A Blonde A Brunette and a Mic
Look forward to time with these two women who have life experience and something to say! Join us each week as we dive into topics that may be raw, unfiltered, funny and even a little controversial. Whatever we discuss will give you our perspective, get you thinking and will keep you coming back for more!
A Blonde A Brunette and a Mic
Episode 107 Maximizing Your Home's Value this Spring – Real Estate Secrets Unveiled!
It's almost spring and with that comes the spring real estate market! We decided to repost this episode from last season which is full of tips shared on preparing your home to sell in order to get the max out of your investment!
Ever wondered how to transform your humble home 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 mic podcast. What is our podcast all about, you ask?
Speaker 2:Well, we're 250 something, women with life experience and oh, plenty to say which is exactly what we're going to do right now. Hey, today we are going to talk about a very appropriate topic for this time of the year.
Speaker 1: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. 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. Seller's market, very much a seller's market.
Speaker 1:So what we're going to talk about today, then, is going to be very helpful for those looking to put their homes on the market. Correct.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's correct. 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 the 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 realtors 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, you know, 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. They haven't been in the housing market for a long time, and so things have changed so dramatically. Probably you know 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 back up in their home and in different parts of the country. 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 has.
Speaker 2: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, you know a little two bedroom, one bath home can be. You know and need work can be listed six $700,000.
Speaker 1:Oh, I was going to say 1.5 million, or 1.5 million, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I have a. 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 have. 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.
Speaker 2: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. 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 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 haven't been painted in a while.
Speaker 2:And there's a lot of different things that could potentially be done to draw interest to your property from potential buyers. 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:Do you get pushback from clients? Do you get pushback on that? Because I'm sitting here thinking, oh, my home is so homey, 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 really?
Speaker 2:necessary, 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.
Speaker 2: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 in 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 three percent 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 seven, eight percent 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 other people Totally makes sense.
Speaker 1:Neutral palette 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.
Speaker 2:Yeah, less is more for 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 declutteringuttering. 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, um, you have to walk around truly tells me that all the time it's, she's.
Speaker 2:She's a little bit of a clutterer. If we had to, if we had to put her place on the market, she'd be having a little conversation, you know. But she knows me so she wouldn. So she wouldn't get mad. But yeah, it's taking like too many things on the shelves. No-transcript, 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:So why not just start now? I'd be afraid I'd want to stay after y'all come in and you make all these you know, fancy comfortable updates and color coordinating matching. I'd be like, huh, maybe I, maybe I don't want to move. Well, you'll want to move unless you want to put your stuff back.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it doesn't feel. That's the thing is. It really doesn't feel like home. So it's. 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 hire us for. 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.
Speaker 2:It's like if you get to it great, but everybody can open a closet and see that there's towels and mine are 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.
Speaker 2:So decluttering the interior of your home? I always have been, especially when people haven't 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? So it's really looking at what am I keeping, what am I donating and what am I getting rid of, 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.
Speaker 2:So those three categories are the ones that are good to have in your mind as you're going through decluttering your home. And some of this also depends on the amount of time that you have to get something on the market.
Speaker 1:I was just going to say I suppose, if you're in a bit of a time crunch, I see that 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.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a great alternative and they actually the ones I love. You know how like Kleenex is a brand, but it's we say, oh can.
Speaker 1:I get a.
Speaker 2: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 where to deliver it and it works out great.
Speaker 2: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. The other.
Speaker 2: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, 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 the space.
Speaker 2:I 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 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 the light in. That's totally appropriate if you've got a little girl's room that is painted with her favorite stuff.
Speaker 2:you know, there's some things you're probably going to leave and I think it's case by case, but as a general rule, I would say that you would want to try to neutralize your space, so it's hiring a painter or doing it yourself. You know something like that. Uh, 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 first, and if you are already planning to move or you already have a place like, say, you're in new construction and you know your home's 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 are resources too, people could 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 going to say so far you know 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'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. Obviously you know.
Speaker 2:The presentation in my, in my opinion is is pretty critical, I think you'll.
Speaker 2:any realtor you run into you're going to 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, even over the last few years. If you've invested a lot in your home, 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. Yes and no. I mean people don't wear shoes in the house, People do wear shoes in the house.
Speaker 1:So it depends, on how old the carpet is. Yeah, what people allow, yeah, okay.
Speaker 2: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. 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.
Speaker 2: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 and move in, move-in ready condition, ready for market day one, and one of those things is having fresh carpet If someone's paying that much money for a home.
Speaker 2:They're not going to want to come in and replace the carpet, so it needs to be something kind of neutral, obviously, in color. But a lot of people 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 ask 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. 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 bathroom is in how outdated it is, if there's any leaks that have taken place that have affected the trim.
Speaker 2:you know all those sorts of things and I would encourage people to get them fixed if they can. Now updating and putting in these big fancy you know backsplashes 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 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 materials are 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 crap. Question.
Speaker 1:Do people ever and this just has to do with what we're talking about Do people ever and this just has to do with what we're talking about do people ever opt to 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 destroys them to your point. That's a great question Of how their tastes are. Yeah, they have a different 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.
Speaker 2:It means that things are organized and you're pricing a home at right around that market value. So you're not going to 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 because of price.
Speaker 2:Or you know the marketing of it. Or there's a lot of different factors but ultimately it ends up being price. Or there's some funky floor plan. 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 can truly move in and be able to actually live there, so your pipes are in
Speaker 1:good shape and your furnace is working, which it wouldn't pass an appraisal if it wasn't working probably anyway that there's no rats in the attic and that there's no this 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 that's 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 don't go up in their attic or down in their call space. They're not going to necessarily know until you have an inspection, which is always what I recommend doing in 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. You're not put into a pending inspection status and pulling yourself off the market.
Speaker 2: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:Realtors are different all over the place. Some provide more resources than others. There's discount brokerages, of course, that you do more like, I would say, a la mode but a la carte. They might help you with staging, but it's going to cost you more. They might help you with different things, but it's going to 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 going to fetch the market value and then some, if marketed correctly.
Speaker 1:What about how it looks from afar? Is there a term for that in real estate? Curb appeal. Oh curb appeal Okay, tell me about that.
Speaker 2:I'm huge on curb appeal. 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.
Speaker 2:What's the impression that it's going to be left with them about how you take care of your house? True, true. We're not going to use me as an example right here, because my backyard needs some love, but that's beside the point.
Speaker 1:I use bathrooms in restaurants. I do like it tells me what they're doing in the kitchen if the bathroom is neglected. So I guess and there's that term that came to mind as you were explaining this you never get a second chance to make a first impression.
Speaker 2:Right. So very, very true, just like meeting someone and how you present yourself.
Speaker 1:So same thing Makes sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so where someone walks up to your porch, 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. You want all of those things to be in really good shape. Is the screen door? Is the screen broken? Are the door handles? All know the paint's all worn off of them and they look terrible those kinds of things.
Speaker 2:And then landscaping 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 home is 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 ad 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 uh 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 1:Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:So there's warm air blowing up into there, and then thank goodness this place had better ventilation.
Speaker 2:But if they didn't have ventilation, we'd be dealing with mold, 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 seller disclosure form and identify that they've been fixed and that's fine. But you should always be honest and forthcoming with the information that you find out about your home that makes sense.
Speaker 2: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 Makes for less worries, I would imagine.
Speaker 1:I mean, you know, just taking care of all the things that we just went over, we should probably recap what they are right. Yeah, sure we can recap 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 things. Otherwise I'll wear that. I'll wear that Same thing. It's the same thing. It might be with tools, it might be with boxes. Who knows 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:You walk in the door 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.
Speaker 1:But again it goes back to how much time you have available, Because that will draw them in. Totally agree with that Curb a pill first.
Speaker 2:You can just 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. So 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, and 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 to where they're excited to be there. We don't leave the dogs licks on the windows. We don't. We make it we that home's 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 it's that's very important thing to do. Curb appeal, as we mentioned, big and going into spring there are so many opportunities to put out pretty flowers, yeah, yeah, and don't worry about the grass so much.
Speaker 2:I mean parts of the country. The grass is dead. You know, I've seen realtors like paint the grass and things yeah. For picture. Sure, yeah, there's actually like 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, no-transcript. Or you know, you identify that your furnace needs to be serviced, or your AC unit needs to be serviced, or there's a leak in a pipe somewhere you want to fix all that stuff you know, 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, you know so it's out there and someone knows kind of what they're getting into.
Speaker 2: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 so those are nutshell items people to prepare yourself and 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, you know, 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. 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, you know it.
Speaker 1:Yes, I'm sure I will.
Speaker 2: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.
Speaker 1:And make sure to download the episode for reference. It's a great way to do it, yeah, so yep, until next time. Download and follow like share and follow. Share it with your friends If you know, somebody that's getting ready to sell. Uh, this is great information to share, so do that too, definitely.
Speaker 2:All right, until next week. Peace out, peace out.
Speaker 1:Bye everybody, Bye everyone, Bye.