What’s Your Definition of a “Full Service” Real Estate Professional?

A recurring issue for the Colorado Real Estate Commission (“CREC”) has been the matter of licensed real estate brokers who only offer “Limited Service.”

State law and CREC rules lay out the minimum “uniform duties” that must be performed whether the broker is an “agent” for his client or merely a “transaction broker.”  An agent has the burden of acting to promote the interests of the buyer or seller “with the utmost good faith, loyalty, and fidelity,” whereas a transaction broker is a neutral facilitator who is prohibited from putting the interests of one party ahead of those of the other party.

At Golden Real Estate, our company policy is to function as an “agent” except when forced to act as a “transaction broker” because one client decides to purchase another client’s listing.  If a non-client — such as an open house visitor — wants to purchase one of our listings, we treat that buyer as a “customer” instead of doing what some other brokerages do, which is to create an agency relationship with that buyer and thus deprive their seller of those agent responsibilities.

The “uniform duties” which even a transaction broker must perform include presenting all offers to and from a client in a timely manner and being involved in all other negotiations such as regarding inspection issues. The other minimum duties are spelled out in the Commission’s Position Statement 36, a link for which you’ll find at www.JimSmithColumns.com.

The bottom line for real estate brokers is that they cannot simply put a listing on the MLS and tell interested brokers or buyers to contact the seller directly. This includes providing that kind of limited service to new home builders, yet it continues to be done by some brokers, who simply tell buyers to call or visit the builder’s sales office, where all negotiation takes place.

As I write this, there are 185 builder listings on www.REcolorado.com (Denver’s MLS) which are labeled “Limited Service” by brokers who do not work for the builder. I’m not clear why the Division of Real Estate does not enforce CP-36 against the brokers who put those listings on the MLS and do few, if any, of the “uniform duties.”

Putting a home on the MLS is itself not one of the uniform duties.  It, along with doing open houses and advertising a listing, are among what the CREC calls “additional duties,” and CP-36 specifically says that a licensee may not perform “additional duties” without also performing all the “uniform duties.”

Whatever your definition of “full service” may be, it has to include total participation by the broker in a transaction from listing to contract to closing.  At Golden Real Estate, our agents perform all those “uniform duties” and go deep into “additional duties” — holding open houses, advertising both in print and online, creating custom websites for each listing, and shooting narrated video tours, including drone footage. 

 

We provide staging advice, handyman and other services, recommend trusted lenders, inspectors, estate sales people and other professionals through our own smartphone app. We even provide free use of one of our moving trucks, packing boxes, bubble wrap, etc. 

And we’re always on the lookout for new ways we can serve our clients.

 

Yes, we are “full service” Realtors, and we look forward to hearing from you.

Published Feb. 2, 2017, in the YourHub section of the Denver Post and in four Jefferson County weekly newspapers.

Download our FREE service provider app at www.clientlinkt.com/install/243.

Just Listed: Lakewood Townhome With 2-Car Garage

 

9282 W. Utah Place, Lakewood

$235,000

More pictures and details at www.LakewoodTownhome.info

 

This 1,172-sq.-ft. townhome is in the Woodlake subdivision, a complex of 19 multi-townhome buildings between Hoyt and Garrison Streets north of Jewell Ave., just east of Kendrick Reservoir. Technically, this is a 2-bedroom unit, but the partially finished 457-sq.-ft. basement is set up with a couple more sleeping rooms. Currently it is tenant-occupied, and the tenant would like to remain, but her lease expires on Feb. 28th, making this suitable for purchase by either an investor or owner-occupant. This end unit includes a 2-car attached garage (accessed from behind) plus two private patios, one in front (as shown in this picture), and one on the side. It has forced air heat and central air conditioning. The $210/month HOA dues include a community pool, as well as insurance, exterior & grounds maintenance, water & sewer, and trash & snow removal. Out of consideration for the tenant, there will be no open house.  Call your agent or 303-525-1851 for a private showing.

Published Feb. 2, 2017, in the YourHub section of the Denver Post and in four Jefferson County weekly newspapers.

What Are the Rules of Professional Journalism?

With all the discussion of “fake news," allow me to share what I was taught as an intern at The Washington Post and what I have practiced over the years as a newspaper publisher, editor and columnist.

There are three distinct editorial elements in a legitimate newspaper, and the lines between them are clearly delineated. When these rules are followed, as they are at the Denver Post and all major dailies, that publication deserves our respect and trust.  While most newspapers and over-the-air TV stations honor these rules, the same can not be said about certain radio programs, internet news sources and cable television networks. Their blurring or violation of these rules allows people to accuse “the media” of being dishonest or biased, which only makes things worse.

The use of social media to spread false stories, aka “fake news,” and the willingness of people to believe what they read — especially when it fits their own opinions — has made the situation worse. But the real damage is done when we fail to distinguish between such non-journalism and the product of hard-working, ethical journalists.  Here are those three elements:

• News articles can have bylines which may contain the term “staff writer,” “reporter,” or “correspondent.” The rules for news articles is that all opinion or statements of fact must be attributed to someone and not the opinion or statement of the reporter.
• Editorials are the opinion of the newspaper, usually agreed to by an “editorial board” in the case of big-city dailies. They do not have a byline and are labeled as editorial opinion.
• Columns are bylined and are the personal opinion of the writer and not the newspaper. The byline is distinctive, usually with a picture of the writer, so they are not mistaken as a news article.

When advertisements, like this one, are editorial in nature, the typeface is not the same as on the news pages, and the word “advertisement” appears at the top. That was not my choice. The Denver Post requires it.  The term for such ads is “advertorial.” 

[That's the end of what was published on Feb. 2 in the YourHub section of the Denver Post and in four Jefferson County weekly newspapers.  What follows are some additional thoughts by me on this subject. Your comments and questions are welcome.]

 

There's a lot of talk about "fake news."  So how can you identify fake news? It probably violates the rule for news articles mentioned above, which is that all claims or statements of fact must be attributed.  The question you as a reader need to ask is, "Says who?"  Let's say you read that Hilary Clinton had an illegal email server.  Says who?  What's missing in that statement is a phrase like "according to the Justice Department" or, better, a particular person in a particular role at the Justice Department.

As a reporter, you learn to be skeptical about everything you're told.  That's why professional news organizations won't print a story unless it is verified by two sources, even if those sources must remain anonymous, in which case you see phrases like "according to a source in the Justice Department." It's the job of the reporter's editor to know who that source is, even if the source must remain anonymous, so that the reporter is not just making up the source.  Occasionally, but only rarely, you see where that rule breaks down in a professional news organization, and they suffer for that lapse.  An example of that was the Rolling Stone article about campus rapes.  The editor had allowed an article to be published without demanding of the writer to share his sources. 

Sometimes a reporter is his own witness to something, but the article never uses the first person.  Instead of saying "I personally saw this happen," you'll see the phrase, "This reporter saw...."  but reporters are to use that as a last resort. It's always best to quote someone else.

I remember well my two weeks of training by the city editor of the Washington Post before I was allowed to write my first article.  One particular piece of training that sticks in my mind concerned obituaries.  The Post would publish an obituary on anyone when it was phoned in by a relative.  But after the reporter has taken down all the details, he was required to get the name of the funeral home which was handling the body of the deceased.  He does not accept the phone number of that funeral home from the caller.  Instead, he looks up the number of that funeral home in the phone book (nowadays on the Internet) and calls to verify that they have the body.  The purpose is to avoid printing a fake obituary.  It's a simple but essential step, because it is libelous to print that someone died when they didn't, and the newspaper could be sued.  

We all need to be vigilant and careful readers. The more outrageous a claim, the more you should be asking yourself, "Says who?"  If the article doesn't attribute that claim to a named and believable source, it is quite possibly a hoax.  

Every now and then someone will include me on a large mass-forwarding of some scandalous email.  It if sounds too good -- or too bad -- to be true, I always Google it, and more times that not, I quickly debunk the story.  If the recipients of that mass email were not blind copied, I will then "Reply All" and explain that it was a hoax. If the recipients were blind copied I at least reply to the sender with what I found out and ask him or her to send a correction.  I hope you will do the same.

A classic example of such emails was in 2009 when the claim started circulating that Obamacare was going to apply the Medicare tax (about 6%) to the sale of homes.  The emails said that if you sold a house for $200,000, you'd be charged, say, $12,000 sales tax on the transaction.  It was a complete distortion, and the perpetrators of this lie knew it, but it kept being circulated for what seemed like years, over and over again.  People believed it.  Was it ever retracted?  Of course not. (The tax was charged only on the profit, not the sales price, of investment properties, and even then only if the profit exceeded $200,000, as I recall.  Columns by me about this with the full facts can be found from 2009-2011 at www.JimSmithColumns.com, where all my columns are archived.)

I'd be happy to hear your input and answer reader questions about professional journalism -- not that I'm an expert or a journalism teacher, but because I do know something about the topic and it's worth discussing further.