Jim Smith, Broker

Environmental Film Festival Expanded My ‘Woke’ Credentials, But That’s a Good Thing – Better Than ‘Unconscious’

I’m writing this column in the immediate aftermath of attending the Colorado Environmental Film Festival. I was only able to watch 20 or so of the 90-plus films featured during the sixteen 2-hour sessions, but I plan to watch others this week. (You can access all the films at www.CEFF.net for $75, which gives you seven days to view any collection you log into by Sunday, March 5.)

My favorite films were: The Sacrifice Zone; Wings over Water; Heart of Maui; Somehow Hopeful; Earth Girl; The Witness Is a Whale; and A Rally for Rangers.

Many of these films raised my consciousness regarding different issues facing humanity and America, which got me thinking about the term “Woke,” which is applied negatively against those of us with similar awareness of certain issues. In the parlance of the MAGA folks, I’m part of the “Woke mob.”

Obviously, the term is adapted from “awake” or “awakened.” One thing for which we can thank the previous administration is that the division it spawned awakened people like me to portions of our history (and our present) of which we may have been less aware. I’m thinking of books like The 1619 Project and Caste, which taught me things I did not know about our nation’s sad legacy of enslavement and racism, which are at the heart of America’s “great experiment.” For example, I didn’t realize that the 13th amendment abolished slavery, “except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted,” an exception that was exploited throughout the former confederate states by convicting Blacks of petty or false crimes and imprisoning them so that the prisons could lease them to plantation owners to continue their enslavement.

Yes, I’m awake to many aspects of our history to which the MAGA mob is (and would like to remain) unconscious. I’m awake to the environmental injustice suffered by the minority communities close to the Suncor plant in north Denver, which was the topic of a CEFF film. I’m awake to the broken promise of “40 Acres and a Mule” which underlies the calls for reparations to descendants of the enslaved.

I prefer “woke” to “unconscious.”

National Association of Home Builders Reports on What Buyers Want in a New Home

In a February 14 release, the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) reported that the experience of Covid-19 and mortgage interest rate fluctuations has resulted in homebuyers sacrificing features for affordability. Buyers have also changed the features which they prioritize.

The NAHB reported that the size of new homes increased in 2021 as a reflection of the pandemic’s increase in work-at-home and remote schooling space requirements, but that house sizes fell slightly in 2022, as did the demand for three or more full bathrooms and 3-car or larger garages.

The organization predicts that home sizes will increase this year because of a predominance of wealthy buyers less affected than other buyers by the increase in mortgage rates, but that will change in 2024, if mortgage rates moderate and more buyers reenter the market.

“Home buyers are looking more and more to their homes to provide a sense of well-being,” observed Donald Ruthroff, AIA, founding principal at Design Story Spaces LLC. “They want their homes to support their day- to-day health — physically, emotionally, and mentally,” as quoted in the NAHB release.

Below is a chart showing the results of an October 2020 survey of 1,240 respondents by John Burns Real Estate Consulting, LLC. The answers were in response to the question, “Which of the following would you require of a home for you to consider it a healthy home.”

Given that the survey was done only six months into the pandemic, it’s not surprising how many responses related to a healthy environment and lifestyle. The survey was done long before the recent brouhaha over the health effects of natural gas cooking and heating, or I would expect “all-electric home” or “no natural gas” to have been among the choices offered to respondents.

The survey results were included in a research report from the New Home Trends Institute.

The release also described a trend toward “biophilic design,” a term that I had not seen previously. Basically, it refers to a preference for natural materials and environment. Lots of natural light and real wood finishes would contribute to such a feeling. It has been demonstrated that exposure to nature and natural home design reduces stress.

In November, 2022, the University of Maine unveiled its 600-sq.-ft. “Bio3D” home made using forest-derived cellulose nano fiber (CNF) technology to 3D print the floor, walls and roof. These modules were then assembled at a site on the UMaine campus. It is a “biophilic” alternative to the concrete 3D-printed homes which I featured in my Nov. 5, 2020, and Dec. 15, 2022, columns, available online at www.JimSmithColumns.com.

The site ConstructUtopia.com, in a January 2021 article clearly influenced by the pandemic, listed “4 healthy home features that home buyers care about”:

1) Good indoor air quality. This is especially needed in a well-insulated/air tight home, where a suitable appliance would be a Conditioned Energy Recovery Ventilator (CERV), which I wrote about in my Feb. 9, 2023, column.

2) Quiet, soothing bedrooms. The report suggested “thoughtful lighting, better soundproofing” and a nearby “snore room” for the offending or the suffering partner.

3) Easy-to-clean surfaces.

4) Outdoor recreation areas. Over three-quarters of survey respondents said they were focusing more on their physical health, and nearly as many (69%) said they’re focusing on their mental health. Exercise addresses both needs.

A September 2022 article on the same website featured a Mississippi company called Modern Mill which uses discarded rice husks to create a wood-alternative building material called “Acre” because one pallet of the product reportedly saves one acre of rainforest. Rice is a major agricultural product in the South, and rice husks would otherwise go to a landfill. Here are a few pictures of the Acre product from https://modern-mill.com/decking/ used as decking and siding, which, like real wood, can be stained:

NAHB reports a big jump this year in the demand for exterior amenities such as patios, decks and porches. Outdoor kitchens weren’t mentioned but could have been, from my own observation.

Home offices also appeared on the list of most wanted features for the first time this year, again a result of the pandemic.

Donald Ruthroff (mentioned above) noted that by making homes smaller, more money can be spent on details and finishes such as a luxurious bathroom, laundry rooms, walk-in pantries and hardwood flooring.

Boxabl, the Las Vegas Manufacturer of ADUs, Has Ramped Up Production

Manufactured housing started before most of us were born, if you include mobile homes. Modular housing, in which components of a building are put together in a factory and then assembled onsite, is also a part of early housing history. I remember attending Expo 67 in Montreal, where one of the exhibits (but not an attraction to be toured) was “Habitat 67,” a funny looking 148-unit apartment complex adjacent to the 1967 World’s Fair site in which concrete apartment modules were held together by cables.

Then, in 1997, I purchased a home in Golden’s Mesa Meadows subdivision which I learned later from a neighbor was built in a Ft. Morgan factory and assembled in one day on the foundation in Golden. Knowing that, I noticed the tell-tale beam in the ceiling which was where the two halves of the one-story home were attached to each other. Here’s the MLS picture of that home (798 Cressman Ct.) which sold last June for over $1 million.

It was explained to me that manufactured homes are often of higher quality and better insulated, because they are done on a factory floor where there is better supervision, resulting, for example, in better insulation. The exterior walls were all made from 2×6 lumber instead of 2×4 lumber to better withstand the stresses of being loaded, unloaded and moved on the building site. Indeed, my Mesa Meadows house was a good one, although I expect the current owners (the third since I sold it) don’t even know that it was not stick-built on site over several months, like its neighboring homes.

Next came the “tiny home” movement in which complete homes were often built on a factory floor, wheeled on a trailer to someone’s lot, and then put onto a foundation. Some tiny homes were put into service as temporary homes for our unhoused population, formerly referred to as “homeless,” on vacant land or in church parking lots — a good idea, but without a conventional connection to a sewer line. Here are three tiny homes displayed for sale on https://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/:

About that time the ADU movement took off, with many if not most cities and counties changing their single-family zoning laws to allow the creation of “accessory dwelling units.” These could be walk-out basements converted to an apartment, but often they were apartments created above detached garages or stand-alone buildings in backyards. The typical ADU ordinance requires three things: 1) the ADU cannot exceed a certain size, 2) it has to have its own off-street parking space, and 3) the property owner has to live in either the main house or the ADU and not rent out both units. Some jurisdictions are considering loosening these rules. Here’s the City of Golden’s web page about their ADU rules: https://www.cityofgolden.net/city-services/accessory-dwelling-units/

Several local businesses were created to cater to this new construction opportunity, including Verdant Living, 303-717-1962, owned by John Phillips. His “backyard bungalows” are manufactured in Nebraska and meet local code requirements. You can visit www.VerdantLiving.us for more information.

A company called Villa started building ADUs in a factory southeast of Los Angeles, after California legalized ADUs in 2020. This company delivers and installs its units across the state, with prices starting at $105,000 plus as much as $200,000 for delivery, infrastructure costs, foundation, and installation. Here’s Villa’s website: https://villahomes.com/units/

There’s a Las Vegas startup called Boxabl, whose competitive advantage is that its ADUs fit on a standard flatbed trailer and then unfold into the simple unit shown here or to larger homes, such as the 3-bedroom, 2½-bath, 2-story home (assembled from three units) shown below.

It’s a father-son company which has not yet gone public. It was clearly inspired by the factory concept of Tesla, not surprising since the son drives a Tesla. Notice the Tesla wall charger and the Tesla battery unit above it on the exterior of the 2-story building below. That picture is from the International Builders Show last month in Las Vegas. It drew a lot of attention, and the company now has a waiting list over 100,000, even though it can’t deliver more units until regulators approve its construction.

The company did deliver 156 of its 400-square-foot “casitas” to the Federal government for use in Guantanamo Bay, which helped it build its factory and develop its technology. The company received that multi-million-dollar contract based on its proposal, even though the government knew they hadn’t built anything yet.

After completing that contract, Boxabl got a contract from an Arizona company to build workforce housing. Currently the firm is only building and, presumably, stockpiling its 400-square-foot casitas as it perfects its current factory and equips a second factory next door.

Learn more at www.Boxabl.com.

‘Everything You Need to Know About the Wild World of Heat Pumps’

That’s the title of an article in a February 14th post from MIT — https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/02/14/1068582/

I have written about and provided my own explanations regarding how heat pumps differ from forced air furnaces and traditional A/C systems, but the article cited above goes the extra mile.

If you’ve spent a night in a hotel or motel, you have probably slept in a room that was heated or cooled by a heat pump, because invariably that’s what those units are which you saw and controlled under each window.

In my other post today, heat pumps provide the heating and cooling for every Boxabl home. They are also what heats and cools many electric vehicles, since they require less battery power than conventional electric car heaters.

I was surprised to hear that heat pumps were invented in the 1850s but only started being used to heat and cool homes in the 1960s. It took the global climate crisis and the need to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels to make them the hottest trend in new homes.

Speaking of new homes, however, I lamented as recently as last fall that I haven’t found a single new Denver area home builder which has abandoned gas-based home heating or even offers an upgrade to heat pumps. If you know of one, please tell me, because I’d be happy to promote that home builder in a future column.

The MIT article provides some useful information, including about the rebates being offered for heat pump installations. It also debunks the myth promoted by fossil fuel interests that heat pumps don’t work in colder climates. They are actually in use from Alaska to Maine, where, for example, my sister in Kingfield, Maine, installed a heat pump in her home to save on her fuel oil bill. Her fuel oil vendor told her that the adoption of heat pumps by her neighbors has noticeably reduced his sale of fuel oil in that rural community near the Canadian border.

According to the article, 60% of the homes in Norway are heated by heat pumps, as are 40% of the homes in Finland and Sweden (where another of my sisters lives).

“Wherever you look,” the MIT article concludes, “the era of the heat pump has officially begun.”

Why Any Denver Seller Would Be Smart to List With Golden Real Estate

Choosing the best agent and/or brokerage for listing your home is no small matter. For most people, their home sale or purchase is the biggest transaction of their life, one they would want handled by an experienced and resourceful agent and brokerage.

For many sellers, perhaps even most, the decision seems all too simple. We all have a relative, classmate or friend who holds a real estate license, and there’s a compulsion to use that person, or, to put it differently, a fear of upsetting or insulting that person by using someone who might, in fact, do a better job.

At the end of this article I will suggest how to navigate those waters, but first let me lay out the argument for using one of our great agents at Golden Real Estate.

Let’s accept as a premise that any listing agent’s job is to maximize exposure of your home and thereby get the highest possible price for it, perhaps with competing bidders driving the final price above the price at which it was listed.

Golden Real Estate’s “value proposition” is all about maximizing exposure of your home, beginning, of course, with featuring it in this column. We don’t have a featured listing in this edition, but regular readers know that one or more new listings appears here nearly every week. This column/ad appears in more than just this newspaper. It’s in three Jefferson County weekly newspapers — the Golden Transcript, Jeffco Transcript, Arvada Press — as well as in every metro area edition the YourHub section of every Denver Post. Altogether, this ad exposes your home to nearly 200,000 newspaper readers — a great demographic!

The Denver Post version of this ad is then emailed to more than 800 subscribers, about half of whom are fellow agents. The articles and featured listings are also posted on our blog at www.GoldenReblog.com and are archived at www.JimSmithColumns.com

In addition, we create a custom website for every listing, the URL for which is included in the “featured listing” article. On that website, as on the MLS, we post our magazine-quality photos plus a narrated video tour, as well as the open house information. The video tour is hosted on YouTube, which provides additional exposure, and we promote the listing and every open house on our Facebook page, which is www.Facebook.com/GoldenRealEstate1.

Just as important as maximizing the number of people who learn about your home is making sure that the information is as complete as possible. We enter every possible bit of information on the MLS, instead of completing only the required fields. That means that instead of just entering “public remarks,” we enter a description of every room in the house, including dimensions, flooring, closet information, view out the windows, ceiling fan and other features that add to the sales pitch for your home. This is not common practice among the majority of agents.

As you may know, listing agents can double their commission by not having to share it with a buyer’s agent. To that end, your agent might hold your home off the MLS for some period a week or two (and sometimes even longer!) in an attempt to find a buyer on their own. This is commonly done by putting a “coming soon” sign in your yard and advertising it as “coming soon” on websites such as NextDoor.com or craigslist.org. The listing agent might then convince a seller to go under contract with that first buyer and put the home on the MLS as “Under Contract” without it ever being listed as “Active.”

In 2017, there were 2,781 homes listed as “Sold” on REcolorado.com, the Denver MLS, with zero days on market. That means they were never “Active,” and therefore never exposed to the widest possible number of buyers. Not surprisingly, 19% of them sold for less than the listing price, and only 19.7% of them sold for more than the listing price.

By comparison, 4,007 homes were on the MLS for 2 days before going under contract. Among those sales, only 12.2% sold for less than full price, and 59.1% of them sold for more than full price. At Golden Real Estate, we have found that 4 days on market is the “sweet spot,” for the length of time it takes to attract the number of buyers that allows us to obtain the highest purchase price for our sellers. Just last week, I had a listing which could have sold for $15,000 less than listing price on the second day, but we waited until day 5 and got it under contract for $11,500 over the listing price. Half of Golden Real Estate’s listings in 2017 sold at or above listing price, and 3 of them sold for more than 10% above listing price.

Above, I mentioned that a listing agent can double his or her commission by not having to share that commission with a buyer’s agent. At Golden Real Estate, it is our policy to have what’s called a “variable commission,” meaning that we reduce our commission when we sell a home ourselves. Based on my own sampling, roughly 5% of the listings on the MLS are double-ended, but of those homes that sold last year with zero days on market, over 50% of them were double-ended, and less than half of those reduced their commission for doing so. When you interview a listing agent, ask if he or she will reduce their commission if they don’t have to share it with a buyer’s agent. If you ask, the agent will typically agree to do so, but I think you’ll find that most agents hope you won’t ask. At Golden Real Estate, we offer that discount without you having to ask for it. It’s on our printed list of services.

Now, most people who sell their home are also going to buy a home, and you should consider using the same agent who lists your home to help you buy your replacement home. Why? Because you should get a discount on your listing commission in return for allowing that agent to make a commission (paid by the seller) on your purchase. You sacrifice that opportunity when you don’t have a buyer’s agent and deal only with the listing agent on your purchase.

Too many buyers think they will get a better deal if they purchase a home without a buyer’s agent — that the seller saves that 2.8% co-op commission. But that’s not the case. Unless there’s a variable commission (and I already explained that only 15% of listings have a variable commission), the only person who profits from you not having a buyer’s agent is the listing agent, not the seller. In most cases, you’ll do a whole lot better by having your own listing agent earn that 2.8% commission on your purchase and discounting his listing commission by, say, 1%.

So, what about that friend or relative who expects you to hire him? Tell him/her that you want to use Golden Real Estate, which has agreed to pay him/her a 25% referral fee.

Buyers Should Use Us, Too!

I already mentioned that your listing agent should be your buyer’s agent, too, but if you are buying without selling, or have already sold your home, say, in another state, here are some reasons you should hire an agent from Golden Real Estate to represent you in the purchase of a home, whether a resale or a new home.

You need our advice on what to offer and you especially need our help if you find yourself competing with other buyers. We have a moving truck, which is free to you, but we also can offer it free to the seller as an incentive for them to accept your offer over that of another buyer. We have excellent home inspectors and loan officers, and you’ll appreciate our closing gift, which is a free energy audit of your new home.

Negotiation skills are needed not just to get under contract, but when it comes to negotiating inspection, appraisal or other less common issues. This is a particular strength here at Golden Real Estate.

Buying a home can be a tricky proposition, so don’t go it alone, and don’t put your trust in the listing agent, who isn’t looking out for your interests.

Buyers & Sellers Ask: Why Did the Appraisal Come in at Exactly the Contract Price?

Real_Estate_Today_byline When purchasing a home with a mortgage, one of the major hurdles for buyers in getting to the closing table concerns the home appraisal. The lender hires the appraiser – at the buyer’s expense – to make sure that the home is worth what the buyer has agreed to pay for it.

More often than not, the appraisal comes in at exactly the contract price, which understandably seems a little fishy. Typically, when the buyer asks me why, I explain that the appraiser always gets a copy of the purchase contract and therefore knows his or her target valuation. Once an appraiser can justify that target, there’s no need to identify additional value. That’s been my hypothesis anyway, but since it’s only a hypothesis, I posed the question last week to several experienced lenders with whom I have long-standing relationships.

Bernie Bernfeld of Wells Fargo (303-273-6373) responded as follows: “My short answer is that with so much scrutiny on appraisers and their valuations due to past abuses in some areas of the country, the appraiser will generally not assign more value than is necessary to support the sales value even if he knows the property may be worth more. This conservative approach satisfies the loan underwriters and those reviewing the appraisal while still supporting the buyer’s accepted offer.”

Jim Spray, a mortgage broker specializing in reverse mortgages (303-403-8168) said the following: “One should keep in mind that an appraisal is simply a valuation tool for lending purposes; it is nothing else. It may or may not reflect the actual market value, which is what an independent party (the buyer, in this case) is willing to pay. This may not reflect the value of an appraisal that is not associated with a purchase. In large part, an appraisal is just a tool for lenders to use to help prevent fraud and prove they are making sound lending decisions.”

Scott Lagge of Eagle Home Loans (303-944-8552) gave the longest response, making several interesting points. He wrote: “Appraisals come in at value because appraisers don’t want to deal with appraisal objections from the real estate agents, their buyers and sellers, or the buyers’ lenders.

“When an appraisal comes in below the contract price, the first ones to cry foul are the real estate agents. They immediately question the appraiser’s ability, and put pressure on us lenders to fix it. The agent send comps to the appraiser or lender, arguing their position, and wanting the lender to challenge the appraisal.

“So the extra work for the appraiser begins. They have to fix or defend their appraisal.

“Conversely, if the appraisal comes in high, especially if it comes in way higher than the contract price, there’s a concern on the part of the seller that they are leaving money on the table. This was more common in years past when sellers had access to the appraisal. You can imagine being a listing agent in this situation. You’re selling a home for $400,000 and the appraisal comes in at $450,000. Bad deal for that seller — and for their listing agent!

“In either of these situations, the pressure is being put back on the appraiser to fix it.

“Let’s be clear, all lenders have a legitimate process for challenging an appraisal, and we have to prove that there is a material defect in the appraisal in order to rebut it. We all have an internal or external appraisal management company that assures everyone is coloring inside the lines. In other words, only valid challenges are accepted these days, but that doesn’t eliminate the pressure on us as professionals to explain why the value came in low or high to the consumer.

“So, coming in at value is the appraiser’s only sure-fire way to avoid scrutiny from clients, lenders and agents, thereby avoiding the extra work of defending and/or redoing the appraisal.

“The easier answer is that a home is worth what someone is willing to pay for it in an arm’s length transaction. If you have a contract price of $300,000 and a buyer and seller have agreed on that price, once that transaction closes and records, it is officially worth exactly $300,000 and becomes a valid comp for future transactions.

“So why would an appraiser state anything different than the contract price, assuming he can justify it?”

[End of lenders’ responses]

I found it necessary once to challenge a low appraisal, and I was successful. It was for a Golden area purchase, and the appraiser was from Castle Rock and clearly didn’t have geographical competence, because he checked the box indicating that the housing market was “stable” instead of “rising,” which was obvious to anyone. I was able to point out other factual errors, and the appraisal was recast at the contract price.

Any of the above mortgage lenders would be happy to answer your questions on this topic. Call them!

Preparing Your Home for Sale – Some Practical Advice

Submitted by Suzie Wilson of HappierHome.net

Whether you’re moving because of a job, family expansion or retirement, you’ll have to roll up your sleeves and get to work if you want your property to appeal to the most buyers. Before you start packing, however, there are a few minor home improvements you should tackle, which will speed up the process and get you on the road.

Start with aesthetics

No matter how short a time you’ve lived in your home, there are likely lots of little things that you’ve learned to overlook. The vast majority of these will be minor aesthetic imperfections that are cheap and easy to rectify. ProfessionalStaging.com notes that buyers are on the lookout for issues and will notice every little crack, stain, or chipped tile. Here are a few DIY projects that will reduce the lived-in look of your home:

Replace moldy or damaged caulk in the bathtub and shower
Clean or stain grout in the kitchen and bathroom
Fill nail holes in the wall and gaps around the trim
Plant colorful flowers by the mailbox and entryway
Organize storage spaces (buyers love to look in closets, under the stairs, and in the garage and attic)
Paint rooms that don’t already have a neutral color scheme
Install functional smoke and carbon monoxide alarms
Pull weeds and add a layer of fresh mulch to flower beds
Repair brown spots on the lawn
Replace outdated bronze and brass doorknobs, handles, and drawer pulls

Manage major malfunctions

There are plenty of small things you can tackle on your own, but you’ll also need to invest time and money making sure there are no major defects that may derail your home sale at inspection time. These include:

Foundation problems (Homes.com estimates this can devalue your property by up to $100,000)
HVAC issues
Mold
Leaks in the roof/missing shingles
Major plumbing problems, such as a clogged mainline
Outdated electrical panel
Windows that won’t open up or lock
Musty/animal smell
Rotted wood behind walls – most likely in the kitchen or bath
Damp basement

Small issues won’t necessarily be deal-breaker for most of your buyers but the less work they have to do the more likely they will be to give your home a second look. Large issues such as a crumbling foundation may designate your home as a fixer-upper, which won’t attract “everyday” buyers who want to move in immediately.

What do buyers want?

Buyers in different demographics will seek out home features that appeal to their lifestyles. There are, however, a few universal want-list items you can play up in your listing to cast as wide a net as possible. According to American Home Shield, the features homebuyers want are:

Separate laundry room
Energy-efficient appliances and windows
Exterior lighting
Outdoor entertainment space
Ceiling fan
Full bathroom on the main level
Hardwood flooring
Proper insulation
Garage storage
Eat-in kitchen

When it’s time

Once you’ve completed these repairs and renovations, there are a few finishing touches that will put the icing on the cake and sweeten the deal for your buyers. First, you should declutter, so that buyers can see more of the house and less of what you own. Before you declutter, though, it’s a good idea to buy an air filter. Since digging through those items is going to stir up a lot of dust, it’s important to keep the air clean for you and home buyers.

After you declutter, deep clean the entire home and weed out any belongings or furniture that don’t look quite right. To get your home sparkling clean, spend a little money on a housekeeping service. For an average of $166 a visit in Golden, housekeepers can help you keep up with laundry, mopping, sweeping, vacuuming, and straightening. Just keep in mind that the more you request from the housekeeping service, the more you’ll ultimately pay for the privilege.

Also, staging and investing in high-quality professional listing photos (a real estate photographer usually charges between $110 and $300 for a shoot, depending on your location) will give online searchers a reason to pay your house a visit.

Perhaps most importantly, you’ll need to choose the best listing agent. Interview multiple individuals and ask about their recent local sales history and how many current listings they manage. A good agent will encourage you to price your home competitively and will go above and beyond simply listing on the MLS to promote the property.

Brokerages Should Allow Agents to Enter or Change Their Listings on the MLS

At Golden Real Estate, each agent (under my supervision) enters and updates their own listings on the MLS. I believe that helps to promote accuracy.

But many brokerages block their agents from accessing their own listings, sometimes resulting in incomplete or inaccurate data. One would hope that agents in those brokerages check to see how their listings were entered and tell their admins when mistakes have been made or data omitted, but there’s no way to know that.

Did you know that in addition to the “public remarks” for listings, there is a place to enter a description of every room in the house?

Very few listings — under 50% by my count — include a description of any rooms, and some listings don’t even list rooms other than bedrooms and bathrooms.

Dimensions can be entered for each room, too (rounded to the nearest foot), but I find very few listings with that information either. Our office policy is to enter room dimensions and descriptions for every room in every listing.

Brokerages which require all agent listings to be entered by their unlicensed administrative staff are less likely to have these non-mandatory fields entered. If they would make each agent responsible for such data entry and then monitor their work as we do, I believe that buyers would have much more useful and accurate information for each listing. Other non-mandatory fields in the MLS include the following:

> Is the property owner-occupied, tenant-occupied, or vacant?

¨ How close are bus stops and light rail stations?

¨ Is it in an incorporated or unincorporated area?

¨ What are the dimensions and features of the garage/carport/RV parking?

¨ What appliances are in the house?

¨ What kinds of flooring is there?

¨ Does the home have any fireplaces, and where are they?

¨ If there’s an HOA, what are the fees and what do those fees cover?

Our office policy is not only to complete every field on our company’s MLS listings, but to share our MLS data entry in draft form with the seller before making the listing live on the MLS, which also helps to assure accuracy and completeness of our listings.

The Colorado Environmental Film Festival Is Back Live Next Weekend – Don’t Miss it!

Golden Real Estate has proudly co-sponsored this unique film festival for at least a decade. For the first time since 2020, the festival is back live at the American Mountaineering Center (AMC) in downtown Golden Feb. 23-26, but most of the films can also be viewed online starting the following week.

During the pandemic, the festival (“CEFF”) was only virtual, and I loved it because I was able to see far more films than I could have seen in person.

Meanwhile, if you go online to https://ceff2023.eventive.org/films, you get to read descriptions and view trailers for all 97 films in the festival. Below is a screenshot from that website, showing just three of those films’ thumbnails.

I was particularly drawn to “The Power of Activism,” and look forward to seeing the full 53-minute Australian film about six young women activists out to save the planet. “Purple Haze” is about the purple martin, described as “America’s favorite backyard bird.”

An in-person “all access” pass costs $90 and can be purchased at the same website. The virtual pass costs $75.

As before, the films are organized into 28 “collections” such as the “Activism Collection” (my favorite), each of which can be purchased for $12 if you don’t want to buy the all-access or virtual pass. All the information is on that website. Click on the “Menu” link at the top left of the website to see the various pages with all the information you need to attend the festival.

As in past festivals, there is a free (but ticket required) “Community Opening Night” on the 23rd which includes announcement of the winning films in various categories. It starts at 6 pm in the AMC auditorium and is followed at 7:15 by the screening of seven of the award-winning films, ranging from a one-minute PSA to a couple 23-minute films. I never miss this event, which is held in the AMC’s Foss auditorium.

Although CEFF is an international film festival, several of the “collections” feature films made by Colorado filmmakers. There are also 16 accessible collections which are either captioned, subtitled or have no dialog. One collection is of the “Top 10 Best Kids’ Short Films.”

Other collections which caught my attention include: Art in Nature; Climate Chaos; Feathered Friends & More; Innovation & Inspiration; Off the Beaten Path; People to Know; Special Places; Unique Solutions; and two Wildlife Collections.

If you are reading this column in time, there’s a free Festival Preview at the University of Denver’s Sturm Hall on Thursday, Feb. 16th, 6:30 to 8:30 pm.

The Foss auditorium is the main venue for the festival at the American Mountaineering Center, but a second screen is created in the AMC’s event center to accommodate all the screenings, which begin at 10 a.m. from Friday through Sunday. The virtual access ticket (which I’m going to get) allows you seven days to watch any or all of the films on demand.

The festival features young filmmakers from around the nation including Hawaiian youth-made films like “Sunscreen Standoff,” and local Colorado young filmmakers like Taylor Saulsbury, who gives voice to her generation’s climate anxieties, creating portraits of resistance and resilience in “Right Here. Right Now.”

Join one of the free virtual “Green Bag Lunch & Learn Series” to hear from local experts as they dig deeper into current event environmental issues, including a closer look at the impact of Climate Chaos on young people’s mental health (Wednesday, March 1st at noon).

By attending the festival in person, you also get to participate in Filmmaker Q&A Sessions after many of the films to chat live with the filmmakers in attendance or watch one of the many recorded sessions to hear the secrets and intriguing behind-the-scenes stories of the films featured in the festival.

It Pays to Be Aware of Recent FHFA Changes to Lending Rates and Rules

We are barely six weeks into 2023 and already, we are feeling the effects of “pent up demand” for housing. Denver’s real estate market is rebounding and the advantages that buyers had in the last few months are declining as the “Spring Selling Season” unfolds. Consumer confidence, unemployment numbers and inflation have been in the news recently, and while those factors certainly impact the cost of residential home loans, there are other upcoming changes in the industry that aren’t as well known. I asked Jaxzann Riggs, owner of The Mortgage Network, to elaborate.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) has announced changes that will affect the cost of home ownership for many borrowers starting in March.

Established in 2008, FHFA was created to restore confidence in the mortgage market and to provide supervision and regulation over Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan Banks. FHFA has made it their mission to prevent a repeat of the housing collapse and promote stability so that Americans can buy homes with confidence, especially those within underserved communities.

FHFA has announced targeted changes to Fannie Mae (FNMA) and Freddie Mac (FHLMC) pricing by eliminating added interest rate adjustments called Loan Level Price Adjustments (LLPAs) for certain borrowers and affordable mortgage products. There are requirements to qualify, but one example would be first-time homebuyers who are at or below 100 percent of the area median income (AMI) in most of the United States and below 120 percent of the AMI in high-cost areas such as Denver.

Traditionally, LLPAs have been added to interest rates to account for higher risks such as lower credit scores, low down payments, and property types, such as condominiums. Eliminating these LLPAs can lower the offered interest rate by up to 1.75%, which makes a substantial difference in a monthly mortgage payment. These changes will help to make home ownership easier for underserved and first-time buyers.

To support FHFA’s priorities, lenders will offer new mortgage programs that allow individuals to make down payments of only 3% and, in an effort to help first-time and lower-income buyers enter the housing market, a portion of the 3% down payment can actually be borrowed.

While Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and FHA are reducing the interest rates being offered to first-time and lower-income buyers, they are increasing the interest rates being charged to other home buyers. We have already seen a dramatic increase in the cost of loans for individuals purchasing a second home or investment property, and additional increases are expected in the next couple of months. These changes signal a significant shift in lending philosophy. At the height of the COVID crisis, the cost of mortgages for second homes and investment properties was identical to that for primary residences.

Currently the price differential between an owner-occupied home and an investment property is over a full percentage point, making real estate investing much more expensive than in recent years.

While credit scores have influenced the cost of money for over a decade, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will now increase interest rates for those with mid-level FICO scores. In the past, the percentage of income (debt to income ratio or DTI) that a borrower used for housing had no impact on the cost of the loan. Soon a borrower’s DTI ratio will be factored into the cost of loan — the higher the DTI, the higher the rate.

You may have questions about the changes. Do you qualify? What is the best loan option for your personal circumstances? Reach out to Jaxzann Riggs of The Mortgage Network, 303-990-2992, for answers.