Customer service has many descriptions (no, there is not one single definition, and no, “the customer is always right” is not the definition). Like a weird Supreme Court decision, “you know it when you see it.”

• Customer Service is repeatable.
• Customer Service is Durable (there’s that word again).
• Customer Service is meant to deepen a connection and increase loyalty. This is very different from “brand-awareness”.
• Customer Service succeeds when it makes the recipient feel 1.) heard 2.) understood 3.) worth attending to 4.) worth keeping 5.) kinda remarkable (or better).

What does this have to do with real estate not being fair?

I got two pieces of snail mail today. Two. That’s about as many pieces as I’ve received all year (amazing how big companies like ERA Shields get spammed with print mail, and little boutiques like Selley Group get nothing generalized. More on that later). Both were from peers in the real estate industry.

One was a recruitment letter. It was on cheap paper. It didn’t have the company indicated on the return address. The business card was ugly. All it spoke about was the stats of the real estate company. It addressed me as “Dear Benjamin” (no one calls me “Benjamin” unless they don’t know me. I use “Benjamin Day” on my business cards because Ben Day Consulting in Boston dominates SEO and the Re/Max Properties Front Desk always – ALWAYS – thinks Ben Gay is setting up a showing when I leave off my “jamin”) so instantly I knew this was circular-file material. Except I kept reading. Not only was it not concerned at all with me, it was obsessed with them. It was NOT oriented around any of the rules of  how customer service succeeds, not one. The only thing “remarkable” was that it made me feel like my special purpose in life was to have a pulse and a NRDS (our REALTOR ID #) to occupy one of their cubes. As long as I had a pulse and a NRDS, that’s all they needed. Who cares what I need?

Worse, I knew Hannah received one last week. So if I got mine this week, I knew I was a tier 2 candidate. I mean, who wouldn’t want Hannah Parsons over Benjamin Day (I’m totally serious, the former is much easier to broker!)? But I used to recruit agents, I did this stuff (I have the scrapbooking paper to prove it!), and when one company goes out on patrol for agents, EVERYONE you could want knows about it within a day. So you better hit all the good ones at once. While this letter was far from flattering, I already knew they had a first wave of “choice” agents that they thought were most recruitable, and I was not in that group. Save the best for later? No. It does not work that way.

The second piece of mail I received today was a handwritten thank you note. From Lee Bolin. Lee owns Saddletree and Symphony Homes. He has for 15 years. My clients said of Lee “I want him to be my Daddy, I love that guy.”

"I _____ Bigger than you, Ben. And, Thanks for bringing your people by"

Lee is like a friendlier version of Jack Palance’s Curly.

Lee wrote me a handwritten note. And mailed it to me. The dude has no email address. But he has the power of the pen.

Now you tell me: when one of these companies is involved in future real estate transactions, which one has my attention? Which one has the greater opportunity for success? Which one is more durable? You tell me. I think the answer is pretty obvious.

Over a year ago I read a column from a futurist who theorized a whole new form of ownership for homeowners, a new mortgage vehicle that would allow enhanced mobility. This was a fascinating article, lacking in specifics, a bit delusion about what it would require to transform an entire industry (and capital’s total unwillingness to do that), but it was still really interesting. It was hitting on something: under-served.

Ron Paul is also running for president, and he essentially wants to return American government to the 19th Century. He’s nice and folksy and all, but, have you really read his stances on anything? Or seen his voting record? But the man is popular, and I know some really smart people that are voting Paul. I think he represents something: under-served.

I point out Penny Parker, and the Futurist, and Ron Paul, because they form a triangle of conversation around the same thing: lifestyle in 2012. We know it is changing, but how deep is this change? Have our agreements with our real estate historically panned out? 

To begin with, real estate has never been fair. Never. By nature, every piece of dirt is different. This is not 10,000 red Kia’s coming off the production line, this is not 1 million incandescent bulbs, 57 Main Street is different than 59 Main Street and different than 59 Lexington. Every piece of dirt is different. There are different views. Solar yields. Traffic patterns. Dimensions. Topography. Distances to amenities. Sounds. In some cases, smells. When you can actually commodify something, it can be easy to see the relative merits of one over the other. A Red Kia might have higher insurance and unintentionally “say something” about the owner that a pleasant Green Kia might not. But take a single piece of dirt, and look at the dozens – nay, hundreds – of individual variables, and the mind gets perplexed. You don’t hear stories about people who missed out on the investment chance of buying a 2004 Red Kia. You do hear about people who missed out on a chance to buy a bungalow across from the Little Nell is Aspen. 

Consumers tend to like easy decisions. We will start the SEVENTH YEAR of post-ceiling real estate in April this year. The market tipped six years ago. The Great Recession began to unravel four years ago. Economic uncertainties and the practicalities of off-shoring of jobs began twenty years ago. To say we live in uncertain times is grossly redundant. Zip is certain. Well, speaking in economic terms, zip is certain. 

So that brings us around to this weird thing that used to account for about $1 trillion in annual GDP called “real estate”. If so much economically is uncertain, how can something so heavily rooted in permanence like real estate be that attractive?

I can make all the arguments in the world that there has never been a better time to buy, and I can shout until I’m blue in the face from the top of my building. Where’s my bullhorn? But all I’d gain is a blue face. It really doesn’t matter what I think. It only matter what consumers think.

Correspondingly, who is buying houses?

The ones that understand that real estate is not fair.

Not all neighborhoods are created equal. Great starting point. Not all floorplans are worth living in for 10 years. Another good one. You can’t change your neighbors and rearranging the topography and slope of your lot isn’t that practical, and if there is a possible six-lane road behind you… why would you want to live there a year, let alone ten? 

Sustainable is an over-used word in the contemporary vernacular, but people of all political and lifestyle persuasions bandy it around as if it was readily understood. Personally, I like the word “durable”. 

The buyers that are buying in 2012 are only interested in durable decisions. They are no interested in fluff. They are heavy, deep-thinkers, and they are looking for value. But value is no longer defined as square footage (note to most of the Colorado Springs HBA). Value is not defined as settling for a ranch home with vinyl floors. Value is not even defined as “new” (this is like a seismic shock in Colorado Springs, where the average age of all residences is less than 32 years old). 

Durable must be:

• Readily obvious
• Proven performance
• Worth talking about
• Highly Functional

Durable can be:

• Possibly more expensive (the Mac argument ultimately winning the masses)
• Possibly more personal
• Possibly more spacious
• Or possibly more space-efficient

Here’s a question:

Last year, 60% of all homes listed, sold. This was the highest percentage since 2005. This is encouraging. But here’s my question: with such a high percentage of those bank-owned and short-sold, what of that 40% that didn’t sell? Is there even a price that can cure the 40% that didn’t sell’s inability to sell? Will a consumer buy that house backing to Briargate Blvd for the Pikes Peak View? Will a consumer buy the bad solar idea house on an odd lot? Will anyone buy a 5000 square foot home with a bizarre floorplan on the simple metric that the dollar per square foot is 20% less than anything else in the area? 

Real estate isn’t fair. And as the consumer adapts to more durable decision-making, it’s getting less fair every day. 

For those unacquainted with paranoid REALTOR speak, the highest and best is this: “we are putting you on notice that we have multiple offers at this time for this property. All participants are encouraged to submit their highest and best offer by ____ (usually 4 pm MST) for submission to the seller (usually a bank) at the same time.”

Showing is better than telling. It is a hallmark of what Hannah and I do. We can’t tell you that there is a real estate recovery afoot. You have to believe personally that there is a real estate recovery. We have a conflict of interest: it suits our financial interests for this market to recover.

But we can show.

I have written five consecutive offers. Granted, all were on bank-owned properties. All five, my buyers have been on the losing end of the stick in multiple offer situations. These properties have been in EAS, N/E, N/W, BRI and Ute Pass. Five different areas. Ute Pass! This morning I called for an investor on a house that was the single-most disgusting condition home I’ve been inside in probably 8 or 9 years. It’s a steal, but you need to wear a HazMat suit in there. Latex gloves all over the floor on both levels are never a good thing. I called the agent to see if we could throw out something cheap. “Owner occupant or investor, I’ve got two from investors submitting this morning so it’s going highest and best later today” he growled.

Don't ask for the freezer full of steaks in inclusions. You'll lose.

We are completing the 2012 Annual Report. You can take a peak at the December 2012 Stat Pack if you like, but we are seeing double the buyer interest from December, and, believe it or don’t, a market that actually has 4 fewer listings for sale than it did January 1st. It’s a ten-year low in inventory. It’s five month’s of inventory in January. It’s flippin’ maddening.

Of course, the real estate community has been telling people this market was poised for recovery since May, 2006 (it tipped 3 days before, back in April, 2006). So if you’re reading this with a healthy dose of skepticism, I can’t blame you.

All I can leave you with is this: you will know the market has recovered when you see it in the rearview mirror. And yes, I coined that phrase four years ago.

One of my business practices is exploring this online history of the property as best I can.

All three properties, for three different buyers, representing three different eras of building (1923, 1979, 2002) had an online permit history at www.pprbd.org which showed voided permits.

That word, VOID, sounds so nasty. It sounds like you are stepping off into the abyss. The first association a buyer is likely to make is “oh no, something is dramatically wrong with my house. The regional building guys black-flagged my house.” The reality is usually something far less noxious.

I really like the PPRBD website and you can drill into the history of any recorded permit and find out what inspections were done, who did, how many times a real estate agent called in the permit (wow) and why it was voided. Here is an example:

It gives good information as to what is going on at a property and also says what happened, when. What I have above is pretty standard, and in the interest of not compromising anyone’s personal property information unnecessarily, I suggest you look at your own property or one you’re interested in to explore it further. But in the case of this permit, it was pulled in one year, work continued for several months, and 18 months later, two years on the calendar, a final inspection found no one home when Regional arrived to check out the property. Everything was fine up until the final, but without a final, the permit was void.

Why this is important:

All year we will focus on the increasingly mobile society, and the strange contradictory pattern of buyers buying for the long-term. Buyers are either getting more mobile and more apt to considering renting as a way of life, or if they are owners, buying for the desire to own on the long-term. If you buy with the desire to own a place 10 to 15 years, you likely are not buying “opportunity” but instead “certainty”.  Does a voided permit smack of certainty… or uncertainty?

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 6,400 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 5 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

I also had the Broncos at 8-8 and out of the playoffs. There is a very good chance that could be dead-on right at 5:30 on Sunday night.

Look, when it comes to football, I had some wretched picks this year. I had the Chargers at 13-3. I had the 49ers at 2-14. I had the Colts at 8-8 and division champions. I had the Vikes winning 7 due to improved quarterback play from McNabb (what was I thinking) and the Pack in the playoffs but only winning 10 because they looked “rusty” in the preseason (and then started 13-0). I had the Chiefs at 3-13 and the Bengals at 1-15. If the latter wins Sunday, they’re “in the tournament” as Buddy Ryan likes to call it. But I did have some pretty good picks:

I had the Raiders at 7-9 and out of the playoff, which San Diego can insure with a win Sunday. I might have picked the NFC North big guns perfectly, predicting Baltimore would sweep Pittsburgh and win their division at 12-4 and the Steelers would finish 2nd at 11-5 (they’ll probably finish 12-4). I picked the Cowboys to win the NFC East, picked the Redskins perfectly, picked the Eagles as out of the playoffs, I might have nailed the Lions record at 10-6 (although I said out of the playoffs), I picked the Top Two seeds in the NFC South in order with the Saints division winners over the Falcons (Bucs and Panthers, different story). I picked the AFC East correctly in order with New England as the number one overall seed in the AFC and the NY Jets as a wild card (the latter is possible, and if it happens, I picked Miami perfectly in last place at 5-11).

As TMQ says, “all predictions right, or no money back.” My last Football post two weeks ago was about the huge tilt between Denver and New England, where I predicted either a close Denver win or a New England blow out. Nice safe pick that, I was 50% dead-on! I also said that the keys to the Broncos winning were good pressure from the defensive front, excellent special teams play continuing and a 100 yard rushing game from Willis McGahee and that the outcome was not all on Tebow. Largely because the Broncos did none of those things, they lost.

Reader Stu Kilzer likes the Allstate Mayhem ads..

The Broncos  defensive tackles were playing well until New England and have been savaged the last two weeks. I went so far as to single out Lonnie Paxton before that game for his steady play at long snapper and he went out and muffed his first snap of the game costing the Donks their first extra point (blowing an extra point in the NFL is like not scoring a goal with a 5-3 in the NHL. Name the last time you remember a team blowing an extra point early in a game and still winning?). Willis started out great before reinjuring his hammy. The Broncos had almost 170 yards of rushing in the first quarter alone and had a 9 point lead, but had to abandon the run when disaster after disaster befell them.

The Broncos defense has not been the same since Von Miller got his hand surgically repaired. Von has one sack in the last four weeks and only Dumervil and Bailey have had decent games since they lost the huge play of “Mayhem”.  With Mayhem in the line-up but saddled with the big cast, the Broncos have been minus 8 in turnover differential the last two games, and have forced exactly zero turnovers. Good teams like the Steelers can be a minus in turnover differential and still win, and the Saints were minus 2 Monday Night in their shredding of the record books and Falcons. But an average team defined by being young and scrappy cannot afford offensive turnovers, and must shorten the field for the inexperienced offense by creating defensive turnovers. I have said many times that the term “playmaker” is over used when describing offensive players, as defensive playmakers really reset the tempo of a game. If the Raiders get into the playoffs by beating San Diego and the Broncos lose, they should send a fruit basket to Norv Turner’s boys for messing with Mayhem’s thumb. For those wondering, the pins are supposed to be in for a total of eight to ten weeks, which means mid February, which further means that a Broncos Super Bowl run is all the more unlikely.

As a Bronco fan since the days of Red Miller and fullback Dave Preston (#46, think he retired in 1981), December has been an especially cruel month in Colorado the last half decade, and this year looks much like the 2008 and 2009 collapses where Denver lost their last three and four in a row to miss the playoffs, despite controlling their own destiny.

Here is why that won’t happen, and Denver will get a tilt with the Terrible Towels next weekend at home (@wilsoncj14, I’m sorry, but the Ravens will come into sold out Cincy and leave victorious Sunday. ‘Tis true).

1.) Captain Neck Beard and The Two-Way Street. Much has been made of Kyle Orton’s knowledge of the Broncos playbook and tendencies. All media attention has been casting Kyle Orton as a Jason Bourne-type super-hero with superior knowledge of the inner workings of the Denver playbook. Did all that media forget that the Broncos defense lined up against him every day for 2.5 years and never had the pleasure of live fire drills? Kyle Orton is a brilliant practice quarterback and plays well when he has the lead. Kyle Orton like a well-defined pocket and takes what Trent Dilfer likes to call “good sacks” and makes “smart throwaways” to “preserve field position and get his team a field goal.” Kyle Orton and Trent Dilfer are actually one and the same person I think, except Trent was lucky to spend a season or two with the most voracious defense since the ’85 Bears when he won a Super Bowl with the 2000 Ravens. It was hard to play from behind with that defense. Neckbeard never enjoyed such luxury. Without good tight ends in KC right now, or good third down tailbacks as check downs, the way you get after Orton is to release the wolves. Dennis Allen comes from New Orleans and the Gregg Williams school of mad dog blitzes. Ryan Fitzpatrick had more weapons at his disposal last week then Orton will enjoy this week. After Dwayne Bowe and Jonathan Baldwin, Orton has few choices. Orton has been great between the 20′s in KC just as he was in Denver (599 yards passing in two weeks, or two months worth of Tebow-yardage), but his team has settled for six red zone field goals. Last week he threw two red zone picks. Just as Orton knows the Broncos playbook, the Bronco defense knows his hot buttons. He is immobile. He likes check downs. He has great difficulty converting 3rd and long. The Bronco defense never had the chance to lay the wood to Orton in practice, and I have to imagine Dennis Allen is salivating at the chance to send five and six constantly given Orton’s limited offensive arsenal.

Wait, was this the Broncos quarterback Christmas Eve?

2.) Tebow was due for a wretched game. Tebow’s best game of the year so far was actually New England, when he had high command of the offense and passed with great effectiveness. He was tomahawked on his fumble and contributed to the second quarter deluge, but played well throughout the game. Last week, he was wretched. He was worse than he was against Detroit. Some of that was play-calling, as the Broncos got away from running the ball in the 2nd quarter when they didn’t have to. A lot of that was Tim airmailing balls all over the place. The game plan in both the Detroit and Buffalo games called for a lot of pocket passing and put the offense on Tebow’s shoulders. Denver chose not to patiently wear out the opposition. Tebow is not yet, and may never be, a pocket passer. He looked a lot like Jake Plummer early in his career. The entire Tebow train is officially derailed, just like it was after Detroit and going into Oakland. The time has come when conventional wisdom says “I told you so” and that’s exactly the time when Tebow and the Broncos show up and find a way to win.

3.) Champ Bailey and Brian Dawkins. Much has been made of the Broncos young safeties and their long-in-the-tooth veterans in their secondary. Raheem Moore has had a lousy rookie year, Chris Harris has been inconsistent, David Bruton is average. But there are two wily vets in Bailey and Dawkins that I think will turn the game. Bailey is one of the smartest defensive football players in the game, and is the best tackling shutdown corner in decades. Dawkins is hurt, but there is no way he will miss this game. Bailey almost left Denver in the offseason because the McDaniels era chapped him so badly, and John Elway’s first order of business was getting Champ back. Elway is given very little credit for that move. The man who was leading the cheers from the sideline during Tebow’s first big comeback in Miami was none other than Champ. And if you ask Tebow which guy he looks up to the most on the Broncos, it is Dawkins. Champ has a couple more great years left in the tank, but if the Broncos lose, this is probably Dawkins last game. One of these two, or both, will likely address the Broncos Saturday night. In a game where emotional edges are hard to manufacture, I like that one a lot.  The Chiefs by contract have an interim coach, an interim quarterback, three Pro Bowl players on IR, and a penchant for getting blown out.

I can see the Broncos losing a heart-breaker. Bronco fans have come to expect little of this team, and so it wouldn’t surprise me at all. But I think the Broncos win, and by more than two scores, 23-14.

Both of us are parents of elementary school-age children. You know what board game we hate? Candyland. What does Candyland teach you? Draw the card and move your piece where it says to move it. Don’t ask questions. Don’t think. Just move your piece to pink or orange or green. Real life isn’t like Candyland.

Fortunately (or unfortunately!) for us, in each of our families, our kids are a little like us. They don’t like Candyland, either. They like games like Checkers and Sorry. Sorry is especially rough because it’s so not fair. You march your little pawn 3/4 of the way around the board and little Charlotte or Jeremiah draws a Sorry card and “Sorry, I’m swapping pawns with you!” and there they go from start to the end of the board. And they laugh, maniacally. Because they’ve just crushed us. They exploited a rule of the game to their advantage, and it thrills them.

Sound familiar? Sound a little like real estate? We don’t think $200,000 or $500,000 or a million is trivial and we don’t play games with our clients money. But we do think that real estate can be understood best if we engage our minds in a playful way. Every game has rules. Every game has standards that all players must abide by in order to be successful. Here are some of the rules of the game that we see to be true year in and year out.

• LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
• MONEY IS MADE ON THE BUY
• SELLERS SET ASKING PRICES; BUYERS DETERMINE MARKET VALUE
• BUYERS BUY VALUE
• THOSE WITH POWER HAVE FEW NEEDS. THOSE WITH NEEDS
• HAVE LITTLE POWER
• THE HARDEST THING TO GAIN IS TRUST; THE EASIEST THING TO LOSE IS TRUST

Relevant to the entire Rockies is the biggest Bronco game in six years. The last game that ever really mattered was the Broncos tilt with the Steelers in January 2006. My twins weren’t even born when that happened. That game followed the last truly big win in Bronco history, Tom Brady’s first ever playoff loss.

Strategy trumps tactics every time. With that in mind, here are three keys to the Broncs tilt with the Pats, and none of them directly involve the play of either Tom Brady or Tim Tebow. Of course, these keys don’t apply to how the Pats will win, this will either be a Pats blow out or a late game nail-biter when you know what can happen.

Key One: the Broncos Defensive Tackles. The only way you can plan to beat the Patriots is to beat Tom Brady. The only way to really fluster Brady is to get pressure on him, and there is no way you can consistently blitz six and leave only five in coverage on a guy that throws as accurately as Brady. Brady is not mobile and uses his huge size to see down the field from the middle of the pocket. That means that the play up the gut on the defensive side of the ball is enormously important. Marcus Thomas and Broderick Bunkley have been largely ignored on defense with the playmaking all round them from Von Miller, Elvis Dumervil, DJ Williams, Champ Bailey and even Robert Ayers on occasion. These guys have been great, but it is because the middle has held on the defensive front line. With the Broncos likely spending most of the game in nickel or dime packages, and with the small and fleet Wesley Woodyard on the field, Thomas and Bunckley getting sustained pressure will enable the playmakers to make plays.

Key Two: Willis McGahee. McGahee’s ride in the Rejuvenator has been enjoyable to watch and if anyone on the Broncos offense delivers a trip to Honolulu, it is Willis. If Willis goes for 100, it will be very hard for the Patriots to win. Quite simply, Willis runs hard, punishes defenses and keeps the ball away from the other team’s offense. Tebow gets a ton of well-deserved credit for his running and for making defenses honor eleven-not ten-runners. But the play of McGahee is critical to the Broncos fortunes. If Willis is shut down, it will be very hard for Denver to have any chance.

Key Three: Colquitt/Prater/Paxton. Lonnie Paxton was the first free agent signed by Josh McDaniels. Why spend $2 million on a long snapper? Well, he snaps pretty darn well and the team making the fewest mistakes often wins. More important, great special teams play turns games. The Broncos don’t turn the ball over and therefore, Prater is very accurate from beyond 50 and usually finds the deep end zone on knockoffs, and Colquitt has been All Pro. If Tom Brady is given a short field, ever, put six on the board for New England. But if he has to drive a long field time and time again, he will have t consistently beat the Broncos secondary and be subject to their pass rush.

All three of these keys have to fall in the Broncos hands to have a chance. If they don’t happen, Tebow has no chance, and their playoff chances could well be dashed.

Benjamin Day
719-331-9170
Benjamin@BenjaminDay.com
Www.BenjaminDay.com

In 1997, Sam introduced his cookbook, The Fort Cookbook: New Foods of the Old West. For aspiring gourmands, it is tragically out of print. But if you can find one, it makes a fantastic gift. The book is a great read, not just for those seeking rattlesnake recipes or how to inject a banana with Bacardi 151…  but also how to tomahawk a bottle of champagne or what the proper dinner is for a female black bear named Sissy. It’s fun!

Here is an example: Sam’s “Craneberry” (sic) Sauce, so named because the original name of cranberries was “Craneberries”. It’s a peace of cake, and could provide a lot of fun around the table with that talkative aunt from the Midwest…!

2 quarts washed and diced fresh cranberries

4 cups sugar

1/2 cup water

1 cup toasted and diced Pecans

One Shot Grand Marnier

Wash, and dice the cranberries, preferrably in a food processor. Place the cranberries in a large stove pot along with the sugar and the water and heat to a simmer for 20 to 30 minutes stirring frequently enough to keep the cranberries for burning on the bottom.

Dice and toast the pecans for 2 to 4 minutes, making sure you do not burn them.

Remove the cranberries from the heat and stir in the pecans. Stir in the shot of Grand Marnier. This will likely create a large sizzle and possibly a splatter when you add it. Thoroughly mix together, add to a serving bowl and chill for at least 6 hours before serving. You can also bottle it in the same manner as a jelly, jam or preserve.