Archive for the ‘Exclusive Buyer Agency & Consumer Protection’ Category
Monday, March 30th, 2009
With all the choices in today’s market, how do you go about finding the right home? It seems the more research you do, the more alternatives you discover.
It’s important to visualize your needs and plan ahead. Know what you want in a home, what’s important to you, and what you can live without. Many of us start out with a champagne taste and a beer pocketbook, so it’s important to be realistic.
Where and what you buy will affect you for as long as you live in the house. If you are having a tough time getting your priorities in order, talk to us to help you prioritize.
For first-time home buyers this is a new experience, so it’s especially important to do your homework. But if you currently own a home, you know exactly what’s lacking. You may need another bedroom or bathroom, or a good school nearby.
First, decide where you want to live. Routt County covers a lot of territory, but it’s not to say you can’t live in one corner of the County and work in the other. It’s more common than one may think. Initially, people think the roads are always bad in the winter, but realistically, there are only a handful of days when the roads are treacherous. And when they are, you just have to learn to take your time. Regardless to what location you decide, you should practice the commute before you make a commitment. Weather not only also plays an important role in commuting decisions, but also for the lifestyle. Northern Routt county and the areas surrounding Steamboat Lake receive the most snow, followed by Steamboat Springs and then South Routt. However, the further west you go, the more you reduce elevation, precipitation and increase temperature: providing less snow to shovel during the winter and more of a variety of vegetables to grow in your garden during the summer.
People with children have other major considerations: school and apre’s school. If you have active kids who like to be involved with after school activities, a location closer to their school should be a definite consideration.
As mentioned earlier, lifestyle is an important consideration. People who frequently dine out, socialize and like to attend all of the great events Steamboat Springs offers are probably better off in town. In other words, make sure you’re in close proximity to the things that matter most.
It used to be that homes came in a limited variety, but today, you have many choices. In addition to the traditional single-family home, you can buy a townhouse or condominium.
In Routt County, you can find almost any combination anywhere. But whatever you decide to purchase, make sure the rules and regulations, as well as the by-laws, match your lifestyle. This type of housing is great for people who want to own their own space without being responsible for mowing the lawn or repairing the roof; a management company most likely will handle that, giving you more freedom to enjoy the Steamboat lifestyle.
On the other hand, you’ll pay fees for these services. In addition to checking the documents and financial soundness of the homeowner’s association, you must determine if the monthly fees are worth the services and additional amenities such as a swimming pool or exercise room.
Affordability can be a factor not only in the type of housing, but whether it’s a new or an existing home. Old houses often have fine woodwork or interesting nooks and crannies not normally found in new homes. They generally sit on smaller landscaped lots with mature trees and grown bushes.
New homes may cost more, but you can make many more decisions on amenities, colors, carpeting and fixtures. Make sure you’re dealing with a reputable builder, and have an attorney review all documents.
Selecting a real estate professional is the important first step when beginning your search. As exclusive buyer brokers, the professionals at Buyer’s Resource sit by the side of our clients throughout the entire process. Our business model is that of counselors, not salespeople, for all that we do is help our clients determine the type of property they want to own, exhaust the market to locate that type of property, provide the due diligence to make sure it is the type of property they want to own, and help them negotiate the lowest price and best terms on the property of their desires. Give us a call today to begin your Steamboat Springs real estate purchase in the right direction!
Tags: steamboat property search, steamboat real estate, steamboat springs mls
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Friday, March 27th, 2009
The old adage “There’s no time like the present” might not first come to mind when looking at today’s Steamboat Springs housing market. But these homespun words of wisdom are quite appropriate when a closer look is given. I would like to point out these favorable factors that can contribute to making this, for many consumers, a most opportune time to buy a home:
• Inventory is up. When the market is hot, new listings can’t replenish the supply of homes fast enough, and that works in the sellers’ favor. In today’s market, the opposite is true, providing more choices for buyers.
• Sellers are motivated. Homes that in a hot market would have been snapped up in days are now lingering unsold for weeks, even months. Factor in bank-owned properties due to the recent and unfortunate spike in foreclosures and buyers find themselves in an advantageous negotiating position they haven’t enjoyed for years.
• Interest rates are down. Recent cuts in the prime rate by the Federal Reserve have sparked drops in interest rates, which nearing the end of March are below 5 percent for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage. While banks have tightened lending requirements in the wake of increased loan defaults, homebuyers with few credit problems qualifying to purchase a home they can afford should still have little trouble securing favorable financing terms.
What’s more, a market climate like this especially favors buyers who don’t need to sell an existing property before their purchase, buyers like first-timers and those looking for a second home. This tilts the scale even more towards many buyers.
I would also like to add more specific reasons why I feel the next few months will be the best time to buy Steamboat Springs real estate:
• Sellers typically stick closer to their price right before ski season because they know they will be able to receive the lion’s share of rental income within the next several months, and they will also be able to use it during ski season.
• Along with that, after just receiving the rental income, spring is the time of the year they are most motivated to sell because they have just captured the ski season revenue and are now looking at several months of carrying costs with no income.
• With ski season coming to an end, so will showings until July, which is when most brokers will begin to see activity pick back up. With a cover letter that I would include with the offer(s), I would certainly point this out (along with some of the other items I’ve outlined here).
• In several condominium complexes there could be two or more similar units for sale and within the same price range. They will be fighting over the same buyer. Should one of those go under contract, then the remaining one would be the only other choice for the second buyer coming in. If that is the case, the buyer of the second would not have as much leverage as if there were two to choose. Furthermore, I would imagine the first property to go under contract would be the most desirable from a buyer’s perspective due to the fact that a deal was made.
• Our office web site had a record number of hits in February and March, and showings are beginning to pick up for us. In fact, this was the busiest Jan / Feb / March I have had (I think I made it to four drop-in hockey sessions all winter.). I’m hoping this continues and we would have a pretty active summer.
But regardless of the situation, for every buyer, the key is to work with a real estate professional that knows the Steamboat Springs real estate market and specializes in representing buyers.
Give us a call / email today!
Tags: bottom of the market, buying steamboat springs real estate, steamboat springs real estate
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Thursday, March 19th, 2009
When buying Steamboat Springs real estate, almost every property is subject to a rules and regulations involving a homeowners association (HOA). It is important for an owner to know what is involved with the association.
HOA’s dictate how the property can be used and enjoyed via a set of HOA documents. These need to be carefully reviewed, as they could be in direct conflict with the very reason a buyer may want to use the property. Furthermore, if the association has annual meetings, request and review the HOA meeting minutes from the last two years, as well as the HOA budget. This gives the buyer a good idea of the pulse of the association, points of contention, and what potential capital improvements (additional costs) there could be in the near future.
When assisting clients in a purchase, as your exclusive buyer’s broker, we always keep an ear on the tracks to know the latest news on all of the HOA’s in Steamboat Springs, as well as reviewing these documents with our client and provide an opinion as to the health and vitality of the association.
Tags: homeowner associations, real estate buying tips, steamboat springs real estate
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Wednesday, March 18th, 2009
By Doug
It may have taken a nationwide economic earthquake to wake up and shake up the real estate industry, but the exclusive buyer broker concept is beginning to get noticed more and more as consumers, legislators and the media alike recognize how the economy has gotten where it has, and with the assistance of traditional brokers. After all, if the consumer had a real estate broker looking out for their best interests, a better purchase would have been made, and some of the bad purchases that have caused the economic downturn would not have occurred.
Most recently, the New York Times ran an article on March 15 about the advantages of exclusive buyer brokerage. Below please find the article:
WHEN Henry Coupet started shopping for a home, agents at open houses tried to persuade him to snap up their listings.
“Their interest seemed to be more in the interest of the seller than my interest,” said Mr. Coupet, a quality assurance manager for an Internet advertising company.
Then, when he made an offer on a home and the agent rebuffed him, refusing to negotiate, Mr. Coupet became frustrated.
“Their interest was maximizing their profit,” he said.
So he redirected his search. He hired Ira Freireich, owner of Best Buyer’s Broker Realty in Malverne, to represent him for a $500 retainer plus a 2 percent commission. (For buyers’ brokers as for sellers’ brokers, the commission comes out of the proceeds of the sale at the closing.)
As the name of Mr. Freireich’s agency suggests, he works exclusively on the buyer’s behalf. Traditionally, a real estate agent’s fiduciary responsibility is to the seller.
“He knew what I was willing to pay and he knew what I could afford and he aggressively negotiated on my behalf,” Mr. Coupet said. In October he paid $472,000 for a three-bedroom two-and-a-half-bath Cape in New Hyde Park, which had been listed for $530,000. “He definitely got the ball rolling.”
Mr. Freireich said demand for his services started to swell about a year ago.
“It’s always advantageous for the buyers to have their own representation,” he said. “If you were getting a divorce, would you ever use your spouse’s attorney?”
He added that when buyers ask a seller’s agent questions, “they are getting the answer the sellers want them to hear.”
Although buyers’ agents are relatively rare on the Island, a growing number of house shoppers are seeking an equal level of representation.
What they need to know going in, said Frank Urso, president of the Multiple List Service of Long Island, is that unless the broker and the buyer sign an agency disclosure contract specifying their relationship, it cannot be binding.
“The broker that has the listing is always working for the seller and his agents are working for the seller,” Mr. Urso said.
Nick Gigante, broker-owner of Re/Max Shores in Massapequa and Oceanside, pointed out that once a buyer and a broker were formally in a relationship, the broker was at liberty to furnish privileged information, about things like the seller’s financial situation. “Of course, the buyer wants to know that stuff,” Mr. Gigante said.
At the same time, a buyer’s broker is prohibited from disclosing to a seller that the buyer can, or will, pay more than what has been offered.
Brokers who represent both sellers and buyers, known as dual-agency brokers, “maximize their income but shortchange both buyer and seller clients,” said John Sullivan, president of the National Association of Exclusive Buyers’ Agents, which includes about 200 realty brokerage firms and about 480 exclusive buyer agents.
To “eliminate conflict of interest,” exclusive buyers’ agents do not take listings — though increasingly agents in traditional real estate offices work both sides of the equation.
Frank DellAccio Jr., broker-owner of Century 21 AA Realty in Lindenhurst and Seaford, said that from 2007 to 2008 his firm had more than doubled the number of buyers being represented. Many are asking for agents to work as their advocates, providing data and comparable sales, negotiating the best price and terms, and helping evaluate financing options.
“Buyers feel more comfortable having someone represent them in the process,” Mr. DellAccio said. “It’s a natural.”
Another natural in a downtrodden inventory-laden market is that for brokers, snagging a buyer to represent has gained in allure. Bethany Marten, an exclusive buyer’s broker and founder of the Baldwin-based Home Buyers’ Resource Center, said that until the market turned south, most real estate agents “had zero interest in representing buyers.”
Before, she said, “listings were gold,” and agents “didn’t want to waste their time walking around with buyers.” But with inventories high and customers scarce, “buyers are the gold now.”
Listings cost time and money to market and often languish. “You don’t make money if you don’t have a buyer,” she pointed out.
Mr. Urso of the List Service of Long Island said he expected buyers’ brokers to be “more the norm in the next three to five years.”
Michael Frank, an assistant school principal in the market for a house, signed on last spring with Mr. Freireich’s agency. “I wanted to see the full slate of homes available,” Mr. Frank said. “If you are trying to buy a house through Century 21, they have a vested interest in selling you a Century 21 home.”
In August, after checking out only houses “with the right number of bedrooms and bathrooms” in the right school districts, Mr. Frank bought a three-bedroom Tudor in Valley Stream for $502,000. “They didn’t try and show us anything that was outside of what we asked for,” he said of Mr. Freireich’s agency.
It was also in August that Michael Daly gave up being a traditional broker, and working both sides of the fence, to run the North Haven-based True North Realty Associates, a brokerage exclusively for buyers. He said he found the switch had eliminated the “smoke and mirrors” and “dual-agency conflict that has caused so much mistrust among consumers and real estate agents.”
Whether you are seeking to buy a Steamboat Springs real estate property, or elsewhere, if you want the best representation available and an advocate looking out for your best interests all of the time, seek the assistance of an exclusive buyer’s broker. In Steamboat Springs, we are the only office that exclusively represents buyers!
Tags: consumer protection, exclusive buyer agency, steamboat real estate
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Monday, March 16th, 2009
This morning I was asked via email by a client who is looking for a single family home in Steamboat Sprigns. I thought his question was a good one and I could not only share it with you, but also my answer.
He writes: You focus a lot on $/sq ft but, thinking back, I remember our agent in COS (Colorado Springs) focusing on sales as a percent of asking price and most sales were going for 93-95% of asking price there. I was wondering if you had looked at sales as a percent of asking prices?
I give much more credibility to the ‘selling’ dollar per square foot than percent of asking price. The latter is based on a list price, which could be out of character for the market and only shows the relationship between what that particular property sold and its list price. What if the property is initially priced too high for the market (I’ve never seen that happen before) but then the seller ends up taking a price that was more reflective of the market. Looking at the sales to list percentage doesn’t necessarliy compare other like kind properties to help determine its market value. In other words…
A house could be listed for sale at $500,000 and say it sold at $450,000, which was fair market value. That means the property sold for 90% of list price. It could have been listed at $450,000 and sold for $450,000, equating to it selling at 100% of list. If the seller would have more appropriately priced his/her property to meet the current market in the first place, he/she should have listed it closer to market price, which would have equated to a higher sales to list percentage. It also may have reduced the time spent marketing the property and subsequent carrying costs. Consequently, this number is relatively arbitrary because the true value of a property is what it sells for, not the relationship between a list price and sales price. One thing that this number does show is market volatility.
In our quickly appreciating “seller’s market” in 2006 and 2007, sales prices were around 97% of list price, were sellers were sticking closer to the price they wanted to sell their properties for, and buyers were willing to pay those prices. However, in a “buyer’s market”, sellers are more flexible in their prices and a larger list price to sales price spread has been seen.
But to determine the value of an individual property, the best calculation is by taking like-kind properties that have sold to the subject property, and dividing the square footage into the price the property was purchased for. This number would give you a relative value of the property you’re looking to purchase, no matter what the size.
As an example, say a home in the same subdivision with similar quality sold only a month earlier for $500,000 and was 2,500 square feet. That property sold at $200 per square foot. The home you are looking at is 3,150 square feet, so its relative value is $630,000. Adjustments may be made for lot location, views, condition, quality, the length of time between the comparable property was sold, and so on. But this calculation is more useful in determining property value than going off of a sales to list percentage.
Once we locate the property of your dreams, we conduct our own comparative market analysis to determine the value of the property you want to own. One of the methods we use is a dollar per square foot calculation. As your exclusive buyer broker for Steamboat Springs real estate, we not only want to make sure you are buying the right property, but also the right property at the right price!
Tags: comparative market analysis, steamboat sprins real estate, valuing steabmboat springs property
Posted in Exclusive Buyer Agency & Consumer Protection, Steamboat Springs Real Estate - General Information | No Comments »
Monday, February 9th, 2009
Last night the skies above downtown Steamboat Springs were filled with an awesome fireworks display in conjunction with the 96th annual Winter Carnival. The Lighted Man inspired the crowd with his traditional nighttime ski down the face of Howelsen Hill as his powder-keg of a backpack, full of rockets and sparklers, exploded into the evening sky.
The National Association of Exclusive Buyer Agents, of which all of our Steamboat Springs Buyer’s Resource real estate brokers are members, noted in their Winter 2009 newsletter that the National Association of REALTORS conducted a study of when buyers were notified of the relationship that would exist between the real estate salesperson and the buyer. Only 30% of homebuyers received a disclosure statement at the first meeting, 28% when the contract was written, 22% didn’t receive one at all and 20% were uncertain if they even received one! This disclosure is supposed to be made during the first meeting.
Why salespeople did not make a disclosure during the initial meeting is difficult to understand, but simply more the reason to work with an exclusive buyer’s broker (EBA). EBA’s have nothing to hide! We represent buyers no matter what the property, no matter what the market, no matter who the client. Our business model is simple. We believe in protecting the real estate buyer all the time, a concept that has been lost, forgotten and abused for too long. We hope that when you are ready to buy Steamboat Springs real estate, that you will give us an opportunity to assist.
Incidentally, we strive to have the most educated real estate buyers in the market. Toward this end, we conduct extensive research and compile a great amount of data to provide to our clients. Some of our findings from the 2008 market are now posted on this site in the “Market Trends” section under the “Buyer’s Toolbox” link found above. Please feel free to visit that page and see what is happening.
Ever wonder what the most popular Steamboat Springs condominium size in our market is to buy? What’s the most likely price of a 5 to 10 acre piece of Steamboat Springs land parcel? Does that single family home have much upside in the Steamboat Springs real estate market? Well, the median price of a home within Steamboat Springs last year was $1,100,000. But how much did homes appreciate from last year? You’ll see answers to these and others by either visiting the Market Trends page or contacting us for more specific information.
Please keep in mind, however, this public site is only a fraction of what we can personally share. If you have a particular property type you are looking for, let us know, and I’m sure we can shed more light on what is happening within that micro market.
Give us a call today!
Posted in Exclusive Buyer Agency & Consumer Protection, Market Trends, Quarterly & Annual Reports | No Comments »
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Buyer's Resource of Steamboat
56 Ninth Street Steamboat Springs, CO 80487
Phone: (970) 870-8885
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