Ever wondered how to transform your humble abode into a buyer's paradise? Tune in as your hosts, Michele and Julee, share insights on making your house market-ready, with a sprinkle of personal stories and professional advice that will leave you feeling prepared. We're not just talking about a quick tidy-up; we dive deep into the essence of decluttering, the magic of staging, and the allure of curb appeal. Imagine walking through your front door and feeling that immediate sense of 'home'—that's the reaction we're aiming for from potential buyers, and we'll tell you just how to achieve it.
As we venture through the journey of selling your home, we touch upon the emotional rollercoaster it can be. From the daunting task of depersonalizing your space to the strategic game of organizing closets and garages, we guide you through the process with empathy and expertise. Julee underscores the significance of a clean, neutral backdrop that allows buyers to picture their future in your space. We also shine a light on the often overlooked resources available to help our elderly and disabled community members prepare their homes for sale.
Wrapping things up, we recap the essential steps to elevate your home from lived-in to must-have. Whether it's buffing up the curb appeal or ensuring your inspection reports are squeaky clean, we've covered all bases to help you navigate the current real estate landscape. This episode is more than just a talk; it's a toolbox brimming with strategies for selling success. So go ahead, download this gem, share it with your home-selling comrades, and join our community as we guide you to a successful sale. Until our paths cross again in the next weekly episode, keep thriving and waving goodbye to your old home with confidence.
Ever wondered how to transform your humble abode into a buyer's paradise? Tune in as your hosts, Michele and Julee, share insights on making your house market-ready, with a sprinkle of personal stories and professional advice that will leave you feeling prepared. We're not just talking about a quick tidy-up; we dive deep into the essence of decluttering, the magic of staging, and the allure of curb appeal. Imagine walking through your front door and feeling that immediate sense of 'home'—that's the reaction we're aiming for from potential buyers, and we'll tell you just how to achieve it.
As we venture through the journey of selling your home, we touch upon the emotional rollercoaster it can be. From the daunting task of depersonalizing your space to the strategic game of organizing closets and garages, we guide you through the process with empathy and expertise. Julee underscores the significance of a clean, neutral backdrop that allows buyers to picture their future in your space. We also shine a light on the often overlooked resources available to help our elderly and disabled community members prepare their homes for sale.
Wrapping things up, we recap the essential steps to elevate your home from lived-in to must-have. Whether it's buffing up the curb appeal or ensuring your inspection reports are squeaky clean, we've covered all bases to help you navigate the current real estate landscape. This episode is more than just a talk; it's a toolbox brimming with strategies for selling success. So go ahead, download this gem, share it with your home-selling comrades, and join our community as we guide you to a successful sale. Until our paths cross again in the next weekly episode, keep thriving and waving goodbye to your old home with confidence.
Hey everybody. This is Michelle and this is Julie. Welcome to a Blonde, a Brunette and a Mike podcast. What is our podcast all about, you ask?
Speaker 2:Well, we're 250-something women with life experience and oh, bloody to say which is exactly what we're going to do right now.
Speaker 2:Hey, today we are going to talk about a very appropriate topic for this time of the year, because it is about the time when people start thinking about getting their homes ready for sale, and, of course, that is the world I live in. So I figured this would be a great opportunity to chat with people about that part of their. No, I don't like that. Okay, do you want me to? It feels weird not to do the. Hey everybody.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know it's different. So here we are. We are going to talk about a topic that Jules is actually really I like to call her a guru in. She doesn't really probably take that title on, but she knows her stuff when it comes to real estate and, as you all know, it's been such a fluctuating market over the last couple of years. I've watched her go up and go down and she has been on a ride, so we get to have her expertise right now in regard to the real estate market and what some of the things are that should be done by the seller, and I suppose I don't even know. It's kind of foreign to me, julie, is it? I always hear these terms. Is it a? Let me enlighten you. Yeah, is it a buyer's market right now? Is it a seller's market? What is it right now?
Speaker 2:It's very much a seller's market.
Speaker 1:So what we're going to talk about today, then, is very is going to be very helpful for those looking to put their homes on the market. Correct this, that's correct.
Speaker 2:So just to give you guys a little background, we don't really talk about real estate on this podcast because that's not really what it was designed for. That is my area of expertise, that's what I do for a living and I love it, and I just would love to impart some knowledge to all of you as we go into this spring season, because it doesn't matter really where you live anywhere in the country. If you have a home that you're preparing to sell and you're going into this spring market, there's definitely things that you want to consider so you can actually present your home in the best possible light and get the maximum amount of revenue or return on your investment. And so, of course, plenty of you probably have real leaders out there that can go through some of these things with you. But, as I always say, it's wonderful to be very well prepared and know what you're talking about when you walk into something that's kind of foreign to you. So the research, listening to this podcast, those sorts of things will help you to be as prepared as possible as a seller Love that.
Speaker 2:One thing that I One thing I've definitely noticed is when, especially when, people are just entering that market or just starting to think about maybe downsizing or wanting to move to a different climate or things like that.
Speaker 2:They haven't been in the housing market for a long time, and so things have changed so dramatically, probably from when they maybe had purchased their house 20 years ago, and so the education process is different today than it would have been then, because, after the meltdown that took place back in 2008, 2007 timeframe, which was predominantly related to the housing market people were losing their homes and they were really not understanding the ramifications of some of the larger issues that were taking place in our country at the time, and so they've been building their equity backup in their home and in different parts of the country.
Speaker 2:This has happened on a double digit increase level year over year for quite some time now. We are one of those markets in the Northwest, and specifically in Seattle, which is kind of directly related to, in my opinion, the tech boom that has taken place here, because the plethora of individuals who have moved over to this side of the country have done so for jobs, and this has dramatically affected our not our interest rates, but it's affected our housing ability in terms of the amount of inventory that's available, the need for more housing, more density in the city, because we are kind of waterlocked and so people are now starting to move way further north or way further south or way further east of the city because that's what they can afford. So when you're looking at a home in the Seattle area, for example, a little two bedroom, one bath home can be and need work can be listed $600,000.
Speaker 1:I was going to say $1.5 million or $1.5 million.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have a listing right now in Seattle. It's two homes on one lot and little homes 700 square feet and another little one that's 300 square feet and they are listed at 635 for these two pieces of property that were built in 1927. And they are in the city and that's part of the issue. They're right by a lake and everything, but I did just receive an offer that was well above asking on this, so it just goes to show you how much a need there is.
Speaker 2:So, if you are planning to sell your home, the timing is pretty amazing and we're going to just talk about a few tips that you can take on in order to prepare yourself for your home sale to get the best possible bang for your buck, love it. So let's start. Yeah, let's start with. Let's say you've got a home that you've been living in for a long time and you've got family pictures up and you've got furniture and the walls have been painted in a while, and there's a lot of different things that could potentially be done to draw interest to your property from potential buyers.
Speaker 2:One thing that is really important to do is to remove a lot of your personal effects from the home, and when we talk to clients about this, we say you know, kind of prepare for museum quality, you know a presentation, because your home isn't probably going to feel a lot like your personal home when we are putting it on the market, and there's a lot of reasons for this. But most specifically, when you have someone walking into your home, you really want them to envision themselves there. So you want to prevent or provide more of a neutral palette In terms of the furnishings and, you know, lighting and things of that nature. So when they walk in they can actually visualize themselves there, they can visualize their kids, they can visualize their furniture. It's neutral enough to where it doesn't have your stamp on it to the same degree as it would if we just put it on the market.
Speaker 1:So you get pushback from clients to get pushback on that, because I'm sitting here thinking, oh, my home is so homey, you know everybody's going to feel comfortable, they're going to love it here. So I would imagine, to a certain degree, you might get a little pushback on, is this?
Speaker 2:really necessary? Yeah, definitely yeah, and I think that as over the years, I've learned to kind of take those cues a little bit better. There's definitely homes where to us really it's easier to get a home prepared if people aren't living there. So, ideally, having your home on the market when you're living there is not the best situation because you're having to constantly keep it up, you're interrupted constantly, you've got people in and out of your home. It's just, it's not the best scenario, but it's the reality of what people have to do if they can't purchase another home until they sell a home.
Speaker 2:And in this market, a contingent offer meaning you put an offer on a property with the contingency of selling your home those types of offers really are few and far between, because there is such a buyer pool and the interest rates now have, as everyone knows, gone up over the last year and a half, two years exponentially. They've gone up ridiculously high and the Fed had raised them several times in a very short period of time, which pretty much put the housing market to a halt, and a lot of folks that had purchased their homes prior to that are sitting on a two and a half, two and a quarter 3% interest rate and they're like why the heck would I move? You know, why would I move? Because I'm going to be paying 7%, 8% somewhere else, so I'm not going to really be able to afford the house that I want because interest is going to be taking up that increase. So, anyway, yes, pushback definitely, but I think the explanation of these things kind of helps people understand that it's not.
Speaker 2:It's nothing personal. It's just presenting a home in the way that it's going to be a viable option for others.
Speaker 1:I like that term that you used, because when people do come in, they are going to want to envision their things there and what that's going to look and feel like. Yeah. Yeah yeah, less is more.
Speaker 2:Sure, you know like things on the walls. Just having your home be fresh on the inside is really important. So when we're talking about removing items, it's not just photographs or personal effects, things of that nature, it's also decluttering. And when we say decluttering, it's not that you have junk in your house, it's not that you have an overabundance of things that you have to walk around.
Speaker 1:Julie tells me that all the time.
Speaker 2:She's a little bit of a clutterer. If we had to put her place in the market she would be having a little conversation, you know. But she knows me so she wouldn't get mad. But yeah, it's taking like too many things on the shelves. For example, If you have a bookshelf, that you have three items on each shelf, that they're placed correctly so they're more pleasing to the eye.
Speaker 2:for example, that you have, you know, blankets that are color coordinated with your couch you know, and if you bring in a staging company or, like we do, our own staging, they have all that stuff they know what to do so. But it's just keeping in mind that there's a lot of different things to remove from your home or to pack, and I always kind of look at it like you're going to pack anyway.
Speaker 1:I'm afraid I'd want to stay after you all come in and you make all these, you know, fancy, comfortable updates and color coordinating matching. I'd be like, huh, maybe I don't want to move.
Speaker 2:Well, you'll want to move, unless you want to put your stuff back up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it doesn't feel. That's the thing is. It really doesn't feel like home. So it's. You know, there's such an emotional connection to our home and in order to be able to sell it objectively, to get the most money you can for your property and your investment, you really have to kind of be able to separate yourself and have a more objective perspective. And that's really what a realtor does, because we don't have the same level of you know, we don't have all the memories there.
Speaker 2:We don't have those things. We know that your home is a very special place and of course treat everything with respect, but we're able to see things through a different lens and that's, you know, kind of what you, what you hire us for so. So removing clutter is really important, and that's in every room that you're able to. Now people say, well, what about my closets? What about my garage? What about things like that? Of course, ideally all those things would be organized right, but that's not necessarily the way it always is.
Speaker 2:And so again, going back to life experiences that people are having, they might be in the middle of something that's really awful. They might not have the capacity to deal with things. You know, you have to kind of work around all of that with people because these are human beings trying to do something that is a really big, big life decision, and so I'm not as big on those sorts of things like the closets, for example. It's like if you get to it great.
Speaker 2:But you know everybody can open a closet and see that there's towels and you know, some minor all shoved in my closet right now because I don't probably have enough space. So it's the same kind of thing. So really taking a more objective approach to the decluttering and taking that guidance is really wonderful when we have clients that are just like just tell me what I need to do, it works out great. So decluttering the interior of your home I always have been, especially when people are having done this in a while. When you're talking about decluttering, you're talking about getting rid of things You're like do I need that, do I?
Speaker 2:So it's really looking at what am I keeping, what am I donating and what am I getting rid of? You know what's something that doesn't even have value, that I can get rid of or put on a buy nothing site or what have you. So those three categories are the ones that are good to have in your mind as you're going through decluttering your home. And I said and some of this also depends on the amount of time- I was just going to say.
Speaker 1:I suppose, if you're in a bit of a time crunch, I see that's renting a storage facility. That would be a great option for just a temporary. If you're not in the mindset to make decisions on if you're keeping something or need to get rid of it and donate it, just rent a storage facility and yeah that's a great alternative.
Speaker 2:And they actually the ones I love. You know, like Kleenex is a brand but it's, we say oh can I get a? Kleenex. Well, I say the same thing with Pod, like Pod is a brand, it's actually a company. But there's a ton of different portable storage units, companies that are out there that are very competitive in pricing, that literally deliver the pod to your door and you load it up and then they take it and they store it in a secure place until you're ready to use that stuff again, which is sweet, because if you're traveling or moving to a different area, you just tell them you where to
Speaker 2:deliver it and it works out great. That way you can keep a lot of the things out of your garage or you don't have to store everything in your garage, you know, which a lot of people will do, which is totally fine as long as things are stacked neatly and you can see that there's some sense of order to it. I know people don't want to open the door to the garage and see this massive pile of stuff that was thrown in there, so you have to really think about that through the lens of a potential buyer. So that's how I have done that before myself personally and it's worked out, I think, really well, because I think it just lowered the stress storage I didn't have to try to yeah, yeah, the storage.
Speaker 2:I didn't have to try to find a place for it.
Speaker 2:I didn't, I just had a plan, you know, and the plan worked out great. So the other the fourth item is neutralizing the interior of your home. And when I say neutralizing I think again this goes back to the amount of time and Resources that an individual has available to them. You know to fix things up, but if you've got rooms that are painted fuchsia or painted blue or Just things that are not, they're your taste and they're lovely for you, but they would really be a turnoff to someone else being able to identify if that area worked well for them, I'd really encourage you to neutralize.
Speaker 1:I.
Speaker 2:Don't know why, I don't know where fuchsia really came from, but at times it's fine because you can see where someone has done something with a, like a media room for example, that's they watch movies in there, so the walls are painted black and they've got big, thick curtains because you know they don't want to let light. It that's totally appropriate If you've got a little girls room that is painted with her favorite stuff. You know, there's some things you're probably going to leave, and I think it's case by case.
Speaker 2:But as a general rule, I would say that you would want to try to new, neutralize your space. So it's hiring a painter or doing it yourself. You know something like that. I Organizing the closets, pantries, cupboards. That's another one that we just talked about a moment ago. Again, the Priority is the spaces that are going to be immediately visible.
Speaker 2:So, depending on time and resources, those are the spaces I would focus on at first, and if you are already planning to move or you already have a place like, say, you're a new construction and you know your home is going to be closing in three months, kind of a thing you can pull a lot of that stuff out that you don't need and just store it, because you can keep the basics you know for what you need and then leave the rest you know for when you move. So again, time is sometimes an issue with that. There there are resources to people can use that are they're helping them to organize, or there are companies out there that come in and they do this for people who are Disabled or maybe they're elderly and in a wheelchair or really can't reach high spaces. You know things like that. There's totally companies out there that can help with those sorts of things.
Speaker 1:I was just, I was just gonna say so far, you know, we've talked a little more about, talked about a little more than half of these and what I'm getting from it. I've never been a homeowner, I've never sold a home, so I I'm not in the mix of that or haven't experienced it. But as I'm listening to these things, I totally can see the correlation with putting the time and effort into Something to ensure, you know, a better success rate.
Speaker 2:Obviously you know the presentation in my, in my opinion is is pretty critical.
Speaker 2:I think you'll any realtor you run into you're gonna hear the same thing, unless they're working with properties that are, you know, sold as is or they are, you know, not intended to be set up. There's a lot of properties out there like that and you'll see that they're taking pictures with their iPhones or they're posting them. That way it's really more maybe for investors, things of that nature. So, yeah, putting the time in, I think, makes a big difference, especially when you've invested so much in your home. You know, even over the last few years, if you've invested a lot in your home, you know you want to make it show in the best possible light. So Another thing that is really important to do is to have everything clean inside. So let's say, you have carpet in your home.
Speaker 1:Isn't that kind of a no-brainer?
Speaker 2:I just went on a listing appointment. I yes and no. I mean I mean people don't wear shoes in the house. People do wear shoes in the house.
Speaker 1:So it depends on you know how the carpet is, what people allow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, mm-hmm, mm-hmm and that might be something that might be helpful to invest in prior to listing, because if you have your Tired carpet in there, that's been in there since 1996 or something yeah, maybe you didn't wear your shoes in the house, but it still has wear patterns and there's probably stains. If you have pets, that could be an issue. It could also leave a scent. There's just a ton of different reasons why you either have your carpets cleaned or you replace the carpet. So I was telling you I went on a listing appointment this house.
Speaker 2:They've obviously taken really good care of their home, but the carpet is the same carpet that's been in there for 18 years and when you and you look at the price point that we are Going to try to achieve, which is going to be pretty easy, given the location you want to have your home and in Move, in ready condition, you know, ready for market day one and one of those things is having fresh carpet if someone's paying that much money for a home, they're not gonna want to come in and repair the, replace the carpet, so it needs to be something kind of neutral, obviously, in color.
Speaker 2:But a lot of people you know they talk about what they need to do to prepare their home and things are optional. There's definitely things that are optional. I had someone asked me the other day. It's like do I need to update the bathrooms and update the kitchen? Because those are the areas where you're going to get the biggest bang for your buck in terms of return and I Sometimes I think it's a good idea. I think it depends on the resources again Someone might have available and how or what condition their their bathroom is in.
Speaker 2:How outdated it is, if there's any leaks that have taken place that have affected the trim. You know All those sorts of things and I would encourage people to get fixed if they can. Now Updating and putting in these big fancy, you know back splashes and all this stuff. You got to be really mindful of the fact that your taste might not be the same as someone else's.
Speaker 2:So that's something to think about when, when you are making those adjustments. If you do and you decide to go all out and Make some adjustments to the kitchen or to the bathroom, just make sure anything that you do is very neutral the, the materials or quality materials, and the installation or the work that's completed is quality work, because there's a lot of people that can walk in and just throw in some cabinets and Throw in a countertop and it looks like question.
Speaker 1:So do do people ever and this just has to do with what we're talking about do do people ever opt to Take off the Take off of the price, knowing that updates need to be made? Because I'm just sitting here thinking, gosh, I would hate if I made all these updates and then somebody just comes in and you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Destroys them to your point, and that's a great question, yeah that's how their tastes are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they have a vision.
Speaker 2:So I think when you're looking at a home and preparing it to sell, you are wanting to make it, like I said, market ready day one, but that doesn't necessarily mean that everything is up to date, you know, it means that it's clean and means that everything you know, things are organized and you're pricing a home at Right around that market value.
Speaker 2:So you're not gonna overprice it with the hope that someone will Give you an offer that's lower, or overprice it with the intention of lowering the price if you don't get any offers. That's like. That's like death to a listing. You don't want to do that. So you know, right now it's like you see that the market, the, the market, has homes going within the first seven days and when you start factoring in ones that have been sitting on the market a little bit longer, which is usually because of price, or you know the marketing of it, or there's a lot of different factors but ultimately it ends up being priced, or there's some funky floor plan.
Speaker 2:You know it's under 30 days that these homes are getting under contract. So I Mean there's something to be said for just making sure that you yeah, you're, you're doing everything that you can to have it prepared and ready and that someone can walk, they could truly move in and be able to actually live back, so your pipes are in good shape and your furnace is working, which wouldn't pass the brazil if it wasn't working probably anyway that there's no rats in the attic that there's no.
Speaker 1:Yeah happens.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's really really, really common. You know that we have In the Northwest, that we have organic growth or mold in the crawl space or the attic because the ventilation hasn't been good. These aren't surprises to me at all. It happens all the time. But it freaks people out because they're they don't go up in their attic or down in their space. They're not going to necessarily know until you have an inspection, which is always what I recommend doing, an advance of listing, and so you know what those?
Speaker 2:surprises are you know what you're dealing with. There's different schools of thought on that. Some people don't think that they want to have an inspection in advance of going on the market because they are responsible for Disclosing anything that is on that inspection. I'm of the school of thought that if you go into your home sale Knowing what the issues are, you can address those issues in advance and be able to basically knock them off the table and then people can utilize that Inspection that seller procured inspection to make their offer and your offer goes directly to pending.
Speaker 2:You're not put into a Depending inspection status and pulling yourself off the market, so I think that's really important to do so freshly cleaned carpets and sparkly clean windows. Yes, yeah clean windows is a big deal is a big deal, and carpets, flooring you know, having your flooring done.
Speaker 2:Relators are different all over the place. Some provide more Resources than others. There's discount brokerages, of course, that you do more, like, I'm say, all a mode but all a cart. They might help you with staging, but it's gonna cost you more. Or they might help you with different things, but it's gonna cost you more, that sort of thing. I would always talk to your realtor about what they feel needs to be done and you make that ultimate decision as the seller. They're giving you guidance based on what the market is, based on what their experience is, and you know, frankly, it's like here where we're at. Some of the things that you would normally Guide somebody to do you don't necessarily have to do, because there's a lot of homes that are in really good shape. They just need updating and they're still gonna fetch the market value. And then some, if marketed correctly but what about again, clean?
Speaker 1:What about how it looks from afar? What is there a term for? That in real estate, like you know curb, curb appeal Okay, tell me about that.
Speaker 2:Is that huge or a beetle? Well, think about it. It's like people are wandering around, you know, in neighborhoods, or your neighbors are seeing your home, and how it's presented from the very onset, from the outside, is so critical because someone can make a judgment on that house based on what they see on the outside. If you see that the trim isn't painted or it's chipping, or you know there's dead flowers on your porch, you know your grass has got a bunch of weeds in it and hasn't been cared for, what's the impression that it's going to be left with them about how you take care of your house?
Speaker 2:True, true. We're not going to use me as an example right here, because my backyard needs some love.
Speaker 1:I use bathrooms and restaurants I do like it tells me what they're doing in the kitchen if a bathroom is neglected, so I guess in there's that term that came to mind as you were explaining this. You'd never get a second chance to make a first impression, right?
Speaker 2:So yeah, Very, very true, just like meeting someone and how you present yourself so same thing Make sense. Yeah, so where someone walks up to your porch is the paint. Is the paint in good shape? Do you have loose boards? If you've got, maybe cedar deck or cedar front porch, it's like is it in good shape.
Speaker 2:You want all of those things to be in really good shape. Is the screen door? Is the screen broken? You know, are the door handles, all you know brass and you know the paints all worn off of them and they look terrible, those kinds of things, and then landscaping.
Speaker 2:There's a lot you can do with a little bit of money with landscaping, you know, with the beds, you know, having some mulch put down or having bark put down in those beds, having flowers planted, it doesn't even have to be a lot, but just bringing color to the front yard is really critical. And having your gutters cleaned and everything so pressure washed, just how your, how it was presented on the outside is really really important, I think.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so some people like to garden. They can get out there and do a lot of that gardening, or you can just you can hire someone to come in and say I want to spend $1,000 and this is what I want to have done. Maybe you only do the front yard, so you've got that curb appeal in the front, but you know people can see the backyard and see what potential it might have as long as the grass is cut you know that sort of thing.
Speaker 2:So the Ed mentioned about an inspection report and using that inspection report to create a punch list of items that need to be addressed on the house. So that's actually the best way, in my opinion, to go about doing it Like I'll go into a home and I can give feedback and guidance on specific things with different rooms, but having an inspector come in and look at the nuts and bolts of the home, I think makes a big difference. So, as an example, this listing where we had an inspector come in and this lady takes very good care of her home as a general rule she takes very good care of her home, but she's again not in the attic, she's not in the crawl space you know places like that and so we were able to identify issues in the attic area that had to do with the vents in the bathrooms never having been connected.
Speaker 2:Oh wow, so there's warm air blowing up into there, and then, thank goodness, this place had better ventilation. But if they didn't have ventilation we'd be dealing with mold, or we discovered that there was a wet area on the lower level, kind of by where the sliding glass doors were, and so having to investigate that before someone is putting an offer in and fixing that problem is really important. Now you still disclose what these issues are, of course, but you disclose them on your cellar disclosure form and identify that they've been fixed and that's fine.
Speaker 2:But you should always be honest and forthcoming with the information that you find out about your home. That makes sense. So, yeah, so completing those small repairs maybe you're handy and you can do it, or you can hire someone to come in and punch that list out for you. But getting all as many of those things fixed as possible and addressing them as fixed on the inspection report is a really wonderful way to show a buyer that you've actually gone in and done the work you know to make that home ready and prepared to sell.
Speaker 1:Make for less worries, I would imagine. I mean, you know, just taking care of all the things that we just went over, we should probably recap what they are right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just in recap.
Speaker 1:Numer off In numeric order.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that she says In numeric order yeah. So the basics for a homeowner. Again, you'll get a lot of guidance from your realtor, but these are just the basics for you as a homeowner. So, removing your personal effects, decluttering the interior and making it as neutral as you possibly can, getting those items out of your home and either storing them properly, giving them away to charity or getting rid of them all together, you have to kind of be in the right frame of mind to do that too, I know.
Speaker 2:when I have to clean out my closet, it's like I have to be in the place where I'm ready to purge. Sure for sure. Otherwise I'll wear that Same thing. But it's the same thing. It might be with tools, it might be with boxes, who knows?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Neutralizing the interior of your home. So that might be paint colors that might be removing some of the furniture that's in there and having a more neutral view when you walk in the door.
Speaker 2:Organizing spaces that are hidden like closets and pantries, cupboards, things of that nature. If you have time, I would probably put that far below the curb appeal. That would not be the priority for me. I would do curb appeal before. I would probably do that. But again it goes back to your home. So that's the way to do it. Again it goes back to how much time you have available, because that will draw them in.
Speaker 1:Totally agree with that curb appeal first.
Speaker 2:When a house looks fresh and it's on the market, you're just like it's just exciting to see. Maybe that's because of what I do, I don't know. I get excited about it. Cleaning your carpets, replacing them potentially, and cleaning your windows and window tracks Again, a lot of realtors provide that service. They hire somebody to come in and do that we do that.
Speaker 2:So we either do a move out clean or a list clean. For our clients, list clean would be if they're still in the home. We can have someone come in and do what I'm talking about here. It's a little bit more challenging to do because all of the personal items are there. If it were me, I would do a move out clean. What that is is, once the folks have moved out of the house, we get it ready for the next people and have it presented in a way where they're excited to be there. We don't leave the dogs licks on the windows. We make it that home is going to look good and be presented well for the next person, which is a direct reflection on that homeowner and, frankly, on us too. So that's a very important thing to do. Curb appeal, as we mentioned, big and going into spring.
Speaker 1:there are so many opportunities to put out pretty flowers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and don't worry about the grass so much. I mean parts of the country. The grass is dead. I've seen realtors paint the grass and things, oh wow. For pictures? Sure, there's actually a service out there that does that in some of the climates that are really hot.
Speaker 1:I don't know how I'd feel about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's organic right. I would say if your grass is dead, that's unfortunate, but if you're putting your home on the market in August and you live in Texas, that might be an issue, anyway. So curb appeal and then finally, when you have if you have an inspection, I would recommend one using that inspection as a punch list for taking care of any items that you need to address.
Speaker 2:Maybe that's things that are in the crawl space or in the attic, or you identify that your furnace needs to be serviced, or your AC unit needs to be ferned serviced, or there's a leak in a pipe somewhere you want to fix all that stuff, or, if you don't fix it all, you're going to be able to show clearly to someone that these are issues that still need to be addressed Right.
Speaker 2:So it's out there and someone knows kind of what they're getting into. And I like the idea of going straight to pending and not being in a pending inspection status, because every day that listing is out there and you are not sold, the listing gets stale. And when the market moves as quickly as our market moves, your listing is stale in 10 days, 20 days, it doesn't take long, and then everybody goes, oh my gosh, what's wrong with that house? Usually it has to do with pricing. I don't ever look at, oh, what's wrong with that house, I just look at, oh they're way overpriced.
Speaker 1:You can tell when something's way overpriced.
Speaker 2:So those are nutshell items people to prepare yourself and get your home ready to sell and get the most return on your investment. I encourage you to take a look at all this stuff and, if you're getting ready to do that, get in there and see what you can do to get your home prepared. Of course, we're always available. I'm available if you have any questions, but that's really not what this was about, and I really wish everybody all the best, super helpful.
Speaker 1:Thanks for sharing that, julie. Yeah, my pleasure, my pleasure it will be good for many folks out there, I am sure.
Speaker 2:So, yes, when you get ready to buy and sell your home, Michelle, I'll be here to help you, you'll be my realtor.
Speaker 1:You know it.
Speaker 2:Yes, I'm sure I will Well on that note everyone. Thank you so much for tuning in. We hope you learned something today and that you're able to take some of this information and apply it to your situation, and make sure to download the episode for reference.
Speaker 1:It's a great way to do it. Yeah, so yep, until next time. Download and follow.
Speaker 2:Like, share and follow.
Speaker 1:Share it with your friends. If you know somebody that's getting ready to sell. This is great information to share, so do that too. Definitely All right.
Speaker 2:Until next week, peace out, peace out, bye everybody Bye.
Speaker 1:Everyone Music playing.