Tag: Real Estate Industry

As Real Estate ‘Disruptors’ Abound, Let’s Hear It for the Traditional Brokerage  

Disruption is happening in every industry, spurred on primarily by internet-based technology. Amazon is disrupting brick and mortar retail. Uber and Lyft have disrupted the taxi industry. Tesla disrupted the auto industry’s dealer model. Travel agents have suffered from online ticket sales by airlines, cruise lines and related businesses.

Now companies like Zillow, Open Door, and OfferPad are disrupting the real estate industry with their “iBuyer” model.

But those and other disruptors have not killed off the older business models. They are grabbing market share, but of an increasing market. You can expect to see brick and mortar retail stores, taxi companies, travel agents and, yes, traditional real estate brokerages such as Golden Real Estate thriving for years to come.

We ourselves have not suffered from these disruptors. Indeed, while 2020 and 2021 have seen huge growth by these new real estate enterprises, they have also brought record growth for our brokerage and other traditional brokerages, and it is easy to see why.

Buying and selling a primary residence is typically the biggest financial transaction we all deal with. Yes, buyers increasingly utilize the internet to search for homes, but they end up calling us to see them. Sellers also use the internet to monitor the market — many taking advantage of the MLS alerts that we set up for them — but they want someone they know and trust to bring their real estate savvy to bear in listing and marketing their home when it’s time to sell.

The “full-service” real estate agent is being redefined, and I like to think that my broker associates and I epitomize that evolution. Some of the services we provide can not be obtained from those other companies.

Full service goes beyond providing our free moving truck, moving boxes and packing material, which we’ve been doing since 2004. Here are some other services you can expect from us.

We have an in-house handyman who can help with preparing a home for market, such as repairing drywall damage, washing windows, and doing light plumbing and light electrical tasks such as installing a new toilet, faucet or light fixture. He’s also there to address many of the issues which arise from the buyer’s inspection. And he’s also there if needed to drive our truck for moving, or even for a dump run or for taking a load of possessions to Goodwill or Arc.

We also have a certified home stager who provides our sellers with a free consultation to help their home show its best.

You’re familiar by now with how we create narrated video tours of each listing, including drone videos, but we also serve out-of-state buyers by shooting videos of other agents’ listings that interest them. Last June I did that for a Minnesota couple who felt they had “seen” an Arvada home well enough through my narrated video tour of it to go under contract, not visiting the home in person until they came for the inspection.

Speaking of inspection, experienced agents like us from a traditional brokerage can be counted on to recommend a good inspector who has a track record with them. Other specialists we know and trust — giving our clients the comfort to employ them — include estate sales companies, structural engineers, electricians, plumbers, HVAC companies, and more. The real benefit from these trusted vendors is that they will make sure you’re satisfied with their work, because they want to be referred to future clients.

“Full service” also implies availability and responsiveness. My broker associates and I are available 7 days a week, and we answer our cell phones on evenings and weekends. Although I have associates who can be my “boots on the ground” when I go on vacation, I take my cell phone (and laptop) with me, and I answer it when it rings.

Often we provide service for which we don’t expect or receive any compensation. For example, this past Sunday I got an inquiry from a man who had inherited his mother’s house and wanted an appraisal for tax purposes. I explained that only licensed appraisers can do appraisals but offered to do a free market analysis, which he happily accepted.  He may call me about listing it later on, but that’s not the point. I’m happy to be of service.

I follow a policy that I came to embody many years ago: Concentrate on giving and the getting will take care of itself.

Golden Real Estate Wins Service Quality Award

For the second time, Golden Real Estate has been recognized by Quality Service Certification, Inc. for being among the top 20 small real estate brokerages for excellence in quality service.

The “Quality Excellence” Award is “awarded in recognition of the highest level of service quality and customer satisfaction in the real estate industry.”

The award is known as the QE Award. This year’s award recognizes the top 5 large companies, the top 10 midsize companies and the top 20 small companies, with the winning brokerages spanning 22 states and including some of the most respected independent and well-known national and regional brand names. We were recognized as one of those top 20 small companies.

The award is based upon the results of a post-closing survey of buyers and sellers who were in a real estate transaction with participating real estate companies. All Golden Real Estate clients have been surveyed since 2013.

Quality Service Certification, Inc. (QSC) and Leading Research Corporation of Laguna Niguel, CA, administer the survey process to ensure that every past buyer and seller is surveyed, preventing agents or companies from influence, interference or  manipulation in any way.

Larry Romito of QSC said that the QE Award is based on aggregated overall Customer Satisfaction as a percentage of all returned surveys of real customers, where every past customer has been surveyed without selectivity, editing, deletion, cleansing or manipulation. “No other system exists, anywhere in the real estate industry that can legitimately make that claim,” he said.

Find the reviews of all Golden Real Estate agents (including me) at www.RatedAgent.com .  

Thanksgiving’s Here, and We at Golden Real Estate Are Thankful

Some weeks I struggle to come up with a topic for this column, but not so this week. Allow me to share some of the ways in which our broker associates, my wife and I are all thankful.

First, Rita and I are so thankful to be Americans. In school I studied many languages — French, Russian, Latin, Greek, German and Japanese — and I have traveled extensively around the world, although not so much recently. I attended my sister’s wedding in Sweden, attended “citizen diplomacy” conferences in the Soviet Union, and visited Beijing right after the 1989 Tiananmen massacre (and twice since).

I have visited and marveled at Japan and its culture more than once. I visited the Russian port of Vladivostok (the terminus of the Trans-Siberian Railway) on the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II in the Pacific. I remember noting that pay phones there were free because Russian coins were essentially worthless due to inflation, and that most of the cars on the road were right-hand drive Toyotas and Nissans purchased used from nearby Japan.

Rita and I particularly like France and Italy and long to return there again soon. We enjoyed a week in London following a two-week Atlantic crossing on Cunard’s Queen Victoria with stops in  Bermuda and the Canary Islands. When and if I retire from real estate, we look forward to more international travel. 

Every trip is great, but we are always happy to be back in America and especially in Colorado. We are, as I said, thankful most of all to be Americans — and Coloradans.

Part of being an American is the opportunity to participate in our capitalist free enterprise system. I’ve always been an entrepreneur. I like to say that, except for my stints at the Washington Post and the New York Post, every paycheck I’ve ever received was signed by me. I remember when I visited the Soviet Union in 1978 learning that Russians could be self employed but only the state could have employees. I realized then that the freedom of enterprise was the core freedom I value most.

Nearly every real estate agent is self-employed, even if they work for a brokerage. I suspect that 95% or more of all Realtors are independent contractors (1099 workers) responsible for their own taxes and expenses (phones, cars, computers, software, etc.) and receive no benefits of any kind. The dropout rate among new agents is as high as 90% and those who make it five or more years have demonstrated a fortitude that deserves respect. I am thankful for Golden Real Estate’s seven top-producing, highly-experienced broker associates whose cell numbers I am pleased to list below.

Next I am thankful for the readers and other members of the public who recognize that we are professionals, not just entrepreneurs, and that we earn what we charge by providing an invaluable service for one of life’s most significant financial transactions. Not everyone sees our value or respects what we provide, so we thank you.

Not every licensed real estate agent is a Realtor — that is, a member of the Realtor association.  Everyone who joins a Realtor brokerage like ours must join the Realtor association and pay Realtor dues, which run about $500 per year. But there are non-Realtor brokerages such as HomeSmart Cherry Creek Properties, Redefy, and Trelora Colorado, whose agents don’t pay Realtor dues and don’t have to abide by the Realtor Code of Ethics. I’m thankful for all those firms, like ours, that have chosen to be Realtor brokerages.

Why? Because the National Association of Realtors (NAR) lobbies for your property rights, not just the interests of its members. For example, when the Trump administration tried to dilute the capital gains exemption for home owners ($250,000 single and $500,000 married), it was NAR which lobbied successfully against that change. I could cite countless other examples where NAR’s lobbying efforts have benefited home owners and all those agents who don’t pay NAR dues. To me it’s a matter of professional and corporate responsibility to support NAR with our dues. So, yes, I am thankful for NAR, even when I gripe about dues increases!

Like everyone in our profession, I have individual clients — buyers and sellers — for whose friendship and patronage I am grateful.  You know who you are! You have not only granted me the opportunity to be of service, but you have allowed me to learn new things from every transaction. Perhaps you have introduced me to a new service provider such as an estate sales company, a roofer or plumber, or just a great new restaurant! As I have said many times, judge us agents not by our years in the business but by the number of transactions we have completed, because that’s our most valuable continuing education program.

I’m also thankful for my colleagues from other brokerages. Real estate is different from many other professions because of the tradition of “cooperation and compensation” embodied in our shared multi-list service, aka “MLS.” Some people compare us to car salesmen, but consider the following scenario: You go to a Ford dealership and describe what you’re looking for. The salesman realizes that the right vehicle for you is not a Ford but another brand, so he shows you other cars on his computer and then takes you to those dealerships for a test drive, knowing that he can write the purchase contract and get paid for selling you another dealer’s car just as he can get paid for selling a car from his own dealership. That’s how real estate works, made possible by the MLS.

You’d be impressed to see how agents share the keys to their success with each other. I recall once when I made a presentation at a Realtor meeting on how to shoot and edit video tours of listings, happy to have others do videos for their listings, even though video tours are a point of differentiation for us at Golden Real Estate.

So I’m thankful for how the real estate business works and for the many Realtors whom I consider friends, not just competitors.  If I or one of my Golden Real Estate broker associates is not the perfect agent for a given buyer or seller, I don’t hesitate to recommend one of them.

Lastly, I’m thankful for the Denver Post and four Jefferson County weekly newspapers which publish this column. Remember, you can also receive it by email, so just send me an email with your request.  Several years of prior columns are online at JimSmithColumns.com.

Our Broker Associates:

Jim Swanson — 303-929-2727

Carrie Lovingier — 303-907-1278

Kristi Brunel — 303-525-2520

Chuck Brown — 303-885-7855

David Dlugasch — 303-908-4835

Andrew Lesko — 720-710-1000

Carol Milan — 720-982-4941