Golden Real Estate – Page 31

Let’s Make Our Summer a Little Bit Quieter

Walking our dog, Chloe, is a favorite daily routine for me. Recently, I passed a neighbor mowing his lawn with a battery electric lawn mower, and I thanked him for doing so. “I love it,” he replied, and it got me thinking how nice it would be if more neighbors ditched their noisy gasoline lawn mowers, edgers, trimmers and blowers now that electric versions of each (both battery & corded) are widely available and affordable.

The next time your gas-powered device needs a tune-up, use that money to purchase of an electric version and you’ll enjoy not only a quieter neighborhood but no future tune-ups, no struggles to start the device, and lower cost overall.

I have read that a lawn mower emits more pollution than an automobile. A quick Google search on the topic produced the following:

“The EPA estimates that hour- for-hour, gasoline powered lawn mowers produce 11 times as much pollution as a new car. According to the EPA, each gas-powered lawn mower produces as much air pollution as 43 new automobiles driven 12,000 miles per year – lawn care produces 13 billion pounds of toxic pollutants per year.”

My stepson has a small lawn and is happy to use an old-style rotary push mower. I have a 10-year-old corded electric mower that has never needed repair and a battery powered weed eater which only needs me to replace the string now and then — my biggest annoyance!

Just Listed: Littleton Home Backs to Greenbelt

Vintage Reserve is a special community in unincorporated Jeffco. This 4-BR home at 5359 W. Hoover Dr. (just listed for $875,000) has one of the best locations, backing to a greenbelt, with two trailheads just 4 doors away! Other trails lead to the neighborhood’s fabulous clubhouse, playground and picnic area. With a main-floor bedroom and 3/4 bath, this is a fine home for aging in place or for having senior guests. There’s a lot to like about this home, which requires little or no updating, unless you want to finish the walk-out basement, which has rough plumbing for a bath. Find more pictures and details at www.LittletonHome.info, then call your agent or Jim Smith at 303-525-1851 for a private showing. It will be open this Saturday, June 12th, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Showings begin on Thursday, June 10th, and it will not be sold prior to June 14th.

Just Listed: 2-Bedroom Arvada Patio Home

Good patio homes are hard to find, and this one at 7575 Loveland St. in Arvada’s Saddle Brook subdivision is going to make some buyer very happy. It was just listed for $650,000. Like a true patio home, there is no mowing or yard maintenance to handle — it’s done by the HOA, along with snow removal from your driveway, walkway and front porch! It’s not a senior community, but seniors find the maintenance-free living to their liking, allowing them to “lock and leave” without anyone knowing they’re gone. Everything is on the main floor, including the laundry, and all appliances are included — even the high efficiency washer and dryer. The basement is unfinished, but does have rough plumbing for another bathroom and a second set of laundry hook-ups. You can take a video tour with drone footage at www.ArvadaPatioHome.info, then call your agent or Jim Smith for a private showing. This home will be open both Saturday and Sunday, June 12th & 13th, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

NAR’s Member Profile Reveals Drop In Realtors’ Median Income

Despite the pandemic and the shortage of active listings, the membership of the National Association of Realtors (NAR) grew by 5.7% in 2020 over 2019. Perhaps it was because people lost their hourly or salaried jobs and moved toward self-employed occupations such as real estate.

Some of those new Realtors just might want to reconsider their career choice when they read NAR’s 2021 Member Profile based on 18,209 respondents. Here are some of the results, bearing in mind that roughly half of licensed real estate agents are not Realtors, a term only members of NAR can use. I consider NAR members (“Realtors”) the agents who are serious about real estate, since Realtor dues are about $500 per year. Licensees don’t join a Realtor brokerage unless they hope and expect to justify that expenditure.

Real estate has always attracted people who perceive it as a high income profession. They don’t realize that the “80/20 rule” applies as much to real estate as it does to any profession. While that rule would suggest that 20% of Realtors earn 80% of the income, it’s actually worse. I would estimate that 10% of us earn 90% of the income.

I’ve been a Realtor for nearly 20 years, so I know a lot of fellow agents, yet it continues to surprise me that most listings in my own city are by agents — usually Realtors — I’ve never heard of. Looking at the six active listings in Golden as I am writing this column, I’ve only heard of one of the listing agents, and he had only 10 sold listings in the past 12 months. Another of the six had one sold listing, a third agent had two sold listings, and a fourth agent had zero sold listings in the last 12 months. (I had 25 sold listings.)

According to NAR, the sales volume per Realtor dropped to $2.1 million. With our median sales price in Denver’s MLS at $438,239 in 2020, that’s less than five closings per Realtor.

The median gross income of Realtors has never been over $50,000 per year, and it fell 13% from $49,700 in 2019 to $43,330 in 2020, according to the Member Profile. And that is gross income. Realtors are typically self-employed and have lots of expenses, with the median for 2020 being $5,330. That brings the median net income down to $38,000. For Realtors who specialize in residential real estate, the median net income for real estate activities in 2020 was even lower —$23,500. Depending on family size, that is at or below the poverty level!

73% of residential specialists said that real estate activities provided 75% or more of their personal income. 56% of residential Realtors say that it is their only occupation. 29% say it has never been their primary occupation.

Realtors with 16 or more years in the business had a median gross income of $75,000 in 2020, down from $86,500 in 2019. Realtors with 2 years or less in the business had a median gross income of $8,500, compared to $8,900 in 2019. Welcome to your new profession!

Missing from the NAR report is how many members (who probably thought real estate was their path to wealth) dropped out in their first or second year of membership.

The largest expense for most Realtors is vehicle expenses —$1,200. (My largest expense is, no surprise, advertising!)

Of the respondents to NAR’s survey who specialize in residential real estate, 23% reported no transactions in 2020. Another 32% reported between 1 and 5 transactions in 2020. The median was 4 transactions for males and 5 transactions for females. Notably, the median for White/Caucasian residential Realtors was 7 transactions, compared to between 2 and 3 transactions for other racial groups.

Here are some other findings from the 2021 Member Profile that I found interesting.

The median age of a Realtor is 54, unchanged from when I entered the business (as a 54-year-old) 19 years ago.

The typical Realtor has 8 years’ experience. 17% of residential Realtors said it was their 1st career. 49% said it was their 2nd career, and 34% said it was their 3rd or more.

79% of respondents were “very certain” they would remain in the business another two years.

Most Realtors worked 35 hours per week in 2020, down from 36 hours in 2019. (I work at least 60 hours/week and am still married…)

Text messaging is the top method of communication that members use with their clients, at 93%, followed by phone (90%) and email (89%).

88% of Realtors work as “independent contractors,” meaning they live on commission income alone, have no tax withholding and pay all their own expenses.

Realtors change firms a lot. The median tenure of Realtors with their current firm is five years.

65% of Realtors are females, up from 64% last year. (As I understand it, RE/MAX broke the gender barrier back about 1970. Before that, our industry was virtually all men — and they wore suits and ties to work.)

82% of Realtors own their own home, and 37% own a secondary property.

86% of brokerages are independent, non-franchised, mostly with a single office and typically have only two full-time licensees.

The typical residential brokerage has operated for 14 years. (That’s us! Rita and I founded Golden Real Estate in July 2007.)

Brokerages typically got 30% of their customer inquiries in 2020 from referrals by past clients, 25% from repeat business with prior clients, 10% from their website, and 10% from social media. (Golden Real Estate gets well over 75% of its business from readers of this column, which has appeared every week without fail for over 15 years.)

Firms with only one office typically had 18 transactions in 2018. (Golden Real Estate does much better, closing 45 seller sides and 22 buyer sides in the last 12 months.)

Of respondents to NAR’s survey, 57% were White/Caucasian, 20% were Hispanic/Latino, 16% were Black/African American, and 8% were Asian/Pacific Islander. 60% were female and 38% were male. 89% were heterosexual, 3% were gay/lesbian, and 6% preferred not to say.

Here’s Some Practical Advice on Avoiding Scams When Hiring a Moving Company

I have never been scammed by a moving company, because I have never used one. The last time I remember seeing a moving company truck at my home was when Mayflower moved my family from Maine to Denver in 1953. As an adult, I always used U-Haul trucks until I bought my first box truck as a Realtor in 2004.

So, I have no personal experience to call upon when it comes to being scammed by movers, but, according to a federal agency, 1 in 10 consumers falls victim to a moving scam. That agency, which is part of the Dept. of Transportation, is the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

“Stop Moving Scams in their Tracks” is just one useful section at fmcsa.dot.gov/protect-your-move.

I was reminded of this topic last week as Rita’s son and daughter-in-law hired a moving company to move from L.A. to Denver. They described the experience of hiring and working with their movers as nightmarish. Coincidentally, this week I also received and read a blog post on this subject by Anita Clark, a Coldwell Banker agent in Florida. Much of the following is inspired by (or from) her useful blog post.

The most important thing you can do to protect yourself is to have a written contract that clearly states what the mover will do as part of the terms of the contract. If the contract is vague or does not specifically identify what they are responsible for, you will need to resolve those issues before signing any contract. You do not want to get caught with questionable fees at the end of your move.

As with anything in life, if a mover’s quote looks too good to be true, it probably is. Quotes from legitimate companies should be within 10% of each other. If one quote is much lower, you’d be wise to not go with that company because they’ll probably get you later with hidden fees, as described below.

Typically, movers ask for a deposit up front and full payment before they open the truck at your new home. That’s when they could hit you with those unexpected charges, with urgency and lack of management present working against you.

In her blog post, Anita listed the following common hidden fees consumers might encounter:

Gas fees: Gas costs to pick up and deliver items.

Assembly/disassembly: To take apart or put items back together.

Bulk items: Piano, large appliances, outdoor equipment, etc.

Environmental: Typically seen as a disposal fee, such as for moving materials.

Insurance: Moving companies are required to assume liability for the items they are moving.

Packing labor & supplies: This can be costly, so consumers should understand what is included in their contract.

Tolls: You shouldn’t pay these.

Weight: A company might give a low quote based on a weight estimate but a new and higher price once they drive to the scale and weigh the truck. Another way these movers overcharge customers is by adding weight (e.g., fuel or passengers) to the truck before weighing it.

Some of the key things you can do to avoid moving scams are:

Online company check: Review their history, reviews, website and BBB rating and interview past clients if possible.

In-person quote: Always ensure that a moving company representative comes to your house so he/she can prepare an accurate estimate.

Written contracts: If you aren’t offered a written contract or the contract does not itemize the services and fees, avoid that moving company.

This is just some of the information and advice which you can find at that FMCSA website mentioned in the second paragraph above. If you are contemplating a move in which you can’t use Golden Real Estate’s moving truck, moving boxes, packing material and personnel, definitely learn all you can from that website.

A recurring issue that my own clients have described when moving to or from another state is a “delivery window” of 10 or more days written into the contract. The mover may insist (verbally) that the truck they loaded is going directly to your new home, but unless your stuff filled an entire semi trailer, it’s quite likely that they will wait to combine your stuff with that of another party moving to the same city or state. This might, of course, entail moving you furniture from one truck to another or into a warehouse, then into another truck.

To avoid this double or triple moving of your stuff, I suggest using a “pod” moving company. You load the pod (container), lock it, and it is delivered to your new home.

I Have Reserved a Ford F-150 Lightning Electric PIckup

By JIM SMITH

There’s a lot to like about Ford’s electric version of their popular F-150 pickup truck, and I joined more than 50,000 others who reserved one of them on the first two days it was available for reservations.

I’m a big fan of Teslas — Rita has a Model S and I have a Model X — but I’m no fan of its long anticipated Cybertruck. I like that Ford’s EV has the same styling and functionality of the standard F-150, plus over-the-air software updates (like Tesla), and its battery can power my home in the event of a power failure. You can reserve your own at www.Ford.com. The starting price is under $40,000, so the cost after federal and state tax credits will be under $30,000.

For a detailed article about the F-150 Lightning Pro by Green Car Reports, click here.

What Are Your Options When Approaching the End of Mortgage Forbearance?

As unemployment surged during the early months of the pandemic, many homeowners found themselves taking advantage of forbearance programs offered by their mortgage servicer. At the end of February, roughly 2.5 million homeowners in the U.S. were still in forbearance plans. I sat down with Jaxzann Riggs, owner of The Mortgage Network in Denver, to learn about what options are available for those who are approaching the deadline for exiting forbearance.

For homeowners who may still be experiencing financial difficulties, extending their forbearance plan may be a possibility. However, an extension will not happen automatically. If you are in a forbearance plan that is close to expiring, you should reach out to the company that services your mortgage to see if you are eligible to extend forbearance.

Whether you qualify for a forbearance extension depends largely on your loan type and when you originally entered forbearance. If your loan is backed by Fannie Mae (FNMA) or Freddie Mac (FHLMC), you must have entered into your forbearance plan by February 28, 2021. If your loan is backed by the FHA, you must have entered forbearance by June 30, 2020. Once forbearance ends, the best course of action depends largely on your personal circumstance and loan type.

Borrowers with a FNMA or FHLMC loan can opt to pay the “past-due” amount in a lump sum and have their loan reinstated if they are in a financial position to do so. For those who have loans through Fannie and Freddie but are not able to pay off their forbearance amount immediately, there are several options. If you can afford a few hundred dollars on top of your typically monthly payment amount, you should speak with your servicer about entering a repayment plan for a specified time frame.

For borrowers who have found themselves in a different financial position than they were prior to the pandemic, putting several hundred additional dollars a month towards a mortgage may not be possible. In that case, you may be able to enter payment deferral, in which you resume your typical monthly payments and the past due amount is added on to the end of the loan. You can also talk to your loan servicer about a loan modification, in which the servicer agrees to lower the interest rate, forgive a portion of the principal, or otherwise adjust the loan. Note, however, that a loan modification will negatively impact your credit history.

Borrowers with an FHA loan have several options, the most straightforward being to simply resume monthly payments. The FHA considers the past due forbearance amount as an interest free second loan, meaning that the payments are essentially deferred until the end of your loan term. If you are not in a position to resume your full monthly payments, you should speak with your servicer about a loan modification in which your interest rate will be lowered and loan term extended.

For those with a VA loan, a repayment plan or loan modification may be the best course of action. Although the VA does allow deferment as an option, it does not require that its loan servicers provide it. For borrowers with a nonconforming loan (jumbo) there are no specific guidelines regarding forbearance. Some loan servicers may have chosen to offer forbearance, but they are not held to the same guidelines as other loan types.

Navigating your options as forbearance comes to an end can be tricky, but you do not have to face it alone. You may find it helpful to speak with a housing counselor before calling your loan servicer. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, offers a list of approved counselors by state on their website.

And for any mortgage scenarios you may have, as always, I recommend calling Jaxzann Riggs of The Mortgage Network at 303-990-2992.

What Should You Fix or Improve Before Putting Your Home on the Market?

One of the most common questions we are asked during our first meetings with prospective sellers is, “What should I fix or improve before I put my home on the market?” I’ve written about this topic before, but the subject is worth revisiting, given the current market.

My advice has always been that you should only fix the “eyesores” and not make many of the repairs or improvements that you might make in a more balanced market.

So, what’s an eyesore? Simply put, an eyesore is something that draws negative attention from a buyer. But some eyesores are more important than others — specifically ones which help form a buyer’s first impression of your home.

In other words, your front yard, the front façade, your porch, front door and the first few rooms a buyer sees are more important than the condition of inner rooms or the basement. By the time buyers are deep inside your house, they either love it or they don’t, and if they love it, they’ll be more forgiving about a stain on the carpet or a loose railing that they see later in their visit. So definitely work on cleaning up your front yard, staining or repairing your front porch and front door (if it needs it), and address any eyesores inside the front door. If the paint on your siding or trim visible from the street is aged, dirty, or peeling, you’ll want to take care of that, too.

Further inside the house, fixing eyesores is still important, just not as important. New wall-to-wall carpeting is more affordable than refinishing hardwood flooring, but a wood floor that is in dire need of refinishing is definitely an eyesore. If a hardwood floor could use refinishing, but isn’t in dire need of it, I don’t recommend it. Re-staining a wood deck is an affordable task that eliminates the eyesore of a deck which sorely needs it.

Should you replace a Formica kitchen counter with slab granite, quartz or Corian? Not if the Formica is in good shape and is not hot pink. If it has peeling edges or burn scars, yes, replace it.

One of the smartest things you should do before putting your home on the market is to wash the windows inside and out. Since that requires removing window screens, I recommend washing and labeling your window screens and putting them in your garage or store room. The window screens can be reinstalled after you’re under contract and prior to inspection, because missing screens will definitely be an inspection issue.

When you invite one of us to see your home, you’ll want to know what fixes or improvements we suggest, and we will usually come down on the side of not making any repairs or improvements which aren’t necessary to get your home under contract.

The reason you don’t want to make unnecessary repairs or improvements — for example, replacing a 20-year-old furnace that works fine, or mitigating radon if a home test reveals it is needed — is that you need to retain those as bargaining chips.

Let’s say, for example, that your buyer’s inspection objection lists a dozen items including replacing the furnace and mitigating radon. You could agree to doing those two repairs but not the other ten items, and that would probably satisfy the buyer. If you’ve already replaced your furnace and mitigated radon, you don’t have those as bargaining chips and would have to address those other items.

Interior painting is another common issue. Let’s say your son painted his bedroom ceiling black, or your daughter has a cute mural with giraffes and trees covering one or two walls in her bedroom. Should your repaint those rooms? Maybe the black ceiling, but leave the mural — assuming it’s well done, of course!

These are merely general guidelines, and every house is different. My broker associates (below) and I are happy, of course, to meet with you in your home to discuss what to fix or not fix.

The best thing you can do before putting your home on the market is neither a fix nor an improvement. It’s decluttering. We all have too much stuff, don’t we? Some of it should be taken to Goodwill or the Salvation Army (using our free truck, of course!). Other items should be put in storage, and we can usually get our clients the first month free at a local mini-storage facility.

Once we’ve agreed on what to do, you may be concerned about how to pay for it. Our clients have access to our handyman at the client-only rate of $25/hour. For bigger repairs, we can help you with obtaining financing that could be paid off from your proceeds at closing. Ask one of our broker associates or me for details.

I Learned Some Things I Didn’t Know About Title Insurance in a Recent CE Class

I thought I understood everything I needed to regarding title insurance, but I took a Continuing Education class about it last week anyway, thinking I might learn something I didn’t already know. I wasn’t disappointed!

We Realtors trust the title company’s closer to explain the process and the forms to our clients, and for the most part they do. The title commitment documents delivered early in the contract process are long and involved, and we probably pay too little attention to them.

I know that many of my fellow real estate agents read this column, and this week I am writing as much to share what I learned with them as I am with the average home buyer or seller who may find him or herself in a real estate transaction.

The first thing we need to know is that title insurance is not a guarantee, it is an indemnity against covered losses. The “owner’s policy” insures against a covered loss; it does not ensure that there will not be a title challenge or a loss. As our class instructor, Doug Barber, pointed out, title insurance companies are like other insurance companies in that they are diligent about paying only for those claims which are for covered risks.

(Having been told that title insurance is not a guarantee, I find it interesting that Colorado’s leading and home-grown title company goes by the name of Land Title Guarantee Company.)

Fortunately, most title companies are pretty thorough in their title searches — which I have learned they typically outsource to highly skilled companies who do the title searches for multiple insurers. Nevertheless, a claim could arise, and it’s important for us agents and Realtors to be aware of that possibility and take reasonable care to warn our buyers and sellers of that possibility.

We agents like to describe title insurance as a policy that guarantees the buyer is obtaining a property “free and clear” of any claims or liens against it. That, however, is an overstatement, our instructor told us.

One mistake that we agents make — although it has yet to bite me — is to take the word of our sellers as to the ownership of their property. We should not, as most of us do, simply assume that the assessor’s database has it stated correctly. Instead, we are advised to obtain an “Ownership and Encumbrance” report from our preferred title company at the time of signing a listing agreement for a property. If the property is owned by an entity — a corporation, a trust, an LLC, a partnership, etc. — it’s essential to obtain written evidence of who is authorized to sign for that entity.

When the owner of a property dies, the deceased’s estate could be the seller, in which case there is a “Personal Representative” who signs for the estate, but don’t take someone’s word about who the PR is. Trust but verify! If the property has been inherited, then the heir is now the seller, not the estate, but that should be documented by a decree from the probate court.

Divorces can be really tricky, and it’s best to obtain a court decree or signed separate agreement requiring or authorizing the sale of the property. One thing I didn’t know is that if a husband or wife inherits money during the marriage and uses it to purchase a home, the portion of the purchase price paid for with the inheritance is separate property, not marital property, in case of a subsequent divorce, although the increase in value of the property during the marriage is marital property subject to equal division upon divorce.

Another thing I learned: A minor cannot buy or sell real estate. Legally, they are considered incompetent until they are 18.

The title insurance policy only insures the buyer of the property up to the price he or she paid for it. Thus, if you purchased a home in the 1970s for $30,000 and it’s now worth close to a million dollars, your title to the property is only insured up to $30,000 in case of some unexpected claim against your ownership.

When a property is owned by more than one person, they can hold it as joint tenants with right of survivorship — the most common form of title — or as tenants in common. As joint tenants, each person owns 100% of the property, and if one of them dies, the surviving person now owns that 100% by him or herself. Tenants in common each own a stated portion of the property. So, for example, if a couple owns the property 50/50, either person can sell their interest in the property without the consent of the other person.

Our instructor pointed out that, from an estate planning perspective, it might be wise for a couple who bought their million dollar property for $30,000 to switch to tenants in common. That way, when the first partner dies, the other partner can inherit that half interest at its stepped up valuation at the time of death, significantly reducing the capital gains liability if that surviving spouse were to sell it — something I hadn’t considered before.

Here’s Some Guidance on Appealing the County Assessor’s Valuation of Your Home

Normally, I’d advise you to make your appeal in person, but this year the Jeffco Assessor is using Covid-19 as a reason to deny in-person appeals, and the online method being offered at his website, http://assessor.jeffco.us, is not as intuitive or helpful as it was two years ago.

This year, instead of sending a full-size letter to each property owner, the Jeffco assessor sent a fold-over postcard which only asks you to provide your own dollar valuation of your home and state a reason. The full-size letter of prior years had a place to enter up to three qualified comparable properties sold during the 24 months prior to June 30 of last year which justify your lower valuation of your property. That letter-size form can be downloaded and printed from the assessor’s website. I’ve posted a link for both the Jeffco and Denver appeal forms at www.JimSmithColumns.com.

Both counties allow for online appeals, but the online forms do not have a place to enter the “Qualified Sales” on which your appeal is based, which is surprising and disappointing. However, you can print out the letter-size Jeffco form with those three comps and attach it as a scanned document to your online filing. The Denver form can be completed online, so you don’t have to print it out and scan it.

You can find those qualified comps (defined as homes similar to yours sold in the 24 months between 7/1/2018 and 6/30/2020) by clicking on the “Sales” tab on the web page for your own home on the assessor’s website. Good luck!