10 Reasons You’d Be Smart to List Your Home With Golden Real Estate

You have choices when it comes to hiring an agent to list your home.  Why do I think you should select one of the agents at Golden Real Estate?

•     Your home is featured in our weekly ad. Our combined readership in the Denver Post and four weekly newspapers is over 200,000. After a decade of writing this “Real Estate Today” column, we’re acquired a following, and that draws more attention to your home.
•     Our free moving truck helps sell your home, as well as being a great perk for you. When you hire us to buy your replacement home as well as sell your current home, we also provide free gas, manpower and moving boxes. That’s totally free moving! (metro area only)
•    We discount our commission if we sell your home ourselves. We don’t wait for you ask. If we don’t have to split our commission with a buyer’s agent, we feel it’s only fair to reduce our commission.  It's a win/win -- we make more commission, and you save on commission. Because of our marketing, we do sell a higher percentage of our listings than most agents — 16% in 2016.
•     We discount our listing commission if we earn a commission on the purchase of your replacement home. Again, we think that’s the fair thing to do — a win/win.
•    We shoot magazine quality photos of your home.  Our still photos are shot using High Dynamic Range (HDR) technology, which is what the glossy magazines do. 
•    We produce a narrated video tour of our listings. A narrated video tour simulates an actual showing. We’ve had out-of-state buyers submit offers without seeing the house in person because they got the equivalent of an in-person tour by video.
•    We include drone footage in our video tours, when possible.  Buyers find aerial views quite helpful.
•    We provide a free staging consultation. This helps your home show its best.
•    We create a website specific to your home with its own distinctive web address, making it easier for readers and online searchers to view your listing.
•    We’re really good at negotiating multiple offers!  That’s why 37 of the 64 listings we sold in 2016 closed over the listing price — nine of them more than 10% over listing price.

Find a roster of our 10 brokers (with bios) at www.GoldenRealEstateAgent.com.

Don’t Be Fooled by 1% Listing Commission Offers

The commissions charged in real estate transactions can confuse buyers and sellers. Allow me to ex-plain how it all works, in case you’re not clear about it.

Typically, the buyer’s agent — also known as the “selling agent” because he/she sells the home — is paid by the listing agent, not the seller. The seller signs a listing agreement for a total commission amount — which might range from 4 to 7 percent — and agrees to pay a portion of that commission to the broker who sells your home. That’s referred to as the “co-op commission” because the selling agent is the “co-operating agent.” Regardless of the total commission charged, it is common in the Denver market for the listing agent to offer 2.8% as the co-op commission, which is specified in the listing agreement.

 

Long before I became a Realtor, the Justice Department ruled that listing commissions are subject to the Sherman Anti-trust Act.  Prior to that, the Denver Board of Realtors, I’ve been told, decreed that listing commissions should be 7%, and buyer’s agents should receive 40% or that listing commission, which computes to 2.8%. Since that Justice Department edict, it is illegal for us to refer to any percentage as  a “standard” listing commission. The co-op commission, I’m told, is not subject to that rule, so it’s okay for me to say that the co-op commission is “typically” 2.8% and for our office policy manual to say that all agents shall offer a 2.8% co-op. Even as listing commissions dropped under competitive pressure, listing agents have been reluctant to reduce the co-op commission out of fear that agents would not show and sell their listings. (I tried offering 2.5% a few years ago, and went back to 2.8% after realizing this was true.)

 

Some discount brokerages will seek to get listings by advertising 1% or a flat fee such as $1,200 as the “listing” commission. The fine print, however, will note that this does not include the co-op commission, which will be another 2.8% — which you’d be wise to agree to. The listing agent may suggest that you offer a smaller co-op commission, such as a flat $3,000, but you may find yourself agreeing to increase the co-op to 2.8% after a week or two with few showings and no offers.

 

Perhaps you, like me, have learned that you get what you pay for in life. That is true, for sure, with Golden Real Estate. Yes, we charge more, but sellers get more in services and benefits with our higher but below-average commission fees. For example, we offer magazine quality HDR photos, narrated video tours (including drone footage), custom web sites for each listing, free use of our moving truck for you and the buyer (including moving boxes and bubble wrap), 24-hour Centralizing Showing Service, and the featuring of your home in the Denver Post and four weekly newspapers next to our "Real Estate Today" column.  The discounters don't offer most of those added services, all of which help to give the widest exposure to your home, producing the most showings, the most offers and the highest price thanks to competitive bidding, which we manage.

 

I welcome your questions and comments. Feel free to call me or email me.

Published Feb. 23, 2017, in the YourHub section of the Denver Post and in four Jefferson County weekly newspapers.

In This Internet Age, What’s the Future of the Broker-Centric Real Estate Model?

When I earned my real estate license back in 2003, web-based software was just beginning to take hold.  There were still vestiges of the “old school” around, best typified by the bound books of listings which were still being printed and used by some long-time brokers.

It wasn’t until a few years later that the printed books were discontinued and the older brokers either retired or came kicking and screaming into the 21st Century.

Then the iPhone was introduced in 2007 — 10 years ago this month. I’ve been reading Thomas Friedman’s latest book, Thank You for Being Late, in which he devotes a chapter to “What the Hell Happened in 2007?”  Facebook had just opened to non-college students and started to scale globally. Twitter was created in 2007 and Google launched Android. Kindle was introduced that year. So was LinkedIn.

Sustainability began to go mainstream, too. According to Friedman, 2007 was “the beginning of an exponential rise in solar energy, wind, biofuels, LED lighting, energy efficient buildings, and the electrification of vehicles.”

Now, just 10 years later, we’re in a different world. Travel agents have been decimated by the public’s ability to shop for and book their own travel online, and online purchases are threatening brick and mortar stores, cutting into the sales tax revenues of local jurisdictions.

Will real estate brokers go the way of the travel agents, now that over 90% of buyers do their own house hunting online, and sellers can list their homes online at little or no cost?

There are good reasons why the answer is “no.” Although there continue to be off-MLS sales of real estate — as there were before the Internet —  people still see the need to hire a professional on both sides of the real estate transaction. After all, buying a home is a far more complicated process than buying a car or refrigerator, and, unless you buy and sell homes frequently, there’s a lot that you may not know about the process.

Just last weekend, a first-time homebuying couple came to our office, curious about, and somewhat overwhelmed by, the process ahead of them in moving from renting to home ownership.  As I answered their questions, I was reminded of how much I have learned about real estate that I didn’t know before I entered the business — even though I had bought and sold a half dozen properties in New York, Hawaii and Colorado before becoming a Realtor.  Yes, experience really does count!

For any seller, getting under contract is only the beginning. A whole series of tasks and challenges lie ahead.  And what if there are multiple bidders for a home? At www.JimSmithColumns.com you’ll find several columns in which I shared strategies for buyers and sellers to succeed in this highly competitive seller’s market. But, again, that’s only the beginning of a long process in which an experienced broker like the ones at Golden Real Estate can help both buyer and seller get under contract and reach the closing table without problems.

For the seller, nothing can take the place of a trusted showing service, which is only available through a licensed agent. Yes, you can buy a lockbox at any hardware store, but you need a showing service to grant showings only to licensed agents and not to people pretending to be licensed agents. Only licensed agents are fingerprinted and subject to criminal background checks. A good showing service also has an automated system to collect and forward feedback from showing agents.

Buyers need guidance on finding a trusted local mortgage lender.  (We discourage the use of online lenders.)

The first big hurdle after going under contract is inspection. Buyers need help finding a trusted inspector, especially here in Colorado, which has yet to license that profession. Then both parties need help reaching resolution on which inspection issues the seller will and will not address.  I could write an entire column on this subject.

There are legal requirements regarding HOA documents to be provided as well as about lead-based paint hazards in homes built prior to 1978. In the latter case, failure to complete the proper disclosure on time can result in a 5-figure fine.  (It also voids the contract!)

There are other times between contract and closing when an experienced real estate professional adds value, not to mention such benefits as, in the case of Golden Real Estate, free moving trucks and packing materials.

NOTE: Buyers typically don’t pay for professional representation, because their agent gets a split of the listing commission paid by the seller. Moreover, if you have a home to sell, you can negotiate a lower commission on the sale of your home if you allow your agent to earn a commission when you buy your new home.

Published Jan. 26, 2017, in the YourHub section of the Denver Post and in four Jefferson County weekly newspapers.