Lauren Cotlar PROOF
PROOF
Packing Food, Opening Doors, and Empowering First-Time Buyers
Hunger is cruel. It doesn’t care that it’s Friday afternoon or that a child has two long days before the next school meal. Empty cupboards, growling stomachs, and restless nights are the weekend reality for too many kids. That’s why every Friday morning you’ll find REALTOR® Lauren Cotlar surrounded by pallets of food with Food For Thought. She helps pack approximately 2500 bags of food each week so kids don’t have to wonder where their next meal is coming from.
One morning, while she was out helping deliver food to
the schools, she struck up a conversation with a fellow volunteer. His children attended one of the schools benefiting from the program.
“What do you do?” he asked her.
“I’m a REALTOR®,” she said.
The conversation then turned to helping the man get his finances in check and finding a plan to achieve homeownership for himself, his wife, and their four children. “We looked into the City of Denver’s affordable housing programs,” says Lauren, who came to the rescue in September 2024. “We ended up finding them a new build farther east,” she shares.
He, his wife, and their four children just celebrated their first home anniversary. Lauren recently did a “pop by” visit to drop off some goodies, and the family’s little girl grabbed her hand, proudly showing off her room. “That was the coolest experience,” Lauren reflects, her face lighting up at the memory. That’s what real estate is all about to her – making a difference.
Finding Her Path
A Boulder native, Lauren studied advertising at the University of Colorado, drawn to the strategy of what motivates people. “I liked the strategy side – digging into who the consumer is and what their desires are.”
PROOF
At the age of 22, Lauren moved to Boston where she worked first as an account manager for a market research company then at MIT in the Work-Life Center within their Human Resources department. In this role, she helped with programming and ran events for staff, faculty and postdocs focused around various life stages, such as buying your first home, parenting, and caring for an aging family member.
After 4 years, the frigid winters in Boston got the best of her.
“Being from Colorado, I thought I could handle it,” she jokes. “I didn’t think it was going to be a problem, but the winters out there are different. They were brutal, so I went to Austin, where it was good and warm.” That’s where she worked at UT Austin for the Engineering School in event and program management.
“It was a group that created an engineering curriculum for high school students to grow their interest in engineering where they could get college credit,” she says. The only problem? “I didn’t have a real connection to the engineering side of it.” She was craving work that had more heart.
“I’d always thought about real estate,” she admits. “I was a little intimidated by it. I felt like I wasn’t ‘sales-y’ or competitive enough. But my mom kept reminding me that’s not what it’s about. It’s about helping the clients.”
So in 2021, Lauren moved back to Colorado, got her real estate license, and jumped in with her mom, veteran REALTOR® Marcia Cotlar.
“I finally decided to take the plunge,” says Lauren. Her Mom has made a name for herself over the past 30 years. “I am fortunate enough to not only learn from
and work with her, but to build on her business.”
Reinventing the Family Business
While her mom brings three decades of experience, Lauren brings fresh fire. She’s leaning into branding, social media, and data-driven tools to connect with a new generation of buyers and sellers. “My mom will check in every once in a while asking, ‘You like what you’re doing, right? You’re not just doing it for me?” Lauren laughs. “And I tell her, ‘Yes. I really do love it.’”
She particularly loves working with first-time buyers, who are overwhelmed by terms like “appraisals” or think they need to “waive an inspection”. Lauren breaks it down, educates them, and makes the process feel possible. She’s especially passionate about empowering women with her bold message: Houses before spouses.
“You don’t have to wait for a partner,” she says. “You can build stability and wealth on your own terms.”
Real Estate, Real Life
Lauren’s not your buttonedup, cookie-cutter REALTOR®. She’s the one running on coffee, teaching a Lagree class at dawn, negotiating a contract by noon, and rallying neighbors for a coat drive by night. Balance? Forget it. For Lauren, it’s more about work and life together.
She thrives on mixing her worlds beautifully. One minute she’s coaching a first-time buyer through the terror of writing their first offer, the next she’s sweating it out on the Red Rocks stairs with friends and clients who’ve become her people. And when summer hits, you’ll find her out at the Boulder Reservoir—
You don’t have to wait for a partner. You can build stability and wealth on your own terms.”
Real estate is about real life, rather than square footage and comps. It’s a beautiful thing. The life where kids tug your hand to show you their new bedroom. The life where financial independence means you hold the keys. The life where your REALTOR® might also be the person cheering you on at a stair climb or handing you a beer at happy hour.
That same spirit extends to how Lauren gives back. Beyond Food for Thought, she supports other nonprofits too. For holiday gifts, she chooses Bridge House Brownies, made by Community Table Kitchen—a program that helps adults experiencing homelessness gain housing, jobs, and stability. It’s one more way she makes a difference, one brownie at a time.
At the end of the day, Lauren’s why is simple but fierce: to fulfill, and help others fulfill, a freedomfilled, connection-rich life that’s unapologetically theirs. From packing food for kids to putting keys in hands, she’s a difference maker. She’s showing that small things done with love can truly make a difference.
Lauren Cotlar lauren.cotlar@compass. com303.908.0051 www.compass.com/ agents/lauren-cotlar
waterskiing at sunrise or squeezing in one last lap at sunset before diving back into contracts and client calls.
That’s why she throws monthly happy hours. And it’s why she’s not afraid to weave philanthropy into business, encouraging clients and colleagues alike to show up on Friday mornings to pack food for hungry kids.
