Blog - Mike Gebhardt, Broker Associate

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Fewer than 1 in 3 Boulder listings sold in September

Here’s what happened in Boulder County last month, in September. About 2,100 homes were on the market. About 640 closed or went under contract. To sell, your home had to be in the top third of what was for sale. The other two thirds sat, cut price, or quit. 240 of them expired. Those sellers […]
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Your rent has a 0% return

Everybody tells me buying is too expensive right now. They’re not wrong. Affordability is a real challenge. But renting is expensive too, and almost nobody does that math. Pay $2,000 a month in rent and that’s $24,000 a year. Five years, $120,000. Equity built: zero. And that rent usually goes up every year. With a […]
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16 days or 41 days. It depends on your price.

You’ve seen the headlines: homes sitting longer, the market cooling off. That’s the national story. Boulder is telling a different one. Nationally, homes going under contract fell 8.5% from last year in September, the biggest drop in three years. Only 3 of the 50 largest metros didn’t decline. In the face of that, Boulder is […]
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Your 3% has a rival – What’s your life rate?

To be fair, I stole the life rate thing from Tom Ferry and JJ Mazo. A lot of people tell me they can’t move because they’d lose their 3% rate. I understand. That’s reasonable. That rate was a good move. So let’s look at what it’s really worth. The math is easy. Say you owe […]

Hey! Read this Fewer than 1 in 3 Boulder listings sold in September Here’s what happened in Boulder County last month, in September. About 2,100 homes were on the market. About 640 closed or went under contract. To sell, your home had to be in the top third of what was for sale. The other two thirds sat, cut price, or quit. 240 of them expired. Those sellers […]

Hey! Read this Your rent has a 0% return Everybody tells me buying is too expensive right now. They’re not wrong. Affordability is a real challenge. But renting is expensive too, and almost nobody does that math. Pay $2,000 a month in rent and that’s $24,000 a year. Five years, $120,000. Equity built: zero. And that rent usually goes up every year. With a […]

Hey! Read this 16 days or 41 days. It depends on your price. You’ve seen the headlines: homes sitting longer, the market cooling off. That’s the national story. Boulder is telling a different one. Nationally, homes going under contract fell 8.5% from last year in September, the biggest drop in three years. Only 3 of the 50 largest metros didn’t decline. In the face of that, Boulder is […]

Hey! Read this Your 3% has a rival – What’s your life rate? To be fair, I stole the life rate thing from Tom Ferry and JJ Mazo. A lot of people tell me they can’t move because they’d lose their 3% rate. I understand. That’s reasonable. That rate was a good move. So let’s look at what it’s really worth. The math is easy. Say you owe […]

Hey! Read this Erie vs. Brighton: same buyers, different builders Two weeks ago I showed you how a builder’s rate buydown can make your $600,000 house compete like a $525,000 house. Buyers shop the payment, not the price. This week, there’s new data on where that pressure lands hardest. It’s right here. Same buyers. Different builders. Different outcome. A new study of more than 201,000 […]

Hey! Read this September stats are in Mortgage rates jumped to 7.28% this week, up from 7.03%. Yes, this is a huge move up. That’s the biggest one week jump since October 2022 and the highest level since November 2023. Mortgage applications have now fallen four weeks in a row. Nationally, agents are reporting that showings have dried up. That’s the headline. […]

Hey! Read this Your phone is not your agent A lot of buyers I talk to have the same search routine. Saved filters on Zillow, notifications on, and a quiet belief that when the right house shows up, they’ll see it first. They won’t. Right now I’m working on bringing to market a unique home with all the bells and whistles in an in […]

Hey! Read this The update no one asked for A couple weeks ago, I told you about the deal that was bleeding in real time. Read here Mark had lost his father, moved home to care for his special needs brother, fallen behind on the mortgage, and was trying to sell before the situation got worse. The buyer was stretched too. They were selling […]

Hey! Read this Your listing isn’t competing on price When you scroll Zillow, you see prices. When a buyer sits down with a lender, they see one number: the monthly payment. That’s the number that decides which house they buy. Builders figured this out. Here’s what they’re doing, and what it means whether you own an existing home or you’re thinking about buying new. […]

Hey! Read this Buy the house. Rent the dirt. An email hit my inbox this week telling me a home in Denver now qualifies for a program that could cut a buyer’s initial monthly payment by an estimated $1,195. https://www.estately.com/ That got my attention. It should get yours too, just for different reasons. How it works · A company buys the land under the […]

Hey! Read this What one week on the market actually costs a seller A lot of market reports hand you a median price and call it a day. That number does not really provide anything pertinent and it doesn’t get a buyer off the fence. Jerad Larkin at Chicago Title of Colorado ran the numbers that actually matter this month: what waiting costs, in dollars, week by week, […]

Hey! Read this Open houses are a waste of your Saturday Here’s an unpopular opinion for a Saturday morning. Open houses do not exist for you. They exist for the listing agent, who gets a room full of strangers to prospect for future clients. You are the product, not the customer. Think about what actually happens when you “just stop by” a few open houses this […]

Hey! Read this 5% “Risk Free” Sounds Good, Until You Do the Math The 10-year Treasury just hit 4.991%. The 30-year hit 5.361%. Both are multi-decade highs, the 10 year hasn’t been here since 2007, the 30 year since 2004. And this is big news, no doubt. If you’re sitting on cash or a maturing CD, that yield looks like the safe move to park some cash. […]

Hey! Read this Sell in winter; WIN A lot of agents feed you the same surface level advice: “List in the spring, wait for more buyers.” Let’s talk about what really gives you the edge, why you’ll cash in while your neighbors wait and watch. Now I understand, my brethren in the industry work hard all year. And I know some agents […]

Hey! Read this Radon 101: What Every Colorado Homeowner Should Know ——————————————————– Edit: To you dear reader, I start with apologizing for mailing this one in. Radon? Really, Mike? That’s what you have? I almost fell asleep writing it; please don’t feel bad giving this one a pass. They can’t all be triples in the gap. Sorry, it’s been a busy week and I’ll get back […]

Hey! Read this The real reason sellers fire their agent Quick one this week. I came across an article of why clients give one star reviews for real estate agents. Not opinions, actual verbatim complaints from sellers after their listing ended. I expected price or marketing to be the theme. It was not. Almost every single one said some version of the same thing: “I […]

Hey! Read this The pre approval most buyers get is already too late Most people get pre approved the week they start touring homes. That sequence is wrong, and it costs buyers more than they realize. A pre approval done at the wrong time is just a snapshot. When you get pre approved the moment you start looking, you’re getting a number based on your credit and debt […]

Hey! Read this I just signed up for Homebot for all my clients, and I offer it to you Dear %Salutation%: Here’s what Homebot can do for you. If you want it, I’ll get you set up on it too. It scrapes your mortgage data and your public county records and spits out a monthly number: -what your house is worth -what you’d net if you sold -how your equity moved, and what it’s […]

Hey! Read this The File Nobody Sends You an Invoice For Everyone loves to talk about the Broker commission. Big number, easy target, feels good to say out loud. “These guys make too much money to only open doors.” Nobody talks about the file that’s costing us money right now, today, with no guarantee we’ll ever close and recoup the upfront costs. Here’s the deal. Names […]

Hey! Read this Buyers waiting on rates. Sellers waiting on spring. Same mistake. “Buy now, refi later” isn’t the only bad plan built on a rate drop that isn’t coming, or may not be. “List in spring, when all the buyers are out” is the seller side version of the same bet. First level. What’s actually happening Urban Institute tracks what they call the “refinanceable zone”; mortgages where […]