Hello All,

So how do you like the new look and feel?  We have updated how the site looks and improved how it works.  We would love to hear your feedback and suggestions for the site.  Go to CONTACT US and you can submit suggestions.

We are seeing many new visitors and listings to the site each month.  The success stories we hear about are sellers actively searching the site in the swaps section as well as the for sale by a real estate agent sections.  They are sending emails to the agents asking if their customers would be willing to swap.  Remember swapping is just you buy theirs and they buy yours.  Its really not that difficult if you can find a seller in the area you are looking to buy that wants to move to your area.  Keep the faith and keep active.

So, now that you have listed your property on all the sites on the internet, what do you do next?  Most people are going to sit, wait and hope that someone will see their listing, call and purchase their property.  Not likely unless you are willing to price your home below market and still be willing to negotiate.  This is the trend that we are seeing in Denver.  The market is flooded with buyers who are looking for the "Great Deal".  Well, not on my dime.  If you have your home priced fair, why should you have to give it away?  You shouldn't.  This is where swapping could become a perfect strategy to help you sell your home. 

My suggestion is to be proactive.  Don't just sit and wait for the buyer to come to you, take the sale to the buyer.  Especially now that winter is approaching, the housing market is going to slow substantially.  This is when you should be turning up the heat in your marketing as there are many sellers in the same boat as you.  They want to sell their homes but can't.  There are many ways you can market your home to other sellers.  Contact real estate agents in the area you are looking to move.  Send them the link to your listing on Pad4Pad and let them know your intentions.  They might have a seller who is interested or they might know another agent who has a client that might be interested.  You will not believe the activity that a few emails can get you.  You can find their email addresses on their companys home page.  Just type in the city you are lookg to move to and start the emails.  This tactic brought me two potential buyers for my property.  Good luck and get started.        

The concept of Pad4Pad started in October of 2007 after a miserable year of trying to sell my home through the traditional methods with no success.  My wife and I were getting frustrated.  We were looking to our realtor for the out of the box marketing idea that would sell our home.  The problem was the housing bubble was breaking, prices were dropping, inventory was on the rise and the number of buyers was diminishing.  This created the perfect storm in Colorado as the real estate market had been increasing substantially year after year.  We had recently purchased a new home in an older neighborhood.  After placing our home on the market and getting a lot of lookers, we realized that all of the people looking at our home couldnt purchase it if they wanted to because they were in the same boat as us.  They wanted to move but couldnt sell their homes either.  The only suggestion our realtor could give us was drop the price.  We were not interested in dropping the price of our home.  We wanted a fresh marketing idea. 

One day while in passing, my wife said "I wish we could find the people in Fort Collins that wanted to move to Denver and we could buy theirs and they could buy ours".  The lightbulb went off in my head.  I rushed to the computer to see what I could find.  I was amazed when I did not find anything out there that would help my real estate agent market my property for potential swaps.  I called a long time friend who was in the software industry and shared our idea with him.  He said that he was looking to do something on his own but hadn't come up with the idea yet.  He agreed to help make Pad4Pad come to life.  After assembling the right team, we began production.  Since I knew nothing of how to build a web site, they had to work from ideas that I had in my head. 

Three months later on Feb 25th, we rolled out the first version of PadPad.  Immediately, the media jumped all over the concept.  Three days into being live, I was sitting in front of a tv camera being intereviewed by 9News here in Denver.  A week after that, WCBS TV was doing an interview.  The media craze has just gained momentum since then with Pad4Pad making the front page of the LA Times real estate section and doing a live interview with CNBC.  The experience has been amazing.  Many of our clients that have been interviewed have stated how Pad4Pad has increased the activity on their homes and lead to several offers for swaps.  The goal was always to help people that are in the same position as myself sell their homes in a difficult market.