December 3rd, 2007 Bob
I believe we’ve created the best home search feature in the entire state of
Colorado here at Real-a-Save. Our newest feature is Text
Search.
Text Search allows a person to enter any word or phrase as a search
criteria. Here is an example search with the following criteria:
- Boulder real estate, single family house
- priced between 750,000 and 1,250,000
- two bedrooms or more
- two garage spaces or more
- must have access to trails nearby as you love to run
With Real-a-Save’s search feature the following search is really easy to
do. See this link for the homes fitting the above criteria.The phrases or words you can
put in the text search are unlimited. Try it out.
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November 27th, 2007 Bob
Is that like saying “robust paradigm”? I hate to sound like an overpaid management
consultant, but we’ve really tried to pack our new website with lots of
features. We’ve tried to make it (ack) a feature rich environment.
One of our goals when we launched Real-a-Save was to make it as quick and
easy for visitors to get as much information as possible, without forcing our
visitors to jump through hoops to get that information. We also wanted to offer
home buyers and sellers all of the information they’d need in one convenient
place. We tried to follow the “build it and they will come” philosophy made
famous in that little baseball movie.
Here are a few of the features offered on our site:
- Search the entire Front Range MLS from Ft. Collins real estate, Boulder real estate, and Denver real estate, all the way down to Colorado Springs real estate and beyond.
We’ve created an easy-to-use map-based search feature that allows you to hover
over the area you want to search, set your criteria, and then see all the
available properties.
- Preview the property without leaving the map page. This feature allows you
to get a quick feel for the property without losing the context of where the
property is located or navigating away from the main search area. If you don’t
like the property, just click the next pin on the map and continue your
search.
- Save searches and email updates. You can save as many searches as you
want, in as many areas as you’d like, and our system will automatically send
you alerts when a new property is listed in your area.
- Show comparable properties and recent sales to help you understand if a
property is priced right.
- Ask an agent a quick question right from the details page.
- Comprehensive neighborhood information. Just a click away on our
neighborhood pages is lots of Boulder neighborhood information, and Denver neighborhood iformation. You can get a feel for the neighborhoods, see some pictures, find out what restaurants, shops and clubs are in the area right from our site. You can also see school statistics and community statistics as well.
We’ll continue to add features to our site. Feel free to email us if you have any suggestions.
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November 26th, 2007 Bob
Wonderland Lake is at the heart of this beautiful Boulder
neighborhood, with convenient access to hiking and biking trails. And
residents of Wonderland Hills are just a short hop to Downtown Boulder. A
more wonderful corner of Boulder is hard to imagine.
Our spotlight property of the week in Wonderland Hills falls on 619 Quince Circle
presented by Coldwell Banker. This stunner has ready access to hiking, biking,
and views as it backs to open space. Four beds and four baths in over 3200
square feet make this piece of Boulder real estate worth a second
look.
Keep in mind that if you purchase this or any other property through
Real-a-Save you will receive 2/3rds (66%) of our commission. The cash rebate for this georgeous home works out to
approximately $16,000. So give us a call at 303-415-2541 if you’d like to
schedule a private tour.
Search the Colorado MLS on our
company website. We have the most user-friendly, intuitive, and
comprehensive home search tool in the state of Colorado. With easy access
to all the listings, community information, school reviews and profiles, as well
as recently sold data.
We’ve also create a comprehensive guide to Boulder
neighborhood information on our neighborhood pages.
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November 24th, 2007 Bob
Long regarded in Boulder as the “If I win the lottery…”-neighborhood, Mapleton Hill still has some really cool, really affordable homes for the Boulder real estate shopper.
Our spotlight property of the week is 900 Maxwell Ave presented by One Realty. Just take a look at this beauty and you’ll see why we love it. Three bedrooms and three bathrooms of prime Mapleton splendor including gourmet kitchen, slate counter tops, and xeriscaped side yard are more than enough reason to give this lovely home a tour.
And remember, if you purchase this or any home with Real-a-Save you will receive 2/3rds (thats 66%) of our commission. That comes out to approximately $13,000 worth of savings on this particular Boulder gem. Give us a call at 303-415-2541 if you’d like to schedule a tour.
And for more Mapleton Hill neighborhood information just visit here.
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November 24th, 2007 Bob
There’s lots of feedback coming in from people who are using our great new home search tool. We’ve heard from a number of people looking for Denver real estate that our mapping feature offers the best information and most user-friendly interface of any search feature available. Thank you. We’ve worked hard on this feature and we truly value your feedback.
We’ve made several improvements as per your suggestion. One of our users searching the Boulder real estate market asked that we make the “View Full Details” on our preview area more obvious. There is so much useful information including past sales for comparable properties, value estimations, school and neighborhood information available on our Full Details Page that we took the suggestion seriously and made a new button just below the picture on the preview screen. We’ve seen a dramatic increase in traffic to the full details page since then- thanks for the suggestion.
We’ve also gotten a surprising number of folks writing in with compliments about our new Colorado Springs real estate search. We recently expanded our search to include the Colorado Springs area, and so far the response has been very positive.
Please feel free to send us feedback and suggestions for ways to improve the site. We take all of them very seriously.
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November 20th, 2007 Bob
I’m a visual learner. From my many years as a high school teacher I know that many of you are probably visual learners as well. I’ve found that once I have a mental “picture” of an idea then I really own it.
Picture a small snowball rolling slowly down a hill. The bottom of the hill is about 50 miles down. Parts of the hill are really steep, parts are pretty flat. As the snowball rolls down the hill it will continue to get a little bigger with each roll. When it’s rolling fast, it grows faster. When it’s rolling slow, it grows slower. But it’s just about always growing.
Now picture trees and rocks lining the sides of the hill. Down the middle of the hill it’s clear. Along the sides there are trees and rocks. When your snowball bumps up against a rock or tree part of the snowball falls off. Sometimes it’s a small piece, sometimes a big piece.
This is my understanding of Warren Buffet’s investment strategy and his concept of frictional costs. Everyone knows that Buffet is the buy-and-hold guy. Buy an undervalued company stock. Hold it for the long run. Big returns. Buffet warns investors to steer clear of frictional costs. What’s a frictional cost? Well, every time you trade a stock you are charged a fee. That’s a frictional cost. Maybe you don’t trade your own stocks, maybe you have someone manage your money. Your money manager’s fees are a frictional cost.
The rocks and trees in my little mental picture are the fund managers and trading fees. The snowball is my money. The 50 mile hill is my investment life. Start with a little snowball and get rolling. Over time it will get bigger. Just stay away from as many rocks and trees as you can.
This picture popped into my head today as I was reading a couple of blogs and real estate forums where people were asking if it was a good time to buy Denver real estate. So many of the respondents simply said that it was a good time to buy. It made me wonder. A brokerage house makes money every time an investor buys or sells a stock. Doesn’t matter if the stock went up or down. The house makes money.
I think a more honest answer to the question: is it a good time to buy real estate in Denver, is: it depends on you. I don’t know if the market is at a bottom. I do know that real estate generally goes up over time, and that if you as an investor are planning on holding real estate as part of your overall investment strategy then it might be a good time to buy. Especially if you are sensitive to your frictional costs. When you are selling real estate your major frictional costs are taxes and real estate commission fees.
Just think of the snowball. If you start rolling a little snowball down the hill and you only let it roll for two miles before it bumps up against a tree and a rock, how much of the snowball will be left? Depends on how steep the hill is, right? Yes, to a certain extent it does. But isn’t it also clear that if you simply let the ball roll for a few more miles that it will likely get a lot bigger?
I don’t think it’s a great idea to buy a house with the intent of selling it in a year or two. Especially now when we can’t tell how steep the hill is. Be smart about your investing. Avoid the trees and rocks as much as possible and let it roll for as long as you can. There’s no arguing that the odds will swing in your favor the longer you let that snowball roll.
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November 15th, 2007 Bob
Imagine a company that combines all the satisfaction of a trip to the DMV, with the pricing, comfort, and customer service of the airline industry. That’s what Realtor.com is to us real estate agents.
Let me put it this way– a really, really bad day for me would include:
- Waking up on December 23rd and realizing that I need to go stand in line at the Post Office to mail all of our gifts
- Follow that with a trip to the DMV to register my car–long line, wet floor, perfectly timed lunch breaks…
- Then, it’s off to the dentists office for a root canal
- And just to make things perfect, my wife tells me we have tickets to the musical “Oklahoma!” that evening (Sorry, but I just don’t understand the concept of the musical- so this is a form of torture in my book)
I’d rather repeat this series of events like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day than deal with Realtor.com for one extra minute.
Why do I dislike this company so much? Well, for starters they charge way too much money to us Realtors for “enhanced” listings. The company teases us by offering to list our properties “for free”…but I can only upload one photo. Most brokerages worth anything choose to upgrade their listings on Realtor.com so that they can upload more pictures, change the text, add Virtual Tours, etc. And the fun part is that the more successful I am, the more Realtor.com will charge me for this service.
The folks at Realtor.com have had real estate agents over the proverbial barrel for many years due to the fact that their site draws soooo many visitors every month. It is (was?) considered by many to be the go-to site when it comes to finding real estate listings.
But all that is changing with the advent of sites like Zillow, Trulia, and local sites like Real-a-Save. I happen to think that our website here at Real-a-Save is better than Zillow, Trulia, or Realtor.com. We have all the listings, updated constantly, in an easy-to-use interface, and we don’t demand that you sign in to use our site. If you’re in the market for Denver real estate, or want to peruse Boulder real estate listings, then you will be hard pressed to find a better search feature than ours at realasave.com.
My point is that regional companies like Real-a-Save are making a play on the big dogs like Realtor.com. Our search feature is better, we’ve got more information, we’re nimble and able to add features that our customers want on very short notice–so we’ve got you covered locally. Sites like Zillow and Trulia have the national exposure and growing name recognition that Real-a-Save does not have (yet), and so they present a national alternative to Realtor.com.
As more and more people turn to websites like Real-a-Save locally, and Zillow, and Trulia nationally, Realtor.com becomes less and less of a must for us agents. There may come a day very soon when my clients really don’t care if their homes are on Realtor.com…as long as they’re on Googlebase, Yahoo Real Estate, Trulia, etc. The list of new, cool listings sites grows daily. How long can Realtor.com remain relevant? How long can they continue to charge such outrageous fees?
Stay tuned…
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November 14th, 2007 Bob
Or will it be Trulia? Or another, yet unnamed player? I don’t know. What I do know is that the local MLS providers here in Colorado leave a lot to be desired. Our company, realasave.com, deals with 4 different MLS providers currently and we’re planning on expanding to include another 4 or 5 very soon. Most small brokers don’t have to deal with multiple different MLS providers because they concentrate in just one area. So a broker dealing mainly in Denver real estate would have to deal with Metrolist (the Denver MLS provider), while a small broker dealing mainly with Boulder real estate would likely just deal with IRES (Northern Colorado’s MLS provider). So small brokerages don’t get the perspective that we have in dealing with all of them.
It’s hysterical, really, to look at the rules that these companies have. The MLS provider in Colorado Springs, for example, forbids brokers from giving out address information unless you force a person to sign in to your site. Seriously, they absolutely forbid it. They even forbid you to show pins on a map. Pins on a map! But go ahead and Google “Colorado Springs real estate” and see what you find. You see various companies that are in flagrant violation of these MLS rules. So not only are the rules silly, and in many cases senseless, but many companies simply don’t follow the rules at all.
In Grand Junction you are actually not allowed to speak to the MLS provider. I’m not kidding. You MUST go through the local board of Realtors. I spoke with a very nice lady at the local board of Realtors who was aghast when I asked her for the phone number for the local MLS provider, “Oh no! You can’t TALK to them. You can’t EVER talk to them! If you talk to them then they’ll call me and yell at me and say ‘Keep your people in order’!” I’m not kidding. This conversation actually took place.
Some of the MLS providers are a pleasure to deal with. IRES has a staff that is always helpful. The same cannot be said for some other local companies.
There are over 900 MLS providers in America. And they all operate in a vacuum. They all have their own rules, and each thinks that their rules are the right rules. They don’t communicate with each other…they often don’t even know that the other exists. Again, I’m being serious. Do a little experiment: try to find out how many MLS providers there are in the state of Colorado. Does the National Association of Realtors have this information? You’d think so, but they don’t. Does the Colorado Associate of Realtors have a list? You’d think so, but they don’t. Well, maybe you know a few of the local providers so you call them and ask for a list of their colleagues. They don’t have it. It’s a mystery. Total UFO time. Close Encounters of the MLS Kind. It’s freaking hysterical.
I hope that Trulia and/or Zillow either a) forces a national consolodation of MLS providers into one, giant national MLS, or b) replaces all of the current MLS providers.
You can’t even imagine the expense of dealing with 6-10 MLS providers. We’re talking around $10,000 in monthly fees, local board fees, and upgrades. I’d much rather deal with one provider who doesn’t want to screw me over by selling MY information BACK to me at an exorbitant rate. Yes, they actually sell me back information that I technically own. Let’s leave that for another day. And next time I’ll get on my soap box about what an evil, vile, monster Realtor.com is. Trust me. They are.
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November 13th, 2007 Bob
I don’t think that traditional real estate companies are going away anytime soon. I’m certainly not arrogant enough to think that alternative companies like Real-a-Save will take away all of their business. What I do know is that we offer them some serious competition. We Americans really love a fair fight, and the reason that our economy works as well as it does is that the consumer makes the ultimate decision as to which business succeed, and which fail. The market decides.
I’m ready and willing to put my company up against any of the traditional real estate companies, and I’m confident that we’ll beat them when it comes to service, user-experience on our website, and savings. But I suspect that there are traditional Realtors among my competition who are equally as confident with their own companies. That is as it should be, and I don’t resent the competition, nor do I have any ill-will or anger towards my competition in the traditional real estate world.
But what does make me angry is when various real estate commissions and MLS providers try to set up rules that conveniently give the traditional companies an unfair advantage. In a recent story on Inman News, an MLS provider in Washington state has decided to allow its members to choose which listings to display on their sites depending on the “level of service” (among other criteria) that the particular broker offers.
Translation: brokers who offer discounted services can have their listings conveniently left off of major company websites and MLS feeds. So a company which charges a couple of hundred dollars to put your home on the MLS (this is a type of “limited service” company) can effectively be pushed out of business if, suddenly, lots of traditional companies decide not to put that company’s listings on their sites just because they don’t like the business model. What a wonderful rule for the traditional companies.
This rule effectively allows large, traditional companies to limit their competition. Limiting competition. Are you familiar with the Sherman Antitrust Act?
The Federal government has taken a strong stance against states which currently have “minimum service laws”. Take a look at this link to the DOJ (Department of Justice) website showing which states currently have minimum service laws. Scroll down about half-way to see the list. The opinion of the Antitrust Division of the DOJ is that minimum service laws do not actually benefit the consumer. Here’s a quote directly from the report by the DOJ entitled “Competition In The Real Estate Brokerage Industry“:
“Conclusion:
In sum, it is clear that minimum-service requirements restrict choice by not allowing consumers freely to choose what real estate brokerage services they wish to purchase or not purchase. The evidence indicates that these requirements raise prices by forcing brokers to provide services their customers may not want and reducing competitive pressure on full-service brokers. Additionally, because evidence to date has not shown that minimum-service requirements benefit consumers, any harm they cause is almost certain to greatly outweigh any benefit they might produce.”
Colorado real estate consumers have a choice. If you are looking for Denver real estate or Boulder real estate, or real estate anywhere along the Front Range, then our company would be glad to help you save thousands of dollars on your next home purchase or sale. You’re free to choose a more traditional company as well. That’s the American way…despite such self-serving attempts at changing the very nature of our democracy by various real estate commissions and MLS providers.
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November 8th, 2007 Bob
I remember reading the book The Millionaire Next Door a few years ago and being surprised at a few of the common habits of millionaires. I had this picture of the typical millionaire in my head: fancy car, huge house, expensive lifestyle and habits. It turns our that most of the millionaires interviewed were quite frugal. That is:
“economical in use or expenditure; prudently saving or sparing; not wasteful”, according to dictionary.com.
I would say that most of our real estate clients fall into this “frugal” category. The simple fact is that traditional real estate fees are not a frugal way to spend your hard-earned equity. The equity in your home is, after all, yours. Why not keep it? Why not spend it wisely? Be frugal. It’s a common theme echoed by some of our recent Boulder real estate clients. They see the services that our company offers in a simple, side-by-side comparison to traditional real estate and realize that their money is better spent with us.
To quote Paul Clitheroe: ” The amount of money you have has got nothing to do with what you earn.. people earning a million dollars a year can have no money and.. People earning $35,000 a year can be quite well off. It’s not what you earn, it’s what you spend.”
Well said.
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