Frequently asked questions

Our office is at 2000 S Colorado Blvd, Suite 2000, Denver, CO 80222, at the southeast corner of I-25 and South Colorado Boulevard on the second floor of Tower 1. Visits are by appointment.

With a conversation about the specific project and a direct read on whether we are the right fit. If the problem is one we have solved before, we will say so and describe how. If it is not, we would rather tell you that than take the engagement.

Yes. The firm holds Colorado employing broker license EC.040041562. Each broker holds an individual license, listed on their team page. Licenses can be verified through the Colorado Division of Real Estate at the Department of Regulatory Agencies.

The first conversation is not billed. If the work requires real analysis, a market study, a pricing model, or a site feasibility review, we scope and price it before starting so there are no surprises.

We are a Colorado real estate consultancy and brokerage. We work with homebuilders, land developers, and property owners on land acquisition, development, on-site new home sales, marketing, and architectural review. On a typical engagement we are involved before the land is purchased and stay through the final closing.

Yes. Some engagements are consulting only, where we assess a community's positioning, pricing, and absorption and hand back a plan your existing team executes. Others are full on-site representation where we hire, train, and manage the sales team ourselves. The right structure depends on how many communities you are running and whether you want to carry sales as a fixed cost.

Our portfolio runs from 12 single-family homes at Thorn Creek in Thornton to 385 custom and semi-custom homes at Coal Creek Ranch in Louisville. We have also handled single infill sites in Denver and a 250-home community in Broomfield. Size matters less than whether the project has a real problem to solve.

Colorado. Our completed work spans 13 counties, concentrated on the Front Range from Douglas County to Boulder County, plus foothills communities in Jefferson County, the Western Slope at Battlement Mesa, and resort work in Steamboat Springs and Red Feather Lakes.

A licensed brokerage. Gourmet Real Estate holds Colorado employing broker license EC.040041562. That distinction matters because a broker owes clients fiduciary duties that a marketing vendor does not, and because our people can write and negotiate contracts rather than handing buyers off at the point of sale.

Since 1995. Over that period we have handled development, sales, marketing, or architectural review for 41 Colorado communities and builder partnerships.

Structures vary, but the meaningful difference is fixed versus variable cost. An in-house sales hire is salary, benefits, and payroll tax that continue whether the community is absorbing or not. An outsourced on-site team is typically weighted toward commission, which means the cost tracks closings. For a builder running one or two communities at a time, the variable structure usually carries less risk.

We do. Gourmet hires, licenses, trains, and manages the sales team under our brokerage. You get the sales result and the reporting without carrying the recruiting, supervision, or license compliance.

Traffic count, traffic-to-appointment conversion, appointment-to-contract conversion, cancellation rate, and net absorption per month against the pro forma. Gross sales alone hides too much. A community can post strong write-ups and still miss its number if cancellations are running high, which usually points at qualification discipline rather than traffic.

That is one of the harder problems in new home sales and a reason builders outsource it. A strong on-site agent who finishes a sellout has to go somewhere. Because we run multiple engagements, we can move proven people to the next community instead of laying them off and rehiring cold when the following project opens.

Before the offer. Most of what determines whether a parcel works is decided in feasibility: what the site costs to make buildable, what the jurisdiction will approve, and what the finished product can sell for. Once you are under contract with a short due diligence window, your options narrow to proceeding or walking.

Water, grading, and stormwater, roughly in that order. Water rights and tap availability can make an otherwise attractive parcel unbuildable at the density the pro forma assumed. Grading and stormwater detention are where budgets quietly break, because both consume developable acreage and neither is obvious from a plat.

A broker associate at the firm is a professional engineer licensed in Colorado, Minnesota, North Dakota, and Utah, and runs a civil engineering practice covering site planning, grading, drainage, stormwater, and entitlements. That means a site can be assessed technically while it is still being evaluated commercially.

Absorption is the number of homes a community sells per month. It matters because carrying cost is a function of time. A community priced 3 percent higher that sells one home a month slower will usually return less than the lower-priced alternative, because the interest, taxes, and overhead run for longer. Price and pace are one decision.

Less than most expect, and differently than most do. Advertising generates traffic, but traffic is rarely the binding constraint. Communities that miss their numbers usually convert poorly rather than draw poorly. Before increasing spend, we look at conversion at each stage, because fixing a 4 percent appointment-to-contract rate is cheaper than doubling the top of the funnel.

Usually, on a community large enough to amortize it. A model resolves the two objections that stall new home buyers most often, which are difficulty visualizing an unbuilt product and doubt about finish quality. On a small infill project the math is different, and a well-merchandised spec often does the same job for less capital.

An ARC reviews and approves home designs, materials, colors, and site placement against a community's design guidelines before construction. Its purpose is to protect value for every owner in the community by preventing individual choices that reduce what the neighborhood is worth.

Because the job creates conflict and neighbors should not have to absorb it. Volunteer committees made up of residents end up ruling on their neighbors' homes, which strains relationships and produces inconsistent decisions. An outside administrator applies the guidelines the same way every time and absorbs the friction.

By writing them so a buyer can understand what is and is not allowed before they fall in love with a plan, and by turning submittals around quickly. Most ARC frustration comes from ambiguity and delay rather than from the standards themselves. Clear rules enforced fast are easier to sell against than loose rules enforced unpredictably.

Yes, in residential, land, and commercial transactions. The firm's background is development and new home sales, so we tend to be most useful to clients evaluating property as an investment, weighing a build versus buy decision, or selling land that has development potential worth articulating to the right buyer.

We come at property from the development side. The team includes a CPA and Certified Internal Auditor and a licensed professional engineer. On a land parcel or an investment property, that means the financial analysis and the site feasibility get examined seriously rather than treated as someone else's job.