Inner Circle on the Full Circle Podcast with The Christi Reece Group

REALTOR® Mike Tofel breaks down a variety of topics from buying and selling, to competing offers, and the things homeowners can do to make their home stand out from others, and more! 

The Full Circle Podcast - compelling interviews and incredible tales from Colorado's Western Slope.

The Christi Reece Group provides ReFreshing Real Estate services in Grand Junction, Fruita, Palisade and surrounding areas of Mesa County. Contact us at marketing@christireece.com, 970-589-7700, or visit us at our offices at 1601 Riverfront Dr, Suite 103 in Grand Junction, CO.

Transcript

Christi 0:05

The Full Circle Podcast. Compelling interviews and incredible tales from Colorado's Western Slope, from the mountains to the desert. Christy Reese and her team hear from the movers, shakers, and characters of the Grand Valley and surrounding mountain towns that make the Western Slope the place we all love. You'll learn, you'll laugh, you'll love with the Full Circle.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Full Circle Podcast. This is the Inner Circle, and I'm your host, Ian Skrine, where we sit down with experts who know this industry best and bring your clarity and expertise to your questions. I'm joined by a real estate expert himself, Mike Tolfel. Mike, thanks for being here. Thanks, Ian. Glad to be here. All right, so we this is our second segment now for uh this podcast, and really the idea is to answer our listeners' questions that come up with um real estate, the market, the process of buying and selling, um, and then just kind of giving some insight on kind of what your knowledge and expertise lies. Um so I've kind of got a breakout of questions here, so I figured we'd start with buying, just because everybody's got to start somewhere. So um if someone is up against a cash offer, um, what are the ways that they can compete um if they can't offer a cash offer?

SPEAKER_02 1:25

Well, yeah, not having a cash offer isn't the the end of the of the story. I mean, you can definitely win a multiple offer situation or a competitive situation just by having well, the agent is going to need to um they're gonna need to ask questions for the other agent and try to get as much information as they can to see how they can compete with a potential cash offer. So, for example, I mean uh having a strong local lender, I mean, we have quite a few strong local lenders in town, and um an experienced agent will know that a local lender's letter is almost as I mean, basically as good as cash. Um, knowing that you know, you are gonna have an appraisal, that's gonna be one of the the issues that you're gonna have to work through. Um but a a strong offer uh you know, depending on what the situation is for the um for the seller, I mean it might be timing. You wanna make sure that, you know, do they need a quick close? Are they okay with letting it, you know, hang on the market for a little while? Do they wanna, you know, just what the situation is with the seller, the more you can find out, the better. And a good agent is gonna be able to weed through those details and make your your your offer with a loan as good as cash, if not better.

SPEAKER_01 2:57

And like you mentioned, it really comes down to to kind of your seller's situation, you know, a loan, they may need that 30 to 45 days to find a replacement property or have time to move and and relocate. And so while the cash offer may be as enticing because it can be a quick close, it that quick close may not be what they're looking for necessarily be as as beneficial as giving them that 45 days, right?

SPEAKER_02 3:24

Exactly. Yeah, I mean if somebody needs some extra time to find a another house or they want to rent back, or uh, I mean, there's multiple options that might make it so that the the cash offer isn't ideal. I mean, people don't always want to close in 20 days, sometimes they need to pack up their stuff and they need a little bit of time and to find another house or or many other options. So um yeah, knowing those things, I mean you can find that out by contacting the agent and kind of seeing what is important to the seller. And once you find out what's important to the seller, then you can construct your offer and put yourself, put your buyer in the best situation.

SPEAKER_01 4:09

Right. And and what are you mentioned some of the ways to to kind of help make your your loan, the offer with a loan stand out. Um, you know, we've had kind of conversations here in the office, you know, waving um whether that isn't a an inspection or um, you know, talk about some of the various ways that someone can can help maybe make their offer better outside of um just having a strong loan offer and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_02 4:38

Yeah, well, you can number one, you can cover any appraisal gap because that's number one thing that you know a seller with a cash offer is gonna say, oh, well, I'm not worried about an appraisal. If you can have your buyer cover any gap and you can put that into your offer, then you know that's one less thing that they have to worry about.

SPEAKER_01 4:58

Meaning if the home you know appraises for 450 but they're listed at 460, there would be a $10,000 appraisal gap that the that the buyer would cover.

SPEAKER_02 5:09

Right. The buyer would bring that cash to closing. Right. So an aggressive offer, number one, would help. And then having that appraisal gap, you know, covering that 10, then they agree to pay for that if that were to be an issue. Um you know, also, yeah, inspection. You you mentioned inspection items. So, you know, you can you can just put in the in the offer that you will only uh object to anything with health and safety issues. You know, so if there's you know, like the the fire or the smoke alarms or you know, stuff like that, or the if there's a something that might create some some fire damage or asbestos, yeah, those kind of things, then you know, we can just basically narrow it down and and guarantee that you know we're not gonna nitpick on every little item that right you know might come up, you know, if it's loose toilet or loose toilet. That's always that always comes up. Every single inspection I get has a loose toilet. So if you're gonna list your house, make sure you're secure. Yeah, because that's gonna come up every time.

SPEAKER_01 6:18

Um so now when we look at uh new construction versus an exist existing home, we've got a lot of new development going on in the in the valley. Um what do what do you feel like buyers consistently underestimate uh when looking or comparing a new construction to an existing home?

SPEAKER_02 6:35

Yep. Well, this comes up quite a bit. And so you get this nice house that you don't have to do anything to. There's no updates, there's it's all in perfect condition. However, you do often need a fence and you also need to landscape. And the landscaping costs can be pretty expensive. That's right. Um, and and what we're finding now, a lot of the new builds, a lot of the builders are including landscaping and a fence because it's just too difficult to. I mean, our inventory is large enough to where if you're buying a new house, there's often a house that's already on the market that is equivalent and similar, yeah. Already has a fence, already has mature trees, already has the grass put in and the landscaping rock, and it's just it's tough to compete unless you unless you have all those things. It just, you know, when we were very competitive during the COVID years, uh, I mean, all the new houses, nobody put in landscaping, nobody put in a fence, but now that the market's been a little bit tighter, you're seeing a fence and landscaping already put in. So I mean it's it's a cost that people don't necessarily think about, but just something that you want to make sure is in place before you put an offer on a new house.

SPEAKER_01 7:53

And fencing and landscaping cost, throw out a rough number as to what somebody could possibly expect. I mean, we see a lot of Xeroscerscaping, so you know that is, I believe, an a cheaper uh route for landscaping versus you know grass and and bushes and stuff like that. But what what's a rough estimate if someone's looking to do landscaping and fence?

SPEAKER_02 8:16

Yeah, I would say even just a typical yard, less than a quarter acre, you know, a point five to a quarter acre. And if you're just doing rock and a couple of small shrubs, I mean 15 to 20. Right. Front and back, you know, right. If you're doing front and back, I mean that goes into 30. If you want anything more elaborate, you could be 30 plus. Yeah. And that's not uncommon. A fence, you know, $30 a square, you know, $30 a foot and uh probably up from there.

SPEAKER_01 8:49

So while the new construction home comes ready and you know, just right off hot off the press, if you want to say, yeah, there's a lot of outside things, you know, and also appliances too. Like a new home may not always include you know, I think a dishwasher and and uh you know microwave are standard, but fridge, yeah washer dryer.

SPEAKER_02 9:09

Same thing. Back in you know, a few years back, you know, you would see a new house that wouldn't have a fridge. Nowadays they all have a fridge. You know, washer and dryer, you're gonna have to put in your own washer and dryer. Right. Um blinds, a lot of times people don't think about blinds. Yeah, think about if how many windows you have. Blinds aren't cheap. If you have to put blinds on all the windows, I mean you're ten thousand plus, and depending on how big your house is, twenty thousand, thirty thousand. And if you want them have them electrical or if you want to have anything fancy.

SPEAKER_01 9:42

So you know, so then an existing home, you know, blinds may already be there, so they don't, you know, you don't have to worry about that. The sellers may be looking to to leave their washer and dryer, you know, maybe they're moving somewhere that they have one or they've got two or whatever the case may be. So an existing home, while it may have been you know lived in for some time, it may already still have some of the things that you would have to put up for for a new construction.

SPEAKER_02 10:07

Yeah. Yeah, no, it's it's you just gotta weigh the cost benefit analysis, what type of home, what price point are you at, what are the options, and then compare. And you know, that's something that an experienced realtor will be able to kind of show you the different costs and benefits of each. Right.

SPEAKER_01 10:27

Um, okay, so we get this quite a bit. Uh down payment. People kind of start to worry when they think about you know, needing to buy real estate, oh, I need to put so much down. How much should someone um you know we know that there's a lot of programs to help with the down payment, and you know, 20% is not necessarily what you need in order to be able to put down money for a house. But outside of that down payment, how much should someone have saved beyond that down payment before they start looking at if if buying a house is something that they can afford? You know, we talked about landscaping and appliances and window treatments and stuff. You know, those are things beyond the down payment that that someone may need when they move into a house.

SPEAKER_02 11:10

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you don't want to spend every last penny on your down payment and have nothing left because what happens with a house is it needs maintenance. Um stuff needs to be painted, stuff needs to be replaced. I just uh closed down a house, we had an inspection, everything looked great. Boiler came in, you know, with a good bill of health, and I just got a call from her yesterday, and she said the boiler uh went out, and um, you know, we have to have that replaced. I mean, that's five, six thousand dollars. I'm sure, you know, some people have five, six thousand dollars extra just laying around, some people don't. I would like to have all buyers have a cushion um, you know, just in case. And you're gonna have, especially if you have an older home or something that's not brand new, I mean, you're gonna have maintenance issues, landscaping is an ongoing thing. Um it's it's it's not free. You have to you have to keep maintaining your house or else you you pay for it either on the front end or the back end. If you try to sell it, if you don't maintain your house, you're gonna lose money um on the back end. Right.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

Um, you know, you uh we've hear a lot about with new homeowners, uh, you know, this kind of idea of a homeowner's maintenance fund, you know, putting aside, you know, five percent of your monthly income or whatever to to deal with home maintenance and and repairs and stuff. Is there any kind of advice or tip that you give your buyers as to kind of, you know, depending on the age of the house, obviously, but you know, hey, you guys should anticipate to put aside five thousand dollars a year or whatever the case may be for home maintenance, just to have a home maintenance fund to prepare for?

SPEAKER_02 12:54

Yeah, I mean, I think that's a good idea for a new, like a first-time home buyer. Um I would say most of the clients that I work with are, you know, have bought and sold quite a few houses and they know the deal. I mean, they know that they have to have some extra houses. And you can tell, I mean, and that's part of the reason why, you know, you can't just, you know, the lender won't just lend you, you know, however much money you think you want. Right. You know, they have equations and how much can you afford, and that that is gonna come into that equation. Is, you know, all right, well, you're gonna have to buy food and clothing and maintain your house. And if you don't have, if you, you know, spend your every penny on or spend too much on a house.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

Paycheck comes in and goes right back out.

SPEAKER_02 13:39

So then the next thing you know, you're calling me back and saying, Hey, I need to sell. I need to sell this thing. You know.

SPEAKER_01 13:46

Um, so great segue. Let's go into selling. Um so um, you know, I think it's uh pretty popular these days, and and pretty much anybody is in that situation unless you're a first-time home buyer. But um, needing to sell your current home and buying the next one. Um, how does one sell their current home and buy the next one without owning two houses or selling one entirely and then starting to buy another one and now you're not homeless, but you're without a home?

SPEAKER_02 14:15

This is a worry that comes up literally literally every day. Right. I mean, I have this question, you know, or trying to work through solutions for buyers and sellers on on both. Um, you know, so there are some options. I mean, you can like if I was selling a house and um I would and I needed to buy, I would you would want to first, if at all possible, sell your house so you have that that those finances so you could be in a put yourself in a good position uh when you're on the buy side. Trying to do, I mean, you can do a contingency. So you can, you know, say, hey, I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna sell my house, but I mean, I have to sell my house before I buy this next house. Right. And you put an offer in a house, and you're you're gonna have to offer more. Uh a buyer or a seller isn't gonna want to um accept your contingency, especially if it's not on the market. If your house is on the market, it's under contract, and your past inspection, I mean, that's that's the line that I usually draw. Like, okay, if I get an offer that has that, it's contingent, and their past inspection, that means I've got about two weeks, and the chances are pretty good we're getting to closing after because inspection is the number one thing that usually helps or usually uh falls falls apart, you know, a deal.

SPEAKER_01 15:42

So and contingencies can get kind of stressful, so to say, because if if you're a buyer and you've got a house to sell, and so you put in a contingent offer on that property, but they also have you know, they're trying to move, so they do a contingent offer. I mean, we've had that a couple times here in the office. Like there's a string of like four or six houses that are all in contingency, and when one domino falls, you know, they may not all fall, but it's more likely that they, you know, that they all fall. Oh, yeah. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 16:13

I mean, this just happened to me last week. We closed on a house that was three in line. It it went smooth. I don't know, I don't know how it happened, right? But I mean, typically something falls apart in that scenario when you have multiple houses contingent to all need to close on the same date. This one, I don't know, I would say we got we got lucky. I would say if you have a house that is contingent and then another house that's contingent to buy another house, you are asking for trouble. Um usually somewhere along the way, you know, there's some hiccups. I mean, usually can work it out. Um, but I would say that's not ideal.

SPEAKER_01 16:56

And so for someone who let's say they don't want to do a contingent offer, um but they don't want to sell, or let's say let's say they they do sell, they sell their current home, you know, short-term rental, Airbnb for you know a month and a half, two months. What I mean, those are options that we've that we've heard here.

SPEAKER_02 17:15

What are some of your other yeah yeah, I mean that is probably the second best option is to like I said, sell your house first, move into a rental. And a lot of times people don't want to, you know, move twice. Right. So you know, move into a rental. Um yeah, I mean it's you could also you know rent back your house so you can sell put it on the market, and then one of the contingencies of selling your house is that you have to find a replacement property. So you pay um you pay the buyer rent essentially until you find a replacement property, and usually you can do that for you know 60 days. Yeah. Um so it puts a little pressure on you. You have, you know, 60 days to find a house usually. Um but if you have a a good realtor and you have realistic expectations, that shouldn't be a much of a problem. In a plan. In a in a plan, yeah. If you have, you know, if you're looking for this a special property that comes up once a year, I mean you're gonna be you're gonna put yourself in a tough situation. Right. So you have to work through these details with your agent and try to figure out what the best solution is.

SPEAKER_01 18:35

Um so I think this question comes up quite a bit as well. Um you know, when we're when let's, you know, someone has has uh moved out of their home, they've gone, you know, to their next property, and so their current home is now vacant. Um they took the furniture with them. Uh a lot of times the c the question of staging comes up. Um how much does staging really move the needle, or does it tend to just kind of be an upsell sometimes?

SPEAKER_02 19:02

So it depends. But in that situation that you're in the scenario you're talking about where there's absolutely no furniture in the house, I I think staging is a very important aspect. I mean, walking into a completely vacant house that does not feel comfortable can definitely turn off buyers. And it's funny because I was in a situation, actually, just last night, I showed a house. It is, you could tell it was uh it was a single guy, it was a bachelor pad, and it, you know, I mean, it was sparsely furnished and it had lots of pipe stuff and skulls and uh motorcycle helmets and you know, I mean it was fine. If it was a a guy's house, it's looks terrific. But the people that were looking at it were a family when there was the mom and the daughter, and it was funny because they were outside and they said, Oh, if you're gonna rank this home, how would you rank it? And um the dad said nine and the daughter said three. Right. And I was like, Well, why why do you think three? Like, what's what's not uh appealing to you with this house? And she's it just doesn't feel yeah, it feels it doesn't feel comfortable, it doesn't feel um homey, it doesn't feel inviting. They can't picture their toys in that room or their bed there or whatever the case may be. Yeah, and that's what I that's how I explain it. It's like, well, look, with your stuff in here, it's gonna feel totally different. But if there was some staging in there and it did feel more homey, I mean it I think that's what helps sell the house. I mean, you want you want the buyer to feel like it's their house. You don't want them to feel like it's somebody else's house. Like so that's why people say, you know, don't put your family pictures on the wall. Don't try to make it as neutral as possible and as appealing to the as appealing to the most or to the majority of buyers as possible. Um yeah, I mean having a bachelor pad is cool, but if you're gonna sell your house, I would spend a little bit, get somebody in there, stage it, put a plant, put some, put some plants and uh and make it look it just it makes all the difference. Right.

SPEAKER_01 21:18

And and too, with vacant homes, you know, uh a picture, it's hard to tell, you know, dimensions of a room. Oh, will my sofa fit there? You know, so having some type of furniture what regardless of the size, it's like, okay, so that fits there. My couch is a little bigger than that, so we'll be okay. You know, something something that helps somebody say, okay, that's roughly what my furniture looks like. So this is what it would look like in this room, or you know, whatever the case may be.

SPEAKER_02 21:44

Yeah. Yeah, I think that's part of it. I think that's part of the reason why staging works so well is because then you can um oftentimes when you don't have furniture in there, it's really like you said, it's really hard to judge. And so people often say, Well, my couch is not going to fit in here, and then you go to the next house and it has a gigantic sectional inner room half the size. Right. And they're like, oh, this will be perfect. And like just like last night, that house didn't have a it didn't have a dining room table in the in the kitchen. Or it didn't have a breakfast nook table, I should say. And they just, you know, they just looked at it perplexed. You know, like what are we supposed to do with this? And I was like, like yeah, people well, and that's something that you don't really notice unless you show thousands of houses. I mean I've shown people thousands of houses. I've walked through and you just see this thing, you just see this happen over and over again where people are just like, oh I just they just it's really hard for I think a normal human to to imagine furniture and how their stuff's going to look in the house. It's really difficult.

SPEAKER_01 22:50

So in an instance where staging would not be ideal any instance that it would maybe hurt the sale of a home rather than than help them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:01

And I would say mostly a house that already has furniture if you can declutter as much as possible it doesn't help to it doesn't hurt to get a I mean the opinion of the realtor or opinion of a stager to see how you can maximize the space.

SPEAKER_01 23:29

Right. Staging may not mean coming in and clearing out all the furniture that's there and replacing it with new ones. It may be actually just taking some furniture that the person has to less make the room feel not so big or or not so crowded or you know to have a table that fits you know in that space because the family didn't have one or whatever the case may be or maybe it's putting curtains on a window just to add some extra dimension to the room. Like it doesn't have to be a full clean out you know starting fresh kind of ordeal.

SPEAKER_02 23:59

Yeah absolutely it doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to the main thing I'd say is clutter. If it's got overwhelming amount of stuff in it, I would say that's the number one thing or the number one issue that I see is that people like to collect stuff and they like trinkets and they like pictures and I would say if you can tone that stuff down and make it just what is the minimum amount of stuff that you can live with in your house while you're selling your house. And so staging like you said could be removing and I would say that's the number one thing is to remove most of the stuff. Right. And to depersonalize it.

SPEAKER_01 24:41

Yeah. All right let's uh kind of shift and head towards um open houses. Some agents do them some agents don't um some sellers are open to it others are not as an agent do you feel that open houses are worth it and do they mainly serve the agent or do they mainly serve the buyer or the seller or buyer?

SPEAKER_02 25:09

Yeah so good question. I think that's going to depend on the situation. A lot of you know I would say say you're talking about a luxury house. A lot of people don't love when people are just walking through their house especially if it's you know if it's a super beautiful house and you're going to get a lot of looky loss it just makes the seller feel very uncomfortable. You know it's just it's a tool that we use. You know I would say for a mid-range house where the seller is open like you know hey yeah we want we want to sell this house we want to get the most people looking at it as possible and they don't have any any hangups with you know people walking through their house. I think it's a really good tool. I think we've been finding um a lot of success with open houses lately especially if you strategize with kind of opening weekend a little strategy that I like to use is listing the house midweek advertising you know we'll advertise on social media and the newspaper I mean everywhere that we can put it out and make sure that as many people know about this hey this brand new house is coming up on the market and here's your chance to get a first look at it because you have the most leverage to sell your house in the beginning. Yeah first week. The first week when it's not many days on market. I mean you know if there are you know if the house is on the market for a hundred days and you know your your leverage is a lot less than if it's right away. So we try to front load all our marketing and everything that we can do to get people in the house to create that buzz. And ideally if we can create multiple offer situations. And I think that's where if you can get you know 10, 15, 20 people coming through on the weekend and they love the house and they're worried about somebody else getting it that's when we can find yourself in a multiple offer situation and get the most that you can for your your seller.

SPEAKER_01 27:13

Right. And in the instance where you do have a seller on a more expensive listing that is hesitant to opening their home you know there's broker showings or broker you know broker opens where only you know agents can go through and and preview the home for their for their buyers and there's some other techniques that that someone can do outside of just doing a a full blown open house right absolutely and I'm in a situation like that right now and one of the things that we do is uh we'll do an office exclusive and that helps a a lot of the sellers that there's like look I really I don't even want showings um but you know if someone in your office is ready uh and wants to come look at the house and I can bring them in there personally and it's less intrusive and they don't feel as overwhelmed I think and and I would say violated but you know where it's like okay well you know you have your buyers and we could try to sell this before we go on the market.

SPEAKER_02 28:11

Right. So that is one one option that you know we can get the word out and possibly avoid you know the intrusion of you know having a bunch of people random people walking through your house.

SPEAKER_01 28:26

Okay we're gonna shift and kind of talk about the market. And the market is kind of as a whole so not so much specifically um to us um in the Grand Valley but um when you well this one makes more sense for us but does it uh make sense to buy a rental property um here in in Grand Junction um or has that window closed? I think you know I definitely with Color May University being in town, you know there's a college setting there and so you know eight months out of the year you've got college people looking for housing. So what what's your take on the rental market here and and if it's worth it for someone to invest?

SPEAKER_02 29:10

Yeah I don't think it's closed but it's definitely gotten tighter um as far as the margins and if you're trying to you don't do that for a profit or if you're like okay well I just want to like for example I've had some situations where parents will buy a house for their kid the kid will live in the house go to school for four years and then they sell it and I mean I've had a few that have made quite a bit of profit. I still think that's a a great idea because you have you know multiple years of potential upside in the market to take advantage of when you sell and you're you know you're reducing the cost you know say you were going to have your kid stay in the in the dormitory or you know rent something and pay somebody else's mortgage so I mean I think there are especially near the the college and depending on what level of uh what level the house is actually in you know I mean you can get a real fixer upper and you know if you are you have the ability to do all the work yourself then it could be advantageous to do that if you're the type of person that needs to um hire out all the work. I mean hiring out the work for a fixer upper is gonna kill all the profit because the profit is quite slim right right now. So again it was it's gonna require figuring out what your situation is the location is going to be huge. You know is it just some random location in the Grand Valley or is it going to be like by the by the college or near the hospital or downtown I mean there are definitely some opportunities especially if you get in that kind of sweet spot downtown where I mean there's that that is never going to go out of style. I mean a house down there there's still some great opportunities for fixers and well and downtown's now offering the ADU options that's ADUs if you can put an ADU up on one of those lots and they're encouraging that I think there's some upside there as well so definitely some opportunity and just knowing knowing the market knowing the locations and where you can best take advantage of that.

SPEAKER_01 31:23

Right. So when someone's relocating from out of state um when you're talking with them what surprises them the most about our market um I feel like you know we've had a couple of of other videos that we've done where we talk about some of the changes that people experience we get a lot of front range movers you know people coming out from from Denver and obviously over there it's a lot more competitive your inventory is quadrupled if not more than what we have here. And so what what is some of the main surprises that that people find when they are starting to look for houses out here?

SPEAKER_02 31:59

Well so typically when I'll I have a buyer from the front range and I'd like to give them a tour and we start at the office and what we'll do is we'll go and I mean I point out the the rivers right out here we have the butterfly ponds you can rent a uh you can rent a boat you can rent a a paddle board uh and put it in the river I mean we have a put-in right right here in town and then you have uh a little water feature a little river for the kids with the with a beach I mean a beach in Grand Junction like who would have thought of that right so that's I think that's surprising it's surprising for me and I've been here for 11 years. So then you have right there you have the dog park you have um the amphitheater you have dos Rios and they're developing the river over there and there's gonna be you know a a a wave for kayakers and um clamping and restaurants and and so I think just the development that's happened in town I mean you have um the symphony orchestra you have a lot of cultural events you have a lot of concerts I mean we're going to I mean amazing concerts that we would normally drive to Denver for and you can do that here in Grand Junction. And then when you combine that with you know I take them out into the Redlands and in in 10 minutes you are from downtown and you are on a trail that is in the middle of you feel like you're in the middle of nowhere in the desert with red rock cliffs wildlife quiet and just the proximity of all the cool things we have in town to all the natural things that we have I mean the Grand Mesa is you know 45 minutes from here and you're up at 10,000 feet and in the wintertime you're skiing your cross country skiing your snow bealing just the variety of of opportunities for recreation it's I mean there's there's nothing like it. I mean you can look all over the country and I know a lot of people do and they come to Grand Junction and they've found Nirvana it's got it's got everything.

SPEAKER_01 34:09

Right. Yeah I mean the the proximity to things I think is what is most surprising for people you know I grew up in Denver in the front range and I lived closer to the Rocky Mountains than you know than most people um I would say do. But even then I I lived maybe 20 minutes from you know Golden Colorado which is you know right up against the the Rocky Mountains there. But hardly ever did I and I partially on me take the time to go out there and go hiking and see what was available but out here it's like you know like you said you know you dr you drive through one neighborhood you go into the next and then there's a there's a trail that starts there that takes you down one way and then you leave downtown and you head south you're at the riverfront and then you can go from Palisade to Fruta and then you know you go out in the redlands and you're up against the monument now you can go into the monument and up and it's just like the accessibility to everything that we offer and it's so spread out. It's not just you know the mountains on one side of town and the desert on the other and then the river on one side I mean it it really carries itself through the valley pretty evenly.

SPEAKER_02 35:18

Oh yeah and I mean I've had people that live here for years and there's some of the stuff like the other day somebody was asking me about the trail up or there's National Forest up um just up of Glade Park I mean where you're at almost 10,000 feet and they were like oh we were going to go camping on the Mesa and I was like well if you need to be closer to town for the weekend and you wanted to go up there I mean you can camp up there and it's closer. It's cool there's aspen trees and it's it's shockingly close to town. Right.

SPEAKER_01 35:51

Um it's even Glade Park I mean I think a lot of people you know A I think a lot of people don't know about Glade Park and then when you know about it you're like oh who would want to live all the way up there? But then when you drive up there you're like you're 30 minutes from town so it's really no different if you were you know living in Fruta and wanted to go have dinner in Palisade. I mean that's not even 30 minutes but it's just you know it's I think because it's up on top of the monument a lot of people feel like it's so much more out of the way than you know for someone who lives across town and it's really not no and there's multiple ways to get up there.

SPEAKER_02 36:27

Granted you have a a I mean this a drive but it's a beautiful drive I have a property up there right now it's it's literally 20 minutes from where you would just you're in the middle of nowhere and you have an unobstructed view you're on a cliff there's complete privacy and you're you're 20 minutes from town. Right. I mean if you went to any other city and said hey I live 20 minutes from town where you know where could I go that's quiet and peaceful and and cooler actually because up at 7,000 feet it's uh quite a bit cooler. Because a lot of times people will have a little apprehension about moving to Grand Junction because they think it's hot. Right. It's hot right now it's hot outside it's in the 90s but you know that's that's summer but we have 20 minutes up the road you could be in 73. Yeah and if you want to go 45 minutes up to the Grand Mesa I mean I just camped up there this weekend and I I don't think it got above 70. Right. I mean I think it was in the 60s and at night it was nice and cool in the 40s.

SPEAKER_01 37:30

Right. Yeah definitely um so this is kind of one that is for kind of your uh kind of what you your feeling is but um what's a realistic appreciation outlook for the Western slope over the next few years we've seen a lot of appreciation um I think I was reading something the other day that 2019 the average house in the Grand Junction area was like 200 something thousand and now last year's average home price was in the mid mid to low fours.

SPEAKER_02 38:04

So just from that growth in the last five years six years what do you think for the next five years that that appreciation look appreciation looks like yeah so we had quite a few years where it was pretty stagnant where I would say from the 2008 2009 when we had kind of a drop in real estate prices it stayed pretty consistent until about you know you had 2019 2020 and then COVID hit and then we just went gangbusters I mean it the in everything went up 40 to 50 percent and so I think you made up for a lot of that time where the the values were pretty you know pretty steady they didn't really go up. Right. Um and we had that big jump and it's been slowly increasing. So we're a little bit more insulated I feel like than say the front range because we have you know with a lot of people being able to work from home and the recreational opportunities that we have we just have a steady inflow of and I mean a lot of the people I sell houses to are semi-retetirees or retirees that are active and want to um you know play and have uh the opportunity for for very good health care and you know all of our doctors and hospitals that we have here and not have a huge amount of traffic. So I I just foresee uh appreciation as a slow and steady uh increase and I think that's what we've been we've been having for the last four or five years.

SPEAKER_01 39:39

Yeah. I think when you hear people say they're apprehensive to change, I think a lot of that comes from the sudden change that occurs. You know like it it's crazy for just years and years and years and then it's it just is relentless versus change that is you know like you said steady and it's not overbearing to the city. You know they're able to keep up with the demand of people moving and and there's st there's still a need for it. But it's just steady enough that it it doesn't feel like everybody's moving here all at once but it also doesn't feel like nobody's moving here.

SPEAKER_02 40:12

Yeah no I say steady growth the whole time and and I feel like yeah I feel like that's best the best scenario for the city because you're not growing too fast. It doesn't feel like it's overcrowded it's um yeah and it's good for it's good for real estate. It you know it keeps me busy you know where um you know it's it's very rare that I'm overwhelmed or I'm underwhelmed. I mean it's been you know I've been doing this for 11 years and it's basically remained steady outside of COVID where it was totally crazy. But generally all the other years it's just been steady growth and I think that's why you're seeing a lot of positive things happening in Grand Junction because they're not overwhelmed and there's some time to you know expand. You know we are still building quite a few new houses. There are I mean I I heard uh you know Costco is you know coming in and we're getting more of those kind of retail stores that people are looking for in the bigger cities without the bigger city problems like the major traffic and overcrowding and going to a trail and running into a bunch of people I mean going back to trails you can go to the lunch loops or you can go to the monument and you could still go out there and within five minutes you don't see anybody.

SPEAKER_01 41:35

Right for sure okay so for listeners thinking uh a few moves ahead let's kind of talk uh some strategy so uh the first one I've got for you is when does buying land and building uh beat buying something that already exists and I think you know like we've kind of touched on this uh a little bit here and there but you know outside of it depends on their situation um when we look at numbers or look at inventory where does somebody where does that decision really lie?

SPEAKER_02 42:08

Well I mean buying land and then building a house custom it it's gonna cost you it's gonna cost you more I mean I think the you know when you get into the situation to where you just can't find anything on the market that is what you want. You want to build exactly what you want you have some disposable income where you can afford to build what you want then find some land and build exactly what you want because um yeah I mean and I do have clients like that where they just they just can't find anything it's just like you know what we let's build but you also have to consider you know how long is that going to cost how long is that going to take you know do we have that kind of time a lot of people you know they have they have their house there in Denver or somewhere and they're comfortable and they're like you know what we're gonna do this in a couple years we've planned ahead we want to find something very specific we want to build we want to find you know that perfect piece of property and you know we have quite a bit of that here so that's a very good plan. If somebody is they're coming in and they need to move for a job or they need to you know find something you know they have the ability to like oh you know what there's some stuff on the market. You're you're always going to have a better like financial outcome if if you find something that's on the market. I mean it'll be there'll be a better deal you know the other thing is too if you already own a piece of land. You know if it's something that you bought you know maybe you bought this amazing piece of property for 5000 10 years ago then you know your cost is going to go way down. But land prices, I mean we have beautiful lots you know 400 450 500,000 people are paying for you know two or three acres amazing view. I mean you put a house on that that's three thousand square feet I mean you're in the upper millions you know two million right pretty quickly. So depending on Your timeline and your budget, that's that's how I would. And what you want out of it. Yeah, and what you want out of it. I mean, we do have quite a bit of inventory. Our inventory's been going up fairly steadily over the last six months. So you might find, you know, we have a lot of lot of options out there.

SPEAKER_01 44:23

So can you break down or kind of uh help explain what a 1031 exchange is and and when it would actually matter for somebody? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:32

So a 1031 exchange, it you know, it basically allows investors to um to defer the tax um the taxes on the property. And you know, it's so it's not really something for uh you know your typical homeowner. It's it's mostly just for investors that are, you know, and you to move up into like say a more expensive property because you can't necessarily use that getting a lesser uh a property that costs less than the one that you're gonna sell.

SPEAKER_03 45:05

Right.

SPEAKER_01 45:05

So let's move into um some common misconceptions. I think some of these are ones that that you probably hear often, but let's let's debunk some of these misconceptions that the general audience might have. So um I won't use company name, but we'll say a third-party company provides an estimate on an online platform, and someone says to you, hey, this is what they told me my house is worth. True or false as to that is the actual cost or value of that person's home.

SPEAKER_02 45:38

It might be true, but I can tell you a couple of different circumstances to where it's more likely true and to where it's less likely true. So say you have a house in town, a very common, say, 1,500 square foot, three-bedroom, two-bath, two-car garage, and 20 of them in your neighborhood have sold in the last three months. It's probably the algorithm that they use is probably gonna be very accurate because you know, frankly, anybody could could price a house that you know, where there's a bunch of different comps, you know, a bunch of comps for that for that particular style of house. It becomes more complicated the more unique the house is. Um and like say it's out in you know, out in the country and or out say in Glade Park. This is a situation where I come up with uh or I come across quite a bit. So there's been no comps for five years. And that there is one that sold five years ago, uh, and then you kind of got to figure out, you know, how where where do you where do you come across the the value for something that has no comp, you know? Right. And so that's where an experienced agent, you know, somebody that can look at it from so many different angles, you know, how much is it would it cost to buy a piece of land and build that particular house on it is is one way. Right. I mean, or just one of the angles, I should say. Um, you know, is there something that's sold in the last five years? Say the market's been steady for five years, you know, then that could be actually more relevant. You know, uh, one of those third parties, they're just there's just too many, uh there's just not enough information, I think, for them to get an accurate price for something that's just not not of the out of the ordinary. And to be fair, most people's, you know, most people's homes are not cookie-cutter, right, you know, exact, you know, with multiple comps, you know, of the exact house. So like I said, sometimes they're they're accurate and sometimes they're way off.

SPEAKER_01 47:44

And it doesn't know if you've done, you know, converted uh an office into an extra bedroom, or if you've you know completely gutted the place and and really done some you know significant upgrades to it, or you know, it doesn't know what your view is. Not that you know some people are willing to pay a price for a view, and so it's like you know, to them it just looks like you're on a on a mountainside, but when you get to the house, it's like wow, this is really, you know, I really want to pay for this house, I want I want to be up here. So they don't really take into consideration all those kind of specific things that may make your home stand out to even the comp down the street. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 48:23

I mean, for example, I'm pricing. Um, I just was pricing a house the other day, and to actually go into the other comps, I mean that's something that I actually I don't think a lot of agents will do, and also kind of shows the lengths that I would go to to get an accurate value of a house. So I went into some houses that were on the market currently that were very were somewhat similar, but you don't know how similar, like to your point of, you know, well, does this one have carpet? Is this one 10 years old? Does this one, you know, was this well taken care of? You know, I mean, there was one I went into and it looked like nobody had even stepped foot in the house, it was 10 years old and it was in pristine condition. Right. And then there was another one that was on the market. I went in to look at that one to preview it for this listing I have coming up, and uh same age of home, uh you know, the carpet needed to be redone, everything looked a little dated, the view wasn't as nice. I mean, some of the things that you just can't pick up from statistics, right? And I mean, that was in my opinion, it was a hundred thousand dollar swing in this particular um property and helped me price one of the houses that that I was um that I'm about to list.

SPEAKER_01 49:40

Um so let's say another one is I don't need an agent, I'll save money by selling without. So for example, for sale by owner. Does that hold up? How many you know, not saying it's not possible, but how many times is it what's a success rate or just eyeball, throw out a success rate of a for sale by owner versus listing?

SPEAKER_02 50:02

You know, I mean, say you're a for sale by owner and you've been in the real estate industry for a long time and you've done, you know, a hundred deals or you know, quite a few, and you're able to not be biased on you know how you know your kids grew up in the home and that you think it's you know worth way more than it actually might be. Right. If you can, I mean, pricing it is probably one of the number one things. So um it's really hard to know, even though granted you have some tools like you know those third parties that will give you an algorithm and and help you out with that. I think it's easier than it has been, but I still think I mean if you price it wrong, if you get that wrong and you spend, you know, uh 30, 60, 90, 100 days on the market, you've missed a big opportunity. So I think to take advantage of an agent's experience to get you that to that price right off the bat is going to save you money in the long run. Also, uh it's countless items that could come up throughout the process. If everything goes smoothly and you have a, you know, you get a buyer and they're cash and they love the house and they're gonna offer it to you for full price, maybe they'll offer extra. Right. You know, and they they don't even want to do an inspection, you know. Like there's just it it's unrealistic to make sure that everything goes well the whole time. Right. You know, we go to great lengths to try to make sure we're getting ahead of any problem that I can foresee, you know, as a buyer's agent going in and you know, looking at the house, you know, are there any cracks and are there any issues that might, you know, a normal person might not see that hasn't gone through thousands of houses, you know, over the last 10 years? And uh, you know, some of the and the soil. I mean, you can have I mean, there are places in Grand Junction that have questionable soil. And do you know where all those are as a as a buyer?

SPEAKER_01 52:02

Um No, I mean, I I think the data shows that, you know, for a majority of for sale by owners, they either end up taking less than what their home is actually worth if they were to list it, or you know, like you said, they run into issues that that they weren't able to foresee or that they don't know how to overcome because it's not something that they deal with every day. Um, and so it ends up costing them more because now you've got you know issues you need to fix, and then it's you know it it goes from there. And so I think a lot of times people are like, I'll do it myself. You know, I'm knowledgeable.

SPEAKER_02 52:36

I yeah, and you you just don't want to be on the back foot, and I think that's what a lot of times a problem comes up and then you're you're kind of backpedaling and you're trying to fix it, and say you get it under contract, and then you weren't able to deal with one of those situations that comes up, and especially inspection, which is which is basically the crux of the whole deal. And the next thing you know, you're you're back on the market, and then you have to explain, okay, well, why why did this fall apart? Why didn't you go through, then you get some, you know, your house becomes stigmatized and in the market, and um yeah, no, it's I would say too, there's statistics that say that if you sell your house, it's um you try to sell your own house, that the majority of those end up hiring an agent in the long run, anyways. Right. So you might as well make it easy. And and you'll you'll save a lot of uh uh mental um anguish and um That's where I was gonna do next was the next data is that those that end up trying to sell their own home don't get you know aren't as successful and so they end the end up hiring a realtor and then it's just like you know, oh yeah we could have had your household last year if and people don't realize how many phone calls and all the questions that people have and having to deal with um just just showings and you know and then when you when you have emotional attachment to your house, which most people I would say do have emotional attachment, if somebody tells you something that you don't like and then you get offended and then you you know ruin the deal, you know, an agent I feel like is there a lot of times for emotional just kind of removing the emotion away from the sale. I mean, I'd say that's probably one of the biggest things. Um, I mean, I wouldn't even sell my own house, right? I would hire somebody else. My kids grew up there, I I think it's worth millions of dollars, right? You know, but nobody else is gonna, you know, know all the you know, all the emotional things that I have attached with the house and and I would need to separate from that. And I think that's a very important part of trying to sell your house. You know, some people if you have no emotion and you're very, you know, the kind of person where it's just a commodity, it maybe you can get away with it, especially with all the technology now. But I would say it's probably a lot easier, and you probably make overall the statistics would show you would make more money hiring an agent. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:06

So if there's listeners out there that are looking to buy or sell, or maybe they're for sale by owner and they're not having as much luck as they'd wish, yeah. Um, how can somebody get in touch with you in order to to buy, sell, or or just even understand the market a little bit, a little bit further?

SPEAKER_02 55:22

Yeah, no, I'm always happy to to talk to people if you just call me on my cell phone, 970-275-4138. Um come to the office, they'll get in in in touch with me. And uh yeah, no, always happy to to chat about that.

SPEAKER_01 55:40

Awesome. Well, that is a wrap on the episode of the inner circle. Huge thank you to Mike for sharing your time and knowledge and and answering these questions. If you have questions that you want answered for a next episode, you can send them our way by uh commenting. Um, you can or you can email marketing at christyreese.com. We'd be happy to help answer any real estate related questions that you may have. Uh, if today's conversation helps bring you a little closer to full circle, do us a favor, subscribe to the channel, give the show a follow, leave a comment, or share it with someone who may need to hear it. From all of us here at the Christy Reese Group, thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time.

Christi 56:17

Thanks for listening. This is Christy Reese signing out from the Full Circle Podcast.