Social Media only works when you’re happy

Posted on November 17, 2011 | Leave a comment

Interesting.

I’ve blogged less since I came to Selley Group in November, 2010.

But look at my metrics since I joined.

I don’t get big blog traffic and I don’t want it. I want to talk to a small, but appreciative audience whenever I can. I believe in organizing a tribe. It’s a tiny little memento, but I had 2x as many blog visitors yesterday as I have had on any single day. But my voice is trending. If you’re looking for a single thought to organize what it is that I do, it is this: Build a Permission Asset.

Apparently, The Permission Asset “is happening” but it is also still under construction. I like the metaphor of “never complete.”

 

 

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Posted in Colorado Springs Real Estate

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Top Ten Rejected Mottos for Colorado Springs: Live it Up!

Posted on November 16, 2011 | 2 Comments

10.Higher than Denver (oops, people might think we have more MMJ per square mile, too)

9. Unparalleled Command and Control!

Apparently, the newest civic embarrassment is the $111,000 spent on the city’s new branded logo and motto: Live it Up!

The popular consensus seems to be that the logo reminds people of a softball team sponsored by either an ambitious dentist or perhaps a Dairy Queen competitor. In fact, do a tour of social media today, and what you’ll find is an ever-increasing degree of bile and one-up-man-ship as people try to come up with new ways of describing how much they DISLIKE both the logo and the video.

8. Worship 6025′!

7. Worship 14,110′!

The message here is pretty clear: you need to align your brand with your product; therefore, branding only works when you know what your product is. Considering that this was commissioned by the Convention and Tourism Bureau, it’s not that surprising to see a lot of imagery about the outdoors, specifically Pikes Peak and Garden of the Gods. But from my editorial perspective, what is unbelievably distressing is that the CVB also thought that this would work for creating jobs and appealing to younger professionals. If that’s the audience, how pray-tell does this video appeal to them?

6. Drive To, Over and Through Us!

5. AEROSPACE! Hell, Yeah!

The arts and culture are reduced to sloganeering cheerleaders and exactly 1 second and two images out of almost four minutes.  Most “average citizen” shots appear contrived and forced and possibly done on a single take. There is a single image of the Air Force Academy, and it appears randomly disassociated from everything else. Poor Ralph Routen, editor of the Indy is reduced to talking about driving to the top of Pike’s Peak. Colorado College and UCCS do not make a single appearance in the video. Nor does The Old North End. But there is a guy holding a generic cup of coffee on Canon Ave. complimenting Colorado Springs… except Canon Ave. is in Manitou.

4. Right next door to Manitou!

What’s really missing? A narrative. A story. Check this out:

Downtown COS Highlight Video from Timothy Dumais on Vimeo.

Which one instills civic pride? Which one shows a wide-variety of reasons to visit, maybe even plan a weekend or vacation around? Which one looks welcoming?

Why is narrative important? It engages the audience. Showing is better than telling. It makes it easy to remember. Narrative is worth talking about. Narrative is Benefit, not Feature-Driven. The CVB video spends a great deal of time telling the audience what to think about Colorado Springs, and a lot of them border on hyperbole. No one trusts hyperbole. The Downtown Development Authority’s video shows the audience downtown, and engages them with visual images that are more easily communicated as factual, not someone’s particular opinion.

3. Only 50 minutes from Park Meadows!

2. Come Get Your Monies Worth!

There is a standard that a Vimeo “film” needs to have a much higher production quality than a Youtube “video”. But considering that the Downtown Development video was made for a fraction of the cost and has a considerably higher production quality, the question quickly becomes: “if we’re actually any good, why not make a film?”

1. Like Tulsa, But Different.

Right now on Facebook, Hannah and I are taking a poll as to what people say. It’s terribly scientific in the way that all social media is, responses are volunteered and once critical mass of an opinion’s direction is determined, you’re not likely going to see any variance from that opinion. But look at the reaction to this on The Gazette (90% dislike at this writing), The CSBJ (24-0 dislike right now), and The CSIndy (5-0) and you have to wonder who the committee was that screened this production. Look at the voting on Youtube, where there are Zero Likes, and Nine Dislikes, and only mocking comments.

The reality of the city is much better demonstrated in the Downtown Colorado Springs. When Chris Carmichael talks about the Pro Cycling Challenge, the images anchor his words. When he mentions collaborative efforts by the city, organizations, individuals and businesses, you can see the reality.

What speaks loudest in the CVB video are the people chosen to participate. The video is much more about people speaking and their opinions then it is about the city. But the CVB is supposed to be about creating tourism, conventions, visitors and jobs. It is highly unlikely any of the people in the video would be visited personally or hired for an event. That’s not a ding on the people at all. That’s a strategic problem with the video and the company that created it completely missed the angle of branding.

The Downtown Colorado Springs film uses far more elegant images, cinematography, transitions, modern music… but also captures the product, Colorado Springs. The images are exclusive to downtown. They show people enjoying themselves out and about. Again, back to some scientific polling, but I showed my 8 year old and my twin five year olds both videos. My kids walked away disinterested from the CVB. They came back for the Downtown Colorado Springs film, and what got them excited? Everything. They know Garden of the Gods and Pikes Peak first hand. But the Pikes Peak Center? That gets them excited because they’ve seen the symphony there. The rodeo parade is just fun. “There’s Poor Richard’s, brothers!” yelled Andrew. One is someone’s else’s idea of whatever everyone else ought to like. The other is turn-key door opening, a “let me show you…” with a grin.

Successful marketing needs a hook and a narrative. I’m sorry if this post offends, but I’m offended that the city decided to make a video and not a film, to provide opinions rather than show facts, to shout rather than show. As citizens, we deserve better. We’re worth a film. I can show you an example…

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Posted in Arts & Culture, Colorado Springs

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Permission Assets: A Tribute to Hugh MacLeod’s Social Objects

Posted on November 14, 2011 | Leave a comment

Five years ago, Joe Boylan introduced me to the crazy bearded dude who was the keynote speaker at an Inman Connect: Hugh MacLeod. Joe said he and about a half dozen others were all that was left in the room when Hugh finished his address (I’m betting Jay Thompson was one of those in there with Boylan). Most of “Real Estate” didn’t understand Hugh. They didn’t “get his gig“. Joe shared Hugh with me. I’m thankful. I’m pretty sure I get Hugh’s gig.

A lot of people “get” Hugh, and while you might call them geeks, the geeks run the earth. The sooner you “get” Hugh, the sooner you are to likely stop wasting efforts and start building a brand  worth building. What Hugh does is make sense of social media artistically, by taking “the conversation” and ascending to art. Most social media marketers sell a tool box of offerings that are disparate and geeky. If Hugh sells anything, he sells accessibility. In 2 to 10 words, he starts the conversation.

Hugh’s gig is a huge lesson for my industry. Real estate has been quick to embrace social media. There are many explanations for this. Number one, REALTORS like to advertise. I use to manage REALTORS and this was the standard arithmetic for a REALTOR advertisement:

Cost of add equal to or less than one transaction’s likely commission.

How is that for a durable business plan? In fact, I’d go one step further: when doing annual reviews with agents or discussing their business building strategies, I’d say the number one thing I heard most frequently was, “if I sell a single property because of it, it pays for itself.”

For the most part, Social Media is free. There is almost no barrier to entry. And that’s what makes it so hard. Instead of trying to be big on five to ten of the hundred or so channels a consumer might be on, social media instead requires sustainable connection on specific channels out of millions.  The Real Estate Market has been crippled, now going on month 66 of market correction locally. REALTORS are not stupid, they realize that the popular ways of advertising of the past like phone book placement ads and TV commercials are expensive and hard to pay for with their shrunken wages. But mastery takes time, and real estate’s embrace of social media has involved much shouting and the same slick images, and far less relevance and connection. It often lacks what Hugh calls “a Social Object“.

The problem is what to do with Social Media. The nice thing about a static phonebook ad was that it didn’t have to say anything. Use a fancy font, come up with a great moniker, have a good, trustworthy picture and you were set. The problem with social media is that you have to say something relevant. Merit applies. It has to be a point of connection. It has to be worth sharing.

All the links I’ve shared for Hugh route you back to one of his permanent manifesto pages, this one called “SO” short for “Social Objects.” Hugh’s obviously brilliant contention is that human beings do not gather randomly, that socialization happens for a reason: “Human beings do not socialize in a completely random way. There’s a tangible reason for us being together, that ties us together. Again, that reason is called the Social Object. Social Networks form around Social Objects, not the other way around.”

The purpose of this blog is to create lots of relevant social objects. Hannah and I formed Pikes Peak Urban Living because we both believe in the value of social organizing. This isn’t necessarily political; it is thought-leadership. Our job with our clients is not to sell them something, or sell something of theirs. Our job is to create something more durable, a permission asset, with each individual client. We take that permission asset which is founded on trust and relevance and pretty importantly, truth, and we collectively form plans of action in concert with our clients.

Here are some takeaways from Hugh, a quick sample of some of our favorites from www.gapingvoid.com. Follow Hugh @gapingvoid.com.

Note 3.14 of Hugh’s Social Object’s Manifesto: The most important word on the internet is not “Search”. The most important word on the internet is “Share”. Sharing is the driver. Sharing is the DNA. We use Social Objects to share ourselves with other people. We’re primates. we like to groom each other. It’s in our nature.

Pretty Brilliant. Thanks for helping us organize our thoughts, Hugh.

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Epi Central: Co-Work arrives in Downtown Colorado Springs, and of course, it took Hannah to do it

Posted on November 11, 2011 | 1 Comment

A quick, but big, kudo to business partner Hannah Parsons.

Hannah Parsons

Hannah was just featured this week in the Colorado Springs Business Journal for her entrepreneurship, and practical action of opening the downtown’s first co-working space. They do offer advanced degrees in entrepreneurship, and that was Hannah’s MBA focus. A participating member of our unique and charming downtown, Hannah is consistently looking for opportunities to take “quaint” and make that “thrive”. Next week, the “downtown offices of Pikes Peak Urban Living” become official, as we join other entrepreneurs at Hannah’s Co-Work Venture, Epi Central in the 400 block of Tejon. To the jealousy of the real estate community, Epi Central is across the street from PPAR.

Part of the real estate future shock is that money is rarely in the brokerage. The money isn’t even in the dirt. The money is in the ideas. The money is in the process. The money is in the relationship. The money is in the tribal leadership. Yep, real estate needs to start acting like something buzz-worthy. I have many times referred back to Seth Godin, from Purple Cow to his address to the National Association of REALTORS in 2007. Seth saw the end of business as REALTORS knew it in a single cursory glance and seeing all the frailties, and all of the unimaginative reinventions it was avoiding. Among Seth’s best pieces of advice was to start a blog. That probably made the majority of the old guard real estate practitioners in attendance roll the eyes, but that’s because they missed the sentence that came after “start a blog”. That sentence was “in order to organize your tribe.” You can’t glaze over that sentence. You can run like hell away from it, but you can’t glaze over it.

In other words, you can blog about real estate. You can regurgitate facts. You can do “market reports”. You can showcase the trim on a house. You can talk about the walkability of a neighborhood. You can check in with Foursquare. You can become the mayor of a coffee shop. It’s all nice. It might be helpful. But what about being a thought-leader? What about building a permission asset?

At the core of it, that’s what Co-Working is all about. That’s why Hannah is so cool. Hannah is about building permission assets. She is about sharing. She’s about strange bedfellows. She’s about attorneys sharing space and white board with social media marketers, putting designers and architects and gardeners in the same room, and giving them lots of fun seats and flex space to spur on their creativity. She’s about being lean, but not mean, practical while still encouraging depth.

Entrepreneurs don’t take instructions very well. They’re too damn inquisitive. They learn by doing and sometimes, that means ignoring the instruction manual. It doesn’t mean throwing out the rules or bypassing ethics, in fact, on the contrary. It just means that business as usual should always be questioned. Co-work is kind of like a thoughtfully inexpensive Montessori for professionals. Coming from me, who has given five years to Giving Tree Montessori (yes, the Indy’s best childcare/preschool two-years running), that’s a compliment.

Hannah: way to go. Thanks for questioning business as usual. Again.

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Market Statistics for November, 2011 (or 2001?), Colorado Springs

Posted on November 9, 2011 | Leave a comment
s

Juicy, Meaty, Relevant, Insightful and Not Afraid to Tell You So Market Data.

What would be stranger, a real estate market recovery or the Broncos winning the AFC West? Both would be pretty weird, right? As of November 8, 2011, all the data is in place for a real estate market recovery locally. That does not mean a market recovery is about to happen. It doesn’t even mean it should happen. It just means that it can. The only way it will happen is if consumers allow it, and by consumers, I mean both buyers and sellers. The market has 4.00% interest rates. There last time there were so few homes for sale in November it was 2001… as in ten years ago. So throw out “lots of inventory to choose from” because it is not true. There is tight inventory. There is only 5.22 months of inventory several months after peak season.

The last time the market was this good in Movember, was BEFORE Jake Plummer. But I couldn't bear the thought of putting a picture of Brian Griese up here.

Prices are down on average 4.5% for the year, yet there is only a 4 month supply of housing for properties under $275,000 where 78% of the transactions have occurred over the last 90 days. In other words: the real estate side of the ledger is really tight. And yet: an opportunity is only an opportunity if there is risk. Want a real thrill? I mean a real thrill? Jump out of an airplane. The speed. The rush of the air. The adrenaline. The catch: you have to jump out of an airplane. But boy… what an opportunity. The focus of the Stat Pack this month is to dial in on the personal rationalizations, dreams and hopes of people making elective home-buying and home-selling decisions. The seeds of 2012 market activity are sewn now, like tulip and crocus bulbs underneath the winter mulch. The eureka moments of “I don’t  need all this space”, “honey, did you see their master bedroom?”, “We need more space with twins coming”, “this commute has gone on long enough” tend to happen now, during the coming holiday season when individuals gather at other houses and formative real estate decisions germinate. As consumers begin to form their opinions and thoughts, they should do so with accurate information, but also, personal reflection and introspection. What are you trying to accomplish with your home sale? What’s your why? Why do you say you need more space? You said you wanted a nice master bathroom, but then you moved onto a benefit of “light and airy”… what will the benefit of this next purchase look like? Where will you be in life in two years? Ten? Do you want to be tied down to one place for at least a half decade? How much work around the place will your lifestyle allow? How many weekends are you willing to donate, vacation time and favors cashed in? How secure is your job? How much of your life is really under your control? The data says do it. Now what does your gut say?

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Our First Year at Selley Group: Pikes Peak Urban Living @ 1

Posted on November 1, 2011 | 2 Comments

This time last year, we were buying new signs, sending proofs to Santa Fe for new business cards, and in my case, cleaning out an office that had way too much stuff in it until 11:30 at night. The first “day in the office” was November 2nd, but Hannah Parsons and Benjamin Day joined the tribe at Selley Group one year ago today on November 1st, 2010.

I could have Photoshopped a candle onto the tree...

Both of us have experienced our best year ever. Hannah is closing five sides in six days right now. She has already had her best year ever, and I’m having my most profitable. But the signature of our first year together, which started with a lot of audacious, “we’ll do this better and that better” sorts of strategic planning is this: being.

Good writing isn’t supposed to use the passive voice in American English. You’re not supposed to get introspective and Shakespearean with your “to be’s and not to be’s”. The Bard was a deep thinker and what was going on beneath the surface – be it torment or motivation – was as important as what was going on above the surface. But American English doesn’t like the “passive” inner voice. It likes action verbs. It likes moving forward. The most American of presidents was Teddy Roosevelt, and he embodied everything American by constantly rushing forward in a whir. He was the Rough-Rider who took San Juan Hill for crying out loud.

Constantly rushing forward in a whir is tempting. Real Estate succumbs to 24/7 action-verb life pretty easily. On the surface, our production numbers this year are tangible metrics for what we’ve accomplished. They don’t even begin to tell the story however. The story starts in the passive voice of being.

This year has been a journey for both Hannah and I. Real Estate as an industry is in tumult. The failings of our industry caused the Great Recession and the continued sputtering in this enormous sector are continuing the malaise. We are surrounded constantly by the grouchy, the upside-down, the burned-out, the flighty and the burned. Real Estate for decades has embodied the American Dream for both practitioners and owners: start your own small business and be self-directed; enjoy the fruits, benefits and pride of home-ownership. Today, it embodies American Angst: live in fear of your business failing, act out of lack of trust, scheme, plot and scratch to keep your head above water; make all your decisions out of a spreadsheet, and allow the mistakes of the past to carry-over into the present and future where they are destined to reappear. We have begun year six of a less-than-thriving industry. The number of agents practicing in our business is down 40% from October 2007.

The origins of our partnership came from the problems of going 24/7 into American Angst, and the hope for something a bit better and more humane. There should be a little happiness in your work. You should have peers and allies. There should be a thoughtful perspective to share the results of a well test. There should be an empathetic listener when buyers’ choose to default. There should be a way to have a life for four or seven or fourteen days at a time without cell coverage. There should be a way to be a spouse and a parent without worrying about a transaction. There should be a way to not have to bring home the weight of so many burdens, every evening, every day.

Pikes Peak Urban Living is a joint marketing venture. Sometimes we share clients where I will do a listing and Hannah the buy side, and presently, behind the scenes, we are creating a fantastic, online, client-resource as a shared project. But what we’ve accomplished in our first year is a little more balance, a little more space, a little more focus, a little more perspective, and a little more presence. The culture of our business does not typically brag about increasing  value per hour or being able to stay at home with a sick child or carving pumpkins on the front lawn on a 65 degree Sunday afternoon, but that’s what we wanted to be about when we started this 365 days ago, and that’s what we are becoming.

And there is that passive verb, yet again. It’s a journey. It’s not defined by actions and activities and  metrics achieved and other metrics unfulfilled; instead, it is defined by Hannah being able and wanting to rush out  to cover an appraisal appointment for me last Friday night when an appraiser scheduled an appraisal on a vacant house on 2 hours notice (instead of the usual 1-2 days) and I had Trunk or Treating with the kids and Amy was in Virginia. Or me covering for Hannah tonight at an appointment with an architect because she’s supposed to be at a closing that got delayed, and Bob can be home at that hour to be home with sick kids.

If this sounds to you like it’s all about us, well you bet it is. And if you’re wondering how this benefits you, ask yourself this: do you want an agent that’s tired, burned-out, making short-cuts in life and has no money in their bank account and therefore cannot give you advice without personal sacrifice or compromise? Or do you want someone that has an ally, a larger perspective and is making sustainable business decisions with constant accountability?

After one year, we can’t say at all “Mission Accomplished.” We’re on a journey. We’re trying to live a better story. We’re embracing the “be”. We can say we have cut superfluous chatter, reduced distractions, given it our all, and been happier with our business than we have in years.

Thanks for journeying with us as we embark on year two.

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Posted in Colorado Springs Real Estate

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How to HUD: Part II. Tips and Suggestions from a local program facilitator

Posted on October 28, 2011 | Leave a comment

This is essentially a guest post as it is entirely a re-print (with permission) of an email Re/Max Properties Clement Team just sent out. I’m not sure how many agents actually received this, but the quality of the email is very, very high.

HUD deals are tough. They no longer pay up to a 5% commission, and they’re still based on net to HUD (price less commission less closing cost concessions) so I have the feeling fewer agents are working them. They also require a $100 key chain of keys once you’re under contract and have more expensive inspections (no utilities on, need air-pressure tests, etc.). The bottomline however is that they remain one of the very best deals out there, especially for owner-occupants. I just closed one earlier this month and am showing another today to an investor. Like any good deal, they take time, patience, and a sense of humor.

REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF THE CLEMENT TEAM, RE/MAX PROPERTIES COLORADO SPRINGS on October 28, 2011

RE/MAX Properties, Inc
Helpful HUD Information

1. Buyer Education
2. $100 FHA Down Payment Program
3. Common Contract Errors
4. Helpful Closing Hints
5. Contract Extensions

Greetings!
The following contains some helpful information when your buyer is considering the purchase of a HUD owned property.

Buyer Education

Meet with your buyer and EDUCATE him on the bidding process, requirements, expenses, etc. before submitting a bid

All HUD homes are sold AS-IS. Under no circumstances can any repairs be made prior to closing.
Bids are reviewed nightly and ranked by a computer (bids must be in by 11:00 pm MT to be counted for that day). This includes weekends, even though the bids are not reviewed on the weekend, Fridays bids will be reviewed first, if there is not an acceptable bid, then Saturday bids will be opened, etc.
The highest net to HUD wins
After a bid is acknowledged the fully executed contract and all addenda, pre-qual, EM check, etc. must be sent overnight to arrive within 2 business days to the Asset Manager.
All documents must be original signatures in blue ink
Please plan accordingly if your buyer is going out of town
Investors CANNOT get earnest their money refunded – Advise preliminary inspections prior to submitting a bid
A $150 fee must be submitted to the Field Services Office for permission to activate the utilities during the winterization period
If the utilities have been off for an extended period, a contractor may have to pull a permit and have the system (gas and/or electric) inspected prior to activation. The permits cost about $54 plus the amount the contractor charges. Don’t forget that some utility companies charge an account activation fee (CSU charges $30 to activate).
A typical home inspection costs $300-$350 and if there is an issue, the report is needed as substantiation to get the earnest money refunded for owner occupant buyers.
The plumbing can always be pressure checked if permission is not obtained to activate the water in the home. Cost is about $150-$200 to test.
HUD does not provided Title Insurance – this is a buyer expense that can be included in the closing costs (line 5 of the purchase agreement)
Appraisal fee – The FHA appraisal that was performed prior to listing is available to the successful bidder

$100 FHA Down Payment Program

1. Are all properties eligible for this incentive?
A. No, only properties advertised to the general public that are eligible for FHA financing including the 203K loan program with owner occupant buyers quailfy. Properties advertised through HUD’s Good Neighbor Next Door programs are NOT eligible for this incentive.
2. Is the $100 down payment incentive available to investor buyers?
A. No. the $100 down payment option is available for owner occupant buyers only.
3. Is the $100 down payment incentive available to nonprofits?
A. No. Nonprofit organizations have established discounts that are already in place. This incentive is not available for use by nonprofits.
4. Does the type of financing impact whether or not my buyer(s) can take advantage of the $100 down payment incentive?
A. Yes. The $100 down payment incentive is available only to owner occupant buyers using FHA financing to purchase their home.
5. My buyers were awarded a bid on an eligible property and started out using conventional financing. They would now like to switch over to FHA financing. Can they take advantage of the $100 down payment incentive?
A. Yes. So long as the property meets the eligibility requirements for the incentive, buyers can change financing and still take advantage of the $100 down payment incentive.
6. If my buyer uses 203(k) financing to purchase a home, can they take advantage of the $100 down payment incentive?
A. Yes. Please be aware that the 203(k) program may be used only on properties listed Uninsurable (UI). However, FHA also offers a financing option designated “Streamline 203(k)”. Streamline. 203(k) financing can be used on properties listed Insured (IN) or Insured with Escrow (IE).
7. Will the use of the $100 down payment incentive impact the net sales price?
A. No. Using the $100 down payment incentive has no bearing on the calculation of the net sales price.
8. My buyers won the bid but bid more than the appraised value to ensure that they would win. Can they still buy the home for $100 down?
A. No. FHA guidelines require that the buyers still have to bring in the “overbid amount” in the form of cash as part of the down payment. Obtaining a second appraisal to justify the overbid to receive the $100 down payment incentive is NOT allowed.
9. How long will this incentive program last?
A. At this time, HUD has indicated the program will be in effect through October of 2012.

Common Contract Errors

1. Buyer forgets to initial Line 12.

2. Name on contract does not match the name on the bid.

3. Financing type on the contract needs to be the same as when the bid was placed.

4. On the Lead Based Paint Addendum the Broker MUST initial where required. DO NOT USE CHECKMARKS.

5. Lender Letter does not indicate all the required items: loan type, loan amount, sales price, credit verified and name, title, contact information and signature of loan officer.

6. Money orders or other certified funds for earnest money MUST be made payable to HUD or Buyers name.

7. Dollar amounts on lines 5, 6a, 6b, & 7 do not match the bid.
8. Buyer or Broker signs in HUD’s space.
9. Authorization letter not included for agent to sign on behalf of broker
10. Not following all instructions on the correction email. Second revisions are coming in with NEW errors because they did not compare to original contract.

Helpful Closing Hints

Make sure the lender is only sending FINAL figures to American Title – any changes to the numbers means the clock starts over
Allow 8 business days for closing after Final figures are sent to American Title
American Title prepares HUD-1 for lender and realtor approval (2-3 business days)
Approved HUD-1 is mailed out to seller, HUD who has 3 business days to review and approve the closing package, sign and return it by mail. (4 days)
Closing package must be received 1 day prior to closing
Total of 8 business days
Any changes to HUD-1 will restart the entire process
Be aware of the contract expiration date! EXPIRED CONTRACTS CAN NOT BE REINSTATED OR CLOSED.
Request for an extension must be submitted as outlined below no less than 1 day prior to contract expiration. If you do not have a closing scheduled and it is 8 days or less to the contract expiration date, go ahead and file for the extension!

Contract Extensions

To request an extension request the following must be delivered to American Title:
Extensions are purchased in blocks of 15 calendar days.
A complete extension request form signed by the buyer.
You must use the correct form for the Asset Manager to whom the file is assigned. Incorrect forms will not be accepted.
Check the extension fees scheduled for the correct amount required.
Matt Martin assets – the fee is a flat $375.00 regardless of purchase price.
Pemco and Hometelos assets – fees as follows:
i.     $25,000.00 or less the fee is $150.00
ii.     $25,000.01 to $50,000.00 the fee is $225.00
iii.     $50,000.01 and over the fee is $375.00
All extension fee checks must be made payable to HUD (certified funds only). No personal checks or cash will be accepted. Wires are acceptable.
Extension requests must be submitted to American Title, preferably five business days prior to expiration date of the contract, but no less than 1 day prior to expiration
The buyer is only charged for the days that are actually used, any unused days will be refunded to the buyer

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Pikes Peak Urban Living at ONE: How Aeschylus birthed The Stat Pack

Posted on October 24, 2011 | Leave a comment

Imagine 32,  19 and 20 year olds learning (in some cases literally) at the feet of two professors who are married to each other in a class that covers everything in Western culture from The Bacchanalia to Freudian libido. It’s a large, sunny family room of a Victorian, mining-era home with wing chairs, chaise lounges, dreadlocked freshmen in thermarest loungers, towering first-line hockey players and a half dozen people who easily could have gone to Williams or Yale but thought the winters in New England would suck and therefore, came west to be intellectually fabulous and a mere two hour drive from Breck in their late model 4Runner. Everyone in the room is smarter than you. In the classroom are several future attorneys, surgeons, human rights activists, an individual that to this day is one of the brilliant political puppeteers in all of Colorado and yours truly. It’s the 1994 edition of Colorado College’s Greek History and Philosophy.

To keep it simple, here’s a Wikipedia synopsis of Aeschylus’ amazing Orestia, specifically Agamemnon.

The play Agamemnon (Ἀγαμέμνων, Agamemnōn) details the homecoming of Agamemnon, King of Argos, from the Trojan War. Waiting at home for him is his wife, Clytemnestra, who has been planning his murder, partly as revenge for the sacrifice of their daughter, Iphigenia, and partly because in the ten years of Agamemnon’s absence Clytemnestra has entered into an adulterous relationship with Aegisthus, Agamemnon’s cousin and the sole survivor of a dispossessed branch of the family, who is determined to regain the throne he believes should rightfully belong to him.

You wonder why the Greeks are rioting. They used to be great.  Clytemnestra is a 2600 year-old example that life is not resolved in a P&L. Agamemnon just won the flipping Trojan War people… he’s the conquering hero of the age. Clytemnestra, if motivated by a profit-motivation, is in the proverbial catbird seat. Her man is home, and her man owes. Instead, cause does not equal a neat and tidy effect, and she murders him. You really have to read Aeschylus (preferably out-loud with others, make some spanikopita, get some grape leaves and wine, it’s fun) to get the full effect of this early heroine of feminism’s motivation. Let’s just say it is timeless because life doesn’t work in mechanical input-equals-output ways. It is timeless because it is eerily true in a way that surprises us with it’s unpredictable familiarity. To accelerate the gamut of emotions, it’s something like this: “Wait… she did what? That way? Wow. Yeah. I could see that. Wow.”

Fast forward two decades and Aeschylus is as relevant as he was 2600 years ago. My advisor at CC said “there is truth, and then there is the meta-truth”. She was talking about the dot and the dot and the dot that people see as life’s datapoints… and then the artistry that was woven between those dots. To use math language, what if the dot and the dot and the dot that we see from a distance on one plain as a triangle are actually being influenced by poles on two additional planes… how will we know to even look for those poles? Well, immersion in the Classics (and Philosophy, and Political Theory and Ancient Language and all four major epochs of western history) has a way of getting one’s brain past simple face value. We read the Orestia in a night, then read large chunks in the round with assigned parts, and debated and tore it apart for three hours straight with two phenomenal teachers who usually didn’t agree with each other. Sure, knowing the facts and details is important for the bucket list of education; but knowing why it all worked the way it did, and how other examples can later unfold, that’s something else entirely different and far more potent.

People who buy their residence based on Excel are usually the same ones selling a year later. They came to a vital decision in what academia calls STEM-thinking (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math). STEM-thinking allows you to see  clearly all the objective pieces (the dots), even all the objective pieces interacting on the board. But it doesn’t tell you how they might interact on the board, why they interact, why things are not always mechanical or systematic… and it also doesn’t tell you to look for outside influences that can break down the relational structures. Mechanical STEM-thinking hates things like “personality”.

And if this all sounds like high-minded, ivory-tower horse pucky, well, it is horse pucky, but it ain’t ivory tower. A social psychology professor friend (CC ’97, represent!) posted this great article from The Economist today on Facebook, the need for more anthropologists on Wall Street. The Economist, an international standard-bearer of rational, empirical thought, is puffing up a colleague over at The Financial Times, another standard-bearer of the left-brain P&L crowd. And one of the sharpest tacks out there is a Cambridge educated Ph.D in… anthropology. Gillian Tett predicted a credit-default-fueled implosion in 2005, largely because she understood inter-personal relationships. To quote: “But the other thing is, if you come from an anthropology background, you also try and put finance in a cultural context. Bankers like to imagine that money and the profit motive is as universal as gravity. They think it’s basically a given and they think it’s completely apersonal. And it’s not. What they do in finance is all about culture and interaction.” This line of thought sees financial crises before they happen. It explains why banks, who are in the money of usury, are not lending money to suitable borrowers (inventing metrics for trust and relationships). It explains the political ramifications and vendettas of our present day.

What Hannah and I do in real estate, finance, economics, is far more about culture and interaction then it is about a gravitational attraction to profit. Today I got to speak to someone that was looking for 500 acres to lease for wild horse habitat. There is, let’s see, exactly no money to be made in this project if I’m thinking like a banker. Like, um, nothing. And since most 500 acre land owners in eastern Colorado subscribe to the theory of highest and best use (see Banning-Lewis Ranch and it’s dangerous infatuation with gas leases of late) putting a very small number of horses that need huge range on an oversized property is what economists call “a sunk cost”. How do Hannah and I see that? First, educate on the prevailing winds of sunk cost, but then flush out the angle of what the opportunity cost looks like: Good will. Story-telling. Common hearts. Who are the players. How do we get Catamount Institute involved? Who in CC’s Environmental Science Department might be a catalyst? Can we get media, the visuals are superb, but media will likely have to pay for a night’s lodging with the day long drive to Montana so we really need to craft a home run here to get them on-board… etc.  What will Hannah and/or I make on this? Are you serious? Anything? Probably nothing. In the short-term.

Will we learn something? In the short and long-term, we will.

We don’t have it nailed. Goodness no, we don’t. That’s why we don’t do this blog for SEO. We do it for a finite audience that wants something different, who doesn’t trust easy answers and wants to make lasting decisions of value.

The Stat Pack is well into it’s sixth year, bigger, fuller, richer with more data than ever. About 85% of the Stat Pack is data and charts. What we do differently is that 15% of subjective. It allows us to craft lessons and strategies that are not as universal as gravity and are completely personal.

 

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Posted in Colorado Springs Real Estate, Market Data, Real Estate

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Resource Email (October 2011 Update)

Posted on October 11, 2011 | Leave a comment

<UPDATED OCTOBER 11, 2011> Hannah and I combined are going to end up around $16 to $18 million in sales this year… without an assistant. The shared web of resources we have cultivated (not to mention the peer support through one of the craziest years of our lives) has made this possible. Because we have consistently refined our system, we felt it necessary to update this post from February.

And yes… it grew by 600 words. Hee hee.

Part of utilizing 19 years of combined experience is a depth of allies. Hannah and I use several of the same people for several of the same functions, but have each introduced the other to new resources that deepen our clients’ experience. From REALTOR.com to Harris Interactive to REAL Trends, studies typically report that 90% of all consumers who buy a home start their home-buying experience online; with our client base being slightly younger than average, we know our numbers are 95% to 99%. So one of the things we do as a way of introduction is introduce our new people to resources that are online, and our resources that are local, so they can begin their process from a position of strategic strength.

I’m cheating of course, and creating a blog post out of a sent email. It’s been a couple years, and Rob, I’m sure you’re thrilled to see that I’m back at it; but here goes: The Resource Email BlogPost. Bookmark for your next friend that you refer our way. :)

This resource email is a bit of a boilerplate and isn’t terribly personal. But a bit of our story and why these resources are important to us is reflected in the email.

www.BenjaminDay.com or www.HannahParsons.com.

BenjaminDay.com

Content-wise, everything is up and ready on our sites. These sites host a lot of information that you can use before, during and after a transaction. There is an IDX-search site, a term that means that you can search the live MLS. Our monthly market report, the Stat Pack is archived here (and found quickly at www.cosrealestate.com). Additionally, the 2011 Annual Report and Forecast is here. I can provide you with a hard copy if you would like one. Our buying process is summarized here and our recommended vendors can be found here. The underpinnings of our business approach are to educate our clients with measurable, objective data when they enter the market (buyers and sellers, both). We believe that it is important that our clients have as deep an education as they can handle in how the market works because the market rules how the game is played. Other companies flatter us with their imitation of the Stat Pack (one company uses the same name), but this is the original report, originating in April 2006 (ironically, the month the market tipped). We are also the only real estate organization that has produced annual reports for each of the last four years, and have projected the single-family sales numbers with 95% accuracy each of the last three years. This is a bit geeky, but it’s also user-friendly. It has charts, it has graphs, it has numbers, it has analysis, it has bottomline answers, it has national perspective, local perspective and micro-market perspective. It’s eight pages of goodness and we want you to at least skim through it. Please. Pretty please.

REALTOR.com: the behemoth of real estate, this is supposed to be current within 15 minutes of MLS listing and is the best place to see photos of properties. I say supposed to be because that is not our experience. We find it up to five days out of date. It is not the best place to get great mapping information or anything that is more personal, or connecting. But it is a good place to see photos and which homes stand out. Remember, REALTOR.com is not an even playing field, even though the name sort of implies that it is all REALTORS collaboratively working together to disseminate listings: I personally pay for premium positioning and add features for my listings. Just because a property is not displayed well (even over a million with only 16 photos and no additional text descriptions, a common occurrence), this should not be a reflection of the property. If you see something here that you want more information about, cross check it at www.PikesPeakUrbanLiving.com or simply text or email us.

<UPDATED!> Yahoo and Zillow.com merged this past March, and now they are the number one site for search. Yahoo is great for syndication purposes (putting real estate on many different web channels) and is outstanding for REALTORS to market their services. Zillow is where our consumers are increasingly spending a lot of their time.

Zillow.com: has become the go-to site for most of our clients, young and old. We are rare in the industry in that we’re big fans. It now showcases most of the listings for sale, and is data-rich. Zillow zestimates are heavily subjective, and that is why most agents pan the site critically. The truth is, we have seen firsthand that Zestimates can be very accurate in any part of town. It also more often than not is a good projector of final selling price. Saying that, it is far less accurate when there is greater price elasticity in a neighborhood (something Hannah and I are big fans of as a concept, it’s where you make your money in any investment, especially real estate). Example: one 3000 square foot home could cost 25% more (or less) than another 3000 square foot home in the same or similar area. That’s pretty elastic. Or, one 3000 square foot home could cost 8% more (or less) than another 3000 square foot home in the same area. That is not very elastic. Most of the nicer neighborhoods built in the 1970′s through 2000 on the westside fall are elastic to heavily elastic, and then there is our historic downtown and The Broadmoor. Zillow is only as good as the data input, and it occasionally misreads the assessor’s site in terms of square footage or floorplan, which is the primary and most critical factor in determining price.

Not everyone uses Trulia.com but we like it for demographic information and trend-spotting. It is best known as a site where there can be all sorts of Q&A between prospective homeowners, lenders, REALTORS, and people who are bored and like to get 100 email alerts a day to answer questions about high-tension powerlines in Dubuque. It’s also a great site to mine for ethics violations, but that’s a REALTOR joke. Moving on: this is a very interactive site, and that’s their niche. The problem for consumers with highly interactive real estate websites is that other agents use these as lead generators, and truthfully, agents love to respond with general, non-specific information about all sorts of things they don’t know much about. So it’s not at all uncommon to ask a question about Colorado Springs and have some one from Laguna Beach answer it. Trulia is a true social site because it is about starting conversations, and if you wanted to ask subjective questions about a neighborhood, this is a good place to do it, because fair-housing should be followed and it’s free. I should note that Zillow has a similar Q&A feature, but you’re less likely to get consumer feedback, and very likely to get broker feedback.

www.pprbd.org:  showcases permit history for the county. This is a great place to see if that roof was really replaced after that hailstorm, or if the homeowner replaced that water heater with a buddy and a six-pack or if they hired a licensed trade. No one is really sure where the gap is, but it appears that online permit history is sketchy 1997 to 2002 on this site. You just don’t see a lot of permits for those years. I still advocate using it.

www.springsgov.com: is technically, the most accurate demographic site, crime site, interactive site. The city provides a lot of information for public perusal. You can link to Trails and Open Space and almost every other entity in the city from here.

http://land.elpasoco.com: is the assessor site and the mapping on it is superb. I use this all the time. Not much in our city government works as well as this site. It’s a very good place for instance to go and pull a plat map on a property and see if that advertisement for open space is actually city-owned open space, or something Jeanine Richardson bought and intended to develop into office condos. How you would do this is input the address you’re looking for, when it pops up select the map, and then simply click on any of the surrounding parcels to find out who owns it. Probably way too much information for buyers just looking online right now, but hopefully it comes with the peace of mind that we will be able to drill down onto some of the specific use issues quickly when you’re looking at property here.

Wanna look for foreclosures? Like the assessor’s site, our trustee’s site is impressive. Call it a nice consumer-centric response to a whiny populace, but in a city where people are constantly appealing their low tax valuations (Assessor) and where we were in the national vanguard of major foreclosures (leading the nation in ’87 & ’88, Top Ten counties nationwide in 2007 and early 2008, that would be the Trustee’s job), the county got smart and made a slick site. You can find ANY foreclosure action on a property in the calendar year on this site. You can search by name, zip code, street, neighborhood, and go back in time with date ranges. It’s great. If you’re a buyer and you’re worried about foreclosures in the townhome complex you like… pay this site a visit.

While we are talking foreclosures, let’s cut to the chase on where to find those suckers. Yeah, that’s right, we said suckers.

Our favorite is www.Homepath.com. That’s because we like getting paid for our work, and these are Fannie Mae foreclosures. Fannie Mae prices their properties right, they’re usually not criminal in their condition, they winterize them before stuff explodes, they pay to de-winterize when you inspect them, and they don’t blink at closing costs. Conventional buyers can buy them with as little as 3% down (inflated rate, but not much) and no mortgage insurance. We almost like www.HomeSteps.com as much, this is the sister quasi-government entity, Freddie Mac’s way of wholesaling properties. Freddie Mac offers some weird two-year home warranty and usually takes more steps to improve property condition before reselling. They don’t price them as well and they’re laborious as all get out in getting deals closed. In both cases, they offer programs in the initial offering for primary resident purchasers only. Investors can come in after 15 days usually. After about 30 days and no contract, Homepath especially will make an aggressive price cut.

Way down the list of foreclosure sites is www.HUDHomestore.com. You can read more about Ben’s personal sentiments of HUD properties in this post which is one of my five most popular posts all time. The new site is a lot better, but HUD homes are a bit more of an adventure and they’re a lot more expensive to inspect for buyers. They also lack the cool $100 down program these days. They still do offer Good-Neighbor Next Door programs for primary resident Teachers and First-Responders.

VA, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and small, local or Colorado bank-owned properties? These list in the MLS. That’s where a custom automated search from us to you is likely necessary. All our clients, once seasoned online, get custom searches, as many as they need (one client this year had 16 different automated searches going on at once).

www.spotcrime.com and www.familywatchdog.us are two “popular” sites for researching crime statistics and other nasty information about areas. Like anything, these sites are only as good as their data, and we don’t endorse either site or any crime-related research site and recommend you use as you choose. We cannot and will not advise you on whether or not a neighborhood is safe. Please keep this in mind about any site that has the intention of showing crime information: it is a lens into the past, not an oracle of the future. As the stock guys say, past performance is no guarantee of future returns. It is very important
that you clearly communicate your impressions of neighborhoods to us as we
cannot enforce our own subjectivities on your lifestyle.

If you would like to see a copy of the Colorado Contract to Buy and Sell Real Estate, a Residential Listing Contract for a Residential Property or Brokerage Relationship (Buyer), we would be happy to send you one via E-Contracts along with the Definitions of Real Estate Relationships. E-contracts is a life-saver for agents, but is usually seen at first as a nuisance by buyers and sellers because the signatures are so shaky-looking. But they usually end up being a great time reducer and have become the standard in our community among agents. We usually like to meet and strategize for 30 to 60 minutes with buyers before showing properties, then show a sample of properties that represent the width and breadth of opportunities for the customers. If this process goes well, at that point we ask for a Buyer Agency contract. This contract is a two-way street and we are a good bit more selective in who we work with; we are talented at what we do, and we offer several very unique services that most brokers do not. We are
strategic negotiators, effective communicators and our personal name and
brokerage have high credibility with real estate peers. Correspondingly, we work with clients that want those skills and reputation working for them, and are willing to work within some of the “constraints” that system provides in order to
reap the privileges and benefits it produces.

Lenders: Colorado went from the least regulated state in the nation for
lending to one of the most severely regulated in 2009. We were in “the
vanguard” of criminal lending activity and the number of licensed lenders
has been sliced in half by these regulations. Correspondingly, it is
critical that a buyer have an ally in the lending process.

We have a number one… and a number one… and a number one. You’re in
great hands with one of these three:
Jim Harmelink
ERA Mortgage
(719) 535-7405
jim.harmelink@mortgagefamily.com
http://jimharmelink.eramortgage.com

Tim Duvall
Academy Mortgage
tim.duvall@academy.cc
http://academymortgage.com/TimDuvall/

Marcy Langlois
Residential Mortgage of Colorado
719.265.5147
mlanglois@rmcolo.com
www.applywithmarcylanglois.com

We encourage you to contact AT LEAST TWO LENDERS EARLY IN YOUR HOME-BUYING PROCESS and do not be afraid to let them know you are shopping around. Each of our recommended lenders have attributes and skills that are unique and we want you to find a good fit. Every one of these lenders has pulled deals out of the fire that should have died and got them to the closing table. Quiz these individuals with your personal questions, your strengths and weaknesses and see what loan they recommend for you. We believe in helping clients make sustainable financial decisions, so do not worry about being over-qualified with any of these lenders; they respect the way we do business and are long-term minded, not transaction-minded. If it’s a toss up and you’re looking for the best loan, it is a good idea to request the same size loan at the same rate on the same day among lenders. Analyze the Good Faith Estimate that they will provide you with the same day, and compare the APR. Mortgage rates are volatile and you need to find out how and when you can lock your loan with each lender. Please allow 15 to 20 minutes per phone conversation when obtaining pre-approval. Hannah and I require Pre-approval in order to look at home (the only exception are cash buyers); it is completely in your best interest to look only at homes you can afford and be able to pull the trigger on an offer that represents you as a solid and straight-forward buyer if you find the right home. Pre-approval dramatically benefits your negotiating position; it requires a credit check and analysis of your assets and income verification. The better picture you present to a seller, the
better you are. If you are a VA customer, it’s a good idea to ask what fees are charged to sellers that are buyer non-allowables. This essentially is a cost of doing business, and it’s good to know as you have to make that request in the initial contract. Each of these individuals are EXTREMELY well-regarded locally. The value to you is that in this day and age no one in the real estate industry likes uncertainty. If a listing agent can tell their seller “this is a lender of strong regard and reputation” that buys you a couple thousand dollars in negotiating. Local agents are generally less enthusiastic about offers from several lenders not mentioned here, and they may convey that to their seller when presenting an offer. By the way, you should know that Hannah and I both authorize these lenders to be “jerks” in the pre-approval stage with the sheer number of questions they ask you. What that means: it is your responsibility to give them everything they ask for, and if you don’t have 100% certainty in an answer, please tell them that. This is not something you can skate through. If it can go wrong, it will. It is much better to get it all out on the table immediately and at the very beginning so you don’t end up finding out three days before closing that your loan is denied, you’ve lost your earnest money, you’ve moved out of your rental and you might have taxes on that fat check Mom and Dad gave you to buy your home. Seriously: please cooperate. Getting a loan stinks with any lender. These three really have your best interests at heart, so no matter how invasive it feels, it’s kind of like a surgery: everyone has a scalpel. Go with the person most skilled in using it who makes the smallest scar. We think we have three that fit that description.

A last note on lenders, many buyers have concerns about having multiple
credit inquiries. This is understandable. The reality is that you are allowed
multiple credit inquiries without it substantially impacting your credit (a dozen points or so) because your multiple inquiries are for the same purpose: primary residence home financing. It’s not a good idea to get a new American Express or check out car financing at the same time, as those are multiple inquiries for different intentions.

Inspectors:
Colorado does not license or certify home inspectors in anyway shape or form. It’s terrible. It’s stupid. Apparently there are more pressing legislative matters as there is no timeline for this to happen.

Since the state doesn’t regulate inspector actions, real estate brokers have the responsibility of policing inspectors and promoting the best.

Lance Heyward
A Precise Home Inspection
(719) 272-0100

Mark McCafferty
Criterium-McCafferty Engineering
(719) 685-2285

Dan Parillo
Housemaster Home Inspector
(719) 799-6409

We also regularly recommend a structural engineer. This is the guy who can tell you if the building is falling down, or in one case “no Ben, this is actually built like a parking garage. This thing is safe in an earthquake. Be afraid of the asbestos in the ceiling, instead.” He’s also a home inspector listed above, Mark McCafferty. Criterium-McCafferty is a trusted name in the engineering world, and if something looks like a big problem, or you have a little problem that will lead to a big problem (a sump pump that chronically won’t work), Mark’s your guy.

After all this information, you will notice that there is something
surprisingly missing: schools. If ever there was a place that sending
information online was suspect or lead to inaccurate information or quite
simply, problems, it’s online. Put simply, both Hannah and I are parents and
pretty involved with our kids’ education. The variety of things that are
important to parents are so wildly subjective and the information that is
promulgated online is intended to be as neutral and objective as possible,
that it becomes very difficult to find exactly what you are looking for. The
last thing we want is to make the process more frustrating. So we recommend
that you actually find out what you can using the sites school districts provide for general information, and then make phone contact with schools directly for more specific information. It never ceases to surprise out of town buyers how open and friendly and accessible the administrations are for many of the schools in the Pikes Peak Region. School choice deadlines are looming, so it’s a good idea to research that process (it is standardized and not subjective) at both school district websites.

Colorado Springs District 11 (central city, largest school district):
http://www.d11.org
Cheyenne Mountain D12 (southwest city, small and generally elite):
http://www.cmsd.k12.co.us/
Academy D20 (second largest, northern city):
http://www.asd20.org
Falcon D49 (eastern city):
http://www.d49.org
Harrison D2 (southern city near Ft. Carson and Peterson AFB):
http://www.harrison.k12.co.us/
Widefield D3 (southern city, near Ft. Carson): http://www.wsd3.org
Fountain/Ft. Carson D8 (on post): http://www.ffc8.org
Lewis-Palmer D38 (Monument, northern county): http://lewispalmer.org/
Manitou Springs D14 (Manitou and Ute Pass, tiny): http://www.mssd14.org/
Woodland Park DRE2 (Rural, west of COS): http://www.wpsdk12.org/

Our business. Hannah Parsons and I teamed up in
November, 2010 under the name Pikes Peak Urban Living. Combined, we have 19 years of experience in helping customers achieve financial stability through
sound real estate decisions. I have been in the real estate business for 12 years after spending three years in the fly-tackle industry helping a company build it’s brand entirely around best-in-industry customer service. Hannah’s prior career was in financial services and when she says that she likes Profit and Loss Statements and Spreadsheets, that’s her MBA speaking. We do not work the entire city, but together specialize and share resources, marketing collateral, vendors, processes and time to optimize our own business practices and personal well-being. Put it this way, there are a lot of burned-out real estate agents going around being all things to all people. Our structure is designed to keep us fresh,
rejuvenated and smarter than our competition. We both are married with
elementary school-age children. I live in D20 and Hannah’s
kids are in D11. We encourage one another and our families share time
together. In business, we look at significantly more property firsthand than
our peers. We construct detailed market reports to help individuals see
clearly what is going on in the market. We take more educational
opportunities than are required to deepen our knowledge. We ask lots of
questions. We are bloggers and social media pioneers that operate in a
transparent, consumer-centric way. We are active participants on multiple
boards and organizations in our community. The majority of our clients
recommend us to a friend or peer within 12 months, something we deeply
appreciate, but also something that is consistent with the framework of our
business: we show our appreciation for our clients by working hard in a
uniquely advantageous way for them, and many of them feel obliged to share
that story with those they trust. This is not an instruction  to start recommending us to your friends and family. But we don’t mind when you do, and that’s the gold-standard in our business: are we worth referring? Honestly, we better be. You deserve that care. That referrability is earned.

We are instructing you to have lots of questions and high expectations. And hopefully after reading a 4000 word blog post, you’ll see that we operate in a strategic fashion rather than a reactionary fashion. We have plans, systems and processes to enhance the home-buying experience with the intention of maximizing the benefit for our clients. That might limit certain hours that we see properties, or it might force us to substantiate plans with specific, actionable data. Our job is to make this process as smooth and as easy as possible, to mitigate risk and maximize opportunity.

Hannah’s contact is (719) 338-2755, hannah@hannahparsons.com. Ben’s is (719) 331-9170, benjamin@benjaminday.com. Each of us have our specialties and there might be questions better suited for a male agent, others for a female agent. You have access to us both. And feel free to text us.

A quick blurb about Selley Group: Hannah and I are enthusiastic to be at this
high-powered boutique brokerage. Cherise Selley is our broker. Cherise has as great a reputation as you can find in the city and happens to be a superb agent and a top producer. The three rarely mix in our culture, and that’s a big reason we are where we are. Cherise and her husband Gordon are internet pioneers in real estate and represent the new generation of consumer-centric business. There are only five licensed agents at the company, but all produce multiples more per year than the average agent, and all of us conduct ourselves with professionalism and respect for our peers. If for any reason you need to contact Cherise or Selley Group, the number is (719) 598-5101.

All our best to you, and we look forward to starting the journey together!

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Posted in Colorado Springs, Colorado Springs Real Estate, Relocation, Resources

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The Redfin Agent Scouting Report

Posted on September 29, 2011 | Leave a comment

"Live by the Sword, Die by the Sword" indeed...

Sometimes, someone else’s blogpost is so much more salient than anything I can write.

Other times, you have to head off the train. The Redfin Agent Scouting Report is such a train, and some agents will hate/be terrified/jump out of the way of this train.

In a nutshell, the Agent Scouting Report extracts MLS data on agents and maps it. Think about that for a second. Just like Congressman have to disclose who gives campaign donations, just like Fantasty Football uses Moneyball-style Sabermetrics, just like publicly-traded companies have to disclose their financial reporting, a private company (Redfin) extracts MLS information (constructed for and by local dues-paying members) on those practicing it and displays it in a mapped format showing who sold how much and where.

Glenn Kelman said (in)famously in the 60 Minutes piece 4.5 years ago “I work in the most screwed up industry in America”, and most of institutional real estate is going to hate Redfin all the more. I can’t say I’m a huge fan of the Agent Scouting Report, but some of that has to do with my entrepreneurial-side saying, “Why didn’t I think of that first?”, and the other part is “I really don’t care.” I would have no fear that this information will show my occasional sales in BRI, N/E and TRI (I use the passive “would” because Redfin presently serves the Denver Metro Area, but not Colorado Springs, and I doubt they’ll enter our market anytime soon for economy-of-scale reasons) and I would like the fact that it shows how much I sell in N/W, and it actually really pleases me when it shows which listings I had that didn’t sell (strangely… they were overpriced!). I don’t think this information in the public’s hands would have any negative impact on my business model and can see how it would have a positive impact. But I’m practical like that, and I don’t get bent on polemics behind MLS data being used in ways that don’t support the monster-brokerage business model of 1999.

The major reason why The Agent Scouting Report won’t effect us much (for good or for bad) is that Pikes Peak Urban Living uses a word-of-mouth business model, not a production-centric business model. The Agent Scouting Report is another one of those attempts to distill everything down to a quantifiable, economic datapoint, and funny, I’ve never had a buyer buy a property due to overwhelming, quantifiable, economic datapoints, and thank goodness, I can’t think of a single client that worked with me for overwhelming, quantifiable, datapoint reasons. Hannah likely seconds this. The people who end up talking to Hannah and I end up talking to us because there is something “other” about us that they want access to. It could be that we don’t pretend to be smart about areas where we know nothing (um, Falcon. Park County. Southeast Colorado Springs. Broadmoor Resort Community). It could be that we use a defined system that sellers and buyers both readily understand carries a benefit for them (The Home-Selling Catalyst with pre-sale inspections, professional staging, professional photography, custom sites, social media distribution, use of Postlets and Zillow; Our Home-Buying System which calculates probability of sale, previews properties and leans on the knowledge of The Stat Pack to help facilitate a smart buy of a perfect property). It could be that we are accountable, honest, accessible, and like our employing broker Cherise Selley, tenacious on behalf of our people.

Hannah and I are both having our best ever financial years, with Hannah already at her highest-ever sales volume, and I’m on pace to have my 2nd highest year ever in terms of sales volume and units (better than 2005). Yesterday’s closing put me ahead of last year’s units. I have four more under contract and I’m working ten buyers that want to close in 2011. So the Redfin Agent Scouting Report is fine by us. Here is something else that’s fine by us: the “Why” behind why Glenn Kelman decided this was in Redfin’s best interests (from The Redfin blog, but courtesy of the brilliant lads at 1000WattConsulting):

In some cases, what you’ll see is that an agent at another brokerage is a better fit for that neighborhood, an inevitability that has been a source of great controversy within Redfin. Why would we ever help anyone realize that a Coldwell Banker agent is her best choice?

But once you ask that question, you’ve already framed the debate in terms of short-term consequences rather than long-term principles. It leads you down a path where every market analysis concludes that it’s a good time to buy, and every review of a Redfin agent is five-stars.

The world doesn’t need more brokers like that. It needs a broker who will just tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. We’ll win more clients that way than we’ll lose — and we’ll win everyone’s trust.

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