BrokerIPTV: Today, we are talking with Pat DeFeo, the Vice President of Colorado Home Warranty and Pat, welcome to the show.

Pat DeFeo: Thank you.

BrokerIPTV: Thanks for being here. For those people not familiar with your business, again, lets tell people what Colorado Home Warranty does.

Pat DeFeo: Colorado Home Warranty is a locally based and owned and operated company. We provide home warranties to homeowners in Colorado.

BrokerIPTV: Okay and a seller, someone selling a home, can purchase a home warranty, which may entice a buyer to buy their home because they have a warranty after they buy it or a buyer can buy home warranty plan after they purchase a house?

Pat DeFeo: Correct.

BrokerIPTV: Pretty much.

Pat DeFeo: A seller does not have to pay for it. The seller can apply, put an application in, and his home is covered until its sold.

BrokerIPTV: Wow! I didn't know that.

Pat DeFeo: And if its not sold, then there is no funds collected even if there had been service during the listing period.

BrokerIPTV: And real quick, how does the warranty program work? In other words, somebody finds something wrong with the house, you put in a claim, so forth,

Pat DeFeo: They put in a claim they call... they call our office, they will get a, my service department will take the call. We dispatch a technician depending on what it is and there is a $55.00 co-pay that is paid to the contractor when he gets there and they will fix the problem, whatever it is or they will replace the problem if we cant fix it; if its a dishwasher and it cant be fixed, then we replace it.

BrokerIPTV: Question for you, does business fluctuate or does your business fluctuate with the real estate market? If the real estate market is slowing down, is your business slowing down or it really doesn't matter?

Pat DeFeo: Somewhat, it does somewhat slow, slow down. We are, you know, I mean I hate to even say this, but we are like the low hanging fruit on the tree. I mean home transactions require mortgage, they require title, but they don't require,

BrokerIPTV: A Home warranty.

Pat DeFeo: Home warranty, but our business hasn't dropped as much as I thought it would during this ebb and flow that we are going through right now. So, I guess the answer to your question is we do fluctuate some with the market, but not as much this time.

BrokerIPTV: Which then brings me to my next question about which segment really purchases home warranties the most; is it this crowd that's 300,000 and below or is it really just the people who have million dollar homes and over?

Pat DeFeo: You know it doesn't segment... it doesn't segment at all. I mean I have, we have a requirement and all warranty companies have that, not a requirement, but we ask the buyer, when a warranty is placed, we ask how many square feet is it. The only reason we ask that is because usually if the house is over 5000 square feet, it will have duplicate systems. It will have two furnaces or two water heaters and that's just to protect the, the person that's getting the warranty. At that point, if they don't want to cover the extra system, we will tell them, we will cover the first one that breaks you know and we wont cover the second one. So, there are million dollar houses with two or three systems and we get those too quite frequently.

BrokerIPTV: Yeah, okay, but affordability, if I have got a small house and I live in Aurora and I am thinking there is just no way I am going to be able to afford a home warranty plan; its far more affordable than people think, is that right?

Pat DeFeo: Its very much affordable. If you are the buyer, and we have this special going and we have had it going for quite a while; if you are the buyer and its not covered during the listing period, its $250. So, that's like $12, a little over $12 a month and what that saves you is peace of mind. It gives you so much peace of mind because if something breaks and you don't have a warranty and you call another contractor, they can tell you any number of things is wrong. If you call, have a home warranty and the contractor goes out, they are not going to gouge you at all.

BrokerIPTV: Pat, great information. Thanks for being with us.

Pat DeFeo: Thank you.

BrokerIPTV: I appreciate it.

Posted in Headlines, Home Selling Services

BrokerIPTV: Today we are talking with Pat DeFoe, Vice President of Colorado Home Warranty and Pat, thanks for being with us.

Pat DeFeo: You are welcome. Thank you for having me.

BrokerIPTV: In a previous segment, we were talking a little bit about home warranties and Colorado Home Warranty and I just want to recap. Now, what people can do here is, if I am a seller and I am selling my home, I could purchase a home warranty to cover the mechanical things in my home. That home warranty could be attractive to a buyer. A buyer could purchase a home warranty for a property that they are purchasing... <watch video>

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Posted in Headlines, Real Estate Industry, Home Selling Services

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.

Posted in Headlines, Real Estate Industry, Home Selling Services

BrokerIPTV: Today we are talking with Thomas Wright, owner of Spotlight Tours and Thomas, welcome to the show. Thanks for being with us.

Thomas Wright: Thank you Dan.

BrokerIPTV: Appreciate that. tell me about Spotlight Tours, what is it?

Thomas Wright: Spotlight Home Tours is a boutique photography company designed to help three people, the brokerage firms who want to provide a great, high quality, romantic, picturesque view of their properties and they can roll it out to their agents. It helps the agents and brokers, allows them to highlight their properties in the best possible light and make their sellers happy and three, it allows the sellers really feel proud of the service that they are getting from their real estate broker.

BrokerIPTV: How did you get started?

Thomas Wright: Spotlight Home Tours started, there was a real demand, there was a lot of high volume tour companies, tour and photography companies out there. Spotlight is a boutique company that really focuses on being a partner with the agent, being in their business, the broker daily, helping brokerage firms really capitalize on the website traffic by having high quality photography.

BrokerIPTV: Now, why this area now?

Thomas Wright: Well, that's a good question. This area has a lot of high end properties and there is lot of high end agents that want to stand out. The high quantity companies that focus on just doing most tours that they can and have them edited in Pakistan and really are just trying to do the most volume they can do didn't really work for the high end agents and we have had a relationship with Sotheby's International Realty and Sotheby's is now in this Denver Real Estate market and growing and they invited us and really wanted us to be in this market to help them with the high end properties.

BrokerIPTV: All right. So, for those agents who are already out there and have been in the business quite some time, I am sure they have got relationships with other tour companies that do this. There is a lot of competition in this area. So, the tough question for you is what sets you apart?

Thomas Wright: Well, what sets us apart is that we are that boutique company that believes that the photography should be an illustration of the broker and of the seller and their home and the high volume photography just isn't working for a lot of people. There is a lot of distortion in photos, there is a lot of poor quality, the photos aren't distributed very well, but basically we are different because we have better service, we are a boutique company that's not looking to do everybody's photography. We want to partner with high end brokers to help them market and sell their high end homes.

BrokerIPTV: Now, you originally didn't start in the Denver Real Estate market. Where are you from?

Thomas Wright: We started in Salt Lake City, Utah.

BrokerIPTV: Okay. How did you get into the Denver market?

Thomas Wright: We were doing the photography for Sotheby's in the Park City which is a very high end market and the ownership of that branched out and came over here to Denver and really invited us and really pleaded with us to come because they felt like in the Denver market we would be the best, highest quality provider of photography.

BrokerIPTV: Is this a business plan that you and your partners plan to roll out in the other markets?

Thomas Wright: Oh absolutely. We are already in discussions in... at least half of the top 20 markets around the country, but we are going to be very selective. We are not in this to win accounts and be the high volume player. We are in it to be the boutique company that partners with our brokers to provide the best quality photography and it is not that much more expensive than the high volume tour companies and what they charge, it is just we are looking for a relationship where quality and delivery is really important.

BrokerIPTV: Can anybody in the Denver market contact you?

Thomas Wright: Absolutely. [Voice Cross Over]

BrokerIPTV: And how do they do that?

Thomas Wright: They go to our website, www.spotlighthometours.com.

BrokerIPTV: Thanks so much. Appreciate you being here.

Thomas Wright: Thanks Dan. Appreciate it.

Posted in Headlines, Home Selling Services

BrokerIPTV: Today we are talking with Thomas Wright, owner of Spotlight Tours and Thomas, welcome.

Thomas Wright: Thank you Dan.

BrokerIPTV: Glad you are here. You know when I was not in the business, I used to think being on the outside looking in, how tough can it be to do photography for a house? You know, it doesn't move or anything, but really, there is a knack and a specialty to it.

Thomas Wright: Well, the stories of our lives unfold in homes and people get attached to their homes because they are the most special places and they are usually our biggest investment. So, photography is really important in real estate #1 because brokers have to justify the fee and the service they are providing and one of the best ways to do that is to provide romantic, high quality photography that's going to show the story of their life, the place where their life has taken place over the last several years and photography is critical with the Internet and Web 2.0 and everything that's going on.

BrokerIPTV: All right. Now, you obviously provide photography for a lot of different companies and it is really a two part deal here because you take the pictures, but once you hand them off to the company, they have to display them well. Who is displaying it the best these days?

Thomas Wright: Well, the people that display the best are dedicated to an online strategy. They are into the Web 2.0 concept, they are moving away from... they are moving their marketing budgets from offline to online and there are some great examples with all brands and in various markets where we are, so, to point one out probably wouldn't be fair, but we are helping our customers display their properties better and one of the ways we are doing that is we have a patent filed and pending that allows people to text to a number and have the photos come to their iPhone, their Blackberry or their cellphone and that's going to really help brokers deliver the photography to the consumer in a much more efficient manner. So, now all of a sudden the Internet now is in their home and driving the neighborhood, it is a merger of the two. They are driving the neighborhood, but they are also looking at the photography online.

BrokerIPTV: What about video? I mean there is a lot of back and forth that some brokers would say video doesn't do anything, it is not good. I happen to be in the other camp. I like video. I like narrated video with my listings and so forth. What's your thought and are you getting into it?

Thomas Wright: Video, I am with you. You are way ahead of your time. Video is a fabulous medium. There are two problems with video in today's market; #1 is is it really expensive and a lot of agents and brokers and brokerage firms don't want to pay for that just because it is very cost prohibitive and #2, about video is that it's taking a large... it takes a large amount of time and you are videoing something that's not moving in a moving fashion and with our motion tour, which is really unique, and some of the providers in the country have copied our motion tours since we rolled it out, it allows us to use still photography, but have some motion in it. So, it is not the one shot fish bowl lens that really distorts the angles and distorts the furniture and looks like you are looking through a pair of somebody else's glasses and the human brain just doesn't work like that. When you have a distorted, poor quality photography image, your mind just doesn't want to look at it.

BrokerIPTV: What's next on the horizon? What are we looking forward in the next six months to a year?

Thomas Wright: Well, we are going to keep developing video and we are going to find a cost effective way to deliver video to brokers because it is important and it will happen eventually and we are going to be on the cutting edge of that. In the meantime, we are going to continue to provide the highest quality photography available at the most affordable price. We are going to continue to help our brokers sell homes and we are going to launch our text message service that will allow people from the site to text a simple number and get the photography on the home straight to their iPhone, Blackberry or whatever mobile device they use.

BrokerIPTV: Thanks so much.

Thomas Wright: Thank you Dan.

BrokerIPTV: Appreciate having you.

Thomas Wright: Yeah, thank you.

Posted in Headlines, Home Selling Services, Web 2.0 Marketing