Colorado

No doubt about it, it’s been a good summer. It can’t even come close to comparing to last summer when I wondered if we would ever sell a home again. The first signs of good things came from my assistant Linda at Fuller Sotheby’s in March. Linda handles administrative services for several brokers in our office and one day back in March, she looked particularly busy. I asked her how her day was going and she replied that the office is in mid-summer form. I asked her what she meant. She said she’s normally only this busy with homes under contract in mid-summer, but here it was mid-March and she had more transactions than she could handle. I knew then that we were in store for a good summer and now, looking back, we were right.

What changed? Well it’s certainly hasn’t been because there are more jobs, but I can point to a few things that helped:

1)  The tax credit finishing up at the end of April brought in a frenzy of business at the 11^th hour. It was crazy for a few weeks at the end of the April. Since Uncle Sam was not extending the credit, more people realized the urgency to buy now.

2)  While unemployment is not reversing itself for the moment, I do think it has stabilized, marked by a few good months of positive job growth. This instilled some confidence in people to start spending money again. Jobs are the one area that can turn the entire economy around and prevent a double dip recession. Many large corporations are flushed with cash so the question now is, will they hire employees and expand or will they pay it out to shareholders?

3)  Pent up demand! It’s a term we have used a lot over the last 18 months, talking about the need and demand by people to buy new homes. I have said all along in this column that as realtors, we could feel the pent up demand to buy homes; we just did not know when it would shake loose. It started this summer.

4)   Finally, while new construction is not booming around the country it is doing ok here in Colorado. I know many builders that have started new projects, created new price points, new marketing strategies, and new alliances and as a result are doing pretty well. It’s far off from where we used to be but its start.

The only question that remains is, “Can we keep it going?” I hear the analysts talking every day about the chances of a double dip recession. I don’t have a crystal ball to know one way or another if that will happen. I do know this market is fragile to say the least and we can all hope for the best.

Dan Polimino is a Realtor with Fuller Sotheby’s International Realty. He can be reached at DPolimino@fullerproperties.com and www.coloradodreamhouse.com/denverpost

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A year ago, I wrote that “there has never been a bigger gap between a buyer and seller than what we seeing in the current market place.” I wish I could report that a year later, the gap has closed significantly, but it hasn’t. In some respects, it even got worse because in the lower price ranges, it has become a sellers’ market and they are looking to turn the tables on buyers.

I am not sure what it is; maybe the strain of the economy keeps everyone in a foul mood but it seems that one transaction after another pits the buyer against the seller in an adversarial war. The simple fact is that the seller distrusts and doesn’t like the buyer, and the buyer distrusts and doesn’t like the seller. As the agent, we are stuck in the middle, attempting to be the peace maker or referee between the two sides. Let’s just assume for a moment that we can get a buyer and seller together on price and it’s under contract. One would think that the acrimony would end there, but really, it’s just the beginning.

Next comes the inspection where they argue, haggle over inspection items or even the wordings of the inspection objection. My all-time favorite is a fight between the buyer and seller about matching sink stoppers in the master bath. Discussions, emails, and endless phone calls on why there are not two garage door openers or fights over $200 dollars. Why? So the buyer or seller can say or feel like they won the battle and other guy lost.

This is not about winning and losing and or how much you can stick it to the other guy. I am not naïve. I understand that we are living in an opportunistic time period, but is it possible to do it with civility, respect, and without all the acrimony?

I was talking to some of fellow colleague in preparation for this topic to find out if they were experience the same enormous discord between their buyers and sellers. Everyone to a man and woman said yes, but some told me not write this column because it would go through one ear and out the other. Maybe they are right and no one will pay attention to this column and it will be business as usual. I hope not.

Dan Polimino is a Realtor with Fuller Sotheby’s International Realty. He can be reached at DPolimino@fullerproperties.com and www.coloradodreamhouse.com/denverpost