My first house, bought with a down-payment loan from my in-laws, was one step from condemnation by the health department and took five years of my life for rehabbing (the house, not me).
If only I had hooked up with “My First House,” the popular HGTV program (9:30 p.m. Mondays) that walks first-time buyers through the land mines of home ownership.
The program is coming to Colorado, if Lou Gassner can find qualified people who want their story told on television. You’d think “qualified” in the current market would be anyone walking upright.
Not so. “I need to have somebody pre-approved and ready to go, and they’ll need to close by mid-March,” said Gassner, whose United Country Real Estate is based in Berthoud. They also must live within a two-
hour drive of Gassner from Denver, Boulder and Loveland/Fort Collins.
Here’s the tense part: Gassner has only a week to find a buyer or the producers will move on to another real estate agent.
Gassner says first-time buyers have more financing options than you might think. “There are a lot of zero-down programs.” He points out to buyers that with what they pay a month in rent, plus the deposit, they can get into “affordable” housing.
Although the show focuses on the buyers and the buying process (including getting decorating help from the show’s producers), Gassner figures he’ll score a little airtime too. “I’m not camera shy.”
Would-be buyers can call Gassner at 970-344-1500.
Limbaugh speaks
Words of wisdom from talk-show host Rush Limbaugh when he guested on NPR’s “All Things Considered”:
“I always say my real purpose is to attract the largest audience I can and hold it for as long as I can so I can charge confiscatory advertising rates. Getting along is not the objective.”
He must be doing something right. His audience averages 13.5 million a week (noon weekdays, KOA 850-AM).
Around the dial
LL Cool J guests on “The Morning Show With Mike and Juliet” (9 a.m., KDVR-Channel 31) … Charley Samson and Peter Russell preview Opera Colorado’s production of “The Elixir of Love” and re-play last year’s successful “Norma” on a three-hour “Colorado Spotlight” (7 p.m. Friday, KVOD 90.1-FM). … The eight-part series “History of Black Achievement in America” begins at 9 p.m. Thursday on KBDI-Channel 12 … Nielsen Media Research announced Monday that it will begin including college students living away from home in its people-meter television ratings … Quotable: “Owning a home is a keystone of wealth, both financial affluence and emotional security.” Suze Orman
Dick Kreck’s column appears Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. He may be reached at 303-954-1456 or dkreck@denverpost.com.
