Being a Mentor, Days 4 & 5

My mentee and I finished out last week with two more busy days. Here's what they looked like.

Day 4 of Mentoring
We started out the day having coffee with one of the lenders. He & I had planned to meet the previous Friday & it hadn’t turned out. It was great to have my mentee meet another lender. The more people she meets as she goes along, the better. If a buyer is already working with a certain lender, it is easier for the real estate agent if they have met in person. If the buyer doesn’t have a lender yet, it is easier for the real estate agent to create for the buyer a list of possible lenders he or she has met if the buyer wants it.

In the afternoon, we showed property in Orchard Mesa & Glade Park. Properties that are more rural can have wells and septic systems. Also we were lucky because the properties we saw had views of the surrounding cliffs and mesas. Glade Park is actually above the Colorado National Monument. Here’s a link to the CNM webcam. http://www.nps.gov/colm/photosmultimedia/webcams.htm You can imagine the views!

Day 5 of Mentoring

Here's what a buyer packet looks like.

I had floor scheduled for 9-11 this morning. When Bray is open, we have someone always available to answer questions about Bray properties. We also answer general questions about buying & selling homes. We can help people if they call or come in, & they want to get started in the process of buying a home or selling their current one. My mentee came in & shadowed me for that. I created a packet in case a buyer came in.

I ended up getting a call from someone who wanted to sell their house. I will be going over there later this week to see everything. This has basically finished our first week together. It was a good week. My mentee is scheduling her calendar & learning lots. So ... I told her to take tomorrow off from real estate & get her family life caught up.

Being a Mentor, Days 2 & 3

Last week my mentee and I kept busy with a variety of set-up, orientation, and mentoring activities. Here's a brief description of what our days looked like.

Day 2 of Mentoring
My mentee got a tour of the office. She also got her phone extension and did more paperwork for the office. We looked at a Comparative Market Analysis that I am working on for a listing. While we were doing that in Navica, we also looked at property information. I've talked about Navica here before, and how to understand Navica MLS listings. At the end of the day, she attended a Bray Productivity Meeting about Money Management and Profitability. The productivity meetings are run by a Bray agent & offered to Bray agents on most Wednesday afternoons.

Day 3 of Mentoring
At the beginning of the day, she attended a Bray Contracts Class about Listing Contracts. The contracts class is run by a Bray agent & offered to Bray agents on most Thursday mornings. I like to attend those classes when I can, but I attended a GJARA board MLS committee meeting. I am currently a non-voting member, & I hope to be a voting member on that committee soon. You may remember that GJARA is the Grand Junction Area Realtors Association.

Later in the morning, my mentee spent time at the front desk, learning to use the phone there & seeing what it was like at the front. Agents call to set showing appointments on Bray property. People walk in to meet with Bray agents or if they have questions. If they are not working with any agent yet, they are helped by the floor person. It can get busy at the front desk! Mentee had lunch with one of the lenders. In the afternoon, she & I went to get office supplies together.

Being a Mentor, Day 1

Yesterday, after 2 1/2 years at Bray, I became a mentor. I remember when I first started at Bray & I was a mentee. Before I became a broker, when I was still taking my online real estate class, I knew I would have a mentor to guide me. And then after I got my license I joined Bray Real Estate. That's how I met Vonnie Folkers, who mentored me.

Now I am a mentor for a new broker. Tuesday was the first day of our six-month agreement to be mentor & mentee. I don’t know her very well yet — I just met her on Friday — but I know enough to know that we have a good mentoring relationship. So… we had the Tuesday morning marketing meeting where she was introduced & it was announced that I was her mentor. Then we went on the bus for the regular Tuesday morning “new listings” tour. Yesterday we were scheduled for Fruita & Loma. It was a long tour, but we were able to look at properties together. I told her that she didn’t need to have any opinion about housing prices yet. However, she could mention what she liked & didn’t like about the property.

In the middle of the afternoon, we went on a showing appointment. We showed a couple three properties & she was able to see how that went. After we got back we signed the six-month mentoring agreement. When the agreement was signed, I showed her how to make copies with our downstairs copy machine. Around the activities that we did together, she also got her computer & phone hooked up, met with Robert Bray (Bray’s broker), went to Grand Junction Area Realtors Association, & did plenty of paperwork.

The Accredited Buyer Representative logo.

I ended up going to the Mesa County Women’s Network luncheon, took care of several phone calls & emails to clients, and got the news that I am now an Accredited Buyer Representative. Hooray. Not bad for a Tuesday that was the first day of the work week.

New Month, New Deals

Right now I have 2 deals under contract. The buyers & I are hoping that both of these deals will close by the end of June.

The first deal is a bank-owned property. The property is a foreclosure. The original owners lost the house. Instead of giving the house back to Fannie Mae, HUD, Ginnie Mae, Freddie Mac, or another financial governmental agency, the bank decided to sell the house itself. The bank put it on the market with a listing agent. The buyer made an offer & the bank wanted proof of the buyer’s ability to purchase before the bank would agree to the sale. The buyer provided a letter of financial ability. Right now, the buyer has had the inspection & done everything needed. We are just waiting for the bank to do the paperwork so the title can be given to the buyer at closing.

The second deal is a buyer buying the property & a seller selling the property. These properties are easier to buy because the owner has lived in the house. Inspections are easier because the utilities are already on & working. Also if the seller is interested in selling the property, they will work with the buyer about inspection issues. As of today the buyer has done the inspection & the buyer & seller are negotiating on property issues. The property still needs an appraisal before the lender will give final approval for the loan. Once that is done, hopefully we will have a closing.

Deals Closed

So I have now closed on all 3 of my previous deals. That means that the buyers now own the houses & they are able to move in.

My first deal was the HUD property that needed a 203(K) loan to fix plumbing & other issues. Although originally we were given 60 days from contract to closing, we had to request two 15-day extensions to keep the contract alive. The extensions were because the lender needed more information about the property before approving the loan. Once all the information was provided, the loan was approved & we were able to close.

The second deal was the short sale with 2 lien holders. The second lien holder actually agreed to the sale only days before the house was going into foreclosure. The buyer, seller, first lien holder & the buyer’s lender were in agreement & were ready to go. As soon as the second lien holder agreed, a closing date and time were set. Everyone wired funds to the closing company, signed papers, & overnighted paperwork. It was a great closing because everyone was so happy that we were able to get it done before the house went into foreclosure.

The third deal was easy once Fannie Mae got the title. This house had been on the market as a short sale. The lien holder wouldn’t agree on the selling price set by the buyer and seller, so the house went into foreclosure. The bank gave the house back to Fannie Mae, who had insured it originally as an FHA loan. Fannie Mae put it back on the market with a listing agent. The buyer offered to buy & Fannie Mae agreed to sell. The buyer had done the inspection & the buyer’s lender had done the appraisal. The loan was approved. Once the bank signed over the title & it was recorded, Fannie Mae & the buyer closed on the property.

It is great to think of homeowners in all 3 of these houses!

Deals Moving Slowly

I have buyers under contract. Two got under contract in February and one got under contract in March. None of them will be closing in April. ("Under contract" is when the buyer and seller have accepted each others' offers, counteroffers, and terms of the contract.  A "closing" is when the buyer and seller get together and sign lots of paperwork. At the end of the closing, the title of the property has been transferred from the seller to the buyer.)

None of these deals are simple. One is a HUD property that needs a 203K loan to fix the plumbing and other parts of the house. These deals can take 60-90 days. One is a short sale property with 2 lien holders that need to decide how much money is acceptable for each lien holder to lose. These deals can stretch until the buyer gives up or the property goes into foreclosure. One is a property that  Fannie Mae put on the market for sale, but doesn't officially have the title yet. These deals are dependent on who actually has the title to the property.

These 3 are good examples of the real estate market these days. When there is a simple transaction between a seller and buyer, and the house has been occupied (so that you know the utilities all work), and the seller has the title, and the buyer is paying cash or can get a good loan, the time from being under contract to closing can have a length of 3-6 weeks. When there is a complicated transaction between a seller and buyer, and the house may or may not have been winterized properly (so that you don't know if the utilities work), or a bank or the government has title to the property, or the buyer has more and more papers and tasks to provide before getting loan approval, the time from being under contract to closing can stretch out for several months.

I'm hoping that all 3 of these deals go through to closings because these people want these properties and want to make them good owner-occupied homes.

Working with Buyers versus Working with Sellers

Usually I have been working with buyers & helping them find a new home. The past 2 weeks I have been working more with sellers. The goals are very different. Buyers are happy about getting something new. Sellers are worried about getting enough value.

Why Do I Leave a Card at the House When I See a Property

Okay, I give up. I have tried to block time to write page-length relevant articles & I haven't made it work. Today I exercised, did dishes, got my hair done, showed 1 property, helped 5 colleagues at Bray with some technical stuff, made phone calls, & wrote a CMA (comparative market analysis) on a property I'm going to do a listing presentation on tomorrow. So I'm beginning to understand that blocks of time that go to thoughts involving my career sometimes go for client work first.

So, rather than just wimping out, I've decided that I need to write paragraph-length relevant articles. Someone once asked me, after I had shown him at least 15 properties, why I left a business card at each house.

I have a business card. Most realtors have business cards. We give them to people; we include them in hand-written notes; we include them with presentations. When we show a property to a potential buyer, we leave a business card in a prominent place. Sometimes it's on the kitchen counter or the dining room table. We do this as a courtesy to let the seller & the seller's agent know that we stopped by. The seller doesn't have to wonder if we are running late & we are still coming. The seller also knows who is responsible if something is "different" when they come back. The seller's agent knows that, since we have shown the property, he or she can find out what the buyer thought.

Sometimes, when a house is vacant, there will be lots of business cards on the kitchen counter. Like a dozen. Then it is interesting for the buyer's agent to see who has shown the property. Or how many people have looked at the property. Although seller's agents try to pick up cards & check vacant properties weekly, that isn't always possible. So a dozen cards in a week may be a lot, but a dozen cards over 3 months is not a lot.

To summarize: I put out a business card when I show a property to a buyer to let the seller & seller's agent know that I really came into the house & showed the property, & when the seller comes back to the house, I'm done. I also put out a business card to let other realtors know that I have shown this property to a potential buyer. And I notice whose cards are there.

Thanks for reading this. Let me know if you have questions I can answer about real estate in Grand Junction or in general.

What Are Showings?

When a buyer wants to see a property, the buyer’s agent makes an appointment with the seller’s agent. This is done by calling the agent’s company or the agent himself or herself and asking for a “showing” appointment. When I first started at Bray Real Estate, I would hear “showing appointment” on the overhead system & I wondered what that meant. At Bray there are people who set showing appointments for Bray properties & they answer the phone for showings. They talk to the buyer’s agent & find out what time the buyer would like to see the property. They also let the buyer’s agent know if there are specific instructions about when & how to get into the house.

To back up a little bit, when I am working with a seller, someone who wants to sell their property, I gather lots of information from them. One item we need to discuss is how people will make an appointment to look at the property. After all, you have to see the property first to know if you like it enough to buy it. Will the owner need to be there to open the door for the buyer & then leave? Will there be a lockbox on the door with a door key inside? Will there be a combination lock, letters or numbers, on the door with a door key inside? Will there be a special set of keys, like HUD keys, needed to get inside? Once we’ve decided about how to enter the property, we need to think about how much notice should be given & when is a good time. Does the homeowner need time, such as 2-hours notice, to get pets out of the house? Does the homeowner need time to tidy up before someone comes in? If there are tenants in the house, they legally get 24 hours notice before someone can enter, but sometimes tenants will let showings be scheduled with less notice. Are there times that are “off-limits,” such as a day sleeper allowing showings only after 4:00 PM? Are there religious times that the family does not want to be away from the house, such as Sabbath dinners? How will the seller be contacted? Can a message be left on a cell phone? Does the showing desk have to actually talk with the seller & get an okay for the showing appointment to happen? All these considerations are worked out when the property goes on sale, so that showing desk people know how to make the best appointments.

Let’s say that I have a buyer who wants to look at houses with 3 bedrooms, 2 full baths, 1500 square feet, 2-car garage, and a one-quarter acre yard. The house addresses could have come from a list that I sent to the buyer from which the buyer has now chosen several properties. The list could come from a sample of different types that I put together to give the buyer an idea of what’s available, such as 1-story or 2-story, stucco or brick, older or newer. The list could be all the houses available in a specific price range and/or neighborhood or school area.

For the first appointment, I call the agency’s main number & I get transferred to someone who looks at the showing information that the seller put down. This turns out to be a house with small children & they need some time to tidy up. They are in luck because I am scheduling this showing appointment for tomorrow at 10:00 am. Also this house has a lockbox that I can use my keypad on. The seller has time to clean up & think of somewhere fun to go with the children tomorrow morning while I show the house to a potential buyer. Maybe the children will go the Mesa County Public Library.

This buyer is taking time from work or other activities to see these houses. I want the time to be well-spent for the buyer, so we actually schedule several showings from 10:00 to Noon. I will probably schedule 3 from 10-11:00 am, 3 from 10:30-11:30 am, & 2 from 11:00-Noon. I will also schedule them in a continuous path from House A to House B to House C, etc., based on how they are on the map. With the time overlap, the buyer doesn’t have to wait to see any houses & can move right along. With only 1 hour time slots, it is less inconvenient for the seller to be gone from their property.

I email the buyer the house order & the map. When I meet the buyer the next morning at 10:00 am at the first house on the list, I give him or her a clipboard with a photo & short description of the property from the Navica system & a pen to write down their impressions. This is for their use, not mine, because things can get forgotten. Then as we see each house, it goes on one of 3 lists: “yes,” “maybe,” or “no.” The buyer is only deciding whether or not to see the house again, not whether or not to buy. Sometimes as we go along, a “yes” becomes a “maybe,” a “maybe” becomes a “no.” After the buyer is done seeing the houses & has time to make decisions, the buyer sends me a shorter list for houses that deserve a second showing & a longer time spent at the property.

Sometimes there is no shorter list & the buyer chooses to have a new list in a different area. Sometimes new properties become available because they are new to the market or there has been a price drop. Sometimes previously viewed houses are combined with unseen houses on a list. Each time there is a house to be seen, a showing appointment is made. Then the buyer chooses houses for a very small list, maybe only 1 or 2, for a third showing. Eventually after enough showings, the buyer chooses the property he or she wants to buy.

Some Definitions of Listing Details

When I send my buyers a list of properties from the Navica MLS system, they see lots of information about the property. If it is about a house, here is some of the information that will be shown:

# BEDROOMS: How many bedrooms total are in the house. Bedrooms must have a closet, an escapable window, & a proper ingress & egress (a way in and a way out). Bedrooms must also be shown to be conforming or non-conforming in the “room size” area. Besides missing a closet or not meeting building codes for ingress/egress, non-conforming bedrooms are those in which someone could not escape from in case of a fire. They usually have no windows, windows that are too small, or windows that are too high up the wall for children to escape from.

# BATHROOMS: How many bathrooms total in the house. Each plumbing fixture counts as a ¼ in a bathroom. If it has a sink and toilet, it is a “half-bath.” If it has a sink, toilet, and shower, it is a “three-quarters bath.” If it has a sink, toilet, shower, & bathtub, it is a “full-bath.” If a bathroom is a full bathroom and has 2 sinks, it is actually called a “5-piece bathroom suite” instead of 1 ¼ bathroom.

GARAGE TYPE and GARAGE CAPACITY: A garage can be attached, detached, a basement garage, carport, parking spaces, or none. The capacity is based on how many vehicles can be parked in that garage. Sometimes people fill in garage dimensions if a garage is extra deep or extra tall for oversized vehicles.

YEAR BUILT and/or YEAR REMODELED: “Year Built” should be the date of the original building permit. If the house was remodeled, there should be appropriate building permits for that. A house can be updated without being remodeled if minor changes are made, such as new paint, appliances, flooring, etc.

AREA and/or SUBDIVISION: A house has a mailing address and/or street address which may tell you something about its location. When I search for property for someone, I don’t search for a specific address because it would take too long to check if every property was listed for sale. However, I can search by area in the MLS system or I can be more specific and search within a certain subdivision. Usually there are boundaries to the specific areas and you can find them at the Grand Junction Area Realtors Association map.

ELEMENTARY, MIDDLE, or HIGH School: If a buyer has children in the District 51 school system, they may want their children to stay in the same school as their current one. I can search by a specific school. They may also request a search within several elementary schools that are near to each other or a specific school that they feel is a better match for their children. You can find out which school your child will attend by going to the School District 51 schoolboundary website.

FRONTS: The front side of the house faces this direction. It can north, south, east, or west, or diagonal. Some people have preferences for houses to face south so the snow will melt off the driveway. Some people want the house to face west so they have a shady backyard in the evenings.PARCEL #: The parcel number mentioned at the Mesa County Assessor’s Office.

SELLER NAME: This must be the seller’s actual last name, not just the owner, so the person/s who legally own/s the property. Sometimes it just says "Owner" so the seller has some privacy.

SELLER LICENSED: If the seller is a real estate broker, he or she may have an unfair advantage when selling the property, so they must disclose to the potential buyer that they have a license to work in real estate.

TERMS: How the property can be purchased, such as with cash, a conventional loan, or an FHA or VA loan. Some properties that have been foreclosed are in such bad shape that they can only be purchased with cash. Also sometimes an owner will provide the financing to make it easier to buy the house, so it will say “owner carry.”

EM DEP and EM HOLDER: How much is required by the seller to show that a buyer is serious about purchasing the property. It is usually around 1 percent. The earnest money holder is the person who holds the deposit between making the office to buy and the closing. At the closing, the buyer’s earnest money counts towards the amount the buyer brings to the closing table.

TITLE CO: The title company is the one who is going to issue the title insurance on the property when it is transferred to the new owner. The seller pays for the insurance so that a “good title” can be given to the new buyer.

That's it for now. Let me know if you have questions about other things you have found on a listing or advertisement for a home.

Multiple Listing Service numbers and letters

Hello everyone!! I know it has been a while since I’ve been here. Honestly I’ve been very busy & I have learned a tremendous amount. Today I would like to share with you about the Multiple Listing Service. When a property is being sold by a realtor, it is usually found on a MLS system. The initials stand for Multiple Listing Service. Real estate brokers who belong to the MLS agree to share property information and work together to connect buyers and sellers. They also agree to split a commission for selling the property in an agreed percentage.

Here in Grand Junction, as part of Grand Junction Area Realtors Association, known as GJARA & pronounced “gee-jar-a,” we realtors use the Navica Multi-Listing System. When it is posted on the MLS, each property has its own unique 6-digit number. There are also letters in front of each number and a letter at the end of the number. For example, a complete MLS# could look like this: RR123456A. If you see “RR” in front, it means that the property is a “single family residence.” The “A” after the number means that it is an “active” listing, available for sale. The letters in front of the number should also coordinate with the Mesa County tax assessor classification of how the property is primarily to be used.
 
Here are some other examples of letters in front of an MLS#:
RC—a single family condominium for sale
RT—a single famiy townhouse for sale
 
An “M” as the first letter means that it is multi-family property. There can be:
MD—a duplex, or a building that houses 2 separate families
MT—a triplex, or a building that houses 3 separate families
MF—a fourplex, or a building that houses 4 separate families
MA—an apartment that houses more than 4 separate families
MM—a manufactured home park that houses multiple families

An “L” as the first letter means that the property is just land or that the land is the most important part. There can be:
LC—Land zoned for commercial use rather than for families
LD—A lot zoned for a duplex or some kind of multiple-family building
LS—Property that is 0-9.99 acres & is zoned for housing just a single family
LR—Property that is recreational farm or ranch with over 10 acres

There are other letters that can be in front of the number, such as CB for commercial buildings, OA for agriculture, SR for single family rental, and EL for commercial lease.

Here is the list of what the letter at the end of the listing number means:
A—Active, as mentioned previously
M—Under contract-Contingent/Kickout—This means that the buyer may not be able to go through with the contract because of having to sell another property first or not being sure about getting financing
U—Under contract, planning on everything following through & closing on the property
S—Sold, which means there was a closing where the title to the property was transferred from the seller to the buyer
R—Rented or Leased, just as good as sold if this was the goal for the property
W—Withdrawn, usually by the seller, and if this occurs early, something came up to interrupt the selling process
X—Expired, happens when the property has been available for sale as long as the contract specified and it was not sold
D—Deleted, removed from the MLS system, which could have happened for any number of reasons

That's it for today. I plan to share more later. I hope you are doing fine.

News from My Week

This week I met with two title companies. I met with Land Title Guarantee Company and Fidelity National Title Company. Both companies are great and the people are awesome.

And on Friday, February 25th, Bray Real Estate had a luncheon to celebrate its 65th year. That was amazing. W.R. Bray, the son of Sherman and Roxie Bray, was there. His parents started Bray and Company in 1946. Robert, their grandson, presided over the 2010 Sales Achievement Awards, which were also a part of the luncheon.

I'm happy to be affiliated with Bray Real Estate. Our mission statement is: "To be the premier provider of comprehensive real estate services on the Western slope. Our success will be measured in the achievement of our customers' and clients' objectives, satisfaction and continued trust." Impressive, isn't it? It's great to be settling in at Bray.

Leases and When to Give Notice

My life has been very busy. Since getting my license. I have been meeting with Paul Zurek, the Bray Office Manager, and I have a mentor. She is Vonnie Folkers, a Colorado real estate broker at Bray Real Estate. She has been a big help in helping me see how things work "in the real world."

Moving on to our real estate talk, let's discuss leases in Colorado. A lease is an agreement between a landlord/owner/lessor (whatever word you want to use) and a tenant/renter/lessee (again, whatever word you want to use). Because of the statute of frauds, a lease for longer than one year has to be in writing to be effective. However, it's always best to get a written lease because the written paper reminds people what the arrangements are.

There are four kinds of leases. There is a lease called a "tenancy for years." It's a lease for a definite time period, which could be for 1 day, 6 weeks, 4 months, 1 year, or 50 years. Because it's clear when the lease ends, no one needs to "give notice" unless he/she wants to change the length of time.

Another kind of lease is called a "periodic tenancy." This is a lease that is for a time that constantly renews. If it's a weekly or monthly lease, it continues until either the landlord or tenant gives the other party notice that he/she doesn't want it to continue. For this change, it needs to be written notice and here are some guidelines according to Colorado statutes 13-40-107:
1 year, or longer, lease—3 months notice
6 months up to 1 year lease—1 month notice
1 month up to 6 months lease—10 days
1 week up to 1 month lease—3 days

There's also "tenancy at will," which is when a landlord and tenant have an informal arrangement that exists until one party isn't interested any more or some event takes place. For example, this could happen when a property is for sale and the agreement exists until it is sold. Only 3 days notice is needed in a tenancy at will. That isn't much notice, but often the people involved know what's going on before the official notice is needed. These are friendly leases.

Finally, there is also something called "tenancy at sufferance." This happens when the tenant stays after a lease has ended. The landlord can decide to renew the lease, accept rent and/or change the rental terms, or evict the tenant. For eviction, the landlord needs to give notice. Obviously the tenant wouldn't give an eviction notice.

Now we've talked about leases expiring and the tenant getting evicted. Two other ways to end a lease are "surrender and acceptance," which is when both the landlord and tenant agree to end the arrangement, and "breach of conditions," which is when either the landlord or the tenant agreed to do certain things and it just didn't happen. Depending on what happened, the wronged party may walk away from the lease.

If you need other information, there is information at the Colorado Division of Housing.

I Have an Official License & I'll Be Working with Bray Real Estate

I'm back with good news. I checked online at the Colorado Division of Real Estate, and this week I found my name actually listed as a genuine Colorado real estate broker.

Soon I'll get back to using this blog to share real estate information with you, but before that I have a little more good news: I've joined Bray Real Estate in Grand Junction, Colorado. AND I went on my first tour of homes today.

I promise to be back soon with another round of information and explanations.