Blog - Mike Gebhardt, Broker Associate

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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 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 […]

Hey! Read this Waiting until spring may be comfortable. It may not be optimal. Most people think selling a home is simply a question of when to list. It isn’t. It is a question of strategy: data, timing, motivation, and positioning. That is where the outcome changes. Right now, inventory is low, and it is likely to become even tighter as we move through winter. That creates a window […]

Hey! Read this What “just showed a house” actually looked like this week. Quick story from this week. Showed a condo already priced 20-30K under the five other identical available units in the same development. Same floor plan, same building, same everything; just a better number already. Yes, it was a little dinged up and had no staging. Buyer says, ‘let’s do it’. A lot of agents just […]

Hey! Read this More about private listings and the big portals I’ve been writing about private listings for a couple months now. Not because I have a vendetta, but because I think the question matters: Is this strategy protecting you, or protecting the guy selling it to you. Turns out I’m not the only one asking. A United States Senator just sent a letter to the […]

Hey! Read this The headlines say “slowdown.” The inventory data says something else Every August, the same headline runs: rates are high, the market’s softening, buyers should wait. This week ICE (btw, not THAT ICE, but the financial “ICE” stands for the Intercontinental Exchange (founded in May 2000 in Atlanta, Georgia), which operates global commodity and financial marketplaces) dropped its Mortgage Monitor. The topline: annual home price growth […]

Hey! Read this Why get pre-approved 6 months out? Fair question. Here’s the honest answer. Preapproval isn’t about being ready to buy tomorrow. It’s about knowing your real number before you fall in love with a house you can’t afford, or even worse, one you can afford and didn’t realize it. Vet the lender now. Here’s what that 15 minute conversation with a lender […]

Hey! Read this Another one on inventory dropping into winter We won’t have July data for a few days, but June data is… Boulder County active listings came in at 1,485 for June; down 12.7% from a year ago. Months of supply: 4.1, down 14.6% year over year. Read that twice please. Inventory is already tighter than it was last year, and it hasn’t even […]

Hey! Read this 120 years, short DOM, and how to get there. A lot of agents can put a home on the market. That’s the easy part. The real work is knowing how to prepare it, position it, and launch it in a way that creates real attention instead of just another address floating around online. I’m not interested in rushing a property out half baked with […]

Hey! Read this Private listings aren’t the problem. Bad strategy is. I’ve written about this recently because I think private listings are worth talking about honestly. My position is simple: private listings are not automatically bad. In the right situation, they can be the right move for the right seller. They can protect privacy, reduce unnecessary exposure, create a more controlled launch, and give a seller […]

Hey! Read this Why “saving” on commission usually costs you more Everybody loves to bitch about 3%, 6%, or whatever the fee to list your home is, but very few people actually understand what goes into getting a deal done. People see the closing statement. They see the commission line. They see the photos. They see the sign in the yard. What they don’t see is […]

Hey! Read this Still waiting for a better BOCO market A lot of Boulder County homeowners are still sitting on the sidelines telling themselves they are waiting for a better market. The reality is that the data says that window is already here for sellers who take this seriously and treat it like a business decision instead of a casual experiment. New detached listings in […]

Hey! Read this Does it still fit, or are you making it fit? I’ve been thinking a lot more metaphysically in my advancing (ahem) years. And that’s led me to a question most people don’t ask often enough: Is the way we live actually working? Not just, “Can we afford it?” Not just, “Do we like the house?” Not just, “Is the payment okay?” I mean the deeper […]

Hey! Read this The $15,000 decision your mortgage calculator never shows you Most online mortgage calculators aren’t lying to you, they’re just not telling you what you don’t know to ask. They give you one static payment at a “national average” rate and ignore the tools that real lenders and agents use every day to change both your monthly payment and your long term cost of owning […]

Hey! Read this DOM, Condition And Whether Your Agent Actually Gets It Last week I sent a note about the Compass/Anywhere merger drama, private listings, and who really benefits when inventory gets kept in‑house. If you missed it, here’s the link That was the big picture. This is the zoom in: how days on market and condition actually behave in our Boulder and Front Range market right […]

Hey! Read this Compass, Anywhere, private listings, DOM, and what actually protects you If you’ve glanced at real estate headlines lately, you might have seen the drama: big brokerage mergers, “private exclusive” networks, portal fights, MLS rule changes, and government antitrust noise. Everyone is suddenly a consumer advocate; at least that’s how the press releases read. Here is the uncomfortable truth: a lot of these battles seem to […]