in that paid for house. And that does become difficult,
but there are a lot of houses on the market
and there's more houses on the market than there are buyers.
And so if you're gutsy enough to do what we
like to say, which is date the rate and marry
the real estate.

Speaker 1 (51:01):
I've not heard that.

Speaker 3 (51:02):
You've not heard that? Oh, that's a great way for
real estate agents to help diffuse the fact that interest
rates won't last forever, but the house that you buy
will if you really want to buy it and live
in it for a long period of time.

Speaker 1 (51:15):
So what parts of the Denver metro area are hot
or not right now?

Speaker 3 (51:22):
Well, from my perspective, the worst areas The area that's
been impacted the most post-COVID is the core just south
of downtown Denver. Those neighborhoods got affected the most. I
have several listings in that area. And there's a variety
of reasons. The hottest areas of town are the western suburbs.
And that's just been a flight to a lot of

(51:45):
those neighborhoods were built in the mid-century modern era of
last century. So they tend to have really solid brick construction,
bigger yards. You're closer to I-70, closer to the mountains,
so you get that live, work, play type of environment.
So the western suburbs are really hot. And then the
luxury market, and luxury is dependent on who you're talking to,

(52:07):
but the luxury market has actually been very, very strong.

Speaker 1 (52:10):
What do you consider luxury?

Speaker 3 (52:11):
Well, I mean, traditionally, anything over a million dollars is
technically luxury.

Speaker 1 (52:16):
That's like a starter house now.

Speaker 3 (52:18):
It could be. The median price in Denver is actually $ 575, 000,
but that includes condos and townhouses. When you take that out,
the most recent statistic is it's $ 635, 000 for a median home. Now,
I'm not trying to just gloss over that point. Colorado
is our major markets, Boulder, Fort Collins, Denver. are in

(52:41):
the top 25% of all median home prices across the US.

Speaker 1 (52:46):
Oh, my goodness.

Speaker 3 (52:46):
We are in an expensive market. And that is part
of the reason why some people are moving away. But
the nice benefit of being in an expensive market is
you have appreciation that will help. There's a lot of
studies about this, but the typical homeowner has a wealth
driver of about 40x above a renter if you buy
a house and live in it for 30 years as

(53:08):
opposed to renting the entire period of time. So it
is truly the largest asset, the most important investment that
you can make.

Speaker 4 (53:16):
Kyle, we're going to come up on a break in
a minute, and we'll bring you back after the break.
But another texter says, I moved to Elizabeth because we
could afford anything that was big enough or in good
enough condition, or I guess they could not afford anything.
They commute an hour each way to and from work.

Speaker 3 (53:30):
We're seeing that a lot.

Speaker 6 (53:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (53:32):
I mean, Tori was talking about that.

Speaker 4 (53:34):
Like, yeah, we can go farther out, but then my
husband works in Cherry Creek and he's got to travel
in and out and the traffic is terrible.

Speaker 3 (53:41):
Want to know we're up against it, but we had
that work from home element that has changed a lot
of offices are doing a hybrid or everyone's back in
the office. And so if you bought a house, work
from home, and then all of a sudden now you're
realizing you've got to commute. It's changing a lot of
people's perspectives.

Speaker 1 (53:58):
Well, thank you, Kyle, for coming on.

Speaker 4 (53:59):
We're going to bring you back after the break and
ask you some more questions, keep you on the hot seat.

Speaker 1 (54:04):
Kyle Malnati with Kentwood. Thanks, Kyle. We'll see you after
the break. This is how you get all filling in
for Dan Kaplis. Hello, everyone. Happy Monday. Happy Bronco Monday.

(54:33):
It's Heidi Ganahl filling in for Dan Kaplis.

Speaker 4 (54:36):
And Kyle, we just did a segment and talked a
lot about what's happening.

Speaker 1 (54:41):
In the Denver metro area, Colorado generally.

Speaker 4 (54:45):
We talked about something really interesting on the break that
the average new home buyer, like the first time somebody
is buying a home is now 40.

Speaker 2 (54:52):
Yes. Thanks, Heidi.

Speaker 3 (54:54):
I'm Kyle Malnati with Kentwood. And yes, the National Association
of Realtors is just posted here within the last year
that the average age of a first-time home buyer is
now 40. I think a lot of people knew this anecdotally,
that people are waiting longer to get married. I did
some research before the show. Three decades ago, the average
age was about 23 or 24. People would get hitched.

(55:15):
Now it's over 30. A lot of people are having
that 30-year-old birthday party before they're getting married and engaged
and things of that sort. So people are just waiting
to do things longer. And Buying a house is one
of those things. Part of the reason here in Colorado
is because our housing market appreciates, and it's one of
the more expensive markets in the United States. And so

(55:35):
it does take a while to save up for a
down payment, but we can talk about strategies around that.

Speaker 4 (55:40):
And we also talked about a lot of this new construction,
and it's not condos, is it?

Speaker 3 (55:44):
No, there was a landmark legislation over the last two
decades called Construction Liability Defect Law. And what that did,
and it was well-intentioned, I think, It gave condo associations
or HOAs the ability to sue a developer for defects.
Sounds like a reasonable thing. The problem is that in

(56:07):
many cases, a lot of that award will go to
the class action attorneys that filed the lawsuit. And so
what it did in Colorado, the most sort of stringent
parts of this law happened in around 2010 as our
market was coming out of the recession into 2012 and beyond.
And so what happened is any of those sites that

(56:27):
would have been built as entry-level condos were built as
apartments because our multifamily market was exploding over the last
decade and in a positive way. Rents were rising. A
lot of people said that Denver was the hottest market
non-coastal in America, and that proved to be true with
the record amount of construction that we did.

Speaker 1 (56:47):
What's happening to apartments in downtown Denver now?

Speaker 4 (56:50):
It seems like downtown is not what it used to be.

Speaker 3 (56:53):
Well, a lot of the news stories were about concessions
within this last year. Now, concessions, what does that mean?
Free rent is the easiest way to think about it.
And so free rent averages right now on all apartments.
The study from Apartment Insights and Apartment Appraisers and Consultants
is four weeks of free rent when you lease a
new apartment. Now, that's the average. There are some new

(57:14):
apartment communities that are at Wow. And it changes weekly.
There's obviously a lot of data out there, but concessions
do one thing. They fill up units. And the race
to building an apartment building, it takes 30 months to
build from permit to actual construction where it's filled up.

Speaker 1 (57:33):
That's almost three years.

Speaker 3 (57:34):
That's crazy. Almost three years. And then the race is
to get all those units filled within the first year
because you generally have year-long leases. And if you've got
some concessions, some free rent built in, You don't want
to be on the period where you're trying to still
rent your brand new units while you've got renewals happening.
So it's this race to put heads in beds, as

(57:55):
they say in the apartment community.

Speaker 4 (57:56):
I love all these little sayings. I'm going to remember this.
How is crime affecting people's decision about where to live?

Speaker 3 (58:02):
You know, as a realtor, I have to say that
you are required, if you're interested in an area, to
contact the local police department. That's something that's required when
anybody asks us at a showing or at an open house.
And that data is public. I will say that visually,
you can just see it. I've seen it with my
own eyes working in Central Denver, Capitol Hill specifically, that post-COVID,

(58:26):
there's sanctuary cities under Hancock's.

Speaker 4 (58:31):
Mayor.

Speaker 3 (58:32):
We just had a lot of tent cities around. And
there's been some programs that Michael Johnston has put into
place to help, but they're expensive. And We have cleaned
some things up, but now we're dealing with, in central Denver,
bus rapid transit, which is going all the way up
and down Colfax, which makes it very difficult to cross
across the biggest, longest non-highway in Colorado.

Speaker 1 (58:57):
Wow, I hadn't heard that.

Speaker 3 (58:58):
That's interesting. It's a $ 300 million project that several news
outlets have reported on, and it's about halfway through. And
anytime you go to central Denver and specifically Capitol Hill,
you'll see construction. You can't drive on certain areas of
Colfax one way across from 14th to 16th.

Speaker 1 (59:19):
Oh, good times. More construction. Just add to the fun.

Speaker 4 (59:22):
Right.

Speaker 3 (59:22):
Exactly.

Speaker 4 (59:23):
All right. So we talked a little bit about remodeling houses.
I have a house that's about 25 years old and
things are starting to break and it's so expensive. If
you want to upgrade a bathroom or a kitchen, it's.

Speaker 1 (59:37):
A lot of money. Do you get that money out
when you sell the house or what's the best investment
when it comes to remodeling or fixing.

Speaker 3 (59:44):
Up a house? Yeah, we call that return on investment
or ROI. And there's some Less expensive ways to have
ROI that have a huge return. And then there's some
more expensive ways. One of my favorite thought leaders, it's
a podcaster, we'll call it Appliance Alliance, which means that
all of your appliances in a 25-year-old home tend to
have a useful life of about 20 years. So they

(01:00:05):
all start breaking down at the same time.

Speaker 1 (01:00:07):
Yeah, I can attest to that.

Speaker 3 (01:00:08):
And it's real expensive. Plus, depending on the way the
house was built, new home production isn't the highest quality
always of construction. So you're going to have to do
some things after a period of time. Some of the
easy ones to do, replace your garage door. It's one
of the highest returns on investment. And it's that old-fashioned

(01:00:30):
curb appeal. We all have heard that before, that when
a buyer walks along the sidewalk and looks at your
home from the outside, what do they see? Does it
make them want to come in? Both physical curb appeal
and digital curb appeal are very important to realtors like
myself because... More than 95% of listings are seen online
before someone ever sees a sign in the yard. Some

(01:00:53):
other really easy ones are dressing up your front porch.
You can convert a bedroom to a home office and
make it purpose-built so that you can have high-speed internet
in that area. Another really inexpensive one in today's technology
environment is adding security cameras. The real expensive ones are
obviously doing a kitchen remodel, doing a bathroom remodel. Those

(01:01:14):
are the higher end. So some people may not be
able to afford those. But the ones that I just mentioned, paint.
Paint goes a long way. Neutral palettes. If you've got
anything that's a real dark earth tone, it's dated, especially
from 25 years ago. We all loved our sand color
and our sage colors. It's all kind of white or bright.

(01:01:36):
greens and blues that are like deep, rich colors. You
can look at Pantone colors and see what all the
popular in-trend colors are now, but neutralizing your palette. And
then one of the bigger things that we talk about
in real estate is a house will or won't sell
for three simple reasons. It's always price, condition, and marketing.
Marketing is my job. Price is often a mutual discussion
between the seller and myself, but let's be honest, the

(01:01:58):
seller picks the price. I give suggestions, but ultimately it's
their home. It's that in that middle piece, that condition
piece where staging comes into play and doing some light
renovations to make sure that your home shows the best.
When houses stay on the market longer, you need to
be competitive.

Speaker 4 (01:02:15):
All right. If you were going to you had a
couple fly in from out of town and you're going
to show them three really hot areas. They're 20 somethings.
They're just thinking about starting to have a family. What
are a couple areas you would pick?

Speaker 3 (01:02:25):
I've done this several times this year. I help people
relocate from Wisconsin this year that were that exact avatar
that you're talking about, that profile. And then I also
had a couple of doctors relocate from Chicago earlier this year. Um,
I'll speak real specifically, um, the young couple, they bought
a home, a new home in an old neighborhood, just
north of Regis university. Uh, and it was, they wanted

(01:02:48):
the new home, but it wasn't in a new home community.
It was a single lot that had never been built
on that. The guy owned the rental house next door
and decided to do a spec home. He's a realtor.
Also great experience. Loved working on that deal. The other situation,
the doctors coming from Chicago, they, they chose Castle Pines village.
They're at a higher income bracket. The difference between those
two sales was $ 1. 8 million in Castle Pines versus about

(01:03:13):
$ 695, 000 near Regis. And this was a single family house,
not attached. It was a detached single family home.

Speaker 4 (01:03:20):
Kyle, one thing that I've noticed, so I have three teenagers,
you do too, and we just drive all over the place, right?

Speaker 1 (01:03:25):
To sporting practices.

Speaker 3 (01:03:27):
I'm the dad cab.

Speaker 1 (01:03:29):
Dad cab, yes. I'm mom Uber.

Speaker 2 (01:03:31):
There you go.

Speaker 1 (01:03:32):
My dad calls himself Papa Uber.

Speaker 4 (01:03:35):
And- There's been a lot of controversy about building these
big sports complexes, but dang, is it nice to live
near South Suburban or.

Speaker 1 (01:03:44):
Up in Windsor?

Speaker 4 (01:03:44):
They have that beautiful sports complex. They're building Zebulon out
in Sterling Ranch. How important has that been to young families?

Speaker 3 (01:03:51):
Well, I can say from personal experience, I live just
south of the studio in Centennial, and we live near
several big complexes that are run by South Suburban. And
we spend our weekends. I have a good buddy that
calls them whistle weekends. Wherever there's a whistle blowing, I'm
hanging out on a sideline somewhere. Or a swimming pool.
My son's a swimmer. My daughters play field sports.

Speaker 2 (01:04:10):
Swimming!

Speaker 1 (01:04:11):
Oh my gosh. My oldest daughter was a swimmer. And
you literally sit in that hot.

Speaker 4 (01:04:15):
Sweaty pool for all day for 30 seconds.

Speaker 2 (01:04:18):
When they swim.

Speaker 3 (01:04:18):
And the way it used to be is it used
to be a pool attached to a high school. It
was built in the 60s. And it was not ventilated well.
Now you have these mega complexes where It may still
be adjacent to a high school, but it becomes the
district pool. And it's beautiful, great bleachers. And there's several
of them.

Speaker 1 (01:04:38):
And the funniest thing is they're building bars into these.

Speaker 5 (01:04:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:04:42):
Well, I mean, sometimes we're at these practices until eight
or nine o'clock at night. So if you have an
adult beverage and you're not driving someone else's kids, you know,
they're catering to the fact that we are spending so
much time in our cars. And that's one of the
reasons why we see so much traffic.

Speaker 1 (01:04:59):
Well, Kyle, thank you so much for coming on. How
can people get in touch with you?

Speaker 3 (01:05:03):
Well, my favorite social media is Instagram. I love Instagram.
Kyle Malnati is the handle. The other way that they
can get in touch with me is I've got a
couple of websites. I have a podcast called Calibrate Real Estate.
That's something I've done for about 10 years now and
have over 200 episodes. If you just Google Kyle Malnati,
it's a pretty unique name. You're not going to have

(01:05:24):
any imposters. It's going to be just me.

Speaker 1 (01:05:26):
That sounds great.

Speaker 4 (01:05:27):
Well, thank you so much, Kyle. This has been very informative.
This is Heidi Ganahl filling in for Dan Kaplis. We'll
be back after the break to wrap up the show
and head you off to Broncos country.

Speaker 1 (01:05:41):
Well, howdy, everybody.

Speaker 4 (01:05:42):
It's Heidi Ganahl filling in for Dan Kaplis. That was
quite an interesting segment, Shannon. I don't know if you
got to hear much of it, but our housing market
in Colorado is weird right now.

Speaker 1 (01:05:52):
Weird, weird, weird. And I feel bad for young people.
It's just so expensive.

Speaker 4 (01:05:57):
And one of the greatest things about living in America
is living the American dream, buying a house and having
a place that you can call.

Speaker 1 (01:06:04):
Your own and raising your family there.

Speaker 4 (01:06:06):
And my grandparents lived in their same house for, gosh,
65 years before my grandma had to move out eventually.
And I still I drive by it and it brings
back so many feelings and so much emotion. It just
it means a lot to have a place we call home.
And I don't know that apartments do that necessarily. But
I just I feel for young people right now in

(01:06:28):
Colorado and don't give up. We're going to keep working
on turning things around and making it more affordable to
live here. But it's important that you vote, too. If
you're young and you care about things like affordability and
crime and being able to buy a house. you got
to get engaged in the process. And I know I'm
preaching in the choir quite a bit to this audience,

(01:06:49):
but we've got to encourage our young people to pick
up that ballot, get educated on it, understand what the
consequences are of voting a certain way. We heard that
with Patty Fox and the consequences of a person here
illegally hitting her daughter and causing debilitating injury. And I
think we heard it with Kyle too, the effect on

(01:07:10):
real estate, the affordability issue, the policies that are passed
are making it almost impossible to live here for some people.
And it breaks my heart. It's why I stay in politics.
It's why I keep advocating and talking about policy and
educating folks and especially young people. And the thing that's
encouraging to me We've got a lot of young people

(01:07:32):
who do care about politics in Colorado and a lot
of conservative kids. Turning Point has a lot of chapters
around the state. I think about 100 at this point
in different high schools and another 20 or 30 on
college campuses. And we've got a lot of Colorado Young
Republican chapters. But really what has to happen is turnout.
And in this last primary election, the turnout was terrible

(01:07:55):
for young people, terrible for And Shannon, I'd ask for
your input on this. We've got so many ways to
stay in tune with what's happening politically. It's so easy
to vote here in Colorado. The ballots land in your mailbox.

Speaker 1 (01:08:11):
Why do you think young people are not checking the
boxes and turning in those ballots?

Speaker 2 (01:08:16):
Well, my 24-year-old daughter, I wonder where she gets news from.
And she can't be alone in This random Instagram, possibly
TikTok-fueled world of news and information. I think that leaves
them in the dark.

Speaker 1 (01:08:31):
Yeah, and I think they feel a little hopeless, too.

Speaker 2 (01:08:34):
By the way, the Rocky Mountain Minute, however, will enlighten them.

Speaker 1 (01:08:38):
Yes, it will.

Speaker 4 (01:08:40):
That's why we have a young person like Tori talking
to them and hopefully giving them good information. Because in Colorado,
they mostly hear one side of the story. The news
here has a very definitive slant. And that's the other
reason we started Rocky Mountain Voice after my governor's race.
I've thought Coloradans deserve to hear the other side of
the story. It's why I come on the radio. It's

(01:09:01):
why I appreciate Dan Kaplis and so many of the
warriors on our radio programs today. And I think that
we can help as older folk by sharing the voices
that we care about, that we listen. I remember driving
around with my dad when he was doing sales, listening
to Rush Limbaugh, listening to Mike Rosen. And that's where
I think I really got my start in learning about politics.

(01:09:23):
And we can do that for our young ones, too.
And I tell folks as well, go volunteer to bring
food to your local Turning Point meeting. Go volunteer to
host an event at your house or your business. They
need our support. That's an easy, easy way to do it.
And I think that it's on us.

Speaker 1 (01:09:41):
It is on us.

Speaker 4 (01:09:42):
One of the texters earlier said, it's all a boomer's fault. Well,
It is on all of us that have been blessed
to live in this America over the last couple decades
and bear the fruits of an amazing economy and political
environment where we could succeed.

Speaker 1 (01:09:58):
We've got to pass that torch.

Speaker 4 (01:10:00):
And in order to pass that torch, we've got to
be there for our youngsters and tell them how much
they matter and tell them how much their voice matters.
It's not like I said, hard to turn in the ballot,
but it is overwhelming when you have 14 different ballot
initiatives and you don't really understand the language.

Speaker 1 (01:10:17):
Because they don't want you to. They make it so confusing.

Speaker 4 (01:10:20):
Which one of the ballot initiatives is actually to make
the ballot initiative language plain English.

Speaker 1 (01:10:26):
Imagine that. Imagine that. That's crazy.

Speaker 4 (01:10:29):
We had somebody just text in, Heidi, you realize that
a lot of Dan's audience lives outside of Denver. In fact,
I guess half the listeners wouldn't blink an eye if
the Denver metro area got swallowed up by a black hole.
We're talking about real estate in Denver, but there are
other parts of the state. Well, there are, but the
majority of people buying and selling real estate are in

(01:10:52):
the Denver metro area.

Speaker 1 (01:10:54):
But if you want to call in or text in,
give us your stories.

Speaker 4 (01:10:57):
Talk about what's happening in your neck of the woods
in regards to real estate. I'll be back on on Thursday.
So we'll have some discussion then, but I'd love to
have you call in and chat with me about it.
This is Heidi Ganahl filling in for Dan Kaplis. Thank you, Shannon,
for helping today and making this a great show.

Speaker 1 (01:11:15):
And go Broncos!

Speaker 2 (01:11:15):
Go Broncos!