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Archive for March, 2007

Colorado real estate company claims: “We’re greener!”

Thursday, March 29th, 2007

We purchased our first company car today: a Toyota Prius.

I’m sure the men are thinking, “Sure, I can understand that choice”. I mean that baby can fly like a Porsche on nitrous! And for a man gently approaching his 40th birthday with the grace of a portly ballerina, it doesn’t hurt that the car is such a hit with the ladies. The old ego still needs a boost now and then, and that Prius has rebel! written all over it.

You’re right, it may not be the sexiest car on the planet but our company is intentionally green from it’s inception. Ask my programmers John and Yong how much fun it’s been creating our My Real-a-Save feature for our clients so that they won’t generate or need to keep track of the volumes of paper that normally accompany a real estate transaction. We’ve spent the time and money to create a secure, paperless, digital environment to house the documents associated with every real estate transaction.

We made a green decision not lease commercial space. We’ve found a cutting-edge company called Intelligent Office which handles our office staffing, receptionists, and board room/conference room needs with fantastic efficiency and professionalism. We believe that there is simply no need to have a standing real estate office in this digital age. Computers, fax, scanners, phones, email, and Intelligent Office are all we need. We meet our clients needs in style by scheduling meetings as they arise at our beautiful shared offices in Boulder, Downtown Denver, and Denver Tech Center without the waste and resource drain that accompanies opening a dedicated commercial office space. But when the meeting is over, we’ll be leaving the office as well. Think of it as turning off the lights when you leave the room.

The Prius is our company car because we’re serious about creating an efficient, socially responsible Colorado company that leaves this beautiful state in better shape than we found it.

Take a look at Plug In America for more information on hybrids.

Because our clients are self-directed buyers who are happy to use some cool tools, and comfortable driving by their favorite properties on their own schedule, they save us the time and energy associated with driving clients from house to house. When it does come time to take a home tour with us to view their top few houses, we’ll do it in the company Prius.

As a reward for handling the majority of the driving portion of the real estate transaction, we rebate 75% of our commission directly to our clients, and we also commit to genuinely take care of the state they chose to call home.

Posted in Boulder, CO, Denver, CO, Our Company | 1 Comment »

Denver real estate agent

Thursday, March 29th, 2007

My 17-month old daughter play with some poker chips on the floor this evening, and was incredibly impressed with how methodically she was picking each chip up off the floor and putting it deliberately into the container. A to B. Chip to container, chip to container. If you’re a parent then it’s easy to predict that this particular game did not last very long…it was just a few minutes of predictability and calm in the sea of anarchy which is my daughter. Soon, the chips were flying, container was crushed, and I was scrambling to make sure she didn’t end up pooping out blue poker chips for the next two days.

Life is so unpredictable. I started out wanting to be a writer when I was in high school. In college I studied pre-med and graduated Cum Laude with the intention of going to medical school. Then I was a teacher in New York City. Now I own Real-a-Save. What the hell happened? How did I go from slogging through Organic Chemistry at San Francisco State University to creating a start-up real estate company? I never could have imagined in a thousand years when I was teaching inner-city kids at St. Agnes Boys High School in Manhattan that I would end up being a Denver real estate agent.

The funny thing is that I always pictured myself playing the deliberate chip-to-container game that my daughter was playing, when all along I’ve been scattering chips around the room like an exploding Vegas slot machine. My life has been a blast, but it’s been anything but deliberate and predictable.

For those of you out there who’ve worked methodically at the same career unlike myself: My wife is one of you. Same career for 14 years now. She’s great at it and has the respect of her peers and earns a fantastic income. She completely embraces consistency and slow methodical progression.

Not me. I’ve got this rebel gene somewhere in my DNA that loves to tackle big ideas: write a novel, be a doctor, teach inner city kids in NYC. And as unpredictable as it’s been for me it has lead me here to tackle another big idea: reinvent real estate. As cheesy as it sounds I’m really enjoying myself. It’s such a blast to see this thing that was just an idea on a yellow legal pad 18 months ago growing into a profitable business with happy clients and brilliant programmers cranking out the code as we speak. I know that my wife would smack me if she read that I’m comparing starting a company to giving birth to a child, but I’ll go ahead and do it anyway. From an idea to a living thing. The chips are flying all over the room, but that just means I’m still pursuing that big idea.

Posted in Colorado Real Estate, Denver, CO | No Comments »

What we’re all about

Wednesday, March 28th, 2007

Keep things simple. That’s the guiding thought behind what we’re doing over at Real-a-Save. Buying a house is a pretty straight forward process 99% of the time. And with more and more people choosing to do the search portion of this process on their own via the internet, and then bringing the agent in to write the offer only after they’ve narrowed down their list, well, it makes our business that much more sensible. Why shouldn’t we reward our buyers with a huge cash rebate for saving us all that time? And the funny thing is, most people prefer to handle the search on their own, at their own pace. With all the tools available on the internet for evaluating prices and searching for homes, most people are handling this portion of the purchase process themselves and are finding it an easy, convenient way to stay in control of the transaction from day one.

The goal of our website is to continue with this idea that we should keep it simple. We’ve created a user interface that is simple and elegant and offers everything a client might need over the course of a transaction.

Our site does not look like your typical agent’s website. We know that if you are buying or selling a house you probably don’t want to wade through a bunch of shameless self promotion, just get to the bottom line. How much will this cost? What do I get? How can you help me? We’re transparent from day one. Our savings calculator tells you exactly how much your rebate will be at closing. And our one-price listing program for sellers simplifies the entire process of selling your home. Look, there’s just no reason to charge one client $30,000 to sell their house, then turn around and charge another client $5,000 for the same service (depending on how much your home costs) when a single modest fee for all clients regardless of the price of their home is more logical.

The next project we’ll be taking on is building a better real estate search feature. I’ll keep you posted on our progress and will happily listen to any requests or advice regarding features.

If you can see any way we can make our site better then just shoot me an email at bobconnors@realasave.com.

Posted in Our Company | No Comments »

Boulder mountain home

Monday, March 26th, 2007

As a New Yorker desperate for a change of scenery, I had this fantasy about living in the mountains of Colorado. I remember driving my motorcycle through Colorado back in the early 90’s on a cross-country trip with a buddy of mine and being just blown away by the Rockies. I felt like those tourists who walk around Manhattan staring up at the skyscrapers w/their strained necks, fanny-packs and cameras clearly identifying them as “not locals”. I didn’t care how foolish I looked: I just couldn’t take my eyes off of those mountains. Could you ever get used to such beauty?

Unlike many of our fleeting dreams, I did follow through on mine in regards to living in the mountains. For a year I lived in a cabin up on North Turkey Creek Road in the Evergreen area. It was great….but. I think after living in cities like San Francisco and New York I got accustomed to having incredible restaurants, cafes, bookstores and people close at hand. I just couldn’t get over the feeling of isolation and distance. That’s precisely why I’ve grown to love the mountains that surround Boulder.

If you were to chug up Flagstaff road you’d feel like you are in the middle of Montana. Snowy-peaked mountains surround you from every direction, a few houses dot the hills around you, the sun is shining, and the great silence of the city-less places takes over. Lots of folks settle here forever. It’s a nearly perfect corner of the world. The best feature of this area to me is that you can live surrounded by this natural beauty and isolation and then hop in your car for a 10 minute drive down Flagstaff (or your bike, same time) and you are smack in the middle of one of the coolest towns in Colorado: Boulder. Home to incredible restaurants like Jax and Khow Thai , amazing cafes like Vic’s Espresso and Trident.

To those of you who already live in a Boulder mountain home, then you know exactly what I’m talking about. You’ve got the best of both worlds. Don’t hate me for giving away your little secret.

Posted in Boulder, CO, Colorado Real Estate | 1 Comment »

Boulder real estate

Thursday, March 22nd, 2007

Don’t believe the hype! If you were to judge the Boulder real estate market by what is being written and said about the Colorado market in general, then you’d be terrified. Foreclosure, unscrupulous lenders, plummeting house prices, and every other plague imaginable has infested the Colorado real estate market, and by association, the Boulder real estate market as well. So stay away. You’re crazy if you are even considering buying. If you believe that then you’re probably one of the people who are constantly losing money in the stock market. Momentum buyers tend to listen to the prevailing news and purchase homes, stocks, whatever, depending on what the talking heads are saying.

Take a deep breath and think about this town. It’s the same place it was a few years ago when the market was hot. Sure, we’re in a confirmed buyer’s market, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad market, or a dangerous market. Examine the factors that draw people to consider Boulder as a place to live in the first place: the mountains, skiing, mountain biking, hiking, running, the University, jobs, the weather, and world-class restaurants. The sheer beauty of this place is staggering. All of these things are still here. Boulder is still Boulder and people will still flock here tomorrow to live in one of the healthiest, most beautiful corners of the world. And that will likely have a stabilizing effect on real estate no matter what the doomsayers are spouting in print and televised media.

I’m a transplant. I think the perspective of having grown up elsewhere is what allows me to have the deep appreciation for this area that I do. The fact that I can drive to a buddies house on a Saturday morning, stop at Vic’s Espresso for a solid cup of joe, and then be out the door on a mountain bike, riding in the pristine beauty of Walker Ranch without going out of my way—well, that’s what makes me so certain that those of us who have hitched our wagons to this spot are lucky in so many ways. And it’s why I can take a deep breath and brush off the news on TV and know in my heart that we’re doing just fine.

Posted in Boulder, CO, Colorado Real Estate | 1 Comment »