Tracy Shaffer
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Are You Busy? Or Productive?

I have my sons fifty weeks a year, so the time without the demands of motherhood is always at a premium. I set out to use it wisely, make a to-do list and then return from the airport run to crawl under the covers for a quick nap. The week progresses, the list morphs, and I home in on how to use my precious time. Sometimes going dancing makes the cut, sometimes it’s filing, but it is specific. When the week flew by, I scanned to see what I had accomplished in my solitude and what I learned.
The difference between busy and productive will determine your level of success and they can work together if you know how to work ‘em. As a Realtor, writer and single mother, time management skills are critical to the balance of my business and my soul (not to mention keeping the kids alive and on time). Though I still don’t quite believe that time can be “managed”, my days are now color coded and time blocked according to priority, with a bit of flexibility dashed in like salt. I learned to do this during a productivity program created by Darice Johnson called Efficiency by Design . Though I fought it at first, I found that when I imposed structure I discovered enough “type A” in my artistic personality to produce results within multiple income streams. Let’s take a look into our elegant mono-tasker, the honey bee.

1. Busy is busy but counter productive. Unless you’re a bee. Think about the last time you spoke to a friend who answered the question, “How are you?” with “Oh god, I’m so busy”, only to regale you with tales of the cat and the vet, enrolling the kids in school and quarterly taxes. Now each of these tasks will keep you busy and they must be done but the results they produce have their benefits: avoiding jail time, dead cats and smarter children, but they fall under the category of life maintenance.
2. Productivity produces. Especially If you’re a bee. If the aim of business is to make money, all related tasks must lead directly to direct deposit. It’s easy to lose sight of this in all of the busyness, especially if you work from home. As I watch the laundry pile up, I must remind myself that “I launder, therefore I am” ain’t gonna buy new socks when they disappear.
3. Busy lies like a mirror. You think because you haven’t stopped moving, you’ve actually accomplished something but when you take that hard look at the list (or the mirror), you find it doesn’t quite look like you imagined.
4. Busy and productive can co-exist. If you are clear in your definitions, aware of your actions, and a bee. The key here is to focus on the flower. When the honey bee flits from flower to flower she has one intent, one overall purpose; gather pollen, feed the larvae. There is no extraneous action here, no gabbing on the phone about the cat. Even the drone has one purpose, to mate with the queen, though I must remind you that because their sole purpose is to screw around they’re the first to go when the colony’s low on food. Your average female honey bee is highly social and communicative, relaying direction and distance to pollen sources (obviously this is why they don’t bother much with the drones), and in a prime example of mutualism, spreads the wealth and the pollen of creativity to the rest of the world as she stays focused on her goal.
5. Bee intentional. Nature provides seasonal deadlines for the Apidae family, I must create them for my own. Since I began time blocking my productivity has increased, while my busyness (and stress level) has been cut in half. As a Realtor, my productive time (lead generation and conversion) leads to the busy time (contract to closing) and they must constantly be kept in balance. As a playwright, I depend on deadlines to insure that time is scheduled into my week and there’s nothing like a public reading or pending production to keep my ass in gear. So how do I do it? When I’m in the time allotted for a task, it is all I do. Period. No email, no phone call (except from the school) interrupts which makes it easy to relax into production mode because I know that the next thing belongs to the next time slot. It is the next flower.
So take a tip from those who make life much sweeter, take flight and Do-Be-Do-Be-Do my friends!

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Tracy Shaffer
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5 Tips for the Motivated Seller

Recently I got a call from a gal I’d worked with on One Book, One Denver. “I’m getting married, relocating, and I need to sell my condo. Can you come meet me?” Of course. We met for a post-work beverage and talked about her marriage plans, the condo and then she popped the question, “Can you sell it for me?” Well, don’t you know how much I love to hear that question? Two days later I met Gina at her Mayfair townhome, a beautifully remodeled, two-bedroom, single story corner unit. We talked about timing her sale with the wedding and the move to Atlanta. All I could focus on is the fact that with so much big life stuff going on, I wanted to make sure the sale would go off without a hitch. Not always easy but always the goal, real estate transactions are an intense mix of business and personal and I consider it my duty to make sure your stress level is as low as possible.
Next we discussed price (usually where sellers feel a bit of an upsurge in their blood pressure) and settled on an opening list price smack in the middle of the competition with the agreement that we’d revisit the subject after a week on the market.
Now, it already looked like a shiny penny, “Pottery Barn Perfect” in Realtor parlance, but being a smart cookie she asked what needed to be done before we put it on the market. And then she did an amazing thing; she took notes and had all the polishing done within a week! I scheduled the photos for the virtual tour, put my marketing strategy in place and blasted it out to the market. After Sunday’s open house, I called Gina to tell her that I wasn’t excited about the showing activity in the first week and we decided to make a slight price adjustment. Monday we had three showings and an offer, lower than what we wanted but certainly high enough to open the conversation. Gina had shared with me the dollar amount she wanted for her home, which was reasonable, so it was very clear going into the negotiations what I was after. And they took it! Ten days, desired price, 30 days to a successful close.
Market data consistently shows that well-priced homes sell faster and for more money than homes which start high and chip away at the list price, especially true in this market. When a seller goes into the relationship with high motivation, reasonable expectations and trusts the advice of their Realtor®, things have a good chance of going smoothly. So what do I consider reasonable? As a seller, you have to be able to wrap your head around a few things.
• Your house is a commodity, not a product. A commodity is worth what the buyer is willing to pay for it. A product, like a hamburger, can be sold with the right marketing, like photos with enough glycerin on the patty to make it look really juicy. No matter how pretty your pictures are, your home is an emotional commodity.
• Just because you added the deck five years ago doesn’t mean you get to add that on to the price. Home improvement is tricky when it comes to selling your home. If you’re fixing it up to sell it, you’re putting that money in to make sure you get the highest amount of its fair market value. If your improvements have happened over time, they have most likely increased the value of your property, and you’ve had the pleasure of living with them. There is no guarantee that the $20k you shelled out for that sparkly new kitchen will result in a $20k return on your investment. I always tell my clients to make the changes they’d enjoy living with and deal with the rest when you want to sell it.
• Expect to pay for some pre-market repairs. You’ve been looking at that paint chip on the threshold, or the gold fixtures in the bathroom for so long you don’t even see it anymore. Buy your buyer will. And the little things mean a lot; new paint, bath fixtures, maybe some lighting and a professional cleaning will do wonders for your home’s appeal. You’re up against a lot of sellers who are doing their best so you gotta bring you’re A game!
• Buyers buy either from emotion, practicality, or a mix of both. If your goal is to sell your home for the most money in the least amount of time, make sure you keep this point in mind. You want them to fall in love with the home and you want them to write an offer. I can look at the MLS and tell you which homes in your neighborhood are going to be the next to go under contract. They’re the ones who hit either or both points. Make your house shine and price it well!
• Choose a good Realtor® and then listen to her. If you’ve chosen wisely, you’ve got an expert in your local market working as your advocate. Market conditions are what they are and they’re changing on a daily basis. You may have bought or sold a few homes over the years but there’s a good chance your agent has closed a few last month. That’s what we do and we don’t want to fire sale your house, quite the opposite. Happy clients refer business.

Hey, it worked for Gina!

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Tracy Shaffer
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Your Creativity is Your Greatest Asset

Creativity is the strongest force on earth; artists, visionaries and innovators lead us into the future. We’ve got some mad skills that actualize potential where others may only see what is possible.  Be sure to click on the Thriving Artist Alliance page above and I’ve created a lovely video to inspire you. CLICK HERE TO WATCH

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Tracy Shaffer
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So Why Don’t You Write About Real Estate?

Because it’s boring. Because any schmo can do that. Because if I want to be generic, I might as well mail Bronco’s schedules to a neighborhood of strangers. Throwing a bunch of stats and market predictions up on the Internet works for some agents, I’m sure. It just doesn’t work for me. Every transaction is a human transaction as well as a business transaction, every purchase or sale is personal. Real estate is first and foremost about my community and the people in it. I write about the things they love to do, and the things they do that I love: art, music, theatre, social and philanthropic events, neighborhoods, gatherings. These are the things that interest me because they are the stories of people’s lives.
In the six years I’ve been in the real estate business I’ve found a few things to be true. No matter what the market data says on any given day, most people buy and sell homes because there lives are in transition. They are either creating change in their lives or their lives are changing them. A new job, job loss, new partner, a marriage, a baby, a second child, more space, less space, taking on a new adventure, making the decision to own vs rent, downsizing, downsized, death, divorce, illness, relocation; these are the reasons people buy and sell homes. I’ve only had one client who bought a home because they wanted more closet space…for their new baby.
Market conditions factor in to these changes, inform decisions and how they may play out, but I am in the people business not in sales… at least that’s what I tell myself.
Your home a lot more to you than a financial investment, it is an emotional one as well. This is where you laugh, you cry, plant seeds and break bread, so whether you are looking to buy or looking to sell, I get that. No matter what is happening in the “market”, houses hold our stories, neighborhoods ground us in community and when there are children and schools to be considered, it is critical to find the right fit. When my son entered school and joined the local soccer team, I remember sitting on the congress Park practice field one autumn afternoon chatting with the other moms and thinking…I’m going to spend the next twelve years with these women, we will share our lives. And we have.
So… you will get stories of the things I love about living and sharing our lives together in Denver. You will hear about what’s going on in your neighborhood, learn about what I like about neighborhoods around town, and find out about some cool things to do on a Sunday afternoon. And yes, you will also get market data in the mix or served up solo. I’ll curate, aggregate and create information I think you will find useful, helpful, and occasionally humorous. We’ll share stories, okay?

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Tracy Shaffer
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Rent or Own? What’s your opinion?

This summer the real estate market feels like it’s at a stand-still. Stifled by negotiations over the debt ceiling, worries about the economy, unemployment, and all the pre-election spin, the market ain’t so hot this July. And yet, I have clients who are making the market work for them. As sellers move from the hopes of spring to the mid-summer “I thought it would have sold by now” pit in their stomach, buyers have ample opportunity to make a move. With mortgage rates low, lots of discounted inventory out there and sellers willing to negotiate, I wonder why so many buyers are still on the fence. I came across some stats from Inman last week that show the desire to own a home is still strong.

Renters: Owning a Home Still a Priority
Most Americans still believe that owning a home is a solid financial decision, and a majority of renters aspire to home ownership as a long-term goal. According to the 2011 National Housing Pulse Survey released recently by the National Association of Realtors®, 72 percent of renters surveyed said owning a home is a top priority for their future, up from 63 percent in 2010.

The survey also shows that we still believe in home ownership as a way to build financial security. With the stock market high and the interest paid on your savings account low, what better time to invest in yourself than when you can purchase a home ‘on sale’ rather than ‘for sale’?

Seven in 10 Americans also agreed that buying a home is a good financial decision while almost two-thirds said now is a good time to purchase a home. The annual survey, which measures how affordable housing issues affect consumers, also found that more than three quarters of renters (77 percent) said they would be less likely to buy a home if they were required to put down a 20 percent down payment on the home, and a strong majority (71 percent) believe a 20 percent down payment requirement could have a negative impact on the housing market.

The way I see it, two things stand in the way of qualified buyers taking the leap:
1. People don’t believe mortgage rates will go up.
2. Fear that the market will fall further.
There has been talk of rising rates for years, and yet they have remained low. Today they are still under 5%, but they will rise eventually and nobody can tell you when. As for market decline, Denver indicators continue to show we have more than likely reached the bottom. At this point we are flat, some fluctuation but nothing too dramatic. Even if home prices were to fall a bit further, as long as you intend to stay in your home for five or more years, the odds of your making money are in your favor.
If I could show you how to get into a home you can afford, with a solid loan product at a good interest rate, would you still be putting money in your landlord’s pocket? Rent or own…what’s your opinion?

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Tracy Shaffer
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I Love You Google+

That’s the phrase my math-obsessed four-year-old used to say when playing the “I love you more” game. Of course, he was referencing the mathematical concept, googol. Excited by the infinite possibilities in the number 1+100 zeros, August’s love knew no bounds.
Lately I have been receiving more invitations for the new social platform, Google+, than I did invitations to 5 year-old’s birthday parties in my googol love days. So far I haven’t accepted any of them, I’m waiting for the party with the pony. Before I dive into another social ocean or launch into another learning curve, I want to know what I’m getting in to. If you’re feelin’ the love as well, you may want to check out the article I found explaining Google+ and how it differs (or not) from Facebook and Twitter. The segregation part may be a good thing, though I don’t really use the same tool on FB. When you express yourself as freely as I am wont to do, you know that not everybody needs to read every thought that pops into your head, no matter how brilliantly witty. A bit of discretion, please.
See you in the inner circle.

1. Circles
Google+ is based on a “circle” analogy, and this is where Google’s philosophy on sharing differs from Facebook. As stated in the interactive demo, “Circles makes it easy to put your friends from Saturday night in one circle, your parents in another, and your boss in a circle by himself — just like real life.” [LW: See “list” in Facebook]
Unlike Facebook, where a user broadcasts updates to a large audience, Google+ allows a user to break their “friends” into subgroups. These groups can be family, friends, co-workers, etc. This allows for very targeted conversations.

2. Stream
The Google+ Stream is very similar to the standard timeline you’ve come to expect. However, your Circles are displayed, enabling a user to select and view a Stream for that particular circle. This is actually a very nice feature. [LW: you can do this in Facebook, and I use it a lot, but it’s cumbersome]
You can also update your status here and you are not bound by the 140-character limit of Twitter. Some users may love this — personally, I’ve grown to appreciate that number. Adding photos, videos and location is super easy, but there are some missing elements, including an accessible RSS feed. It will be interesting to see Google expand this module.

3. Hangouts
Hangouts is a video chat module that allows for group videoconferencing. As you may know, Facebook recently partnered with Skype to bring video chat to Facebook, and TechCunch wrote an in-depth article, “Facebook Video Chat vs. Google Hangouts: It’s No Contest,” which covers these features in detail.
Essentially, Facebook supports one-on-one video conversations and Hangouts allows group chats. In fact, up to 10 people are supported. I tested this module and quickly discovered that performance and quality are greatly enhanced with a high-speed Internet connection. This is an intriguing feature that could have a ton of potential for remote team meetings. {LW: would clients like this if you send them a list of homes to consider – feels more like a face to face discussion even when it isn’t?]

4. Sparks
Sparks is another useful feature. Just enter a topic, click “search,” and articles from across the Web regarding that topic are streamed into the Sparks module. Topics are automatically saved and can be accessed at any time. You can be specific in creating Sparks. I was surprised at the different results displayed for “real estate marketing” and other industry-related terms.

5. Privacy
As with all social networking services, configuring your privacy settings in Google+ is imperative. To access your privacy settings, click the “gear” icon at the top right, select “settings,” followed by “profile” and “privacy.” Here you can customize everything from notifications to visibility.
Although Google is focused on the consumer experience, they announced via YouTube that they are developing plans for a business experience on Google+ that will be released later this year.

It is certainly too early to predict if consumers will adapt to Google+. Is it a Facebook and Twitter “killer”? I doubt it.

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Tracy Shaffer
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Telluride Playwrights Fest: Notes from the Inside, too.

I wrote about day one on Wednesday afternoon, a piece for Telluride Inside and Out, Later that evening we had the festival’s first PlaySlam at the Steaming Bean. Visiting playwrights and Tellu-writers read excerpts from their works and it was great to see everyone come together to hear such compelling work. The pieces were funny and moving, varied in style and tone, consistent in quality. In my three years at this festival, this has to be one of my favorite evenings. Most of the time I’m squirreled away in my luxury condo, banging out new pages, the only community interface is at dinners, mixers, fund-raisers and the like. It was really gratifying to see, hear and share.
The coolest thing was when my son, Gabe, a wizened twelve-year-old, came up to me after a reading and said, “Mom, did you hear that one?” (I had not, having briefly stepped outside) “It was all about this woman, right?, who had a friend with this disease called ALS…” and he launched into a detailed recount of the story. I was amazed at the power of words and the images they etch in our hearts and minds. Especially this young one.
Today was the company hike to Bear Creek Falls… for me it was the hike through rewrites, just as stimulating, just as exhausting, though I’m certain not as breath-taking. With the boys on a trip to Mesa Verde and a ride on the Silverton/Durango Railroad, I’ve got an open window to focus on the script for Sunday night’s staged reading. Off to hear what my brilliant cast does with these new pages!

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Tracy Shaffer
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Before Your Head Hits the ZILLOW: why your online estimate may be wrong.

As an actor, the most common question is “How do you memorize all those lines?” As a Realtor© it goes something like this… “How come your comps say my house is worth X when Zillow says Y? “
I’ll tell you why. Real estate websites have transformed the consumer experience when buying or selling, bringing to the public the listing and sales info that used to be private and difficult to get to. Some of this consumer info sharing has been good for all. A buyer, for example, can reduce our power-shopping trips by searching for homes that suit their needs, send a list of what they want to see and off we go. Well… after I double check the listing information, as much of it is out of date; homes sold but still listed as active, short sales if my client has a move in time frame, homes that have been on the market for a year… these get scratched from the shopping list. But for sellers it can be a different story.
These sites appeal to the savvy seller, empowered by access to the information provided, They try hard to do a lot of the work for you, grabbing recent sales, public record and homes listed in your neighborhood, then running them through a computer program and, in some cases, going so far as to create an estimated value on your property. Here’s where it gets tricky. Computer programs have no discernment.
I recently got on Zillow to double check one of my listings to make sure the information was correct. What I found was a massive error stating that according to public record the home had sold in 1997 for $150,000, a “fact” I cannot find anywhere. With a price point over $600,000, this is a costly mistake and one my sellers were understandably unhappy about. I’ve contacted them numerous times to correct, but so far nothing. I checked back yesterday and the website’s value of the property had gone up $17k in one week for no apparent reason. In my own neighborhood, Zillow has deemed my home worth nearly 40k less than what I can sell it for, largely due to a few foreclosures nearby, and this is happening all over the city.

A computer takes the description of your home from the public records, or from a recent listing, determines the number of bedrooms, bathrooms and square footage, and pulls out the closest homes to yours that have sold recently that have similar data on record. The computer can’t necessarily distinguish nuances in a property’s condition or aesthetics, nor does it always correct for whether the house two blocks over was a short sale or a foreclosure. Depending on where you live, how similar homes are to each other in your area, the level of sales activity near your home and the level of accuracy found in the public records for your house and nearby homes, these sites can offer very comparable “comps” — or comparables that aren’t really comparable at all. If you live in a fairly cookie-cutter subdivision where several homes just like yours have sold very recently, you’re likely to get a good set of comparables, and a value estimate that’s at least in the ballpark. But in many areas, lots of fairly common scenarios can come between you and a good comp/bad comp:

Your home is older and has had a lot of improvements and even additions that are not in the county records.
Homes in your area are very different from each other.
You live in a neighborhood very nearby another neighborhood where homes have a much higher or lower value than your area , say, because they belong in a better school district or even on the other side of the city limits.
Your home is in an area where homes are dense, the algorithm might jump over many very nearby properties to get to a relatively dissimilar one even a half-mile away, and that can give you bad comps.

The listings provided by the sites can be very useful for homeowners trying to stay on top of what homes around theirs are selling for — not listed for, but actually selling for. They are less useful, in my opinion, at placing values on properties; the sites that do this usually have their accuracy rates listed somewhere on the site, and I haven’t yet seen one that’s impressive.
But when it’s time to actually list your home, or figure out what it is worth, no computer — no algorithm — is as accurate as a living, breathing local real estate professional who sees and sells all the different specimens of homes in your neighborhood and sees firsthand what ready, willing, qualified buyers actually pay for them, day in and day out.
I think it’s important for sellers interviewing listing agents to discuss the online comparables with prospective listing agents, but not as a counterargument to what the listing agents recommends you list your home for. Rather, it’s a smart way to see some of what the agents know, and what you can learn about the other properties in your area. If you’d like a detailed estimate of home values in your neighborhood or a comparative market analysis of your home, give me a ring, I’d be glad to help.

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Tracy Shaffer
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Sunday in the Park with…Everyone

Look for the Thriving Artist Alliance banner!


Sunday picnics at City Park Jazz have long been one of my favorite summer rituals and judging by its growth the feeling is mutual. The atmosphere is fun and communal. far beyond a basket of egg salad sandwiches and a blanket, some people really work it: linen draped tables with champagne flutes, portable grills, netted tents and lawn games dot the landscape, festival style as Denver comes out to play.
So I thought… If I park it, will they come? What if you knew you could show up spontaneously, no blanket, no food, no hassle except the parking? What if you had one place where you could meet the friends who are already there scattered around, meet new friends and have an eclectic mix every week? That’s what I was thinkin’. I’ll get there early and set up space and provide something to eat. You show up, walk or roll north on the pathway from 17th Ave toward the band shelter. Look to your right, between the lake and the road and somewhere along the way you’ll see the THRIVING ARTIST ALLIANCE banner hanging from a tree or staked in the ground. Some weeks you may want to bring food and drink, others you can show up empty handed and share in the feast laid out before you. Bring your kids, your friends, your bikes, skateboards, a Frisbee or a ball… sometimes an umbrella. Where else can you eat, drink, dance and celebrate the season? And it’s free. We’ll be there around 5:00, music goes from 6-8. For more information, event updates and who’s playing each week, find me on Facebook or check out Sunday Dinner under events.

Beautiful friends and gorgeous sunsets rock City Park Jazz

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