Category: Real Estate

With His Veto of HB-1212, Gov. Polis Ended the Licensing of HOA Managers

Governor Polis surprised everyone with his May 31st veto of House Bill 1212, which would have extended the  licensing of Community Association Managers (CAMs).

CAM licensing began in 2015 but was subject to renewal in 2018, under its “sunset” provision. Accordingly, the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies (DORA) conducted a sunset review recommending renewal of CAM licensing. The Democratically controlled House of Representatives passed a 2018 bill renewing CAM licensing, but the Republican controlled Senate killed it, thereby requiring DORA to enter into a  year-long wind-down of the program, with July 1, 2019, as the total ending of CAM licensing.

With the Democrats taking control of both houses of the General Assembly and the governorship this year, observers expected that a bill continuing CAM licensing would be passed by both houses (which it was) and signed by the Governor in time to save the program — but it wasn’t. As a result, when July 1 arrived this month, all CAM licensing ended more abruptly than was anticipated at the end of the legislative session. Gov. Polis’ signature on HB 1212 would have prevented that from happening.

HB 1212 had been weakened somewhat due to aggressive lobbying by the Community Association Institute (CAI) whose membership consists primarily of HOA management companies. Efforts by Stan Hrincevich, an outspoken homeowner advocate and president of the Colorado HOA Forum, to include more protections for homeowners were unsuccessful, and that may have been a factor in the Governor’s veto, but Stan (and I) were stunned that the Governor allowed CAM licensing to end, albeit while ordering DORA to gather stakeholder input on the subject in coming months. Sessions for that purpose have been scheduled for Aug. 14 and 29, Sept. 12, and Oct. 8 at DORA’s Denver offices. You can register to attend in person or by webinar. I have registered to attend by webinar.

The now-ended licensing of HOA managers provided a channel for homeowners to file complaints when they felt cheated or mistreated by their HOA or their HOA’s management company — and there were plenty of complaints, which the CAM office at DORA tracked. Without such an office, homeowners have no path other than taking legal action to get redress of their grievances.

Following the passage of the original CAM licensing law in 2015, managers had to pass background checks, get certified, pay a fee, and pass a state exam in order to be licensed. There were also continuing education requirements.

Starting this month, anyone, including a felon straight out of prison, can be hired as a community manager. HOA management will once again be the only profession in Colorado where unlicensed personnel can function in a fiduciary capacity, managing millions of dollars of other people’s money without oversight.

Video Is Finding Its Way Into Buyer Inspection Reports to Illustrate Issues

Video has been a great listing tool at Golden Real Estate for a decade, but it is finding its way into other aspects of real estate, too. For example, we will often shoot a rough-cut video tour of a listing for an out-of-town buyer who has asked us to preview a property for them.

At a closing last Wednesday, the wife of the out-of-state buyer told me that she saw the listing for the first time in person during the final walk-through. The husband had seen it in person, but she said our narrated video tour was enough for her to agree with her husband to submit an offer..

So, yes, narrated videos like ours are a great listing and selling tool.

But last week, a home inspector came to our office seeking our patronage and said he includes videos in his inspection reports.  What a great idea!

I had been so used to getting printed inspection reports (PDFs) that it hadn’t occurred to me that reports could include video.  But an increasingly common delivery method for inspection reports is to have the report “in the cloud” and provide a link to it.  That approach opens up the possibility of having video clips and not just still photos.  I will recommend that inspector to a future buyer, but you can be sure that I also got on the phone and shared that idea with the inspectors I’ve been referring heretofore, some of them for over a decade.

I’ve received inspection reports that were in the cloud before, but none of them contained links to video clips, which could really help to illustrate some of the defects which inspectors uncover.

I hope this idea takes off and becomes a standard in the inspection industry.  Now that every cell phone and every digital camera has video capability, it would require no additional hardware for an inspector to shoot video instead of still photos when a video would do a better job of illustrating the issue or defect being described.

One of the advantages of videos is that they include sound. It’s a great way, for example, to illustrate an overly noisy fan motor or garage door opener or the sound as well as the motion of water under a plastic vapor barrier.

With narration by the inspector, a video can also provide more context to a problem, such as its location.

Have You Used an iBuyer Firm? Tell Us About Your Experience

Perhaps you have heard about this new trend in real estate. Best known for this are Zillow Offers and OpenDoor. 

I’ll be writing about this topic in the near future, and I’d like to hear from readers who have any experience with this new real estate business model.

I already have an example. One of my current sellers (now under contract)  entered into a listing agreement with OpenDoor but had second thoughts about it, got out of the agreement and called me to list their home.

I’d like to have more input before I write about this topic.

Renovate Your Home for Your Own Enjoyment, Not to Help It Sell Better

Sellers often ask whether they should renovate prior to putting their home on the market. The short answer is “no.”  Unless you’re fixing an eyesore, you will be wasting your money.

So, what’s an “eyesore”?  I use the term to define something that draws a buyer’s immediate attention in a negative way — a torn carpet, a damaged countertop, a broken window, a weathered and peeling front door, etc.

The closer an eyesore is to the home’s entrance, the more important it will be to fix. If the eyesore is in a far-flung bedroom or the basement, I’m less concerned, so long as the main part of the house is really attractive. By the time a buyer gets to that eyesore, they will either have fallen in love with the house or not. If they have fallen in love by then, the buyer’s response will be more forgiving — “Oh, that’s easy to fix.”

Eliminating eyesores is worth every penny. Other improvements, such as updating a bathroom or kitchen that’s not an eyesore, may return some or much of what you spend, but probably not all. On such improvements, consider the condition of the real estate market.  If there’s a shortage of homes like yours — say, a ranch-style home in a desirable neighborhood — then you could probably minimize even the eyesore fixes. If your home will have lots of competition, fixing those eyesores becomes far more important. This is a topic on which you benefit from speaking with a Realtor, given our ready access to such data. 

Committed as we at Golden Real Estate are to sustainability, I hate to say it, but installing solar panels produces about the lowest return on investment when it comes to selling your home. You should only invest in solar if you intend to stay in your home for at least five years. You will get your return on investment from the reduced energy bills, not in a higher sale price for your home. In our case, we installed 10 kilowatts of solar at our home, but that was seven years ago, and we don’t plan to sell anytime soon.  If you make the same decision, please buy solar instead of leasing. Selling a home with a leased solar system is not as attractive to buyers.

As stated in the headline, make improvements that you want to live with and enjoy, and make them now,  not when you’re about to sell.  It matters little to Rita and me whether our wonderful new kitchen will return the $40,000 we spent on renovating it, since we will have enjoyed it ourselves for many years. And if you know you’re going to sell eventually, but not soon, spend the money now and enjoy the improvement!

Some of the other improvements Rita and I made soon after buying our home and continue to appreciate over 7 years later include installing Solatubes (to bring sunlight into our windowless garage and laundry room) and an energy audit followed by weatherization improvements. We had acacia hardwood flooring installed, and retrofitted the south-facing windows with Low-E glass. A hybrid gas furnace/heat pump system heats and cools our home.  We also installed a hot water recirculation line to provide instant hot water at all faucets.

How to Research Potential Listing Agents

A shortcut that I created,  www.Find DenverRealtors.com, takes you to the page on Denver’s MLS for searching agents by name. Note: If you don’t find the agent you’re looking for right away, try entering only their last name, since they may use a nickname or have an initial you didn’t enter. When the agent’s name appears, click on his/her name to go to another web page where you can read his or her profile (assuming they created one) and see current and sold listings, unless they have none.

Click on their listings to see how the agent described each home on the MLS. Did they list all the rooms, not just bedrooms and bathrooms, providing dimensions, or just enter the mandatory fields? Keep in mind that the best indicator of how listing agents will serve you is how they have served previous sellers.

Looking at those listings will answer the most important questions which you’d ask in person, but you won’t have to take their word — the truth is right there in front of you. You’ll learn, for example, whether they did point-and-shoot pictures or had a professional photographer shoot magazine quality photos, and whether they created a real narrated video tour, as we do, or merely a slide show with music.

Here Are Some Questions Sellers Should Ask When Hiring a Listing Agent

Do you know what to look for in a listing agent, and the questions to ask during a listing presentation?

You’ll probably want to know their level of experience, competence and success in selling similar properties, hopefully within your city or neighborhood.

Like you, I monitor the real estate activity where I live, and I’m astonished how many homes are listed by agents I’ve never heard of. As I write this on Monday, there are 50 active or pending listings in my area, represented by 40 different agents!  No agent has more than three listings. And despite practicing real estate here for 17 years, I only recognize the names of 11 of them.

This is typical of every city. Where did the sellers find all those different agents to list their homes? Many, I suspect are friends and family — every agent’s biggest “competitor.” In some cases, the seller had just bought their replacement home elsewhere and was convinced by that listing agent to list their current home — not the best decision if that agent is unfamiliar with your neighborhood, lives far away, and is unable to show the home on short notice, answer questions from buyers, or keep your brochure box well stocked.

Or perhaps the agent sent a letter or taped a note to your door claiming to have a buyer for your home. That earned him or her an interview, in which the agent said that his buyer found another home but convinced you to list with them.

Let’s say, however, that you want to interview  listing agents and make a rational hiring decision.

First, choose the agents to interview based on their location and experience in your neighborhood or city. Second, study their active/sold listings to see (1) their geographic distribution and (2) how well they are presented on the MLS. 

For this you can use a shortcut I created,  FindDenverRealtors.com, which takes you to the page on Denver’s MLS for searching agents by name. In my case, you’d see a profile and my active, pending and sold listings. Search for the agent(s) you’re considering. Read their profile, if they created one. Look at their current and sold listings. Click on one or more of them to see how they described the home on the MLS. Did they list all the rooms, not just bedrooms and bathrooms, providing dimensions and descriptions, or just enter the mandatory fields? Keep in mind that, the best indicator of how they will serve you is how they have served previous sellers.

Looking at those listings will answer the most important questions which you’d ask in person, but you won’t have to take their word — the truth is there in front of you. You’ll learn, for example, whether they did point-and-shoot pictures or had a professional photographer shoot HDR (magazine quality) photos, and whether they created a narrated video tour or just a slide show with music.

Having chosen who to interview that way, ask these questions of those you invite into your home for an interview:

What commission percentage do you charge? Keep in mind, there is no standard commission. It’s totally negotiable, and the industry average is in the mid-5’s, not 6%.

See whether the agent volunteers that they reduce their commission when they don’t have to pay 2.8% to a buyer’s agent. If you have to ask them, consider it a red flag. They hoped you wouldn’t.

Ask the agent whether he or she will discount their commission if you hire them to represent you in the purchase of your replacement home.

Hopefully the candidate will have researched the market and make a sound recommendation of listing price. Beware of agents who inflate their suggested listing price so you will list with them.

When setting the appointment, ask the agent to bring a spreadsheet of their sold listings with dates, days on market, listing price and sold price.

Lastly, how will they promote your listing?  Measure their promises against what we do, published at www.HowWeMarketListings.info.

Finding the Right Senior Living Community for You Can Be Confusing!

Buying and selling a single family home can be confusing enough, but it pales in  comparison to shopping for the best senior living community.

According to Jenn Gomer of CarePartrol (more about her later in this article), there are no fewer than 400 senior communities in the Denver metro area, and the variety of living options and business models can be overwhelming.

There are pure rental facilities and rentals with buy-ins. The size and terms of those buy-ins can vary greatly, too.  Some facilities are on a campus with continuous care options as your health changes, ranging from independent living to assisted living to nursing home care, to memory care to hospice.  Personally, I like the idea of not having to move again if my health changes, but not all senior communities include that feature.

Financing, of course, is a huge consideration. If you own your current home and have lots of equity in it (little or no mortgage), that can provide a nest egg that could hopefully outlive you, if managed correctly and spent on the right facility. But not everyone has that luxury.

It’s important to get the right advice from someone who is not looking to drain more of your limited funds. We think we have found that person in Jenn Gomer. Jenn and her associates at CarePatrol don’t charge for their services.  Jenn’s company is paid by the communities that she helps you visit, analyze and ultimately select. She has all the important information about those 400 senior communities that I mentioned above. She knows their safety records, their health records, their reputation in the industry, their financial conditions, their charges, their amenities, and so much more.

If you own a home which you’ll want to sell, it makes sense to bring Jenn and me together to meet with you in your home and discuss your options.

Everyone’s situation is different. Let us learn your specific needs and wants. If working with Golden Real Estate and/or CarePatrol isn’t a good fit for you, we’re going to tell you so. Such a meeting carries no obligation to work with either of us.

Call me at 303-525-1851 to arrange such a meeting.

What Is Negotiated When You Purchase a Home? More Than You Might Think!

It’s easy to assume that the main (or only) negotiation in the sale or purchase of a home is the contract price, but it turns out that there’s a lot more negotiation — both before and after going under contract.

Most contracts are or should be countered, and not accepted as written. For example, there are 39 different deadlines in the standard contract — everything from when the earnest money check is delivered to when the buyer gets to take possession.

If the seller is given extended possession after closing, will it be free, and who pays the utilities?  It’s all negotiated.

If a contract falls, it’s usually because of inspection issues, so the seller will want that inspection deadline to be as early as possible — preferably within 5 to 7 days. And there are other deadlines which allow a buyer to terminate and get his earnest money back, so a good listing agent will make sure they are reasonable. For example, I have seen contracts in which the deadline for terminating based on the acceptability of insurance costs is a week prior to closing. That’s ridiculous, because it takes only a couple days to get that quote.

The second big negotiation in any transaction is over inspection issues. Some buyers will want to have the seller fix every single problem identified by their inspector. (Once my seller received an inspection objection notice that didn’t even itemize the problems but said, “Seller shall fix everything listed in the attached inspection report.”)

Negotiating what the seller will and will not fix and what the seller might give as a credit in lieu of certain repairs is different in every transaction, and your agent’s experience in handling that process can be critical in obtaining a favorable outcome, whether you’re the buyer or the seller.

As I have written before, I advise my sellers not  to fix many of the known problems prior to putting their house on the market, but to save some of them as bargaining chips during the negotiation over inspection issues. Getting a back-up contract in place also helps with negotiating inspection issues. If the buyer is asking for an unreasonable number of repairs, I’ll provide those demands and the buyer’s inspection report to the back-up buyer. Often that back-up buyer will agree not to ask for any of those repairs, giving the seller the ability to tell buyer #1 that he won’t fix anything. This can be an effective technique.

Having multiple offers presents a great opportunity for negotiating matters that are important to the seller.  For example, a downsizing seller may have lots of furniture he’d like to sell. Rather than have an estate sale, I recommend making a list, with prices, of the items “for sale outside of closing,” and leaving it on the kitchen counter for every visiting buyer to see.  Many times I have been able to have the winning bidder include in their contract that they will purchase everything on that list at the prices shown. In a recent case, the buyer asked that all the purchased furniture be moved to the garage prior to closing — a sure sign that they bought the furniture only so they would win the winning war for the house!

If the home doesn’t appraise for the contract price, the buyer can demand a price reduction on threat of terminating the contract. Since the appraisal deadline is usually very close to the closing date, the seller may feel compelled to accept the price reduction rather than lose the contract.  But a good listing agent knows that the same reluctance exists for the buyer, so oftentimes the seller can negotiate little or no price reduction.

Do You Practice Sustainability? Home Renovation Can Be Done Sustainably, Too

Tonight is the fifth in Golden Real Estate’s Sustainability Series. Previous sessions were about home insulation (January), home heating technology (February), solar power (March), and electric cars (April).

This month, the topic is sustainable renovation. Our presenter is an expert in sustainable practices when it comes to home renovation.  His name is Steve Stevens, and he has been my mentor regarding sustainable practices for nearly two decades.

A retired scientist from Bell Labs, Steve has made a lifelong project, it seems, out of reducing the carbon footprint of his 1970s brick ranch in South Golden.

Retired and living on a fixed income, he has developed several habits/practices that are not only sustainable but also have saved him a boatload of money.

For example, he only buys cull lumber from Lowe’s, and he buys returned products (typically mis-ordered) such as windows  and doors, which are then sold for a fraction of their original price.

Steve also seeks out salvaged goods such as windows and doors. As with buying cull lumber and returned products, collecting salvaged products means zero new carbon footprint for doing your renovation. 

Steve, being a scientist by training and passion, always considers the embedded carbon footprint of products, whether it’s food or building materials. How much energy is used to transport the goods you purchase?  For example, are you buying slab granite mined and shipped from Asia, or an alternative material mined or created closer to home?

Steve will share his shopping and construction tips that save money and are also sustainable.

For example, he emphasizes insulation, which should always be your first measure when it comes to saving energy. But what products should you buy, and where should you start?

The session will be held tonight, May 16th, from 5 to 6 pm in the Golden Real Estate office at 17695 S. Golden Road, Golden. There are still seats available. Reserve yours by emailing me at Jim@Golden RealEstate.com. 

Each of our sessions is video recorded by our friend, Martin Voelker, from the Colorado Renewal Energy Society.  You can watch videos of the first four sessions at Sustain-abilitySeries.info.  This session will also be recorded and posted there.