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If you know what Redfin is all about, this article, Buying or selling a home? Forget the traditional realtor may intrigue you:

The Internet is increasingly taking on the duties once performed by real estate agents. And while no one - yet - is suggesting that it’s a good idea to buy a house over the Internet sight unseen, a new business model is emerging that takes advantage of the convenience of Internet shopping.

80% of all home searches start on the internet. So it’s no surprise that companies are using the internet to transform the way they buy and sell real estate.

More on online home buying:

Buyers and sellers can save thousands on sales commissions and through rebates using online real estate agencies, such as Real-a-Save:

FOR A BUYER

• Home sales price: $300,000
• Traditional 2.8% buyer’s agent commission: $8,400
• 66% Rebate Real-a-Save clients would receive: $5,400

FOR A SELLER

• Home sales price: $300,000
• Typical 3.2% sales commission: $9,600
• Real-a-Save’s standard sales commission: $2,500
• Savings: $7,100.

It’s really too soon to tell whether or not online real estate brokerages will be around or just another passing fad. If you talk to most people they love the idea but would prefer to stick to using a real estate agent no matter how much they despise agents. Why do people despise agents? Same reason people despise the government - a lot of upfront promises, not much after that. The internet won’t solve that problem.

From the Denver Post: Realtors seek support amid housing woes

With so many homes and condos sitting on the market month after month, their fresh-paint smell fading and owners’ costs rising, Realtors must find a way to sell.

There will be many real estate agents leaving the business. It’s hard to say who’ll be here in a year and who won’t. I’ve seen good ones leave. I’ve seen bad ones stay. Finding a good real estate is VERY DIFFICULT. As a lender, I only work with a handful (less than five) who I’d recommend.

If you’re wondering how to find a really good real estate agent, read this article first: How to Find a Great Real Estate Agent - 12 Interview Questions!

When my wife and I were looking to move several years ago we would watch House Hunters on HGTV. The show had potential home buyers looking at three homes and usually selecting the third. We recently caught House Hunters and noticed the format was slightly different, the potential home buyers would look at three homes but the home they selected would be disclosed at the end. It could be the first home, second or third.

If there’s one thing that’s remained the same, it’s the cliches (spacious home; motivated seller; pet friendly) that the real estate agents use time and time again. If you’re curious to see what these cliches actually mean, you’re in luck. The St. Paul Real Estate Blog has them:

What the REALTOR says:	What the buyer sees:
Hip neighborhood	A lot of kids
Exciting neighborhood	A lot of bad kids
Pet friendly	Reeks of cat pee
Amazing views	Interior shot
Recently renovated	Interior shot, but painted
Great curb appeal	They painted the front
Charming	Dank
Historic	Dank
Charming, Historic	Very Dank
Period fireplace	Fire hazard
Quiet neighborhood	Compared to very busy street nearby
Close to Downtown	Quiet neighborhood
Great neighborhood	Police sweeps recently completed
Starter home	Not exactly finished, but started
Move-up house	Needs to be jacked up, sinking
Fixer-upper	You don’t want to know
Great amenities	They replaced the 1970s fridge
Exciting opportunity	They didn’t replace the 1970s fridge
Good schools	(ignored - everyone says this)
Near parks	Near parking lots
Ready for your updates	Beat up
Well-loved	Beat to Hell
Close to Universities	Tiny, possible fire code violation
Active condo association	Insanely high association fee
Low association fee	Hello “special assessment”!
Motivated seller	In foreclosure

As the weather and the leaves turn, for some reason the Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News have had a blitzkrieg of real estate and mortgage articles. This latest one called, Commission remission regarding the the declining commission for real estate agents is a doozy.

Commission rates last year averaged 5.2 percent nationwide, according to Littleton-based Real Trends newsletter, whereas in 1991 that number came in at about 6.1 percent.

That’s 5.2% of your home price. So if your house sells for $250,000 or $500,000, you’ll be shelling out 5.2% of that amount. However, the article discusses that real estate agents are willing to negotiate their commissions:

…real estate clients can haggle over more than just a home’s asking price. They might just work with their Realtor to find a mutually agreed upon commission rate too.

What makes this article somewhat interesting is this quote:

Too many mortgage lenders will do anything to get a loan through…

Actually once I read that quote, I went to read the entire article.

What do I think? If a real estate agent charges 6% to sell your home and sucks, fire him/her. If they charge 4.6% and kicks ass, refer them to everyone you know.

The Denver Post explores the mortgage credit crisis from the seller’s perspective:

Gone are the days of a quick sale and a hefty profit. The slumping market has homeowners slashing prices just to garner interest.

Staging is recommended as a means to get your home to sell faster. Also included were staging tips:

Get rid of clutter. Throw out or file stacks of newspapers and magazines. Pack away most of your small decorative items. Store out-of-season clothing to make closets seem roomier. Clean out the garage.

Wash your windows and screens to let more light inside.

Keep everything extra clean. Wash fingerprints from light-switch plates. Mop and wax floors. Clean the stove and refrigerator. A clean house makes a better first impression and indicates that the home has been well cared for.

Get rid of smells. Clean carpeting and drapes to eliminate cooking odors, smoke and pet smells. Open the windows.

Put higher wattage bulbs in light sockets to make rooms seem brighter.

Make minor repairs to problems that can create a bad impression. Small problems, such as sticky doors, torn screens, cracked caulking or a dripping faucet may seem trivial, but they’ll give buyers the impression that the house isn’t well- maintained.

Tidy your yard. Cut the grass, rake the leaves, trim the bushes and edge the walks. Put a pot or two of bright flowers near the entryway.

Patch holes in your driveway and reapply sealant, if applicable.

Clean your gutters.

Polish your front doorknob and door numbers.

Staging aside, here’s the advice most realtor’s worth their grain of salt will say: A HOUSE, PRICED RIGHT, WILL SELL.

Read the full article: SELLERS: New homes can undermine prices

I ran a quick search in Google for the term “Denver Homes”

The top ten results that Google fetched is fairly interesting:

1. The National Association of Realtor’s website, the heavyweights in the real estate game. They’ve been around for quite some time on the web circa 1997.
2. A real estate agent’s site. On the web since 1998.
3. recolorado.com, a consumer portal to the Colorado MLS. On the web since 1998.
4. American Home Guide is 4th. Not sure what’s the purpose of this site. It’s not a real estate agent, broker, or company. On the web since 2003.
5. A real estate agent’s site. Around since 2000.
6. New Home Source, a site that basically allows you to search for properties with limited ads. Around since 1999.
7. A real estate agent site. Around since 2004.
8. House.Info allows you to search for properties. Around since 2005.
9. A BLOG. Around since 2005.
10. A BLOG. Around since 2006.

Conclusions:

• The real estate agents who’s site rank well, probably paid a substantial amount of money to get ranked well and to keep their rankings.
• The 9th ranked site for Denver Homes is run by Todd Carpenter, who runs a series of mortgage and real estate blogs.
• The 10th ranked site, was a blogging project of mine that I abandoned.
• Unless you’re site has been around on the web since the late 90’s or you plan on paying a ton of money to get your site optimized, plan on blogging.
• Google loves blogs!

If you’re savvy real estate agent in Denver and want to meet with me to discuss blogging and what it can do for your web presence, contact me for a consultation. If you’re a total dumbass who whines constantly and expects me to do everything, don’t bother contacting me.

This past weekend, the Denver Post and New York Times both had articles on real estate websites:

The Denver Post’s article, “Homework: Buying and Selling on the Web” discusses the various real estate websites available to consumers such as:

• www.recolorado.com: real estate listings online from Metrolist Inc.
• www.realtor.com: National Association of Realtors’ website includes real estate listings
• www.postnewsrealestate.com: newspaper classifieds for metro area and mountains
• www.craigslist.com: free, similar to newspaper classifieds, including real estate categories
• www.edgeio.com: free, similar to craigslist
• www.google.com/base/: Google search engine’s free service similar to craigslist

The main focus of the article is how craiglist (a free listing service) is used by many real estate agents to list properties.

Craigslist, www.craigslist.com, has been touted as the world’s seventh-most-visited website, with about 3 billion hits per month. Users search through bare-bones home pages to find cities or regions they’re interested in.

Ads are posted by date in egalitarian fashion, so re-posting or updating an ad keeps it closer to the top of the page, where it presumably would be seen by more people.

The New York Times article, “Forget Gimmicks: Buyers Want Numbers” (login required) discusses the home buyers insatiable appetite for information when it comes to buying a home.

Today, companies and brokers are focusing less on toys and are offering something more straightforward: numbers. This detailed information — be it local home values, neighborhood amenities or broader market conditions — is part of a trend to attract consumers by offering data they cannot find easily elsewhere, or could once get only from real estate agents.

The article also sites websites such as realtor.com and trulia.com. Incidentally a Denver real estate agent (and fellow Denver blogger) Kristal Kraft is mentioned in the article. Her site, www.kristalsellsdenver.com contains chock full of info on Denver relocation.

A few months ago a couple of search terms “What’s the next Wash Park” and “Up and Coming neighborhoods in Denver” led people to my site. However, I’m not a real estate agent nor do I have any plans to become an agent in the near future. If I had to venture a guess, Riverfront, Highlands, or Eisenhower Park would be the next hot neighborhood. However, they will never be Wash Park because Wash Park is one of Denver’s best known landmarks.

The Denver Business Journal touts Eisenhower Park as the next hot area. Their article Eisenhower Park becoming a popular market:

Looking for an undiscovered neighborhood with great charm, easy access to transportation, a range of public amenities and lower prices than comparable areas?

Realtors and custom home builders are touting the Eisenhower Park neighborhood northeast of the intersection of South Colorado Boulevard and East Hampden Avenue.

Note: To access this article online you may need a subscription to the Denver Business Journal.

From the denver.gov site:

Eisenhower Park is a fully developed 22-acre truf grass park located at S. Colorado Blvd. & E. Dartmouth Ave.. The park features Eisenhower Recreation Center, two skinned softball fields, one un-skinned softball field, one soccer field, two football fields, four tennis courts, horseshoe pits, four flower beds, four picnic sites (one with a shelter). Restrooms are provided during the summer months and are located on the East Side of the Recreation Center.

If you’re a loyal reader, you’ve noticed that I post “Links: yada yada yada” more frequently. As I’ve mentioned numerous times, I’m a huge NY Jets fan and I visit thejetsblog.com quite a bit. Rather than disseminating all the information contained in each article, Bassett (the main blogger on the Jets Blog) would just post a list of links to various articles. I found it to be very effective and if the one sentence summary made the link either click worthy or not. That being said, here are links to various articles of interest:

• 25 Rules to Grow Rich by is old (November 2006) by Internet standards but this list includes 5 real estate related rules:
  1. For return on investment, the best home renovation is to upgrade an old bathroom. Kitchens come in second.
  2. It’s worth refinancing your mortgage when you can cut your interest rate by at least one point.
  3. Spend no more than 2½ times your income on a home. For a down payment, it’s best to come up with at least 20%.
  4. Your total housing payments should not exceed 28% of your gross income. Total debt payments should come in under 36%.
  5. Never hire a roofer, driveway paver or chimney sweep who is going door to door.
• While your at it, CNN Money has another article on how technology especially social networking sites are helping consumers make choices on real estate agents, neighborhoods, and even deciphering what their house is really worth.
• One of the sites mentioned in the CNN Money article, Homethinking, allows you find and rate real estate agents. One quick glance shows that none of the real estate agents have been rated. Moreover, they allow agents to pay their way to the top of the list via sponsored profiles.
• Americans are struggling to afford a home. The American dream is getting harder to achieve because buying a home is out of reach. For those of us who grew up near New York City, renting an apartment in the city much less buying a home was always out of reach.
• Donald Trump has stated that he wants to raise the bar in the lending game. He should start by stop focusing on Rosie and start firing his top mortgage guy.

I’d like to think that my blog is unique, I don’t just blog about mortgages cause quite frankly mortgages isn’t the most exiting subject on the planet. Most mortgage brokers don’t blog (do they even know what a blog is?) so I thought blogging would separate me from the pack. Most of my traffic is derived via Google searches. When I started blogging I sent my url to my past clients, friends, etc. and over the past couple of months I’ve received links from other blogs and sites, but I still get more traffic from google than any other medium. It’s not even close.

Here are some of the search terms (in UPPER CASE) that were used to find my site:

• NY PIZZA in DENVER: If there’s something I know, it’s NY Pizza. The site for Original New York Pizza is www.originalpizza.us and it’s located here: 1300 W Midway Blvd in Broomfield, CO 80020 to order a pie call (303) 469-9117. Pantaleone’s is another good NY Pizza joint despite the owners being from Soprano country (NJ) here’s their address: 2120 S Holly St # 6 Denver, CO 80222 and number (303) 757-3456.
• My DENVER BLOG covers Denver real estate, Denver trends, Denver mortgages, and just about anything the gooey substance above my medulla oblongata comes up with.
• TEDY BRUSCHI of the New England Patriots is one of my favorite NFL players because he plays the way the game should be played and yes, he’s HALF-FILIPINO and HALF-ITALIAN. DEAN CAIN and WILL FERRELL are not Filipino.
• You can buy STARBURY SNEAKERS in DENVER, Colorado, you can go to Steve and Barry’s located at 8501 West Bowles Avenue in Littleton, CO 80123 call them at 303-904-7513 for directions.
• FORECLOSURE is a hot topic in COLORADO and DENVER. Fellow Colorado bloggers have tried to minimize the problem. When 90% of the leads that I get from my websites is from Colorado Home Owners facing foreclosure, I’d say foreclosure is a problem. Any way you cut it, people don’t want to lose their homes and saying “sorry, I can’t help you” really sucks!
• KOSI 101 plays CHRISTMAS MUSIC. Tune to 101.1 on your FM dial.
• DENVER is not going through a HOUSING BUBBLE BURST. Denver may have flat lined in terms of property value over the past 4 to 5 years but Denver’s real estate hasn’t popped. Who in their right mind would want to move to a booming city that features 300 days of sunshine a year, skiing in our backyard, hiking, biking, great sports, light rail, international airport, great restaurants, and affordable housing? (sarcasm)
• THE NEXT WASHINGTON PARK could very well be Stapleton, Lowry, Riverfront or anywhere near the Pedestrian Bridge. A realtor would probably be a better person to ask (now there’s an idea for a blog post) so if you need a realtor, just ask. I only work with realtors that won’t waste your time or mine.
• The DIFFERENCE between a MORTGAGE PLANNER and a MORTGAGE BROKER: a mortgage planner actually gives a rats ass about you as a human being and your long term future. For the record, I consider myself a MORTGAGE PLANNER.
• HGTV is scouting for new home buyers in the DENVER metro area for their show, MY FIRST PLACE. However, I think this train came and left.
• REAL WORLD DENVER takes place in LoDo (Lower Downtown) and no I won’t be making any cameos on the show. I believe they filmed the show on Market Street a stone throw away from Coors Field. I’d actually like to see MTV show music videos like they did when I was a kid.
• CASEY SERIN is facing FORECLOSURE and blogging (www.iamfacingforeclosure.com) about it. The guy is going through hell.
• DENVER FIX and FLIP and FLIPPING HOUSES in DENVER, please refer to Casey Serin’s blog before you call me about a loan.
• Yes, there are NY JETS FANS IN DENVER. I’m a die hard NY Jets fan but I don’t know what bar the NY Jets fans congregate. A few years ago it was the Sports Column but when I showed up in my Vinny Testaverde Jersey, there were more Pats fans in the house. Old Chicago on 14th and Market is always a good bet, they show all the games.
• ALTUS HOME LOANS is not the most reputable mortgage company in Colorado. Their DECEIVING ADS are what they are that’s why they’re in trouble. What’s more concerning is that we want politicians to clean up the mortgage mess. What’s the difference between politicians and a mortgage company? They too make just about any promise necessary to get the deal (elected), then fall short of expectations time and time again.
• You really need TITLE INSURANCE in Colorado it’s necessary and not a JUNK FEE.
• WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE DENVER BRONCOS? I don’t have that line anywhere on any of my posts but here’s my answer is “Jake the Snake is not John Elway and neither is Jay Cutler!”

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