House Einstein Podcast #127 Transcript

Obvious transcription errors were corrected lightly without rewriting the conversation. AI was used in the creation of this transcript. Please excuse errors.

Osman: Well, welcome to House Einstein Podcast 127. And with us this week is Karen Straus, real estate agent extraordinaire and colleague here in Boulder. And as well as Hamish, who is our co-producer and co-host. I guess you're really the producer.

Hamish: Yeah, behind the scenes. And I've got a microphone this time, too, so we're working on it.

Osman: Yeah, you may not see him on camera as much, but if you're if you're watching, you won't see him on camera. But if you're just listening to the podcast, you'll you'll hear him hopefully clearly. Great.

Karen: I'm excited to be here.

Osman: All right. So we're going to go through a much shorter docket than we normally do in terms of the topics we're talking about. If you're new to the podcast, our mission here is to entertain. This podcast is separate and distinct from the House Einstein Brokerage, which sponsors the podcast. The mission of the House Einstein Brokerage is to help you make a smarter real estate decision. But please don't make any real estate decisions based on anything you hear in this podcast. This is entertainment. And if you'd like to reach out to one of the agents in the podcast, you know where to find us. We're happy to help you, but not based on anything we share in this pod. And our topics today: So we're going to be talking to Karen pretty extensively about her real estate experience and what it's been like for her in the business. But we're also going to talk about, oh, some of the things that are behind the scenes in real estate that I would say most buyers and sellers have no idea includes potential pitfalls they might be stumbling into. And then we're going to talk about our sales of the week. Those are notable sales that illustrate certain price ranges or locations or neighborhoods, or they're just cool properties that we just want to talk about that recently closed. We can't talk about active listings per the MLS rules and the commission rules, which is sort of a funny thing, but it is an accepted practice in real estate. We don't talk about active listings in a public forum. And let's see. Oh we'll see. We're also talking about camera and surveillance items. That's in our topic du jour. And then our big our big news item is Mark Wallach’s recent resignation from City Council. And I feel like both Karen and I have a lot to say about that.

Karen: Have a lot to say about that.

Osman: And with that, welcome to the pod.

Karen: Thank you. So good to be here.

Osman: So good to have you. Thrilled to have you. All right, Karen, what's your story? Give us your background, where you grew up and how you ended up here.

Karen: Yeah. Yeah. Well, like you, I'm from New York, although I think not the same region.

Osman: Where in New York?

Karen: I'm from Westchester County, which is just north of New York City. So not upstate. We like to draw that line that is not upstate New York.

Osman: So where in Westchester?

Karen: Yeah, I'm from northern Westchester. So like Mount Kisco, Bedford Hills, that area is where I grew up and lived. And then I lived in Brooklyn for a little bit. And then I got tired of living in the city. And I moved out here in 2000, and I was really trying to get into the music business. So my background is sort of rock and roll. So I actually studied to be an audio engineer and got into the music industry right here in Boulder as a sound engineer. Right. And did that for many years at the Fox at the Fox Theater. It was where I began in 2000 as an intern, pushing cases and just trying to get some time on the consoles and then worked my way up. I got in with a big production company in Boulder that did at the time, most of the shows at Red Rocks, at Fiddler's Green, at some of those bigger venues, the Fillmore. And so I ended up working my way up through the ranks and honestly mixing shows at Red Rocks and really had like the rock and roll dream, but then realized it was not sustainable long term, right?

Osman: Well, yeah, real estate isn't sustainable for a lot of people either. Probably higher probability of being successful. Yeah. So I'm really curious about which were your favorite acts and what were your horror stories from?

Karen: Oh, there's so many. And are there some parallels with real estate, so many parallels with real estate that you would never have predicted? So yeah, my most of the first 10 or 12 years was that audio engineering piece, mixing shows, working with the bands directly. And then I moved into management production management. So more organizing the concert production. So still on the technical side, but not actually in the trenches mixing shows. So the last ten years before I got into real estate was as the VP of production manager for the Fox Theater and Boulder Theater in Boulder, the two main venues here. So just organizing the shows, advancing with the bands, you know, managing all of the technical systems, sound, lighting, backline, managing a staff of close to 50 people, sound engineers and lighting designers and stage managers and all the fun that comes with them.

Osman: Were you reading the detailed contract and making sure that everything was complied with?

Karen: Yeah. You know, the riders. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're right. Like I had a yeah, a hospitality assistant who managed that for me for the most part. But yes, we would get the riders for those bands. We would manage their hospitality, make sure their green room was set up with the right number of towels, and then make sure the stage was ready for them with the right gear, the right staffing, the right number of stagehands, the parking for their tour bus.

Osman: You know, there's so much that goes into producing a concert, I bet, even at a local venue. Do you ever did you ever get to actually enjoy the show? Yeah.

Karen: Just so caught up with making sure it went off right. It does take you out of the magic a little bit, but you also get to see so much and appreciate so much, and you get to watch soundcheck where there may be working out a new song and you get to meet everybody, and everyone is just I think people ask me for horror stories, assuming that everyone's a diva, but actually, like most artists, are very professional and very polite and very kind.

Osman: Well, to successfully run productions for as long as you did, you have to know what you are doing. You have to be competent. So any favorite acts who are, like, the best?

Karen: Yeah. I mean, there's definitely been a few, you know, career highlights. You know, back when I was mixing, certainly at Red Rocks, I got to work with Levon Helm, who was the drummer from The Band who later passed away, He used to do the Midnight Rambles in Woodstock, and he had like a 14 piece band play at Red Rocks, and I mixed monitors for them, and it was just like an incredible experience. And I dealt with, you know, Morrissey coming to the Boulder Theater and making the whole venue go vegan for the day, and the venue had to go vegan for the day. He does ride around in a Mercedes S-Class with leather seats, but and then canceling the show like after doors were open, which was par for the course. What do you do and when an artist cancels the show after people are being let in? If it's Morrissey, you refund everyone's money and you send them home. And it's a whole lot of work for nothing. So sometimes it's high drama but for the most part, like real estate, things move smoothly.

Osman: Okay, so I am curious about what you were like growing up. What did your parents do, and why did you first choose music?

Karen: And then, you know, I think to be perfectly honest, I had a boyfriend in high school who was a musician and also a bit of an audio engineer, and he needed someone to help mix when his band played. And so I kind of got into it, and then it stuck with me, and it seemed like something I wanted to be good at, so I stuck with it. Yeah, I like the technical piece of things. So it really scratched an itch in my brain.

Osman: it's something I know so little about, right? Like mixing audio is something that, that Hamish and I have stumbled into realizing we need to know something about this to not sound bad.

Karen: Sure, totally.

Osman: And we've had our bouts of wrestling over simple things, like what level the background should be and what level the vocals should be. And boy, it just felt like, my God, there's a whole universe of understanding about sound. For sure.

Karen: For sure. And i think when you talk about like podcast or studio recording, where you have chances to do it again and again, or to adjust levels in post afterwards versus live sound, where you were just you had to throw and go like there's no second chance. You have to do it right the first time. If something goes wrong, you have to fix it, possibly in front of thousands of people watching. So you get good at thinking on the fly and problem solving and troubleshooting. And I think a lot of that skill set has transferred well to real estate. To real estate. Yeah, we put out a lot of fires.

Osman: So walk me through the transition into real estate.

Karen: So I ended up, you know, in more of that management position for almost ten years. And then COVID hit in 2020 and all the music venues shut down. So I was fortunate enough to be a salaried employee at the time. I was able to keep most of my income. But there was there was a long pause in the music industry, a really long pause, and I ended up having lunch at one point with my the woman who had been my real estate agent for years, who was getting close to retirement, and we had lunch, and I was sort of lamenting the issues with the music industry at that time. I had two very young children. They were two and four years old, and the late nights and the long hours and the stress were really burning me out. And I don't think I realized how burned out I was until COVID hit. And I had a minute to breathe. And I think that probably happened to a lot of people. But and so we had lunch and she was like, you should get your license and come work with me. I think you'd be good at this. I'm going to retire in a few years. Like just let's see how it goes. And so I did, and that was October of 2020, and I was still kind of working at the venues. I hadn't quit or anything, but it was slow enough that I could work on real estate to. And, you know, things took off more than I expected. So within a few months, I had a couple of people calling for listings. I had a few buyers, and it escalated quickly and I was busy. And then I got furloughed at the end of 2020 for a few months, so I had no choice but to just dive fully into real estate at that point. And yeah, so by the time they called me back in February of 2021, I was like, I, I'll give you six weeks and then I have to go.

Osman: I'm too busy. Right. Well people that so I've seen this the story kind of play out a few times with agents and if they have roots in the community. Yeah, right. They've been in their community for a while. For sure. They can take off like a like a rocket, right? Even though they've had very little real estate experience previously. People trust them. They're deeply connected in the community. And this is one of the one of the things I think most buyers and sellers don't realize when they're well, they may realize it because they're making this decision.

Karen: They choose to work with somebody they know and trust 100%. And that's exactly right. And I think in the music industry in particular people, it's very close knit. So people want to work with someone they know well, who they already know they get along with. Also, I think I was in a leadership role for so many years in the industry, and so people came to me for advice or came to me for that leadership, and trusted me not to drop the ball on producing a concert day to day. And so I think for whatever reason, when it came time to for real estate, they also trusted me inherently that I was going to do a good job and not drop the ball.

Osman: Competency is transferable. Exactly.

Karen: That's exactly right. Yeah. Well, so an interesting transition there. But I think there's a lot of similarities with there's contracts. You know, in the music industry we get a rider, we have a contract. We have to look over and fulfill and adhere to. We work with vendors. So in the music business I have to call the right person for backline gear, the instruments the bands play with or the right lighting package. And I knew who to call for exactly. You know, for what. And then in real estate, I know who to call for plumbing and who to call to fix drywall and who to call for that paint job that we need done.

Osman: So there's sort of some similarities there with it's really about a problem solving. Yes. And knowing the right people and the right ways to get things done. And if you if people know you are a person who gets things done, they will trust you to get things done in the largest financial transaction of your life.

Karen: Right? So, I mean, it totally makes sense why you took off so quickly. It works. And I think, you know, 2021 let's remember what was happening in 2021 in the market. It was bonkers here. I mean, there was so much movement. Houses were selling with 15 offers in the first weekend. So in some ways like a good year to get in because there was a lot of activity. And I think

Osman: for some people maybe, you know, that died off after those first year or two, like 2021, 2022. We're both I don't know what the data said. I mean, maybe you remember this better, but how many agents have gotten out of the business since 2022?

Hamish: 22? Yeah, Pete, I think that they're quite a few have gotten out. Yeah, not off the top of my head. I know there's the one where it's like 70% of agents don't like make it past the third year.

Karen: So to that extent, yeah, I think in general, but I think in particular the ones who got in during COVID, there was a lot of attrition at the end of 2022 and people who didn't renew their license.

Osman: Well, I remember feeling bad for all these agents that when there's 15 offers on the table and you're not like, you don't even know how to write an offer, like you're just learning how to write an offer. And meanwhile, you're trying to compete with 15 other potential buyers, and you don't know how to make your offer stand out. Right. We started really. I mean, this is getting into IP, right? Yeah. We're talking about earlier how to protect your trade practices. Right. We really started getting protective because what I saw was certain techniques were getting us at least a seat at the, at the bidding war. And we would get a phone call back. And we were given opportunities that other agents weren't because of reputation and some of the some of the levers we were pulling in the contract. And I got a little protective at that time. I'm like, I'm not telling people. Like, in fact, our strategy guide at the very top, it says only to be distributed to people that are under by our agency because we do not want this circulating out there and blaming it.

Karen: Actually, I don't know. We did pretty good during that time period, but it was stressful. It was a lot of work. It was stressful. And I think a lot of outsiders, you know, are like, oh, that was such a great time for real estate. Agents are really, really great for you. And I think people forgot that, like we also all had buyers, you know. So like yes, on the listing side, sure, we were getting 15 offers, which is also stressful in its own way. But then we were also out there in the trenches with our poor buyers, trying to get them under contract week after week, you know, with all this competition. But I did sort of cut my teeth in that in that time, in that era. So it did make me get really good at writing competitive offers and being creative. And then also, I think, you know, part of the secret sauce there is like calling the other agent and connecting with them in a way that they want to work with you.

Osman: And I think that is something that gets overlooked beyond the parameters. When I when I came to Colorado from the investment world of New York and Boston, East Coast sort of energy around negotiations and dealmaking, it was so counterproductive to getting things done. And in this local market, I think Denver is a little different. But my personal experience in, in Boulder has been by knowing agents and treating them well and communicating really well gets deals done so much easier than being overly aggressive.

Karen: Agreed. We are a collaborative community in Boulder.

Osman: I think people here tend to be more collaborative than competitive and aggressive when it comes to working together on a on a transaction. When you figure out the math, and I've done this analysis at least three times in the many years I've been in this market, but it's something it's not quite 8020. It's 73, 70% of the deals are done by 30% of the agents. There's lots of agents that only do one deal or two deals the whole year in the Boulder market. And of course, there's lots of agents that don't do any deals. I don't I don't even know why they're licensed. Yeah. And that's the part that's really opaque for buyers and sellers. So we're talking about things that buyers and sellers don't realize, and that one of the problems with the trust your friend approach to real estate is they may be trustworthy. You like your friend, you trust your friend, but they may not know enough about the real estate world to be competent. And it's. And so that's one of the reasons I think a lot of brokerages, the remixes, the compasses, they offer credibility. Yeah, right. RE/MAX was happy to take somebody with no experience. I think Coldwell also happy to take somebody with no experience. Can you fog a mirror and do you have a license? Right? I think more recently compass has become more selective about who they will take. And certainly we are incredibly selective about who we take because of we're such a small team with such a niche, such a niche mission. But it's so interesting because I feel like that has been a drum I personally have beat so many times, and I'm okay if you don't choose me, but please choose somebody competent. So I will often ask if we're in the run up right, I'm being interviewed as a buyer's agent. I'll, I'll say, who else are you interviewing? And I can tell sometimes they're feel uncomfortable about it. And I'm like, you don't have to tell me, but. And I won't tell you if they're bad. Although you could probably read my facial expression. But I will tell you if you're interviewing somebody. Good. Yeah. And I'll absolutely say their names out loud. I'm like, that's a great agent. Yeah.

Karen: Like we're different and I'll tell you how we're different, but they're they're still a great agent. So you're not going to go wrong with that particular choice. I think it's asking the right questions. And you've touched on this before too. Like are you asking your potential agent the right questions?

Osman: How many deals are they doing?

Karen: What have they been selling? What? How do they handle a complicated situation?

Osman: Name one example of a complicated situation you've dealt with and how did you solve that problem? Name one example of something you screwed up, right? What did you did you fix it?

Karen: And if they don't have examples off the top of their head about what they screwed up or what they learned, yeah, they're probably hiding a lot or don't have a lot of experience in the market. And I think one thing I've learned, and Andy, my mentor, had said this to me and she was like, no matter how long you do this. You're learning something new on every transaction. There's always something new that comes up, something maybe you haven't dealt with before. And you take that knowledge. So when you're doing just a higher number of transactions, you were getting more knowledge and more experience regardless of the price point. Absolutely. Which Andy, this is your Andy Rice. Oh yeah. Yeah.

Osman: Andy Rice is great. She's probably yeah. So she retired a few years ago. Oh I didn't know she retired. Yeah.

Karen: So suddenly one day disappeared.

Osman: I know somebody realize you haven't done a deal with this agent in such a long time. Like, where have they been? Hey, we had an agent. I won't mention his name, but he passed away. I didn't know he passed away for a number of years. I was looking at his videos and I'm like, okay, we're going to benchmark against his videos. And then one day I realized I haven't seen a video from him in like three years. And I went and I looked him up on his socials and I'm like, oh my God, he passed away.

Karen: I'm so sorry to hear that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, she's doing great. So we still talk all the time and he's great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I had a great influence and a great mentor. And then I think that helped me in those first two years because I had someone actually watching over me, which in, in Colorado for the first two years that your licensed, you were supposed to have somebody watching over you closely. And I think that doesn't happen a lot at some of the larger brokerages. It doesn't happen. They're not getting that supervision. So for me, I had someone that I was an expert and I could say, okay, here's the situation. How do I handle this? What do I write? What should I put additional provisions, you know, if this is the situation.

Osman: And I had someone who could who could mentor me on that, which helped me move forward with a little more confidence, maybe, than just floating out there in the ether as a brand new agent. I mean, we still have those conversations as a team. And even though the every agent on the team is very experienced, sometimes we run into problems. Yeah, right. And having a colleague to bounce ideas off of, that's not a swimming in with sharks environment. Somebody that actually cares about your well-being and success and wants to help you be successful. That is something that's very different than most agents experience and at these big brokerages. And I'm going to name them. Right. The discount brokerage is it home HomeSmart in particular. And then there's a couple of others that basically advertise themselves as minimal fees. Right. They are virtual offices. And they also have built in like pyramid scheme, money making MLMs built in to their marketing a big one for that too, that approach attracts a certain type of agent, and that's not an agent that often is getting, especially if they're new or not going to get much coaching and mentoring. Right? Yeah. It's it's it's the funniest business. That spectrum of competency that I've talked about is so wide in this industry, and I really don't want to keep harping on it, but I feel like it is such an overlooked aspect. People don't realize that the person that they chose really. And the worst, it's gotten worse. The worst is when you click the click to show. Yeah, right. They go to Zillow or Redfin and you don't know who you're getting. And that agent that listed the home did not pay for the premium of getting the leads from Zillow or Redfin. And so they direct those leads to whoever is willing for the highest bidder. And the highest bidder could be completely incompetent, desperate for leads. And now they're showing homes in a market. They don't know anything about, a neighborhood they don't know anything about, and they don't have a lot of experience on top of it.

Karen: Yeah, it's a nightmare, but most people don't realize that's what they just signed up for. Right. And I think that's the problem with just clicking Show Me This House on Zillow. Instead of maybe asking your friends for a referral to an agent that they trust, or interviewing or background checking in some form. You know, I've gotten sign calls as a listing agent. I've certainly gotten random internet leads where I'm like, okay, I could have been anyone showing up here, but luckily you're in good hands.

Osman: But we're talking about hundreds of thousands of people's dollars of people's money.

Karen: Sometimes millions of dollars of people in the Boulder market were $1 million buying these houses with a click of a button, you know, finding an agent with a click of a button.

Osman: So sometimes maybe they get lucky and sometimes not. Well, I remember when I first got into this business, my mentor in the business, Alan Warden, who is still I mean, I guess he's not really in the real estate world as much anymore. He's more in the in the investment world in lots of ways. But he and he had come from the investment world. He had he had really just gotten this brokerage off the ground that summer. There were three agents and he was in and I was hired to help build financial models and do a bunch of different things, not be an agent and help. But I was hired to also help the agents with their marketing, and I'll never forget him telling me that he had the opportunity to work with Lou Gerstner as his buyer's agent. And Lou is former C-suite executive, probably billionaire. And he wrote a multi-page analysis for Lou on waterfront property that was unlike anything else. The other agents that were that he was talking to were willing to do, justifying the value of this property, how to think about it in a way from an investment perspective, not just that the house looks great on you and the light's fantastic, right? You know? And water for property is always a good investment on the intellect, which may be true, but the analysis is what convinced that buyer to work with Alan.

Karen: And that was a seed story for me and what our approach has been, which is how do we add value?

Osman: You do a lot of that as well, right? Or presentations or. Well, we I no longer do written analysis the way I used to because it's very time consuming and I can't read the client to see if this is actually valuable to them. So instead of doing a multi-page written analysis for a client, we'll schedule a video call and then I'll share screen and we'll go through this analysis together. And because so much of the qualitative analysis, so much of the analysis is qualitative when we're looking at comparables. But if it comes down to like let's look at data then I can I can actually I can do it most of the time in real time because it's I've done it so many times, I can dump it into spreadsheets. We can do a trend line analysis. Most recently I've been thinking about, well, I'll ask you this question. Yeah. All right. So you're looking at houses in general, single family houses. And you've got two stories. You've got branches with basements. You've got by levels and tri-levels. Yeah I think that's all of them right. Sometimes you get three and four level houses but that's that's about it. Yeah.

Karen: So how would you rank those. Okay. You want me rank them. Market attractiveness okay. Well so I have a few theories about this I do think that we have as a society, especially here under built single storey homes. And so there is a demand right now for people who want to age in place wanting nice, not, not junky ranches like nicer single level home.

Osman: So that has sort of has risen in popularity I think as the population ages and wants to stay to follow up questions.

Karen: So we have lots of ranches, but most of them are 1000 to 1200 square feet on the main right. Yeah, they're not huge. And I think that's big enough for most. I think people want bigger than that. And I think that's why you see some of these properties that are really nice remodeled larger ranches or, you know, in Frazier Meadows, you have more of these like sprawling ranches. And I think those are going to be what people are looking for as they age. And then I think if we can talk about the society as a whole around here. Most people want that two storey floor plan. So I think the next most attractive and next most attractive, although I think that's tied with ranch ranches of different demographics. So I think probably the two story is what most of my buyers are looking for. And again, I have a big millennial base, young families, a lot of a lot of that type of buyer. I think the tri level is polarizing. Some people love them and some people hate them. I think everyone hates by levels. We can just go ahead and say that out loud. Right now, I'm just going to say it. There's not very many people who like walking in their front door and having a set of stairs going up and down. No place to hang your coat. You're standing. When I show a bi-level with more than two people, we can't all even get in the door and close it at the same time. I don't know what we were thinking building so many of those, and they're everywhere. And they're in Table Mesa, like one of the most desirable neighborhoods in Boulder.

Osman: And they're commanding $1.7 million for these houses for well done by. Although I think that price has slipped down a little bit at this point. But there are fixed I've seen them get fixed. Yes, for sure. The fix is usually to create a mudroom at the front.

Karen: Exactly. And then it actually is much more livable as an experience, but they're hard to add on to don't you think. Like very, very difficult to even you can't just pop the top. And if you're going to add on people, add above the garage and then you end up with another half level of stairs up to like your new master suite.

Osman: So it's it's complicated to resolve that they are a funky design. I understand why they were built that way at the time. The basement is above grade exactly, so you don't feel like you're in a dark, decrepit basement. There's better

Karen: connectivity to the main level and to the bedroom level, so if you've got kids, you can hear what's going on downstairs much more easily than you could if. But the other problem with that floor plan, and I'm sure you see this all the time, is I have seen a few that are good, but for the most part they are two bedrooms and one bathroom up and two bedrooms and one bathroom down.

Osman: And who wants that floor plan? Exactly. And the people we've sold homes to don't have kids. They. What they will often do is they'll combine the two bedrooms on the top and build a little office, or create a master closet primary suite. They call them master closets anymore, master bedrooms anymore. So they'll create a primary closet and take up most of that secondary.

Karen: And then downstairs is, yeah, second.

Osman: But then you still have your guest bathroom is downstairs.

Karen: Right. Everybody has to go down or use your or your bathroom or primary bath. I have seen people add a little half bath, so I've seen people solve it, but it's not easily solved. It requires a lot of permitting and moving walls and reimagining the whole floor plan. And maybe that's worth it to be on the right lot, in the right neighborhood with the right views, which that does exist.

Osman: But you really have to be committed to solving that problem. Radical, full agreement on your right. There's no argument on your rankings exactly how I would have ranked them. So I feel like we're both right there. But one thing that bringing it back to this topic in the pod, that the problem with choosing an agent that doesn't do a lot of volume is that they often are desperate, and so they are conflicted by their commission because they're worried that if you love a house and they tell you what's wrong with the house, you're not going to want to buy the house, and now they're not going to get paid. And so they're disincentivize to tell you the truth about this particular listing, whether it's the layout or there are other things that they see, they will conveniently not see the problems because they want you to buy the house so they can get paid. Paid? Yeah. And getting paid is important. I think that's hard. I once had a client, after working with him for three years, offered a pay commission upfront because we'd been working so long. And we don't we don't do that. We don't do that. We're not doing that. How it works. It will take however long it takes. Yeah.

Karen: So yeah, but it's funny because people just don't realize that pressure is out there for agents that are, that are struggling to make a living. And I think that is something that even as a newer agent, the first few years are hard. You don't know when your next paycheck is coming all the time, right? It's hard to have that, what they call the abundance mindset. You know, where you just sort of trust that you will get more clients, you know, and the money will come because you're doing a good job. And I think that's hard in the first few years to trust that. And it took me a few years of consistently having better business every, every year to finally be able to relax and be like, okay, I know, I know, I have enough clients, enough referrals that I will be okay and the phone will keep ringing.

Osman: But it's a struggle, I think, for young agents. I mean, it's it's diving into the deep end of the pool and not knowing how to swim for a lot of people, and that's really scary. So having deep roots in the community, but also having a partner that has steady income can help a lot. Yeah. When I first when we moved from Nantucket to here, we blew through all of our savings that first summer, and it got really stressful. And ultimately I decided I've got to knock on doors and find I got to go back to work in the investment community. And I did, and I found an investment firm in Denver and literally cold called their private equity group. Wow. And the guy that I talked to gave me like, 30s, he's like, you've got 30s. When I told him what I was calling him and I'm like, the reason I'm calling you is because you have a job lead that's listed that I think I could do a fantastic job for you with. And I have a little bit of an unusual background. So I wanted to talk to you in person before I lobbed in a resume. He's like, send me the resume and I'll look at it. He hung up the phone and then an hour later, he's like, I'm walking your resume to the HR. And then they called me and I interviewed within his group, not even for the job that was listed, and they created a position for me. Wow. It was not an established position, which was really cool. And I worked there for a few years and really glad to have had that experience. I had to do that to be able to continue in real estate because we ran out of money, and so I worked full time for the investment firm, then nights and weekends writing blog posts about the Boulder market. And my now ex-wife did showings and and we worked. We worked together as a team for many years. And once real estate took off after about three years and that investment firm got in trouble.

Karen: And so I volunteered for a layoff at the perfect time, had a summer of adventure with motorcycle rides, and then had been in full time real estate since then, since then, and been successful in growing your business, growing your brokerage, its head ups and downs.

Osman: Yeah, right. You went through 2008 and the so the global financial crisis was one big challenge. But our business actually grew. And we had originally hung our license with RE/MAX, both of us. And once I quit the investment firm in Denver, we launched our own brokerage. And our business really grew. And we did that. And that may have just been timing, but we saw significant growth when we went independent. And then in 2013, my ex and I split up. She took the old company and I created House Einstein. And it's been, I don't know, steady growth since we've had more people on the team in the past. And at this point there's four of us. We're looking for maybe 1 or 2 other agents. Ultimately, if they're listening, if you're listening to this pod, call me if you want to talk, but be prepared to hear no, because we're really, really selective and it just has to be a good fit for everybody. Yeah. But yeah. So how about you like you. So you got you had that 2020 jumpstart. Right. And then the peak of the post-COVID frenzy was March 2022. Have you seen kind of steady state growth since then or have you seen a drop down?

Karen: Every year has been better than the last for me in terms of growth and volume. So at some point that will probably level out, but maybe not. It's it's been a good growth trajectory.

Osman: What's the what's the best part and what's the worst part.

Karen: The best part and worst part about being in real estate. Yeah. About what you do and how you do it. I think that, you know, I have one thing that music industry, especially live concert production, has taught me is that, you know, you have to stay cool under pressure. And I remember people, staff of mine being like, how do you stay calm when like, everything's on fire, you know, how do you stay calm? And I'm like, you know, first of all, there's no sense in freaking out. But also I'm probably freaking out in my head and you just don't see it, you know? But on the surface, I'm like, here's what we're going to do. And like, remaining calm under pressure. But I think the hardest part for me has been the roller coaster that real estate is. And like, you get a call for a new listing and the adrenaline spikes and you're up here and then a buyer terminates the contract and you're down here, and then you don't get this listing. And, you know, like, there's so many ups and downs. And I think learning how to ride that out and try to be even keel and not allow yourself to constantly be in these like adrenaline spikes and slumps, has been a skill

Osman: that's been hard for me. Have you had the I'm sure you've had this person and the person that you do a lot of work for, but you didn't put under? Absolutely. Yeah. Or you even did. And then they choose somebody else to work with and like, you know, I'm so sorry.

Karen: I just decided to go work with somebody else, even though they were your friend. Yeah.

Osman: Have you had that experience?

Karen: And maybe not with a friend, but I have spent a lot of time with, you know, certain people who then decided not to buy at all. And that's just you can't. That only hurts you. I think if you are constantly focused on that paycheck at the end of the road, and if you're not thinking of every client as a paycheck, then it doesn't really matter. It's all just part of your day to day. You're out showing this property, you're out helping with this listing.

Osman: You're out doing this like that's just all part of the gig. And then when the paycheck shows up, that's that's great too. It's sort of it's sort of icing on the cake. Like if you do good work, the good work itself is the reward and the money shows up.

Karen: Ultimately, if the money didn't show up, you couldn't keep doing it. The money is important, but it doesn't have to connect directly to every client. And I think separating that is helpful. Exactly. And also I do a lot of like I do a lot of condos, I do a lot of first time buyers. I do 250,000 condos and $2 million properties. And if I didn't work as hard for the lower money, I just wouldn't be doing a good job. So I really separate that commission from the client.

Osman: Have you done any affordable housing deals?

Karen: I have done a couple, yeah. I love the affordable housing program, but it is a whole thing. They are harder. They are twice the work and half the pay. Yes. You know, I had a I had a challenging condo to sell at a challenging complex in Boulder in Remington post last year. And I was the city of Boulder came and bought it and I think, I don't know, it might still be on the market if they hadn't done that. But the City of Boulder affordable housing program is was buying up some properties last year to add to their program. I didn't know they were doing that.

Osman: Yeah. So a few of us got, you know, got some sort of unsellable condos sold. How does the city that is looking for $500 million in

Karen: bond issue or 400 million go around buying properties with what money here? Okay, so here's why. You know that when builders build they have to allocate 10% or something. But so they do the fee in lieu right. The cash in lieu.

Osman: And so then the city takes that cash in lieu.

Karen: And they're supposed to use it to buy. So they're actually yeah that's so that is already sort of earmarked for buying these properties. And they were trying to do that back during the craziness of the COVID market. They were in there trying to buy some because at the time the affordable housing program was choked to like there was a huge waitlist for these properties, I remember. So they even though now there is not that waitlist and things are sitting, I think the city is having some foresight

Osman: and purchasing some of these properties when it's easy knowing that at some point they will be needed. Well, I heard the waiting list has gone down significantly, but I don't. Yeah, I don't know how long it is. We also will work with affordable housing clients and happily serve them. Absolutely. But I also don't advertise the affordable housing because I feel like there's this unwritten rule about what you get, what you put out there into the world. So I don't really want to emphasize our affordable housing services, but absolutely.

Karen: Usually once a year we do have affordable housing deal both on the by and the sell side. Okay. That's pretty often I think I've done 2 or 3, but we're also at a point with condos in Boulder where they have come down so much in price that they are nearing the same price as the affordable housing condos, but without the same. The dues are a very different story, it seems. The news in general in Boulder. Yeah, no, they're high there. Really. That's part of why the condo market is so depressed. But I think that, you know, when I if there's a buyer with a limited budget just looking to get into something in Boulder and they're considering the affordable housing program, I would certainly at least point them towards some of these more affordable condos that are edging up to that, almost that same thing.

Osman: They should look at it. But so the difference is that the affordable program has a newer inventory. The stock is newer typically. Yeah, some of it is not all of it. Not all of it. And maybe you need to wait for the right property to show up and hop on market. You have to maybe wait your turn, but it might be worth waiting your turn. Because for sure, the affordable program once you buy it. So not the affordable rental, the affordable purchase program. Yes, they don't reevaluate your income. Right. And so you could buy a property when you're low income just out of graduate school or even college, if you have family support or whatever, and then continue to own that valuable piece of real estate that's that's in a fantastic location, newer build and your income could quadruple, and it is what it is. And you can rent it one out of every five years. You can also put your family members in it.

Karen: So if you have if you have a long term vision to an affordable place to live in the city of Boulder, the affordable program is it's great, but it's not a deal. You know, it's not generally a cash cow if you've held it long enough.

Osman: Certainly you can make money on it. But because you it's not that what you can sell it for. It's not a cash cow for selling it.

Karen: It's not a cash cow for renting it.

Osman: Right. It's a cash cow for having a fantastic place to live at. A low quality, low cost. Yes. Yeah.

Karen: That's you make your money in other ways and you aren't forced to sell it, but it needs to stay your primary residence. I think it's one out of every seven years.

Osman: I thought that you could rent it, but it might be five. But maybe I'm wrong. They're not designed to be rentals, but there's a lot of sneaky going on, and I know of people that have been sneaky where they are actually living somewhere else in their primary residence, and they are renting this thing under the table. No one's checking. And that would be I. It's fraudulent. Yeah. There's fraud happening.

Karen: That's not the intention of the program.

Osman: So surprised there's happening in the housing program. Oh boy. Well all right so there's a couple of things you wanted to talk about that are also hidden behind the scenes. And what's your take on as is listings. Okay. So let's talk about as is listing before we get into it

Karen: for our audience, describe what isn't as is listed. Okay. So this is a little tricky. Sometimes you see listings and there are notes that the home is being sold strictly as is. A lot of times these are estate sales. You know, someone passed away. Maybe their adult children inherited the house. They don't want to be bothered with making any repairs. We all get that. So they say home being sold strictly as is. Mostly I think that means they don't want to have to be fixing a bad electrical outlet or a plumbing leak. Occasionally you'll see one that just says seller will make no warranties, no concessions, and no repairs. And at that point, where does that leave you as the buyer? Because without a pre inspection, how can you just convey a house and say here you make an offer, we're not going to change the price no matter what you find.

Osman: I don't I don't know how that is feasible to sell a home that way. Have you run into this? Oh many times. Yeah. So it's usually written in the private broker remarks, although sometimes it's in the public marks the public description. And what I usually tell my buyers is that it's got a lot of problems. They don't want to fix anything. Right. So we're going to we're going to negotiate with them and put it under contract. And then you're going to pay for inspections because you're not going to buy this without an inspection. Or you could, but I can't imagine you would do that. So then you're going to find out some bad things about the house. And if there are deal killers, we can terminate or we can submit the objection anyway. Right. And they could say take a hike or more likely, they're going to say, oh my God, the roof is bad and the sewer line is bad. And their agents going to say, I told you we can't sell as is listings. So your options are fix the sewer line or the roof or credit for it. Or you can do that for this buyer. Or you could do it for the next buyer. Because I can't sell a house with a bad sewer line. No one's going to buy the house if the roof is leaking and the sewer lines bad. And at that point the seller says, what's it going to cost me? And, you know, and they usually come to a number that it works out. I just I just use it to set the expectation of our buyer that you may end up spending 800 to $1200 on inspections and go nowhere, but you could still spend 800 and $1,200 on inspections.

Karen: And that could happen anyway, for sure. But I think that sometimes the it can be overwhelming for a buyer. And I think when this happened to me recently, which is why this was on my mind, the buyer was a first time home buyer and a little nervous, and the home seemed like it had been well cared for and really just needed cosmetic updating. And we knew there was a possibility of other things coming up. But then it was like everything, you know, it was the sewer line and the radon and the electrical panel and the aluminum wiring and, and end with a seller saying they weren't going to give any concessions or make repairs. And so she didn't even ask. She just terminated. And now they're back on the market and now,

Osman: in theory, have to disclose this to the next person. Right. Especially now the agent has actual knowledge. It's legally required for the it's legally required.

Karen: But will they will. Exactly. Will they actually disclose what they know. They might not. So and the home continues to sit. So I just think that it's it's not helping you. Like if you have a seller who is telling you that they want to list as is. And I think this is something that people who don't work in real estate just think is a thing that you can say we're selling as is, we're not making any repairs, and that just is not something that really exists in our market.

Osman: Okay. So I kind of feel like because we are delving into some legal issues, it's important to say that what we're talking about relates to the state of Colorado and that in a state that is outside Colorado, this may or may this may not be the same. Yeah. But in the state of Colorado, the commission approved contract actually says the home is conveyed as is as is where is condition? Yes. That's right. Subject to anything else in the contract. And the contract does give the buyer the right to inspect and does give the buyer the right to object. And then buyer and seller have to reach an agreement on what's reasonable to resolve it. And if you if you market your home as, as is condition, you could have exactly what happened to your situation, which is the buyer doesn't even bother submitting an objection. They just terminate. There's no you know, there's no there's no opportunity to resolve the issues because of the expectation that the seller is going to be that unreasonable. We're about to close a deal with I think I can mention this. I mean, I don't think this deal is about to blow up, but you never know. We're a few days away. On Monday, we close the deal with John Hatch, and he's been fantastic in communication the whole way through. And in the additional provisions of the counter, he wrote in some language that said that was very granular about buyer. The seller will not address cosmetic issues or deferred maintenance, which I thought was very interesting because most repair issues arise from deferred maintenance. Right. And at the end of the day, it didn't dissuade our buyer at all. We encouraged her to do her due diligence, do the inspections, get the secondary inspections done by the specialists as recommended by the inspector? And then we went through the process of what is reasonable and fair and what is not reasonable and fair. How do you like when you get this giant list of inspection items we're going to disregard. We're not going to completely disregard what we wrote. Yeah, okay. Because we did say we're not going to object to cosmetic or deferred maintenance, but these are major repairs that have showed up. And we prioritize it 3 to 5 items. And we submitted that and the seller took it seriously. And I think because he has they have a great agent. They can't hide from this. Right. Right. It's either deal with it with this buyer.

Karen: And if we can't come to terms with this buyer, then you have to deal with it on your own on the next buyer or repair it before you released it. Exactly. And that's a big negotiation tactic, I think, on the on the buy side. And really a good listing agent should be having the same conversation with their seller that okay, the buyer discovered the sewer line needs to be replaced. Like you can say no, but then the next buyer is going to come along and find the same bad sewer line and want it replaced. So eventually you're going to have probably going to have to do this. Yeah, absolutely. Not with this buyers with the next buyer. So a lot of times that conversation should be taking place. But I think if you do have a seller who really wants to sell strictly as is, maybe they live out of the country, this is in the state sale. I think a $700 home inspection could help you. And if you can present that and you've talked about this, Osman, like the California approach, you know, that whole like yeah.

Osman: The California inspect let people view the inspection, tell them to inspect on their own before they even write the offer, and then write the offer exactly. And then pre inspect it and solve the problem for them. But choose an inspector that is reputable, that is well regarded and you'll they may not even get an inspection. They probably will. But they then they, they probably won't find anything new.

Karen: And that's scary. Especially if you repaired the things that showed up on your first inspection. Yeah.

Osman: Or just said, hey, here's what we know to be true. We know the sewer line is replaced. Please, please offer accordingly. Right. It builds trust in the transaction. It builds trust in the counterparty. It makes the deal smoother. There is a way out if you want to sell it as is without just dumping as is into the language, which is a market signal that this property is a train wreck. And you have a seller who doesn't want to deal with any of it. So your options are lowball them and truly take it as is, or sell it at what market value should be for the condition of the home, right? And then still do your inspections and take the risk that they're completely non-negotiable. But odds are they will be negotiable, especially if they have a good agent. Right. And that's that's where if they have a new agent, right, I often look up licensing on to advise our clients on negotiation. And if they recently licensed, I'm like, they may not be getting good advice at all. And so I don't know what to tell you about how this is going to go down. Right. I'll try to coach across the aisle, but it may not work.

Karen: And we may end up wasting a bunch of your money and not getting to the finish. That is a significant yeah deal. Point is, who is on the other end of your contract?

Osman: What how often do you advise sellers to like to do a pre inspection before you list? I tell them the pros and the cons and then they choose. And that's that's my usual approach is this is the this is the two sides to this story. And this is what we probably would do in this situation. But you need to make the decision right. And if the home is generally in good condition and it's and it depends on the market range for the price range of the home, we will even pay for a pre inspection out of pocket because it resolves so many issues. And if we have time to get the repairs done with decent contractors, we will go that route and then present it to buyers when they come and look at the house because it builds trust. The downside of this is that those buyers have no skin in the game. Yeah, they're not emotionally attached. And so it's sort of like and I use this analogy, it's sort of like you're going on a first date and this person's handing you a pile of their medical records and their bank statements. You might be telling them, you know, their financial statements are all here. Like it's kind of like, wait a minute. We're just getting to know each other and there's a natural rhythm in order to a real estate transaction. And if they in the order this is what I call the buyer journey. You probably call it the same thing. And then you walk into a house, they fall in love with the place, the response, and they know they're ready to write an offer on this house within 60s. And then they're verifying things like, okay, yeah, all the all the compromises work, right? The bedroom and bath count the layout, the location is going to work, and then they start talking about their furniture in the house, which is when I know we're going to. Right? Yes. I don't need that. I don't need to wait. As soon as they start talking about their furniture being placed in the room, they've already made the decision on writing an offer, and then they're backfilling at the end with okay, is the price right? That's the last thing we're doing is looking at the pricing. And so the next phase is negotiating the price. And then the next phase of that is they've now spent some money to get their own inspection. Right now they have skin in the game. Now they feel more attached to them. So it's up to you if you want to circumvent that. With trust and transparency being more valuable than the emotional journey of a buyer as their commitment grows through the transaction process, that's fine.

Karen: It really helps. But it also could take the romance out of this. No, that's a good point. I just don't like surprises in general. My husband jokes that, you know, I was like, please don't ever throw me a surprise party. I like to be in control.

Osman: I might be able to tell that about me.

Karen: I was like, I hate surprises.

Osman: what is out of control for you with the inspection? Yeah, no, just in general.

Karen: Like when you like, you don't like in a surprise party or not knowing who's going to be there or being properly prepared. I don't like being caught off guard in general. And that goes for birthday surprise parties and that goes for inspections. You know, on my listings, I don't encourage sellers to inspect across the board at all. Just for the record, I think a lot of times I'm pushing them to pay for repairs, getting the house ready, pay for painting, pay for staging. And by the time we're ready to listen, I'm like, maybe we should do a pre inspection.

Osman: They're like, they're just done. They don't want to pay for that. Knowing the buyer is going to come and do that anyway. I mean it's early in the process that we recommend the pre inspection. Like if we're three months away from listing it's time to pre inspect. If we're trying to get this listed in a month. Yeah. There's really unless there's obvious issues that I can see. Yeah.

Karen: Then it probably doesn't make sense to inspect spend the money in time on decluttering painting. Yeah. Staging. And then you just deal with it when it comes up. And in theory, right. If you and find something desperately needs repair, you're dealing with it anyway. So. So maybe it's okay to let the buyer discover things and ask, but I'm just curious how you handle that. And just with this buyer in particular who is still out looking now, you know, I'm trying to get property disclosures ahead of time, trying to really have a good understanding for her,

Osman: like what this House is probably going to need before we move forward. I mean, so some of that is also part and parcel with an older home. And if aluminum. So if they have kids, I'm always checking to make sure they're cool with homes that were built before 1979. But I paint lead paint and human development are not they don't they don't play well. Yeah. And most people are fine with it, but I don't want them to be surprised by it in the inspection process or the contract process. I want to make sure we have the conversation before we go too far down the road of looking at houses. Maybe we shouldn't look at anything that was built before 1979. And then we also talk about things like asbestos and mold and radon, because those are common environmental issues. And there are also issues with newer homes. Mold is more likely in a newer home because of the tight air ceiling of the newer home. So all of that helps us kind of set expectations.

Karen: But, you know, aluminum wiring, I've never had a deal breakup over aluminum wiring because you can you can mitigate it with pigtail. You can resolve it. But it's expensive, you know, and not. And sometimes the seller doesn't want to do it. So sometimes it has come up a few times. I think the seller has always ended up paying for it, whether it was my seller or my buyer, but because it can be resolved.

Osman: But most things can, most can, but some things are not fixable. Yeah, right. Bad foundation issues. Well, foundation issues usually can be repaired, but then you incur the cost of that forever because when you go to resell it. Yeah. Right now it's got. Yeah it's got taint. Exactly. It's got a history of having a bad foundation. You have the engineer's letter. But boy now you have to sell that to somebody. It's a hurdle. But for the right location and a home that is emotionally appealing has high curb appeal. It functionally works. Almost all issues are resolvable. Location is the one that's not right. You just can't. You can screen it.

Karen: Yeah, but you're forever subject to the train line or the Yellow Line street or whatever it is.

Hamish: I think we're touching on this with one of our sales of the week later as well.

Osman: Oh yeah. We don't want to forget we have sales of the week, right? We might want to jump in. Do you want to move on with this? Well, hold on. There were a couple of other things. I guess we could save these. We were going to talk about cameras and surveillance in listings, and then we're going to talk about how to work with people who really want you to reveal all of your techniques and strategies but aren't ready to commit. How do you balance establishing trust? Let's go there. How do you deal with the person who just wants to date you and still date a whole bunch of other people, but wants to know your secrets of the trade?

Karen: You know, there's a book that I think we were talking about earlier called The Full Fee Agent that talks about this, about knowing how to tell right away when you walk into a house, if you are the sucker or if you were going to be their agent. And a lot of times people have made up their mind, they have already maybe even signed with another agent to list their home, and they really just want reassurance that they're making the right decision by hearing you give them a similar list price. Hearing you give them similar advice about whether or not to paint their window, trim white, etc., etc. and so you're kind of just there to give them free advice, and it is hard to know beforehand.

Osman: Sometimes you can tell when you walk in, but it's hard to know beforehand if you're if you're the listing agent or you're the sucker. Yeah, I've had that. I mean, so many times. And the book is literally right here. We have the book in the office. I bought it for the team this year, and it is a great book. Yeah,

Karen: and I have been the sucker enough times now.

Osman: Know when this is what's happening. Can you tell ahead of time though? Or do you just tell when you walk in the door. So sometimes I so they actually the author actually says Jeff. Jeff. Floss. Chris. Chris Voss actually says you should resolve this in a 15 minute phone call, right? That you should not actually schedule a meeting with these people unless you actually have a shot at the business, the listing, or representing them as a buyer's agent. I will meet with people. I'm not that aggressive and I'm not that protective of time. I think people need to meet with me personally to get a sense of who I am and how we work together, and I feel like I have some natural disadvantages I have to overcome. And this is going to be a little edgy, but I'm just going to say it. I think people that have a foreign sounding name and have darker skin have more hurdles to have to overcome. And so as a consequence, when and this is going to sound political, okay. But I'm just going to say it like Barack Obama is incredibly charismatic, incredibly presidential. His biggest controversy was wearing a brown suit. And I think he outperformed because he had to be successful. And I feel like meeting people in person overcomes some of their hesitancy with working with somebody who looks and sounds. At least my name sounds like, so I don't mind. I will make the extra effort to meet with somebody in person, but sometimes I'll start getting a feeling like, wait a minute, we're not ready to commit yet. So I will set expectations. Like if we're going to go look at homes before we had to do by our agency agreements day one, I would say we're going to do this three times on the third date. It's time to make a commitment to me or we're done. And I can't just keep taking you out and looking at homes because of other clients.

Karen: And I'm sure you're considering other agents, so I need you to make your decision within the first three.

Osman: You think they are? You think someone who spent that much time with you on the buy side is considering another agents, though by the third time, they've they've usually made their decision.

Karen: But I need them to sign at that point.

Hamish: I need the buyer agency. We've lost them before.

Osman: We like once I think since I've been here, we've had a client just be like by. Yeah, well you've learned you've seen it because we now have a system. But when I first got into the business, I did not have a system. And I got used quite often to be the sucker. Right. And this summer I had an interesting situation. And she may be listening to this podcast and I'm okay with that. Where we have met once or twice, we've looked at a home together, she has called and we've emailed, and I've basically had to tell her because she's hinted several times that they have a family member, or they have a friend of a family who just got his license, and he's been bugging her for the listing. And I said, well, why don't you listen to them then? Yeah, because at this point is where we're going to stop. I'm more than happy to advise you with unlimited, like we're not talking any like, no caps on my time. I will come to your house. We'll go through every room of the house. We'll do that repeatedly and give you I will give you a PowerPoint presentation. That's part of our standard practice. And that's usually 50 plus slides on room by room. How you should improve your home to prepare it for sale. But that comes after you've made the commitment and you're still at the I might use my friend's kid who's 20 years old, and I'm not competing with that guy, right. If you're choosing to use that person at a loyalty, great. I wish you luck. But we need to stop meeting because it doesn't make any sense. And, you know, I feel like I may have offended her, but at the same time, I'm okay with that.

Karen: Because if that was her approach was to use me for information, there's a limit to how many, how many times you get me for free. Even the first visit, though, I think sometimes I used to go in on the first visit, especially if you know that person is probably working with you. And we do go through the whole house, and we do go room by room and talk about moving the bed over here and a white comforter on this bed and whatever else. And I think I've had to sort of draw a line, like split it into two phases. And the first phase is coming. You have to show some value. You can't just walk in and be tight lipped and be like, I'm not revealing anything until you sign a contract with me. So presenting comps in a CMA and a comparative market analysis suggesting a list price or at least a range of a list price and maybe some basic repairs for the home. But my room by room consultation is for sure.

Osman: Now, after a listing contract has been signed, it's tough to balance those things. I agree with you. You have to demonstrate value. You have to show value. You have to demonstrate competency. And it isn't that hard with neighborhood comps to have looked up what's sold in the last six months. Probably the seller has an idea of what it should be. For sure they know. Yeah. And so if you can mention a few addresses and the prices and also your approach. So I don't know how you price homes, but I don't think this is secret sauce. But I'll just share how we do it. Yeah. We'll give them a general range of that first meeting and at a listing agreement being signed. But the final pricing is subject to when we are going live. And that means you have to see the competition and the part that I don't think most agents do this, that drives me crazy. Preview properties. Yeah, they don't preview because I'll have a competitor and suddenly there'll be a new competitor pop up on the market. And I'm like, this person's never shown the listing, or they felt like they had a sneak like and see the listing with a different name, like a different agent scheduled it, then showed it. Like that happens because you're allowed to have like Hamish will cover showings for me. When I can't do it, it'll be scheduled under my name. So sometimes that happens with teams, but I think more than likely people are not actually seeing the competition. They're pricing blind. And so right before we go live in the three days before we're finalizing the listing, we sent them the draft listing. We have the placeholder price. I will go see the competition and I will invite the seller to come see it yourself. If I feel like they're not going to get it unless they see it. And at that point, we really have dialed in our pricing and we have moved our expected price $50,000. Either way. And more often we're moving it up, not down, because the competition looks so good in the photos, has all these problems that we couldn't see until we went and walked in the door. We're like, oh, what looked like a high end kitchen is lipstick on a pig. It's an old kitchen that they painted really well and it fooled me with the photos.

Karen: And now with AI, we're really getting full photos. Yeah, I agree, I am on board with that too. And I think a lot about this market is pricing to active comps, not just sold comps, because sometimes the sold comps are telling the story of the past. They're not telling where the market's going, where it's headed, and that can be up or down. And so I like to tell sellers like, okay, we're going to pretend to be a buyer right now in the 5 to $600,000 range in Longmont for a single family home. Like, let's go see what they're going to be looking at and how they're going to compare this property to the other ones that we're looking at. And let's see, like we want to be the best the best option. So for the price and for the way it's presented, we want we want them to see all these five properties and pick ours.

Osman: And sometimes that pricing depends more on those active comps than what their neighbors have sold for, right? Absolutely. It just has to make sense. So they have to feel the emotional pull of wanting this house. And then they have to look at the pricing and say, oh yeah, this price totally makes sense. I don't feel like I'm getting gouged. Like I get why the price is where it's at. And if you've overpriced it, all you did was sell your competitors house. And if you grossly underpriced it, you probably left money on the table and you might be going to cocktail party saying, oh my God, I got 1212 offers the first weekend. My agent so smart. And you're like, no, your agent underpriced it by 300,000, but you don't know. And they may not know either. They may have done it by accident, but that is not a successful agent. That is a screw up.

Karen: No, especially right now back in 2022, everything was getting bidding wars. But today it's just not how it's working.

Osman: There's a few things out there getting bidding wars, but they're limited. There are few and far between. If you're getting a surprise, the bidding war should never be a surprise, right? I feel like your agent should tell you. Look, there's 20 to 25% probability will get more than one offer. I don't. We've done our homework, and we've priced it right. We've seen the competition.

Karen: If you get 12 offers, you have underpriced it like something is not wrong. Yeah, exactly. We've missed that one. That's at least my take on it. I think there's always the chance I've seen this happen before with sellers to where, you know, you price it right, you present it right.

Osman: You get one full price offer right away. First weekend. And the seller says we underpriced it.

Karen: Right. That's what they should do.

Osman: And you're like, no, this is perfect though. One full price offer right away means we did everything just right. It's a legit strategy to under price, but it should be a conscious strategy. It should be deliberate, not an accident. And sometimes you got to get it sold quick. And that's the price at low. Let's get it sold. Quick approach. But not in all price points and locations. Right. There's this concept of called depth of market. And if your depth of market is very thin, meaning that there's only, let's say, three buyers right now that are shopping in the five plus million dollar category, pricing it intentionally low could just be a recipe for leaving a lot of money on the table, particularly with luxury pricing.

Karen: People expect the price to be frankly, overpriced. Like that's the norm. And very flexible, right? Because people have no problem on a $5 million, $4 million house offering $500,000 below asking.

Osman: Aspirational, right?

Karen: That's where you end pricing. Aspirational pricing. Yeah, exactly. But in that I sometimes I think in that price range, it's like a, you know, they're just like throwing a dart at the wall. Like there's so much movement and what you can price a home at sometimes in the higher numbers that sometimes I don't know how they're pricing.

Osman: And I think sometimes with these nicer custom homes in those price ranges, it is just harder to compare. They're not there really unique properties, and there are selling points in it that potentially could convince a buyer that is not familiar with our market, somebody who is very affluent, moving into our community, that man. This is especially if it's a very charismatic agent with a lot of ego. They can be convincing that maybe this home really is worth $15 million. But then surprise, surprise, a month later they've dropped the price to nine. Like, oh yeah, they were. They were shaking out the dumb money. Exactly. And now that the dumb money is established, they're not out there. Yeah, the dumb money is coming back to the what? What real pricing should be on this home. And it's still aspirational, but it's no longer the like. There's like the dumb money phase. And then there's the aspirational normal phase. And sometimes the dumb money phase is two weeks, sometimes it's two months.

Karen: It takes sometimes it takes a while for the seller to realize it just ain't happening or the price is right, but it's just going to take a year to sell because there aren't that many buyers in that price point. It might be a very thinly traded just right.

Osman: You might have there's just a lot on the market, and there's one buyer every six months who's showing up for that price point. But then you should still be at that point, right? If you've been on the market several months, I believe you should just price it right. Get rid of the make believe price and go with probably about right, maybe 10%, 15% above market. We're talking about the luxury segment, but not 50% above market, right? Like can we get to reality? There's never been a sale at this price point in Boulder County. And yes, you thought yours was the one that would set the price record forever. It ain't happening. So we need to come back a little bit to reality, and then we may still be waiting two years. And that's one of the things with the ultra high end. And we saw this on Nantucket, where listing agents would charge up front for marketing fees and have a multiyear listing agreement because they don't even know if this is going to sell. And you could change your mind. And they don't want to have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, in some cases for this ultra luxury segment, marketing something for a multi-year period just to have you change your mind. So that's not going to work. So it's negotiable as all things are in real estate. I think we should finish up with these behind the scenes things that buyers and sellers don't realize happening.

Karen: And let's talk about surveillance cameras and what your experience has been. I mean, I think we're seeing it more and more. I'm sure you are too. And this is not just the ring doorbell. I'm sure sellers are watching the ring doorbell to see who's coming into their home. I hear stories about it all the time, but when you walk in and there's actually cameras in the house on you, I feel like it changes the vibe and it makes people uncomfortable almost to the level. If you walked in, the seller was sitting there, which I've also had happen. I'm sure you have to surprise seller in the house. It makes people feel like they can't speak freely and they can't make themselves at home. And the whole idea is you want them to be able to envision themselves in the home as if it's theirs. And I think that camera really is disruptive, at least for my buyers.

Osman: And you also warn them not to speak freely when you see them. Oh, even if we don't see them, I tell them, if you're excited about the house, that's great. Try to keep it tamper down. And if you want to talk about strategy and negotiation, whether or not we see a camera. Right, let's do it in the car. Yeah, let's do it up the block. Right.

Karen: Let's not do it in front of the house. Right? Not even in the driveway.

Osman: Yeah, because it compromises us. Yeah, I think so too.

Karen: You're sort of revealing your hand now.

Osman: There may be a time that we want to create human connection, and it's. If you're on the listing side, it sometimes is a good idea to meet the buyer. Yeah. Before the end of their inspection drop by you had you had a drop by for some reason, you had milk in the car and now you're out of there. You just. And you meet them as humans. Because when you meet people, as humans, you're far less likely to behave inappropriately in the inspection process. You feel a little guilt. Good people feel bad about treating other good people badly. And so that's just a general operating principle. So in some cases, we've encouraged a seller to meet the buyer. And in some cases we've encouraged the buyer to meet the seller because we knew we were in a bidding war. Yeah. And we knew that it would help. This is a deal that happened on Berea in Table Mesa. And this is like 10 or 12 years ago. I won't mention the name of the buyers, but I will say that when we pulled up, we knew it was going to be a bidding war because of the price point. And we looked at the house and the house was dated, had all sorts of problems, but the gardens were really unusual in this house, like all around the house were really well tended gardens and it was an estate sale. And as we were leaving, we noticed there was this little old lady watering the plants in the corner of the garden, and I pulled my clients aside and I said to them, I can't do this, okay? Because I have a real estate license, but you should go. But, you know, if you accidentally go say hi to the seller and let them know how much you love the house and who you are, and then you have kids. I bet you that's the I bet you she grew up in this house. Based on how long this house has been owned by this one family, I think there were original owners in Table Mesa, and sure enough, it was. It was the adult elderly, one of the adult three children. And there were other offers, including developers that were paying cash. And they went with our offer, even though it was lower than the others that came in. And it really turned into an arm wrestling contest among the adult children. Yeah. And two of the sisters paid the brother to the difference to make the deal happen, because they did not want to sell it to a developer, they wanted to sell it to a family, and they found the perfect family for the house. And they felt an emotional connection to our clients. And they were like, and think about it.

Karen: And your 60s and 70s and 80s.

Osman: Do you really care about that incremental 5 or $10,000? Exactly. It's been paid off for years. It's just you resent your brother for making you pay them, right? Right. Like that's more about the family business. Yeah. Like that come up in real estate transactions. But it worked. So there are times that you want to meet. But on a camera, walking into the house feels so icky. It feels weird. And on a first showing, the seller being there and not leaving. Yeah, that's icky.

Karen: It's often that they're running out the door and they just want to say hi and they walk out the door. That's fine. Yeah that's fine. I have had to happen. It's usually, you know, maybe it's someone who doesn't fully understand. Maybe their agent hasn't briefed them on the importance of actually leaving the house and not just hiding in the basement. I have I have been given a heart attack almost, by finding a seller sitting in a dark basement.

Osman: Like trying to hide from us in a house, hide and seek in their house. That was college students hiding under the covers. College students who just don't know. You know, there's nothing I hate more than tending that.

Karen: I'm like, there's a body under that bread, and I know they're in this one.

Osman: It's weird. I mean, do you walk up to a closed bedroom door and take a deep breath? Because I do, I like no, I know I always I not when we go in the house, even though I'm running doorbell and I knock at every door that's closed because I do not want to catch somebody by surprise.

Karen: So I had to buy her last year, looking at houses in Longmont, and we went into one that was he liked it and we saw the camera sitting on the counter. It was very obvious and but we weren't saying anything bad. We walked through the house. He was an older gentleman and he had some concerns about the laundry being in the basement. And we walked through and I sent some feedback. I think just saying you might be interested in the next day the agent texted me and said, hey, my sellers would be willing to move the laundry upstairs if that would help your buyer make an offer. And it was so upsetting to me that I had mentioned that we had mentioned that in the feedback or on the phone. It was a full on.

Osman: They had been watching us, heard him express some concerns about it, how lovely for them to offer to do so, but it freak them out. I've heard the real Estate Commission advice that buyers are. There's an expectation of privacy and you potentially can get yourself into some legal trouble. And I have seen some people leave signs recording is happening in them, but it just creates an awful feeling. It's icky. And so but I just assume it's happening anyway.

Hamish: And maybe the cameras are hidden. I think best practice not talk about the house. Don't talk about what you're planning to offer. And I'll say, oh, I've lost my train of thought. But also so cameras in the house are a little bit strange, for sure. Yeah. How about, like, the listing agent accompanied showings? That's okay, I think. And it just depends on the type of property.

Karen: Sometimes that can be really beneficial if it is a complex property or certainly some of the higher end properties, and it helps to have someone there to show you the ins and outs of it and really get a good showing.

Osman: But I don't know how do you feel? It also helps us spy on the buyers, right? And so we really know whether the buyer is excited, not because we can read their body language even though they're not saying anything. And if they're acting evasive, they probably really like it. So we do the tour and then we leave on the high end listings. And I think that's incredibly beneficial. We make sure the lights are on, we make sure the lights are off and the property locked up when it's closed. Yeah, but we also try not to hang out. There's this. Let me open the doors. Let me be warm and bubbly. But. And I have actually seen my buyers fall so in love with the listing agent who was adorable, attractive, bubbly, effervescent personality. We walk out and they're like, we love that house. And I'm like, we're the calm. Like there's nothing about that house that matches our search criteria. I'm just going to be sold it. Yeah. She doesn't come with the house, right? You're not getting her. You're only getting the house. She's great. I'm in love with her, too. Yeah, but you're not getting. Yeah. And so they're like, oh well I guess. Yeah. You know, maybe you're right. It's really her that we like. Like, I know I'm like, I'm the bummer of an agent pointing out everything wrong with the house. Right. And you love one. I'm like pushing back on you. And she's, like, bubbling, effervescent.

Karen: What a breath of fresh air

Osman: is all day about what's wrong with these houses and how many great things about this house they're highlighting, right? Oh, yeah, they're highlighting all the positive things. So there is a benefit to a human and there's a huge negative to cameras, but I expect the camera at the doorbell. It's the camera inside that's the most problematic. And we deal with it. I usually tell my sellers, look, remove your drugs, remove your valuables and expect people to leave lights on toilets and flushed. It's part of showing a house. It sucks. We're going to do our best to minimize your period of showings so that you're not tortured for months on end. That's why it's so important to prep the house. Yeah, the right way. But at the end of the day, this is the sucky part of selling a house. Is strangers in your home on short notice.

Karen: And spying on them is not the answer to feeling better.

Osman: So you will take your valuables. Although I have never had an issue, have you? With that? I personally have not.

Hamish: But I've heard enough stories that it's just not worth it. So if there's something particularly high end, we should just get it out of the house and say with like degrees and personally identifying things, you kind of don't, you know, you build kind of a profile of who the seller is,

Osman: the bookshelf and all these things, and then you can get their actual name off of the diploma that they've got on the wall. Yeah, yeah. It might be beneficial. Right. Like if you're selling a home, this is all about identifying who your target client is and if it's a home close to the university. And the person might be realize that the buyer could be affiliated with the university having some educational books and maybe your diploma on the wall maybe creates this sort of academic vibe, but most of the time it's not a great idea.

Karen: And the worst idea is to leave like religious stuff up.

Osman: It doesn't matter what the religion is, with one exception. Yeah. What's that? People. People like the Buddhist stuff. The Buddhist stuff is universally acceptable.

Hamish: Put a Buddha in the wall.

Osman: It's totally fine. No one's offended by the Buddhist, but everything else is offensive to somebody in the yard to like. All right, I think we've covered our cameras. Right. Feel good about that, I think. Yeah. Is it time to move on to sales of the week? Let's move on.

Karen: It's time for sales of the week.

Osman: Do you want to go low to high or high to low? Let's go high to low. All right. High to low. Okay. The first one is 210 Cactus Ct. And this property just closed on July 24th for 6.13. From a location perspective, you are looking at the northwest corner of Wonderland Hills. So just southwest of the lake and originally listed at 6.75 in March of 2023. So really three years on market? Yeah, I did not look to see if they stuck with their agent the whole time, but that's a long time to be on market. They didn't cut it. They didn't cut it in 2023 at all. They cut the price. First time was in 2024 to 6.5. And that's what it was listed for in February, 6.5 when it hit the market in February this year.

Hamish: And it didn't go under contract until June 11th, and it closed for 6.13. So they weren't far off 370 something below

Karen: their last list price. I liked this house. I you know, we sort of joked about the first photo being the master bedroom, the primary bedroom, and I think that was the highlight of the views and that maybe that meant that the curb appeal wasn't so great. But I actually liked this house. What did you like about it? I like the architecture and especially the interior. It was the right vibe for what I like. It had sort of that mix of like exposed wood beams and natural tones, which I really like, while still having that kind of modern, contemporary look.

Osman: It's sort of it's what I think of as a resto mod, right? It's a home built in the 70s, so it's got the bones of a home in the 70s, but then they've done so much work to it. Yeah, like they've opened it up with steel beams. And clearly every finish has been touched inside and out. It's nothing like it was in the 70s. Much bigger windows, dark trim, white out on the walls, natural wood tones.

Karen: And maybe you're right, you know, we were critical about that first photo because it just seemed like, why would you lead with a master bedroom photo?

Osman: I think it's that view out the window that they're trying to highlight. If you look at you look closely at that photo. Yeah, that's probably what they were trying to do. But most of the time when you don't see the curb shot or an aerial shot, it's because the house is ugly. And so leading with the first photo, that's usually when it's not showing that's immediately a perception that you're now going to have to overcome. Yeah. But I think they're trying to hint at that with a little, you know, the monocular, the scope in the window. But boy, there's some really pretty shots like the one shot of the sunset with the, with the deck I think is spectacular lead shot. So I don't know I'm being critical of the market but the house itself is under. House is nice. Great location. This is water. This is the equivalent of waterfront property. When you are butted up against the open space. And in this case, you're right off the trail, right? Yeah. Fantastic. You've got your own little social trail onto the one on Lake Trail, and you can easily hop on a bike and head downtown 6000ft². It's probably a little on the bigger side.

Karen: I think the one really rare thing about this is the four car attached garage. Well, so it looks like it's a combination of attached and detached. If you look in the photos, I think it's hard to differentiate that on our MLS, but it's like a two car attached garage, a two car detached garage and a carport.

Osman: Do you see that? I'm looking to.

Karen: It's kind of a strange combination there. Yeah, yeah. Okay. I see what you're saying.

Osman: Yeah, but still, I think Raj space is a premium for sure.

Hamish: People really value that right now. Well, it's just rare to have that many garage spaces. And it's not just for cars, it's for bicycles or other equipment. Toys. Yeah, this has got both. It's got two garages. That's sweet. Yeah. You think in the future ADU potential on top of that little.

Osman: Yeah. Detached thing.

Hamish: I mean 30,000 square foot lot.

Osman: You would think that you could do that. And that brings up an interesting, interesting future for bowler. With all of the rules changing for ads and duplexes by. Right. Right. And with such a big lot they are going to try to reduce subdivisions. We'll see if that is successful or not.

Hamish: But there's definitely going to be a building boom. Yeah. And a nice big lot on the west side of the open space is I mean, you're probably not going to go try to build a duplex there, but probably not.

Osman: You know, you're also subject to height limits and all sorts of other things. And this is on the hillside. Yeah, a spectacular property. But I just imagine the seller, you know, they listed it three years ago. And this is where reality really flies in the face of all the fluffy marketing you see from luxury agents, where it's all sexy and fun and playful and, and pizzazz, and they love to highlight their successes, but they don't tell you about the three years it took to get the house sold.

Karen: And that's that's what it took in this particular. I mean, how many $6 million buyers are there out there really, in Boulder? And I know we support those kinds of big numbers here. If you're listening somewhere outside of Boulder, maybe this sounds shocking, but I think even like, you know, the 3 to $5 million price point in Boulder is probably more of a popular price range day to day

Osman: to 6 million. Just take three years to sell. Well, let's just do let's just look at the data right now.

Hamish: So I'm going to I'm going to pull up I figured you were going to do I'm not gonna share a screen, but I'm just going to do I keep them up to just pull the data. So I'm just gonna pull it out.

Osman: I'm doing my map of Boulder proper with full disclosure that there are little pockets of incorporated Boulder County that are in here. Palo Park. Right. Exactly. And so it's not absolutely accurate, but I'm looking at City of Boulder. How many active $6 million plus listings do you think we got right now?

Hamish: Oh how many 6 million plus.

Karen: At the moment they're just on the market in the city of Boulder.

Osman: Dozen music. Yeah.

Hamish: 1215 okay.

Osman: All right. What's your number for? How many are under contract? 161. Oh, yeah. So what? I mean, one out of 15 homes, 14 disappointed sellers sitting there wondering why is my house not selling? Right? Okay, so there you go. Is there A11 buyer a year? Yeah, one buyer a year. If you if you consider that's the pace.

Karen: We didn't look at how many sales happen.

Hamish: Let's answer that question okay.

Osman: How many sales in the last year. We literally have years of inventory on some inventory. Is that probably sounded so good. I'm sure it's not for that. Was Hamish dropping his mic okay. Sales in the last year seven. So 15 represents two of about two years of inventory, two years inventory, which is actually where the high end was in trouble during the global financial crisis. We had over two years of inventory back then, 2008, 2008. Yeah, at the high end, at the high end at that time was like above 1,000,005. Right? Right. Now we're looking at separate numbers.

Karen: Now I know so but yeah, that's that's two years of inventory for six plus million dollar houses okay.

Osman: So that's what you should be preparing your $6 million sellers for or two years on the market. Okay. Let's look at 1206 W Pine Ct.

Karen: And this is when you chose Louisville. Yeah. And it's a Marshall Fire rebuilding. It is a Marshall Fire. So this is in the enclave in Louisville. So this is a really cool neighborhood with high end custom homes. They pretty much all burned in the Marshall Fire and have been rebuilt. But I think now that we're I can't believe we're five years past the Marshall Fire. In five years, it'll be five years at the end of December. Maybe we should tell people what the Marshall Fire is. If you don't know what the Marshall Fire was. It was one of the most destructive fires in Colorado history that swept through. It was December 30th, 2021, and it burned 1100 structures in superior, Louisville and east Boulder County. It did an incredible amount of damage, and it happened out of nowhere. People did not expect it. We traditionally have wildfires here and we think of them affecting mountain properties. It is rare to have something come sweep through our suburban downtowns and take out so many houses. So this particular pocket of Louisville board a lot of the homes border Marshall Mesa or sorry, Davidson Mesa, which has great views, good trails protected of a perfect to right like it actually a lot of these houses have some really have some great views or not. I mean, you talk a lot about, you know, with balsam and some of these neighborhoods, some, some have great views and some have none. So this one in particular, it back to David's and Mesa, but there was an empty lot next door. And depending on what someone builds on that lot next door that could obstruct some of your views, they might not be fully protected in that sense. And then as many people did, they built very custom homes around their needs. And so this home was beautiful, but it had a couple of very custom things about it that I noticed. And I went to a broker open. So I chatted with the agent who was great, but for one they did all tile throughout the whole main level, which is not something we see in Colorado.

Osman: That's maybe more of a warm weather, a Florida thing to use tile in your home.

Karen: And it was fine. Italian. Oh, so the porcelain, what looks like wood is actually porcelain, all porcelain tile throughout that main level. So I thought that was a little bit unusual. And then the other weird thing is that the it has a main level primary, but it's actually two primary bedrooms that share a primary bathroom. So it was confusing when I walked around and the agent was like, oh yeah, that's a lot of older folks sleep in separate bedrooms, but they still want to share the bathroom. So it was an unusual setup. Two masters with a Jack and Jill bathroom? Yes. Primaries. Yeah. Thank you. It's sort of like dual primaries, but they don't each have their own bathroom. They're connected by the primary bathroom. And one had sort of views to the mesa and the other one had none. So it was just an unusual layout. And without it being two separate primaries. Like what? Who I was like, who was going to buy this with all the tile and with the dual primary situation and it sold.

Osman: It went under contract on, what, three days? Pretty fast. So officially five days. But often that means immediately because you don't have to change the two days. Yeah. And usually we're looking at 48 hours even if the offer was submitted day one. Yeah. And it's sold for 2.875. Listed at 2.9. Yeah. I mean that's that's pretty darn close to that's pretty full list price. Yeah I mean it's a gorgeous house in a gorgeous location.

Karen: Cash deal.

Osman: Yeah. As things are often in Redfin buyer's agent, I saw that. I thought that was interesting. I hope they got their money's worth, too. And, yeah, I mean, it's a great property. No argument. And I don't know about the valuation because I really you know, I always tell my clients there's my gut instinct on value. Right. I'll tell you how I feel about the value. But then if we're actually getting into valuation, I need to see the comps. And we will do that live, because it's not just how I feel about it. I want to see the data and you want to see the data because we can be fooled by finishes and design and it could be completely overpriced. And somebody may have overpaid, which sometimes happens quite often happens, but especially for a new listing.

Karen: But this I mean it's there's no argument. This is a it's a beautiful home and a great location. It's at the end of the road up there in. So you really do feel like you're protected. It's quiet, but it's quiet as you can get farther from McCaslin. So it was a great location.

Hamish: I just thought that the quirkiness in some of the finishes of the house would cause it to sit longer, and I was impressed how quickly it sold.

Osman: Well, I think something else is going to say at 553 a square, 50 to 200ft², it's only three years old, right? It's basically a brand new house. And the cost to build, it's super rare to get things, even under anything under 400 and under 500 even quite challenging. And this looks like it has really nice finishes. Yeah. So for the convenience of not having to build it yourself and this particularly great location pretty good slot.

Karen: Yeah I think I think it's a great deal on a beautiful house. I think it illustrates you know, that again some of those are now turning over now that we're hitting that five year mark past the fire. So it took a couple of years for everybody to rebuild. Right. So we're sort of at three years past the rebuild time.

Osman: And I think now we're starting to see some of them change over. And so which is exciting. The one thing I find just kind of funny about this listing is this particular photo,

Karen: right.

Osman: There are mini-splits. Yeah, I want to see there are mini-splits. There's four of the compressor units, four of them, and it says state of the art HVAC system.

Karen: And I you know, we're not talking about, you know, geothermal or anything.

Osman: It's just heat pumps. Pumps which everyone put in after the everyone is put in. And it's so funny to see it.

Hamish: I've never seen a listing

Osman: highlight the heat pumps that are outside the house before.

Karen: Hell of an install.

Hamish: You know Hamish installed it. Oh. Did you? It's impressive. Oh, it was an undertaking. You might know. My friends now live in Louisville, and they were saying that after the fires, there was some controversy around, like these rebuild homes being

Karen: out of spec for, like, the permitting.

Hamish: No. So there was the zero.

Karen: No, I think it was, wasn't it, about the, I think size to the law or something. Well, that's that was a different situation in Boulder County. But so there was an exemption made. They had just passed like new building code for like ACO friendly. Yeah, exactly. I'm blocking the name for right now. They had just passed a new building code, and then they agreed to basically make an exception for people who had lost their homes in the Marshall Fire that they did not have to build to that 2021 code they could build to like the pre 2020 code when they rebuild as like a grace. But if they sold the lot and someone else came in to build, they would have to build to the new code. So there was a little bit of controversy over that for a while. I think what you're also referencing is Boulder County, a few years ago passed a law about how big you can build.

Osman: Yeah, on your lot based on the average size of the house in the neighborhood. Oh, it always been based on the average size, but you were allowed to exceed it to 120% before they put in that moratorium. And you can no longer exceed that median house size. Okay. Right.

Karen: Which is not more restrictive.

Osman: Basically it's an anti large house provision that's been in the county for a while because East Boulder County is full of large acreage, you know, two acre lots. It seems when these rules passed they benefit the homeowners that have what they want. Right. And they are detriment if you expect it.

Karen: If a large portion of your property value was its potential, it's a detriment to that. But that's interesting that you knew all the nuance on. Yeah, just having seen it and chatted with the agent about it, it was I was surprised how quickly it sold and how much. But good for them.

Hamish: Yeah. No.

Karen: Maybe you know, the new to two primary bedroom thing is like the new thing. Sleep divorces in the room. I keep hearing you talk about a snore room.

Osman: Like it's having sort of an extra room off your primary bedroom so you can kick somebody out.

Hamish: This is the thing now. It's like being a dog house.

Karen: It's like sleep is hard to come by.

Osman: You know? No. It's sacred. Exactly. No one's getting in the way.

Karen: I mean, I don't think there's been that many $2.9 million sales in Louisville, so I suspect this sets a benchmark. I think that's the neighborhood it would happen in. So, you know, as far as $3 million homes, it's going to be in downtown, downtown for some of those newer builds for sure.

Osman: Yeah. Yeah, yeah for sure. Absolutely. Okay, okay. 1625 Mariposa Ave in Floral Park, which is part of the Chautauqua neighborhood, not in Chautauqua. I guess some people call this lower Chautauqua. I'm not even 100% convinced it actually is technically Floral Park. That's how it was described, because sometimes people conflate what would you call it into Park Inter, or it could be interurban, like there's a bunch of little subdivisions in this location, but they're all basically the same other than where our clients bought on Mariposa.

Hamish: That backs to the.

Osman: Hamish, do you remember the name of the subdivision? You're looking it up? I couldn't tell you that. Like, that has the common area that all the teachers bought together that I thought was Floral Park in my brain is a little bit tired today, so I might have that wrong. But anyway, we know the location. It's it's solid spot, no argument.

Karen: 2340 square foot house built in 2023 as a listing.

Osman: I don't know, is it really 2023?

Karen: So I looked up at the public records which say in 1950 50 but effective year 2012, exactly effective year 2012 and public records. So that's still not 2023.

Osman: There is a note in the listing about it having been completely reimagined and rebuilt, but I don't think it was torn down. So yeah, she says effective age of construction is 2023. So I mean, she's disclosing it. So you really have to ask yourself, well, what's the difference between what was there in 1950 and what's there today? And if it's taken down to the studs and rebuilt to modern code, it could be effectively 2023. Sure. It is a one story ranch, 2340ft², and it's listed as no square footage in the basement. Is this right? Is there not a basement? I mean, it says this. The square footage is the same without the basement. So, yeah, no basement. So it is a big the big sprawling, a big spot, but it doesn't look like it from the front. Yeah, that's the quaint using it looks very quaint. Yeah. But it's a really big one story ranch style house that has been really nicely updated.

Karen: So. That's right. That's what we were talking about before that this is what buyers want is this is what people who are retiring, who have money, who are looking to age in place. This is what they want. And this is what we're missing. Not the junky thousand square foot ranches, but this type of sprawling ranch.

Osman: Updated. Good neighborhood, reasonable price point for Boulder. All the finishes are on point. It looks very Nantucket, with the single on the outside and the nautical theme inside.

Karen: In some places the color look very nautical to me.

Osman: The finishes are cute. I think it's a it's a colorful and fun, no argument and the warm tones are really pretty. It's got great outdoor entertaining areas like it's turnkey, buttoned up, ready to go.

Karen: Only a one car attached garage. How do you feel about that? Yeah, that's not quite enough, but I guess, you know, you're not really walkable to groceries.

Osman: Although I don't know how many people are really buying groceries without a car in Boulder, but you certainly can walk. So, Chautauqua. I mean, there used to be a grocery store, and then they then Whole Foods remodeled it, and then it's still sitting at date and it's still empty.

Karen: I know someday I think there's going to be something amazing there, but I think the West Side needs a grocery store beyond Lucky's, and I mean that part of the west side of Boulder for sure.

Osman: I mean, I don't know where the students go. They probably go to the Safeway. That really scary sketchy. The sketchy is grocery and Boulder is the Safeway at 28th. And yeah, that's a scary market. Okay. So it sold for 2.5. It was on the market for about two months. The listing agent double ended. And interestingly, the buyer had acquired it for 2000 2,002,002.325 in 2024. So you know, they made a little money after commissions. They did just fine. Yeah. It for very long. I think it's you know, I think it's actually a little on the small side for these rambling ranches. Yeah. In fact, I'm having this conversation with a client right now. And this house we're looking at is roughly 3600ft², with 2100 on the main and the rest in the basement, 1000 in the basement. And he feels it's too big. But I'm looking at it like this is actually, you know, this 2200 to 3000ft², closer to 3000. But once you start to get over 3000ft² on the main, I feel like it just might be too big for some people. Be big. There's like a sweet spot to. And three bedrooms is also a little bit much because where's the office go?

Karen: Right.

Osman: You got a guest room and yeah.

Karen: So it's a little bit tight on the small side. But for sure there's a market for this. And clearly and in that location and it's quiet.

Osman: It's on a good street. Right. So you're not a compromised location. No. Did you say. Yeah.

Karen: So that's the social trail. Access to Chautauqua is fantastic.

Osman: It's fantastic. It's it's a pretty good price point, I think, for the quality. Yeah. For the quality of this house, for sure. Yeah. I had to wait a couple of months to find the right buyer. And I think it's a very, a very well bought property. And there was no negotiation on price, which is interesting because after two months you'd expect a bit of a negotiation. Maybe not one is double ended, but maybe, yeah, maybe they maybe there was another type of negotiation happening on the back end. Yeah. True. Okay. Nine 881 last thing. One car garage. I kind of feel like most people really want a two car garage when you cross that $2 million mark. So it is a it is something to think about if you're buying, to try to think about the future when you were going to sell this in the future and where it is positioned in the market.

Karen: Two plus million bucks most buyers expected to car garage unless the location is. So I think the exception is like that part of town, University Place and Chautauqua or like the historic homes. And I have sold a $2.5 million house with no garage up there, because sometimes the city won't let you put one in. So it just depends on what your needs are.

Osman: And I think people swap that historic charm and location for garage space. 980 Hertford Dr. It's your classic tri level built in the 60s, some cosmetic updates and originally listed at 1.225. It looked like it took a little over a month, month and a half to go under contract after they cut the price to 1185 and it sold for 1125, so 100,000 below the list price. Yeah, I'm looking at the photos. It looks like mostly a cosmetic remodel, right?

Karen: Like they did some nice things with the colors and the paints. But it's Table Mesa schools. Mesa schools is Table Mesa Hartford's a good street. It's far enough in that I think you're not going to be affected by noise from Table Mesa. Maybe borderline on that. It's close.

Osman: So it's in the first block, but I actually I think I sold the house across the street, and I remember being surprised that it was pretty quiet. It looks like it's the fifth house in. So my general rule of thumb has been five house, three houses in or more.

Karen: Okay, so five houses and so five. So yeah, you want to be four houses or more and five. Yeah I think it was just a little price, a little high. I will also say I think that remodel like I don't know about you, I am so tired of white cabinets with black hardware right now. And I just think that sometimes it doesn't look high end, even though it's clean and it's new.

Osman: And so, I don't know, I didn't tour that house personally, so I can't tell how it felt. I didn't tour this house either, but it looks like a flip, right? And when there are notes in here that says seller elderly, I think the seller did a bunch of this work to make itself sure, they spent 100 grand or 80 grand, and they probably worked with the listing agent to get all this work done to make it livable.

Hamish: They even did some landscaping work on the front.

Karen: Oh, wait a minute. The colors look so that's weird.

Osman: Outside or the inside?

Karen: This is photo 31.

Osman: Yeah.

Karen: And which is the front?

Osman: And then this is the first photo. The colors just looked like a little different. The color grade is just jumps. Color grade. Yeah. I mean it's a good it's a good data point for the market for tri-levels. And it's a warning that multi-level houses take longer to sell and be careful overpricing.

Karen: But doing all the work to make it turnkey even as a flip is going to get it sold faster. I think so too. That's the basic story of this house. Yeah, I think it was a good location and the price point that maybe is tricky to be in Table Mesa for anything decent. I just think sometimes people want more because what was the total square footage on that? I mean, it's only 1600 square feet.

Osman: So that's small for, you know, for a family potentially moving in there. It's a little on the smaller side. It is looking at the schools. Is that both. It is Bear Creek.

Hamish: Yeah. So. Oh no it's both. No.

Osman: You see that pocket of both. Yes. Some of these are both. Both Bear Creek and Mesa. Yeah. That's what this one is. All right, 720 Poplar Ave. We included this one mostly because we had a listing two years ago. Was it last year? The homestead is part of this townhome complex, and it's sort of a unicorn type property. Like, it's not a detached single family houses house. And at the time, there were some of these houses in the neighborhood that were selling at very similar price points. And it's a it's a large townhome, three bedrooms, four baths, 20 300ft², one car garage or just had a two car garage. And I think that's nice, closer to 3300ft², if I remember correctly, but very similar vintage. And it turned out to be kind of an interesting niche to find the right buyer. But if you missed on this one, we might have a listing next spring that you should take a look at that is basically bigger than most houses and walk out the door to the one on like open space. Fantastic location there, but 70 zero construction with 70 zero problems. 70 are grading and 70s for a design and it can be tough to like. So we saw that first house was also 76.5 right. But that house was 6.13. That House had massive re-engineering re-envisioning. And that's really hard to do with an association. So that's where you're kind of capped on the upside for what you can actually do to change the look and feel of the house, but they didn't do much. I mean, there's like pink walls.

Karen: Yeah. No one needs some updating.

Osman: But original carpet that's 20 years old. I raised them all. That's solvable, right? Solvable. Listed at 1198, sold for 112 and lock and leave. So the buyer for this is like probably older. Doesn't want to do exterior maintenance, but still likes having a little garden in the back yard and a second home. Being able. Yeah, could be a second home. Loves walking into the open space.

Karen: Loves walking the Lucky's for dinner and can get to downtown in a few minutes if they want to. It's a location by for sure, and there's not a ton of like attached homes over there. There are some in that pocket, but just in general, if you want to be like in a really cool space near Wonderland Lake, there's not a whole lot of attached to them.

Osman: It's a lot of things over 3 million, right? Absolutely. You're looking at most likely over two for a single family house. And this functions like that.

Hamish: And you can and it doesn't have it's like the

Osman: the terror. Yeah

Hamish: I was definitely not French. I think it's pizza there. But I tried gaslighting Osman the wrong Asian.

Osman: He looks it up in front of me and I'm 1490. Chambers is our last one. And I feel like this one is just a lesson in every for every house there is a buyer, I agree. Yeah. And this is a ranch style house with a basement, a thousand on the main, 1000 square foot basement, two car attached garage built in the 70s, but clearly remodeled. Right. They spent some money. They put that little front patio on, they remodeled the kitchen, and it's opened up inside.

Karen: So it is a really nice house for under $1 million. Except for this one thing.

Osman: It is on the corner of Broadway. It is really not a great location. It is a tough location. Even if you're pulling in a car. It is like cars are getting ready to rear end you because they're not expecting you to slow down from 50 miles an hour to 30. It's not just the noise there. It's more than that. Yeah, and it's also the way the grade is. You're right next to Broadway. So it really I think they priced it right.

Karen: You know, the same house not in this bad location. Should have been well over a million, right.

Osman: Maybe even a million. Two. I think it's a less than proper pricing knowing your location. Yeah. Kudos to the listing agent who we all know and love sells a lot of stuff around there, so sells a lot.

Karen: And he price as well. I think he priced it right.

Osman: Yeah. He did a good job. It was on the market only a couple of weeks. And again you know having strike that I lied. Nope. It was on the market only a couple of weeks. Look at the old listing listed in June at eight. Oh this is so okay. Yeah. This is the one where. So listing agent may have screwed up, like, originally the same day it was listed at 8.7 875 and 925. Oh, that's right. And they're like, oh no, no, we meant 925, not 875.

Karen: So it was listed at 925 and then yeah, it sold for only 9000 below that. Yeah. Yeah. You know again under a million. And Boulder is tricky. And there are a lot of buyers out there who are just looking for a single family home, and they don't want to spend over $1 million, or they're capped at $1 million, and there's only so much to choose from, and you have to sort of pick your poison. What are you compromising?

Osman: Is it a busy road? Is it the lack of updates? And so I think this one being updated and a good floor plan and properly price. This is a lesson in good pricing. It's a lesson in good pricing. It's got a weird layout. It's got a primary on the main two bedrooms in the basement. But everything looks really tidy and well done. Yeah, it's just for that one thing. And so this is one of those listings where my clients would want to see it, and I would call them and say, look, I'm happy to show this to you. But before we schedule the showing, I need you to understand this is a really bad location, and it's bad because of how heavy the traffic is. And if you if we go see it, there's a really good chance you're going to start talking yourself into it because it's priced right. Right. And it's gorgeous. Yeah. And so I've seen this story before.

Karen: And the best thing you could do is to avoid talking yourself into a bad decision is don't even schedule the showing. It's that bad of a location.

Osman: You can look at Google Street View, in which I send people a screenshot, sometimes of Street View and be like, just so you can see what this is, what you'd be looking at. Because that, you know, because that removes the hurdle of asking them to do it. Just send them a screenshot because, you know, there's traffic and yeah, this is the house. Yes. Yeah. That's that's brilliant. I'm gonna start stealing your technique of avoiding wasting time with listings that, you know, they shouldn't buy this if they do buy. So here's the double edged sword of if they do buy it, then you have to sell it. Someday you're going to sell it.

Karen: If you have a good relationship with them and you're stuck with the bad decision. Right? Right. But, you know, I have sold houses backing to foothills as a listing agent, and I have helped buyers purchase ones that are what we would call in a compromised location. So there is a buyer for every house, and there's a limited number of homes available in this price point in Boulder.

Osman: So some people are going to be okay with it. They all sell sooner or later, sooner or later. And coming back to that market cycle of 2022, if ever, in a market like that. Oh my God, sell your house backing to 36. If you have a house in a bad location, sell it, get rid of it and buy something else.

Hamish: Now is the time.

Osman: You're never going to have a market like that again, right? We're unlikely to. Yeah, okay.

Karen: We've gone through our sales of the week and our notable sales, and I think it's time to talk about our one hot news story. Right. Okay.

Osman: Yeah. Mark Wallach’s. Mark Wallach has abrupt resignation, abruptly resigned after the airport vote. Right. And the vote was, I think, eight to 1 to 1. He was alone, dissenter, dissenter. And he had a prepared speech that he read this and he asked everyone to put it on the record.

Karen: Yeah. And then he made everyone listen to his resignation.

Hamish: Right? Yep. It was definitely a performance. It was a performance. And it was planned. Did you read his, Staged?

Karen: No. Not stage, but he clearly had it ready to go. So he knew how the vote was likely going to go. I mean, there had already been enough votes. Two of them had converted because they had done that amendment to the proposal, but clearly it was going to go in that direction. So it seemed like he was prepared, and maybe he was just done and prepared to retire.

Osman: And he wanted to go out on this note, but it seemed abrupt. I'm with you. I think it's I mean, people voted for him to serve and counsel. Yeah. And he and being the dissenting vote might have been why the amendments were put in place, like convincing the other council people that we need to do these things in order to get votes, building alliances and working on compromises. That's the art of politics. And him just bailing out because he felt like council was making the wrong decision. Feels like a cop out. That's it's pretty much I mean, people called it a what do they call it, a rage quit on Reddit. I don't think you rage quit. I don't think it was a rage quit when you have a prepared speech. Exactly.

Karen: If you've prepared your speech, it's not a rage quit. But it's still infantile. So you're in a position where you have some say, right? You have a vote, and then to resign means you no longer have that vote.

Osman: So we've just given up any agency to do anything good down the road. We no longer have the ability to influence your other council people, and you have disappointed all the people that supported you in your campaign the third time, your third term. Yeah, I think and so with that regard, I think his vote was wrong. Yeah. Okay. Like he was if council didn't approve, if council didn't vote to keep the airport, we were setting ourselves up for another really expensive lawsuit, just like the Muni. Yeah. That we're probably going to lose. Right. We're taking on the FAA which has can print money. Yes. Through as part of the federal government. And we cannot and they're probably not going to let this happen. So why are we setting ourselves up for failure. Yeah. And also on the on the altar of middle income affordable housing, which it's I so it's kind of funny. He used the term in Boulder reporting lab. He had in my words that you read it I read it, yeah. He at the very end of that he used the term that I first wrote about in 2014 called The Aspen of Boulder. Yes. And so Google this and we'll see. There are two references to Aspen of Boulder if you search just that term mines in 2014 where it's not it's unstoppable. Okay. So it's been going on for a long time. And I don't mean to grandstand of having named Aspen of Boulder. Maybe somebody coined it earlier, but I just was kind of stunned when I saw him. Right. That I'm like, that's my turn. I said that's okay, that's okay. But at the same time, I also think that unfortunately, that ship sailed a long time ago. And what is the market mechanism for increasing supply without increasing density, such that builders, developers can make a profit on middle income housing? And if you try to make it affordable, you are squeezing the balloon, right? You're basically and you're increasing the bureaucracy of the city endlessly because you're doing not for purchase affordable.

Karen: You primarily the city has been building rental affordable. They've been building so little purchase affordable. So it's not really easing that issue. I think as far as you know, the lack of affordable housing in Boulder has not usually been about cheap condos for rent.

Osman: You know, it's been about, well, that's what most people the American dream is not is not to rendition rent a condo in the city. Exactly. Or even a middle income condo from the city, right? People want to have skin in the game. They want to use real estate as an asset that they own, and they can invest in for their families and build wealth. Right? They don't want a landlord? No. So it's an unfortunate that this ship has sailed like it's not a problem that's fixable anymore.

Karen: And I think grandstanding over the airport was just it was just silly, little surprising.

Osman: I think that would be the that's the issue. That's why I was looking for an issue for so many, like horrible council meetings where people were disrupting council meetings or things that are happening internationally, for which I have opinions too. We're not going there. Nope.

Karen: But it's not what council has any say over and yet and that would have probably and I appreciated his defense of all you know, the fact that he I appreciated his opinions on a lot of those issues. So I liked Mark Wallach.

Karen: I thought he was a good council member. I would have voted for him. I can't vote in the City of Boulder. I don't live in the city, but I live in Louisville.

Osman: Oh, okay. Yeah, you're both in Boulder County, but neither of you is in the City of Boulder.

Karen: And you?

Hamish: Westminster.

Osman: Right.

Karen: So all three of us, she is city of Louisville. Yeah. So she gets to say, I would say I can vote in the city of Louisville, but I don't I don't get a say in, you know, Boulder City Council elections. But I do have a lot of opinions. And would you ever want to be on this city council? I mean, it looks rough and I just don't know how they get anything done.

Osman: You know, we have plenty of issues in Boulder that need to be addressed.

Karen: Lots of things in Boulder. And so yes, right.

Osman: Homelessness, potholes, snow removal.

Hamish: Right. The list goes on. Prairie dogs, prairie dogs. One of the international issues, one of the points I saw for the airport, which I think made a lot of sense, is for like wildfire response, right? Yeah, it's not necessarily it's not just hobbyists. It's not necessarily for like tankers, but also like, the firefighting helicopters and evacuation and as a, a thing of infrastructure for Boulder.

Karen: Well, the way he at the end of his speech, he sort of said, you know, putting the interests of a handful of pilots ahead of like 100,000 people in Boulder. And I was like, that just seems oversimplified. That's not really that's not really what we're talking about here.

Hamish: It's not a handful of pilots versus the people of the resource for our community when we need it in emergency. It's an asset. It's an asset. It's and also do we really want more housing there. And so this is the this is what. So it's also like when are you getting an airport back. It's like the schools that Westminster is selling next to my neighborhood. Yeah. It's like easy to sell and redevelop.

Karen: Very hard to get a school or an airport back if you decide you wanted one. You know, it's also not that busy of an airport. And I know I don't think that's sort of the point of contention with this airport is, oh, where people bothered by the noise, whereas a that is all anyone talks about in living in 27 and Superior Louisville area, I can tell you that is like a hot button topic that has already had it gets commercial traffic, a lot of air traffic, and it has really hurt home values in South Superior in particular, that we've had those listings where we're like, oh boy, we can't even fly a drone because you cannot fly a drone.

Hamish: So do your photography. And people can stand outside and change their minds. We can fly a drone. It takes planning, but you can get approved to reserve the air space. We got.

Karen: We got approval and they got an okay because my photographers have been grounded on it. But that's a good point. Good thing. So it's not that issue right. So that's a that's a hot button issue in the Superior and Louisville area.

Osman: But I don't think that's really what people are protesting in Boulder. It's not the noise. It's not the same. Well I mean there are some people that hate the noise. There are some people that don't like to lead fuel in the air. I don't like the noise. I don't like the lead fuel in the air. The question is, what is the highest and best use of the land? What has been the highest and best use of the land? And I mean, this is no surprise. I'm not pro-development, I'm not anti development, but I'm definitely not pro-development everywhere. We can stick housing, right. Like there's a limit to the size of our city. And this is the question I've asked every single city council person I've met. And most of them duck the question because they don't want they don't like the answer. And the answer is 110,000 people. Like, how many more people do you want to squeeze into our city with our roadways the way they are with, with the size of our existing infrastructure, with the water needs of our community, where like, how do you keep our community beautiful and functional and really a small city like 100,000 people, of which 50,000 is related to see you, right? Yeah. So this is not a mega city. And if you want high density, it's called Denver. It's right there. That's right. Just go for it. You don't need to turn Boulder into Denver. And that is somehow offensive to progressives. And they feel like housing is a right. And we just need to keep building until the point that Boulder real estate is affordable. And there is no point, in my personal opinion, that you can build Boulder enough Boulder real estate to make a market rate is once again affordable. And that ship sailed 20 years ago. 30 years ago, it was still expensive. So I think it's just going to destroy our community to guilt ourselves into building endless housing. Yeah, and the planning reserve is likely where that housing is going to get built. And he mentioned that. And I've been talking about the planning reserve since Hamish has been part of it and foaming at the mouth about the planning reserve. Right, right. They're going to put high density housing in the planning, or even if it costs half $1 billion to do it, they're going to do it. But how do they get how do they pay for the infrastructure.

Hamish: That's where you're not going to get middle income housing there because you need the higher end stuff to pay, or you need lower end high density. You can't do middle income, single family houses on lots, which is what we're lacking, which is what everyone wants. But you're not going to get. Right. Exactly. And it's the same thing. We were talking about compatible development earlier, where the people that are grandfathered in stand to make the most all the people with the single family homes and Table Mesa and everything. Yeah.

Karen: I mean, there's people in the game living on Mapleton Hill, you know, who have had their homes since the 70s, and they bought it for a reasonable price and they just haven't moved.

Osman: Maybe they've updated and they're sitting on, you know, $3 million property, huge gains, $5 million more. But also the tax burden has gotten excessive. A lot of those people, unless they're affluent to begin with.

Karen: They're getting increasingly priced out, not just in Mapleton Hill all over Boulder. How high the prices have gotten. That's interesting when you say that, because I think, you know, compared to other areas. I have family in New York, in Westchester County, which is known for its high taxes. But, I mean, people there are paying 30, 40,000 a year in property taxes. So it always feels cheaper here by comparison.

Osman: And I have people coming from out of state, California, other areas that all marvel at how low our property taxes are here, but they do seem to be on their way up there on their way up. And I feel like it's a moral imperative to fight all taxes. Wow. It's a hot take. That's my hot take. And I'm from New York, and those tax burdens are insane. And they're very expensive. So real estate in Boulder is not extremely expensive compared to attractive parts of major cities. Absolutely. That you would want to live in on the East and West coast. But at the same time, our tax burden is increasing and our and our school base is decreasing. And so the answer, and this is one of the things I think we should be doing with the money, instead of raising half a billion to fix 75 buildings, we should be raising capital to have free childcare.

Karen: If you're in the city limits for everybody, 100%, I think that's a much better use of money. I know it's very radical. Yes, that's all socialist.

Osman: But yeah, no. Having raised two children in the Boulder area, it's expensive. It's really it's insane.

Hamish: It's cost prohibitive. A lot of people I know the second job goes entirely to paying for child care. We had that scenario for sure. My brother right now, North Carolina. But same thing. Yeah. One income childcare the other income house, which sort of says how much are you willing to pay to escape your children? Like you're willing to go to work 9 to 5 every day and have a boss and just to not have like, I don't know, I'll let him know.

Karen: Priorities. You know, I think that there's, you know, there's a cost to being removed from the workforce for a few years just to dive into this a little bit. We don't have to go deep. But for someone like your brother, it does maybe affect men even more. But to be to be out of the workforce for 4 or 5 years while you're raising kids and then try to reenter, especially in the tech world, can be impossible.

Osman: What do you think of the trade wife movement? That's

Hamish: a manosphere.

Osman: I think it's disingenuous. You think it's maybe that's just for you and I.

Hamish: Yeah, yeah, I think it looks fake to me, but I've noticed it triggers some people on our team and they send us trade wife content and like, what is this? The very trad wives promoting it are contradicting what they're promoting by working and generating the income and influencing the culture. It's hypocritical. Yeah, well, it's also just unattainable. The only reason they're attaining it and living the trad life thing is because they're making money off of it. There's some rage involved there.

Osman: I think, too, people are getting clicks, probably just for the clicks. Yeah. It's it's. Yeah, exactly. All right. This is the segment of the podcast where we get to talk about carve outs. And I think you should lead because you've been so darn quiet.

Hamish: Okay, I'm gonna keep mine short because I'm not on the screen, but a consistent theme to all of the sales of the week that we were looking at. The photography space in Boulder has improved, and I take a lot of the listing photos for House Einstein. The techniques have changed. So something that I'm kind of like starting to pivot towards. And I met a great photographer out in North Carolina and there's a technique called flambient and it's not necessarily new, but it is more often than not reserved for higher end. To my understanding, it's essentially the same kind of bracketed exposure thing that we're doing, however the HDR. Yeah. However, they'll take a flash, a remote flash and a trigger and walk around and kind of create ambient light in the space and then blend it in Photoshop. So.

Karen: So I've had photographers do that, and I have had mixed results with how I felt about it. Yeah. Where they walk around with and they yeah, they shine the flash and all the shadowy areas. And I had one particular company who they were lovely, but I just thought their photos looked fake in the end, like it gave this sort of like computer almost rendering crispy. Right? Yeah. Yeah. It didn't look real. It didn't feel like it had natural light. And we want that natural light. So I ended up stopping using them because of that technique.

Hamish: But there's probably a better way to apply it. There's I bet you there's a middle ground somewhere within it, but I, I can't remember the listing. But we saw we talked about it and I was like, wow, this almost looks entirely generated.

Osman: You know, it's like a little bit too polished. Yeah, yeah. I like the light pops on the outside of the house. Right. Like if it's a dusk shot and the house has like, I've seen them set up remote triggered flashes and having some interesting. So you see some architectural details like the light pops at dusk. That's cool. And that's an interesting technique.

Hamish: But I think that yeah, the fakeness of multiple pops in.

Osman: What's the technique called.

Karen: flambient. So it's flash. Ambient flash.

Hamish: I didn't know I had a name.

Karen: Yeah okay. I've watched it.

Osman: I've watched it in action. It's interesting. Yeah. But I think the results still have to be edited. I still think I prefer really good composition and a little creamy look and a little bit more tone. We've dialed it in at this point where I'm really happy with our photography. Hamish, initially when you started shooting photos or one of our top agents was like, not good enough. And so we, you know, we ended up bringing the high end photographers for her stuff. And now we're now we're doing all of it in house. And she's able to

Karen: including her own house. She even listed and sold her house. And she was very happy with her work. So yeah, it's good to have that consistent product, especially throughout your brokerage. And I mean, if you think about like there's a brokerage in Boulder that their photos always look very consistent, you know, Mile High Modern, all their photos had that sort of like washed out kind of white look. They do, which is cool.

Osman: It's a look you can tell right away from the photos who's which brokerage the listing came from.

Karen: So I wonder if they're required to always use the same photographer.

Hamish: That explains it. There's a list of them, but they are trained in a certain editing process. That's we have a dedicated LUT that shifts like a certain range of colors forwards closer to our brand palette. Yeah, we rarely put them in our brand palette. And so like it kind of creates that mental

Karen: likeness. And I bet that's what I think. That's what they're going for.

Hamish: And we had asked if we have guidelines for photography as well, and doing more shots that are straight on these days instead of at angles. And so those are which is cool. That's in right now. Yeah, it's a developing field. And so like I bet like flambient I'm probably not going to do it for all of them. And maybe there's some where it's like this is great, but other it removes the soul of the house, so to speak, or something like that. It's just it's an arms race.

Karen: And who's got the best marketing and techniques and everything.

Hamish: I love good photography. And I looked at something yesterday that was like 1.7 million with cell phone photos.

Osman: And I just like, like I don't even know how to respond to that. All you have to do is look at the like. So pull up a listing on the MLS and click on the as a button to click on the old. It now pulls up all the old listings. Yeah. And you look at the photos from even ten years ago. It is such a leap in quality. It's shocking.

Hamish: But yeah, at least it's really shocking when people are still using cell phone photos.

Karen: But I know you get what you pay for. Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, there's not really a good reason to do cell phone photos at all, ever. In my opinion. I've never done it. I don't see any reason to ever do it.

Hamish: I think even the $250,000 condo, especially the $250,000 condo, deserves professional photos. It's not something I compromise.

Karen: I always pay for it.

Hamish: Budget photography is better than cell phones. Anything is better than cell phone.

Osman: Yes, absolutely. Okay. All right. I'm complete, as we say in Boulder. I'm glad that you're still curious and you're still looking to. Even though your photos are amazing, that you're still advancing your mastery of the art, because that curiosity and that willingness to try new things will keep us in the lead. We need that edge. Yeah. And also makes it more interesting for you. All right, you and me. You wanna flip a coin?

Karen: What are you talking about?

Osman: I think I'm gonna talk about Burning Man.

Karen: Oh, I was going to talk about mahjong.

Osman: Do you want me to go first?

Karen: What do you want to hear first you vote with mahjong. I've heard enough, Burning Man. I'm sorry. We'll close with Burning Man. Okay, so, I mean, mahjong is a is a pretty interesting game. You've probably heard of it. It involves tiles. It's a little bit like gin rummy, but with tiles. And there's a lot of different versions of it. It started in China in the late 1800s, but by the 1920s it had been brought to the US and was adapted to what's now called American Mahjong. And there's Hong Kong style mahjong. There's mahjong all throughout, like the Asian diaspora as well. But American mahjong was big in the 20s. It was a lot of, you know, Jewish women getting together to play as sort of a social scene and has stayed consistent throughout the years, but in the last year or so has had like an unbelievable renaissance. And now there was sort of a traditional look to the set of tiles, and now there are all these companies making new tile sets that are sometimes very expensive, 4 or $500, but they have different types of designs and different colors and different backs. And there's a whole world out there that I have probably been swept up in a little too much with collecting certain tile sets, mixing and matching the mats and the racks and the tiles and sort of like the esthetic appeal of the whole thing in addition to the gameplay. And then on top of that, it has been such a wonderful, what they call the third place. Like, you have your work and you have your home, and then you have like sort of your hobbies or your third place or your clubs that you're in. And so to have this third place for someone who's very busy at home and very busy at work, but to have a social setup with mostly my women friends to play a game that also really scratches that itch like the same sort of part of your brain that does the crossword puzzles and like really makes you think strategically has been so fun.

Osman: So you're in a mahjong club?

Karen: I play with probably three different groups throughout the week, every week.

Osman: How many nights of the week are you?

Karen: Mahjong? I play it sometimes Monday mornings when I'm not busy with work. Sometimes I sneak away and play at the JCC with women who are mostly, let's just say, a little older than me. But I love that and have been playing for 40 something years. And then I have a couple groups who are more my age, and we play in the evenings on Sundays.

Osman: Is it like people are drinks and appetizers or people bring food?

Karen: Yeah. These days, you know, drinking is kind of out now and people don't drink so much anymore. So it's not centered around alcohol but more social time. And yes, some snacks. Sometimes we meet at relish, which is the pickleball food hall in Louisville.

Osman: Have you been there?

Karen: No. Oh, you need to go to relish.

Osman: Well, I don't like pickleball, so you don't have to like pickleball.

Karen: It's also like a food court and kind of just a seat. I think I've been there.

Osman: How many sets do you have?

Karen: I don't even want to say. I think I'm rounding out ten right now. All right.

Osman: You said collecting. I was like a thousand.

Karen: Okay, good. I'm glad you're okay. Well, they are expensive, and they are sometimes, you know, because they're made by artists and smaller companies. There's, like, limited drops. So they can't just, like, make a million sets of them and have unlimited supply. So they'll be out of stock for months at a time. You'll be on a wait list. They'll release them, they'll sell out in five minutes, you know, and you kind of have to be like, ready to get them. So it becomes a little bit of a collector thing. But even just like the sound of them clacking together is very satisfying, like an enameled little stone piece, it's usually acrylic, either acrylic or melamine.

Osman: Have you played? I have never played. I know, I've never played it. I know, I know what it is though, though.

Karen: It's not the game that people think of when, you know, a lot of people have like a, an app version that's just matching tiles, but it's actually a super complicated strategic game where you're you're in American Mahjong, there is a card that has set hands on it and it gets updated every year. A new card is released every April by the National Mahjong League, and that shows you the hands for the year. And there's different categories, sometimes involving even numbers, odd numbers, different types of tiles.

Osman: Are you ranked?

Karen: Is there like professional rankings? There are tournaments. I am not involved in tournaments. It's definitely something I do for fun and I don't like a lot of competition. But so you get like a different card and you have to create these set hands and there's a lot of rules and it's it is a complicated game. It's not probably what you're thinking of okay. But it's cool and it has just become so much more mainstream now than it ever used to be. It used to be like very niche. And now there's a lot of companies in Texas that are blowing up with their tile sets and game plays and tournaments and open play, and I think you'll see you in the next, like, now that I have said this, you are going to start to see everywhere.

Osman: Yeah, the algorithm is going to blow you up, but don't be surprised if you see, like some mahjong parlor open up in downtown Boulder.

Hamish: My phone is off. Yeah. So if I start seeing mahjong showing up on my content. Oh. It'll happen.

Karen: I'm gonna happen. We've been geofence together, so all of our stuff. I think that is true of the phones. Being near each other, actually is what does it? So you might get some mahjong content.

Osman: But anyway, what a fun game. If you've been curious about it, it's worth learning how to play.

Karen: My husband does play.

Osman: A week is a lot of time to be away from home. So I would say like Monday mornings at the day when I can, right? That's that's the 2.5 hour commitment I can't always do.

Karen: But I try to clear time on Monday mornings. It kind of sets my brain up for the week. It clears my head a little bit. And, you know, we have like a stressful job. And I think I'm sure you I know I lie awake sometimes and I think about inspection resolutions and it is nice to, to fill my head with something different for a couple hours. So I do Monday mornings.

Osman: I do usually Thursday evenings with a consistent group, and then occasionally Sunday either morning or afternoon with another. I feel like if I if I were out three nights and I know it's not nice, but if I was away three nights a week, it would build up mahjong resentment.

Karen: My wife would start to resent the I have commitment, forced my husband and children to learn how to play, really play with me. So sometimes we play at home. They good. They are. My kids are eight and ten and they are quite good at it. It's not an easy game to learn.

Osman: It took a while to really develop them into good players, but yeah, they're they're sharks. That's really cool.

Karen: Thanks for sharing that

Osman: interesting mahjong. What do you got, Burning Man? Yeah, this is that time of year we're Burning Man starts to take up a bigger and bigger portion of my brain because of our commitment to our camp and the nonprofit that produces our camp every year. And it's this year, we had a lot of our stuff get damaged in the windstorms of last year. Right. And we raised $36,000 in donations to buy new tents. And so making that purchase decision took up a lot of space. And now we're we're in the final rundown. We're a month away from rolling on the playa. Less than a month away is when we depart three weeks, which is a little bit like, oh my God, we have strangers coming to the house this weekend who are cooking food in Denver and a commercial kitchen. We're going to freeze that food, drive it out there in box freezers. And it's just a lot of logistics because it's not just for us. It's this camp of 70 to 80 people.

Karen: Are you a leader in this camp? Is that why so much of this falls on you?

Osman: Yeah, I'm a lead in the camp. I'm not technically a board member of the nonprofit. You know, I, I feel like it's an area of service and it's a commitment to people that have changed my life for the better. In so many ways. The experiences at Burning Man have been have been radically transformative for the quality of life and personal development in my own life. And so giving back to that community is something I care a lot about. And so these are some of my closest friends, and now we're seeing them like four times a year at other events and social gatherings. And so it's just it's something that means a lot to me. And the one year rogue burn that the event wasn't officially produced was the easiest year ever because our camp didn't have an official presence. And so my wife and I just went with our little cargo trailer and man, we were like done with setup. It's so easy and done with strike in like half an hour. I'm like, this is so easy compared to producing a camp for 70 something people. But those 70 people, half of which are typically international and they wouldn't be able to do it without our support and their friends.

Karen: How did you form this group?

Osman: No, they this group has existed. It was founded in Boulder in 2000. Sorry, in the 90s and well before me, I did not become part of this camp until 2011 and 2012. And ever since then I've camped with this organization. But the camp has been around since the 90s, and it's it's primarily its mission driven to create space for healing chiropractic, massage, acupuncture, talk therapy, all sorts of therapeutic modalities are what happens as our gift in the community. But my end is more the logistics and more the infrastructure, like making sure the power's on and the water is delivered. And, you know, we just ordered water for all these people. And it has to get delivered. So every gallon comes on, every gallon that goes off all of the logistics involved in producing this thing in a very narrow timeframe. So it takes up a little bit more of my brain from now until we actually roll out.

Karen: Is it just you, or are there several people sharing the leadership?

Osman: Oh, so this is the most that's a great question. And it used to be a Grand Poobah, a top down, driven leadership structure. And then when that leader had to leave for unforeseen circumstances, a bunch of us other leads stood up and took leadership roles. But we restructured the camp and I was pretty insistent on this. I don't want to take full responsibility, but I pushed incredibly hard that I was not interested in another Grand Poobah. I wanted a flat organizational structure, so we adopted a playbook from Zappos based on holacracy. A holacracy does not have a conventional top down leadership structure. Instead, you have self-organizing units with leaders that sort of just step up and start doing what needs to be done without any sort of top down approval. And so we came up with five functional or six functional areas with two leads per area. We came up with some basic rules for how we make big decisions. And then we went with it and it worked. And so today we have mostly women leaders in our leadership circles, which is rare to have, that many have this type of organization with this kind of budget and be mostly women led as a camp. And we continue to carry on. Most of the drama is gone from our camp. We have a great structure, we have showers, we have hot showers, fantastic food and shade structures, misting fans. And this year we have 30,000 plus dollars worth of new tents and a brand-new generator that's going to be coming in soon. And so all of that's where my brain goes when I'm not focusing on real estate stuff. But I also now go to Burning Man with Starlink, and it's become like nights or like I'm doing conference calls and dealing with things, but without a team, I wouldn't be able to do it. And we live on the playa for two weeks every year, so I add up the amount of time that I've lived on this dried up, dusty lake bed, trying to kill me at like half a year. At this point, I've lived on this dried up, dusty lake bed. I'm like, you know, do I really?

Karen: Have you been going since 2011?

Osman: And I also volunteer with the Rangers, which are the community mediators of the burn, and I really enjoy that too. So that's great. So yeah, it's becoming a bigger and bigger piece of my life, as Hamish knows, because he takes on more and more responsibility for this, this time period. As like Mike, Hamish, come to this meeting, you need to meet these clients because you might be doing showings for two weeks, right?

Karen: And they need to feel good about that. So that's the type of thing that how great that you make space for that. I think that's great. It's

Osman: I mean, honestly, it just has changed my life in so many ways for the better. And I care about this community. So yeah, we keep on keeping on.

Karen: That's wonderful.

Osman: All right.

Hamish: If you keep going enough, you'll be the man they burn. That's how it works, right?

Osman: I don't think that's how it works. I will say the identity. You know, there is something really symbolic about the man. And that being almost like your identity or what you thought was so important, and then having it burn, the symbolism of that is very, very, I think, embedded in the human subconscious.

Hamish: That's why it affects so many people and why they go back year after year. I was going to say like, the power is almost it's almost more powerful. The next year you come back because it's over that course of the year, you watched yourself burn down, rebuild, and then it's like your yearly reset almost.

Osman: It does feel like New Year's. Yeah, it really does.

Karen: Like do you come back feeling refreshed or renewed in some way or are you just tired and dirty?

Osman: I have come back with major epiphanies about my life and my life's direction and things that were happening and things that needed to stop happening, and things I was letting go of completely. And I'll never forget that first burn. And I came back realizing I'm done arguing with people like, I don't need to be right in any relationship anymore, like I and I will play the game just for this because I love arguing, but not I don't need to win anymore. And I most of my identity up until that point. And this is whatever year that was, I, I think a big piece of that was I needed to be right. And it was a defense mechanism. It was used intellect and fast talking to interrupt people. If you can't beat them in the intellectual argument like, are you better or smarter, faster just to win, to make them wrong and make yourself right to make yourself better and support your ego. And I realized I had been doing that in so many ways in my life up until 2011. And then suddenly it was like, I'm done, I don't need this anymore. And it wasn't quite a light switch, but it felt like a light switch in a lot of ways. And that decision to not argue anymore, I think, also caused a lot of ripples in other parts of my life that where people were expecting you to argue and they're like, oh, that's cool. All I need to know is your opinion. That's totally fine. We have differences of opinions. I'm cool. Yeah, I don't need to. I don't need to win this argument. Walk away, you know, for years and you're like, no, come on and argue with me. I'm like, no, we're good. People want to bait you. People used to tell me I should be a lawyer or would be a good lawyer. And it took me years to realize that was not a compliment, not a good thing. I don't think that's a good thing to say to somebody. I don't know if you were ever told that to and you're arguing yours.

Karen: People are like, you should be a lawyer. Yeah, not always a nice for sure.

Osman: No, it doesn't feel good. So anyway, that's my carve-out. Thanks. That's a great carve-out. And with that, you've reached the end of another House Einstein podcast. You've managed to squander a little over two hours with us. And as always, we deeply appreciate your comments and your time and listening. We do read your comments. We can't answer all of them, but absolutely. Thank you for joining us today. We hope you catch us again next time.

Karen: Thanks so much for having me today. This was so fun.

Osman: Glad you’re here. Thank you for joining us, Karen.