Blog - Mike Gebhardt, Broker Associate

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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 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 […]

Hey! Read this 10 Quotes About Life, Home, and Getting On With It A few lines from a great American on timing, honesty, family, action, and building a life. Let’s look at some quotes from a great American. A guy who had a gift for saying what people were already thinking, but cleaner, sharper, and with a little bite. These were not written about real estate. But they […]

Hey! Read this How we really market your home (not just post it) I want to show you what my team is actually doing when we market a home, and why it’s different from the “pretty agent” stuff you see online. First level: what a lot of agents do Put your home on the MLS. Post a few nice photos on Instagram. Maybe record a polished video about […]

Hey! Read this Are you paying someone to negotiate against you? Why? Every time a For Sale By Owner hits my radar, I hear some version of the same line: “We’re open to paying a buyer’s agent.” Mike, if you bring us a buyer, we’ll pay you.” On the surface, that sounds smart: “Hey Mike, bring the buyer, we’ll save on listing commission, and everyone wins.” But […]

Hey! Read this Likes, follows and saves. But no offers I want to walk you through a real story from right here in Boulder, because if you’re a homeowner, this is exactly the kind of situation that’d be helpful before you ever go on the market. I met with the owners of a luxury home in late December after their property had already expired in […]

Hey! Read this 37%? oh dear. I was looking at two reports last week that, taken together, explain why so many people feel stuck around buying right now. One is about pricing: There are now 242 cities in the U.S. where “starter homes” are over $1M. That number was 80 just a few years ago. The other is about trust: 63% […]

Hey! Read this Rethinking the HECM: From “Last Resort” to Smart Planning Tool When most people hear “reverse mortgage,” their guard goes up. They’ve heard stories, they assume the bank ends up owning the home, or they think it’s only for people in financial trouble. That reaction is normal-and honestly, it comes from old information and half‑truths, not how today’s FHA‑insured HECM actually works. I want to give […]