If you’re a first-time home buyer here in the Colorado Front Range region you should have someone on your side. Whether it’s Real-a-Save or some other agent, or even a lawyer, it really doesn’t matter. The main point is that you should have someone who is representing your best interests.
Many home buyers start their home search by calling listing agents directly. Now, that’s fine if you plan on using that particular listing agent as your representative, but maybe not so fine if you plan on having a Buyer’s Agent represent you. If it’s your intention to use Real-a-Save, or some other real estate company as your agent then it may be best if you direct all information requests and especially showing requests through your agent and NOT through the listing agent.
Just out of courtesy, it’s advisable not to waste the listing agent’s time. But you also want to avoid raising the specter of Procuring Cause. Procuring Cause is a sticky issue in real estate and one that cause many a mediation session between Realtors. When an agent claims procuring cause they’re basically saying that they’re the reason you bought the house. Some listing agents have tried to claim procuring cause when they’ve opened doors for a buyer (like you) and then that buyer later comes back with their own agent to make an offer. Personally, I think this is a ridiculous practice and those listing agents should be ashamed of themselves for this level of greed.
Be very careful when you begin your home search. Feel free to email bob@realasave.com if you have any questions about Buyer’s Agency.
Your 7-year-old kid could come up with a better short sale process than the ones currently being implemented by some of the largest banks in the country. Any kid who ever traded baseball cards knows what it’s like to have a hot commodity. Ask your kid which of these strategies he’d use if he had a baseball card that 4 of his friends wanted: would he a) ask one friend at a time what they’d trade him for without checking what the other friends would be willing to trade, or would he b) ask all of his friends what they’d like to pay/trade, gather all the bids and THEN make his decision.
The answer is obvious. What good does it do to have a hot commodity if you don’t allow the bidders to feel the heat? But banks are currently employing strategy “a” from the stupid example above. No kidding. I was dealing with a bank today, let’s call them Schmank of Unmerica, and the short sale property in Denver had 3 interested parties. But the bank would only CONSIDER one offer at a time. And they go all the way with that offer. Meaning, it takes weeks/months for that single offer to make it through to someone in negotiations/review and then they make a decision on that single offer without considering any of the waiting offers. And if that offer does not work, well, then our genius bank moves on to offer #2…and ONLY offer #2. And maybe that one works out.
Why wouldn’t a bank simply go back to all 4 interested bidders and ask for their best and highest by 4pm tomorrow? And then go with the best offer? Isn’t that the best thing for their bottom line?
Short sales are the monster just below the surface of our economy. These monsters are having an awful impact on property values, and are accounting for substantial losses at banks. Losses that our government has shown it’s willing to use our tax dollars to rectify.
Email bob@realasave.com if you have any short sale questions, or if you just want to discuss Denver/Boulder real estate.
…we’re moving to Colorado. If you’re thinking of making a big move to Colorado then we can certainly help. There are some really nice resources on this website to help you get a feel for this wonderful state right from the comfort of your home.
Thinking of looking at some Louisville real estate? Check out our Louisville information pages here. You can also search for all of the homes for sale in Louisville on our cool map search.
Maybe you’re taking a job in Denver. Again, we’ve put together some good information about the various Denver neighborhoods. And you can search the entire Denver MLS right here.
Moving can be expensive, so our nice cash rebate will come in handy once you close on your new home. Feel free to email bob@realasave.com with any questions.
Are you an SEO expert? Sure, me too. And your Mom. Probably your brother too. Everyone seems to be an SEO expert. SEO (in case you don’t know) is Search Engine Optimization. This is the process whereby you, or a high-paid consultant, makes your website “friendly” to Google and other search sites. Anyone with a web-based business knows that they must be found on Google under a certain set of search terms. You want John Q. Public to be able to find you when they enter a certain set of search terms in Google…and there are plenty of people out there who will let you pay them thousands of dollars to figure out how your company can rank higher for certain search terms on Google. Our company, for example, should be visible for certain Boulder real estate and Denver real estate related terms. And we’ve had lots of solicitations from SEO experts claiming that they can help us rank higher on these terms. Because, truth be told, we don’t rank at the top for many of these terms…yet. But we’re continuing the “Good Fight” by cranking out relevant information on the Colorado real estate market, and by creating more and better MLS home search features on our site as well. It’s going to take us a lot longer to reach the top of Google results for many of these search terms, but that’s ok. We’re a small operation and simply don’t have $10,000 per month to spend on some SEO expert who will do whatever it takes to get us onto those top Google pages. But our slow and steady approach to SEO will, I think, give us much better long-term traffic. The logic is simple: you can pay someone to give you traffic by any means necessary; or, you can EARN the traffic by slowly and surely becoming the best resource for your particular area of expertise.
Email bob@realasave.com if you have any Denver/Boulder real estate questions, or simply visit us on the web at www.realasave.com
One of the most important steps to putting your Denver or Boulder home on the real estate market is setting the list price. It’s certainly not rocket science, you just study the comps, right? Right. But make sure you take into consideration some of intangible items like view and backing to open space. It’s fine to start with a price per square foot analysis- truly, this is one of the BEST ways to begin your property valuation as numbers just don’t lie. But the square foot numbers don’t tell the complete story.
Sometimes a view is worth $10,000. Sometimes it’s worth $100,000. Sometimes backing to open space is worth $20,000. Sometimes 5 or ten times that amount. It all depends on the neighborhood trends. Now more than ever you need to have a good idea of what value your specific neighborhood puts on those items. And you need to have the comps in hand in order to back up your value claims.
Why do you need the comps in hand? I mean, just get the right buyer, right?? Right. But we’ve now got to deal with a possibly inexperienced appraiser. Lenders have gone from giving anyone or their pet dog a loan to making it very difficult for a qualified person to close. Many of these lending changes are good. Requiring buyers to put more money down is good. Requiring a higher credit score/history is good. Qualifying for LESS money is good. Sending inexperienced appraisers out to valuate properties is bad. And inexperienced appraisers are the name of the game now ever since the appraiser industry began to consolidate and contracts are being awarded to the cheapest (most inexperienced) appraisers. So be prepared. Have your comps in hand and assume the worst.
Email bob@realasave.com if you have any questions about Boulder or Denver real estate.
Once in a while our government actually does something right. The bailouts are a complete joke imho. What do they do for the average citizen? Nothing. But the $8000 tax credit being offered to first time home buyers is putting money directly in the pockets of average Americans. And that is a good thing.
We’re hoping that they extend the tax credit into 2010 as it’s our belief that this will have a profound impact on the real estate market moving forward. Depending on where you’re looking in the Colorado Front Range region, the markets are either holding steady or fairly robust. The Louisville real estate market is red hot, and the Boulder real estate market is quite strong. Moving out into places like Aurora and the South Metro area shows a different story. But it’s safe to say that extending the tax credit would help to bring more buyers into all of these markets, reduce inventory, and get us a long way towards economic recovery.
Several “new” real estate models have proven themselves unable to survive long term. BuySide Realty and Iggy’s House come to mind. But just because these discounters fail does not mean that all discount/rebate models will suffer the same fate.
Real-a-Save has been profitable since our first year in 2007. Our business model differs in a number of ways from companies like BuySide/Iggy’s House. One of the main reasons that BuySide/Iggys failed is due to the low-touch nature of their business. Instead of proving that discounters cannot survive, the failure of BuySide/Iggys simply proves that you can’t sacrifice service on your way to big savings. Consumers have way too many choices right now to put up with poor service from a real estate company- or any company for that matter.
Just think of the success of online shoe company Zappos. Why in the world would a shoe retailer have such success? Service, plain and simple.
Take a look at our testimonials and it’s clear that we at Real-a-Save are fanatics about our customer service. Email bob@realasave.com if you have any questions.
So far, Real-a-Save has been providing services in the Denver and Boulder real estate markets, with the occasional deal in Colorado Springs, Summit County, and Fort Collins. But we have received some interest from agents in other states who would like to bring this concept to consumers in their area.
It seems inevitable that the real estate industry will undergo some serious changes over the coming years. I believe that the economic crisis will have a lasting effect on consumers in this country. People seem much more focused on saving money wherever possible. From groceries to gasoline to real estate fees. Our business seems poised to grow in this new economy.
When consumers are given the choice of two relatively similar products where one of those products offers significant savings, which one will they choose? There really is no difference between the services offered by a traditional Realtor and the services offered by Real-a-Save. Sure, we don’t hold open houses for our sellers. And yes, we ask our buyers to do some of the initial searching on their own. But that’s it. We offer an incredible level of service while simultaneously saving consumers thousands of dollars.
Let us know if you’d like to see Real-a-Save in your city or state. Email bob@realasave.com with requests or questions.
The real estate industry is unique in many ways- not all of them good. For example: why are the words “savings”, and “discount” regarding with such disdain in this industry? It seems that almost every other industry rewards the savings monsters within it with great success. Think Walmart, Costco, or any of a number of low-fee stock trading sites like Scottrade, E-trade, etc.
But in the real estate industry companies which give discounts, or operate with reduced-fee models are often ridiculed or labeled as companies which are doomed to failure. “You get what you pay for!”, is a refrain we in the discount real estate industry hear from those in the traditional, full-fee real estate companies. This implies that savings and poor service go hand in hand. Really? Just take one look at the glowing testimonials on this page and you’ll have to think again. Is it so shocking to traditional real estate agents that someone who offers savings to his clients might also take pride in providing excellent service?
This is not a foreign concept to us at Real-a-Save. Full-service, big savings. It’s a simple business model that is working quite well, thank you.
Visitors to the Real-a-Save website can very easily search for Denver homes for sale in close proximity to their school of choice by using the Sketch-a-Map feature. Simply open up the search page and look at the lower left portion of the screen for the Sketch-a-Map icon. This is a tool we’ve developed which allows visitors to draw boundaries right on our map. You can even save multiple “sketches”, each with unique boundaries, in your “Saved Searches” area of the website. Once you draw and save a search, our system will search for new listings in your saved search each morning and will email you when a home pops up on the Denver or Boulder real estate market which fits your criteria. Pretty cool, right? Give it a try here. And remember that Real-a-Save is the Front Range’s best choice for saving money in your next real estate transaction.
