Broker IPTV: Today, we are talking with Pat DeFoe, the Vice President of Colorado Home Warranty and Pat, welcome to the show. Thanks for being with us.

Pat DeFeo: Thank you.

Broker IPTV: Tell me a little bit about your service.

Pat DeFeo: A little bit of our service? We are a home warranty company. We are located in Colorado. We are local. We have been in the business for here in Colorado for 10 years. What else would you like to know?

Broker IPTV: Colorado Home Warranty Benefits?

Pat DeFeo: Benefits...

Broker IPTV: Why go with the Colorado... why go with a home warranty in general?

Pat DeFeo: The home warranty in general benefits the realtor. The realtor walks away from the closing table with cash in hand, commission in hand and any after sale issues that come up with the property come to the warranty company. We handle about 75% of any after sale issues the warranty company handles.

Broker IPTV: All right. Typically, what type of issues are we looking at on an after sale?

Pat DeFeo: After sale... after sale...

Broker IPTV: The big ones...?

Pat DeFeo: The big ones? The big ones are the furnace.

Broker IPTV: Goes out.

Pat DeFeo: Goes out, we fix it; we can't fix it, we replace it.

Broker IPTV: Okay.

Pat DeFeo: Water heaters. Water heaters go out. We work in conjunction with the home owner's insurance. If your water heater goes out, drops out, it floods your basement, ruins your carpet.

Broker IPTV: Okay.

Pat DeFoe Your home owner's insurance pays for the water damage, but they don't replace the water heater; we replace the water heater.

Broker IPTV: Got you.

Pat DeFeo: A lot of houses are vacant now, so when the new home owner walks or goes in, they have stoppage issues, because the water hasn't run through the line or whatever. We cover sewer, we cover the main line stoppages for up to a year.

Broker IPTV: And that's a common post sale problem?

Pat DeFeo: That's a common post sale problem now.

Broker IPTV: Or do you see even in active listing that's [Voice cross over].

Pat DeFeo: Even in the active listing, all of this is covered during the listing period, all the same issues even after the sale, if a policy is put on and it's covered for the listing period, the same thing... the same coverage goes for the seller as for the buyer.

Broker IPTV: Now, Colorado Home Warranty just recently did an update and now you are going to do gas fireplaces; is that right?

Pat DeFeo: Right.

Broker IPTV: Talk a little bit about that.

Pat DeFeo: We had requests from many realtors and this is part of what the benefit of us being local and small is realtors were asking why we didn't cover gas fireplaces. So, we also said, "Why shouldn't we cover gas fireplaces?" So, we do have a buyer's option to cover gas fireplaces.

Broker IPTV: Plumbing?

Pat DeFeo: Plumbing issues? Plumbing issues are taken care of, leaks, leaky toilets, drippy garbage disposals. Yeah, we cover plumbing issues, we cover electrical issues, we cover ceiling fans, we cover garage door openers. We have options for hot tubs, spas, hot tub pool.

Broker IPTV: My microwave went out...

Pat DeFeo: Okay.

Broker IPTV: You can do that?

Pat DeFeo: I can do that.

Broker IPTV: Got it, but this... is this true, is this pretty much how all warranty... home warranty programs work? I mean are they all pretty much created equal?

Pat DeFeo: Pretty much created equal.

Broker IPTV: Okay.

Pat DeFeo: We differentiate... in my opinion, what makes us outstanding is we don't have call centers; we don't have phone queues. If a homeowner or a realtor calls the office, they get a live person. If a homeowner calls for service after hours, they get a live person. They don't have to wait. They don't have to go through phone queues. You know do you want service, do you want this, do you want that? They get a live person to answer their question immediately.

Interviewer: Pat, great information. Thanks for being with us. Appreciate it.

Pat DeFeo: Thank you.

Fuller Commercial Real Estate Greg Morris states that Commercial Real Estate is a In It For The Long Haul business. In other words, Commercial Real Estate- Long Time Commitment For Brokers

BrokerIPTV : We are talking today with Greg Morris, President and CEO of Fuller Commercial Real Estate. Greg thanks for being with us.

Greg Morris: Sure.

BrokerIPTV : Good to see you. If someone is out there thinking about getting into commercial real-estate, wants to be a commercial broker. How do they get started now?

Greg Morris: Well, first of all, it’s a long term commitment, its not something you go in for 3 or 5 years and then get out, because its not of residual value to it. The primary reasons people get into commercial brokerage is the upside in the incompetently number one, but also the autonomy. You are independent contract, you are out there on your own, you are almost your own boss, but the key to, two criteria for entry level brokerage is:

1. You have to specialize. It’s very very specialized, so its by product type. I am going to be industrial broker. I am going to work in the office market or in retail.

2. Just critical is being associated with mentor. Somebody’s experience chose in the business that can teach you the ropes, because there is not lot of structure training.

BrokerIPTV : I was going to ask you pros and cons. You have answered some of those is the con out there that people think when they think commercial still too long of a lead time. Its going to be a long time before I sell a property, how am I going to support myself?

Greg Morris: Well, there is no question about it. The entry level brokers will go two years before making any money at speaker and so the barrier to entry is very very difficult. So, it also a very left brain business, it’s a quantitative analytical business and coincidentally 90% of the commercial brokers are male and that’s because they are left brain thinkers and so, when you get in that business you better be in it for the long hall because its intensely competitive and its lot of times along between paydays.

BrokerIPTV : Who is the demographic that you are looking for in recruiting, or who is just the overall demographic of today’s commercial real-estate broker?

Greg Morris: We have a lot of success with universities. University of Denver has got a wonderful program, the real-estate construction management does cool as great and must have 5 or 6 people from there. Also University of Colorado provide some good hirers for us and then most recently CSUs Everitt School of Real-Estate, they are on the map and they are growing and so that’s what we primarily get our brokers and possibly rate the other brokerage houses be right.

BrokerIPTV : Is it difficult to find good town, right now?

Greg Morris: It all depends on your momentum, at Fuller we have a lot of great momentum, we have a great culture, we are great organization. So, we have a lot more demands than we have supply for slots, but in some brokerage companies who are not as strong or as present in the market, they got or had a tough time recruiting, I would imagine.

BrokerIPTV : You were just talking about specialty areas and I want to end with this. If I am a commercial broker watching this today and I got to come up with the business plan for ’08, what specialty should I be heading for?

Greg Morris: That’s a good question, I don’t think its important to pick the specialty, but once you get in and have getting associated with a team or a group to make sure they have a good force. We have saying at Fuller “A good broker makes money in any market.” So, the market you pick is not important.

BrokerIPTV : Got you. Greg, thanks for being with us, always enjoyed talking with you.

Greg Morris: All right sure.

2007

I was taking a look at the Upper end (Million Dollar Plus Denver Single Family Homes) housing market for Metro Denver and comparatively speaking, Denver's Million Dollar Plus market has only seen a slight edge down in pricing of just three (3) percent. The three quarter total sold average in 2007 was $1,622,550 and it looks like only a slight price dip to $1,568,801 for the first three quarters of 2008. Compared to areas in California, Nevada and Florida and soon New York, Metro Denver Million Dollar homes have fared fairly well.

The big negative numbers are really in the Denver Single Family sales volume and total housing units sold. Over all, the change in total number units sold is down 24% over all and the total sales volume is down almost 35%. That could explain that over all, the total days on market (DOM) has decreased overall from 161 to 156 days on the market. The 3 Million dollar and above Denver Housing market seeing a huge decrease for total days on market.

So it seems like the home owner equity is hanging in there. However, what I wondered was how much the Real Estate brokerage fees have dumped as a result of the 35% decreases in total sales volume. I used the recent Real Trends statistical average brokerage transaction commission of 5.1% and came up with $16,091,231 worth of real estate brokerage commissions. There you have it, about 16M of commissions into thin air! Thats a lot of cash to be absorbed by the high end real estate business community.

Based on 20-30% splits and 6% franchise fees....a whole lot less full page color newspaper advertising and color magazine inserts. Funny, the market conditions may actually help these companies dump the ego ads and go to where the buyers really are.

BrokerIPTV: We are at Inman Connect in San Francisco 2008 and I have Mike Bradley here and Mike I understand you were at... you were in the bulls[phonetic] session today.

Mike Bradley: Yeah, that was very interesting. Three positive people on the economy and three not so positive people talking about the economy.

BrokerIPTV: So, you remember the names of the one of the positive speakers?

Mike Bradley: I've no idea what their names were, but they are right along the same lines what I've been thinking. market is going to turn eventually. It is going to take another year or two, but you know one guy said something very interesting. He was talking about how banks are finally accepting short sales, foreclosures, and being much easier to work with than in the past and that is totally true.

BrokerIPTV: Wow. So, tell me about the pessimists in the group then.

Mike Bradley: Pessimists said that while that is open, it is still going to be three years to clear up the inventory and that is probably the case. You know there is a lot of foreclosures on the market and that has got to get cleared up and it has got slowed down with what is coming on the market at the same time.

BrokerIPTV: So, would they be in local market specifically they say in the US in general or were they picking on California, Florida?

Mike Bradley: They are pretty general. That is neighborhood specific. There is always hot spots that continue to go up, but even in New Port Beach and San Francisco Bay area, they are saying there is plenty of foreclosures and yeah, five years ago we had five year arms[phonetic] and record levels. Those are adjusting right now. So, there is just as many coming on the market where banks are finally working to clear them out the books.

BrokerIPTV: So, what do you see in say in your local market in Denver? You work Littleton, Highlands Ranch right?

Mike Bradley: Yeah. Littleton, Highlands Ranch, we are not nearly as bad as the nation. I think that the Denver area is one of the top communities to invest in right now, but we do have the same impact. Now, there are a lot of houses that are on the market, not selling and the buyers are following rather than leading. So, the price reductions are slow to come.

BrokerIPTV: Great. Well, thanks for talking with us today Mike. We appreciate your input and feedback.

Mike Bradley: Thanks [Inaudible]

BrokerIPTV: Today we are talking to Sandi Zimmerman, Chairman of the Board for Metrolist. Sandi welcome to the show, glad you are here.

Sandi Zimmerman: Yeah and thank you very much, it's nice to be here.

BrokerIPTV: Tell me about some of the advantages of Metrolist?

Sandi Zimmerman: We are the largest Metrolist here in the region and we have 18,000 members.

BrokerIPTV: Wow.

Sandi Zimmerman: We also have our own website called REColorado, which is a great advantage to all of our participants. They love that it gives more exposure to both their sellers, as well as near buyers they maybe working with and what they are looking for.

BrokerIPTV: Wow.

Sandi Zimmerman: We have 3800 people that have their own IDX sites. Now, another tool for us to get the recheck clients, whether they are seller or buyers or just the public that's out there kind of looking and saying "What's going on in colorado?" In our inventory we have the largest inventory around here with 18,000 members that also helps their inventory, which helps us with our buyers and sellers, right?

BrokerIPTV: Sure. As a member though I didn't know about REColorado?

Sandi Zimmerman: Really?

BrokerIPTV: Yeah.

Sandi Zimmerman: Oh, that's awesome REColorado is our own website that we update in everyday. We are actually uploading our all of the listings to go automatically out there for you.

BrokerIPTV: As a member, what services are available to me?

Sandi Zimmerman: We have the state of art training room. If we have been at Metrolist we got a great training and another thing that we also do deal with our staff now is coming out to a lot of the broker offices and doing the training that we have going on right now too. Our technical support I think support I think is fantastic. They are there 364 days out of the year. So, pretty much accept everyday, except the Christmas there. they are to help you if you have any problems and I think that's a huge advantage. I think our staff, we have a wonderful staff there. You talk to real people, that's one of the things I like whether it's the training or the staff, if you need help on any aspect, we got the courteous staff there that's helpful and if they don't know, they will find it out and get back with you. I think that's a another huge help that we have.

BrokerIPTV: In those classes are CEC credits?

Sandi Zimmerman: That's great too. Not all of them, but yes a lot of them are CEC credits and a lot of people don't know that. That's another thing that if you are needing that or one you think you are training and learning, as well as earning those credits, all in one.

BrokerIPTV: Yes. What are the tools are available to members?

Sandi Zimmerman: Well, we have a lot of different things that I... the most recent the Prime Access has just come out with its MS Virtual Earth mapping and that's fantastic. We are finding people just absolutely love the mapping. We also have showng assist, if your office uses showing assist or they may or may not even know about it, but that's another great way for people to use that and be able to setup appointments.

BrokerIPTV: I love showing assistant, if I don't have to pickup the phone and I can just click and make my showing appointment, that makes me so happy.

Sandi Zimmerman: You are right, it is so easy. Just go online, set them up, set it for [Sign] comes back to you, you know...

BrokerIPTV: Its half of my time?

Sandi Zimmerman: Yeah, sometimes even a more of your time I think trying to track back down the lock boxes or some even maybe didn't call you back or something along those lines.

BrokerIPTV: Yeah and I like the mapping, because when I am look up all of my potential listings and I am going to go out and take a look at, I can kind of see in relation on the map how far apart they are from each other.

Sandi Zimmerman: Exactly.

BrokerIPTV: helps a lot.

Sandi Zimmerman: And so many other things, I am not sure if you tried up. You know we now we have forms online, Instanet, as well as document management, the Instanet plus DocBox. That's another great tool that we have just come out with recently and we are getting a lot of really great feedback from that too.

BrokerIPTV: And all of this is available to me as a member for my normal monthly fee?

Sandi Zimmerman: We don't have any hidden cost, there is nothing there. All of this is free to you with that monthly fee.

BrokerIPTV: Sandi, thanks so much. Appreciate it.

Sandi Zimmerman: Thanks whoever there, it's a pleasure.