What I Would Do If I Had to Sell in 30 Days or Less

Think your home is ready to list? Think again. Mike and Rachael Novak break down their exact week-by-week game plan for getting a home market-ready in 30 days flat — and why skipping even one step could cost you tens of thousands.

Episode Highlights:

• The week one non-negotiables that literally nothing else matters without
• Why a $500 pre-inspection is the cheapest insurance policy you'll ever buy
• The single interior upgrade that gives the fastest visual transformation for buyers
• Rachael's "Broadway actor" analogy that changes how you think about staging forever
• One curb appeal move most sellers completely overlook (hint: it's staring you in the face every time you walk in)
• Mike reveals the #1 culprit behind listings that don't sell — and it's not price
• The "carpet credit" myth that's costing sellers thousands
• Why rushing to market without preparation is the most expensive shortcut you'll ever take

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Transcript

Rachael Novak:

[0:41] All right. And we are back with Growth Drivers Podcast, Mike and Rachel Novak.

Rachael Novak:

[0:47] We are talking today, this is going to be kind of a spring specific and listing specific podcast

today. But it's essentially like what we would do, like what I would prioritize if I was looking to get

my home on the market in the next 30 days or less. Okay. So what happens is, you know, as we

move into the spring market, But every single year this happens, we get calls from people and

they're like, hey, I want to list my house. I want to go on the market next week. And we kind of go,

OK, cool. Like, I'm, you know, obviously excited to chat with you about it, but let's pump the brakes.

And there's typically a laundry list of items that we need to address in order to actually get a good

ROI, right? To maximize the amount of equity that we can pull from the house, get the highest sale

price possible. And so many people will call or they'll email whatever and they'll they'll be ready to

list right now or they think that they're ready to list right now and so sometimes they get a little bit

discouraged or a little bit disappointed when we then go over to their home and say oh actually like

we need to do kind of a home editing checklist we need to create this list of things that actually

need to get done to the home so that we can maximize the sale price because that's the goal right

the the highest amount of money possible for the house so.

Mike Novak:

[2:05] This is just to be clear with people this is we've got 30 days to prepare the property.

Rachael Novak:

[2:10] Correct not.

Mike Novak:

[2:10] 30 days necessarily to bring it to the market get under contract right.Rachael Novak:

[2:14] It's yeah it's 30 i have 30 days before like i want to get my house on the market ready to sell

ready for buyers to walk through right yep exactly and.

Mike Novak:

[2:23] That's like fast in our world.

Rachael Novak:

[2:24] Yes it is exactly we.

Mike Novak:

[2:27] Should unpack that for people you know like rushing your home to the market is rarely the

best idea right.

Rachael Novak:

[2:32] Exactly yeah you.

Mike Novak:

[2:33] Know if you if you cut corners, if you take shortcuts, if you don't prepare your home properly.

It is always going to be detected by the market. You never get away with it.

Rachael Novak:

[2:42] Yeah. And I think that's, that's what a lot of people think like, okay, well, I've done these

updates and, you know, I've wiped down the counter counters and, you know, tucked away the mail

and clean the toilets and like, it's ready to go. And that's really not the case. Like how, how a home

is presented in order to get the highest sale price possible is very, very different from how we live in

it. So we've kind of broken this down like week by week. And this, you know, In my opinion, this

would be alongside working with your agent to help prepare it for the market. So you want to bring

your agent in so that they can customize this list specifically to your home. If there's anything

specifically else that needs to be done. This is kind of a general list of what to address week to

week if you're wanting to get it on the market in the next 30 days. So this is a general one. So what

to start preparing. I'm going to talk week by week. Number one.

Rachael Novak:

[3:38] Week one are the non-negotiables. Like if you skip these things, literally nothing else that you

do matters because these are so incredibly important. And number one of week one is deep clean

everything. And I'm talking like deep cleaning everything. I would recommend if you can bring

professional cleaners in to clean every single surface, every single- Don't do this yourself. No, it's

very time consuming, but I'm talking baseboards, mantles, windowsills, every single you know hvac

register your intake you know great every every single thing every light fixture every surround on

every light bulb every single thing in your house needs to be deep cleaned you need to be scraping

the caulking around the toilet and the sinks and the shower like cleaning deep deep deep cleaning

every single thing you can even think about because buyers want move in ready they want it deep

clean what.Mike Novak:

[4:34] Does that cost usually.

Rachael Novak:

[4:35] So if we're going like as super super detailed depending on the size of home you're probably

starting in like the 450 500 range for super deep clean and it can be more of course depending on

the level of detail they do if they are doing the inside windows of their window tracks slider door

tracks inside of appliances and these are all things that need to be done right you need you need to

touch all those areas is that you wouldn't necessarily normally touch on a weekly light cleaning

when you're living there. But a dirty home, like any little spot that if a buyer were to walk through

and see dirt in the window tracks, or they open the oven and the inside window door is filthy and

the bottom of the oven is super filthy, like that signals to buyers that you might have, may have cut

corners elsewhere, and it drops the perception of value that you have in the marketplace. So deep

cleaning is like number one, okay? And yes, we're going to go still living in the home for several

more weeks or months. So now you have to maintain it, right? But that initial deep clean is so, so,

so important, okay?

Rachael Novak:

[5:34] Number two is decluttering. And I'm talking like aggressively decluttering, not like getting rid of

the extra little things and leaving a bunch of knickknacks. I'm talking like clearing horizontal

surfaces, clearing the mantle in your house, removing every single item from the top of your

cabinets in the kitchen, all those places, like even the fridge, nothing on the top of your fridge,

remove all the magnets from your fridge, getting it almost boringly clean and clear everywhere,

right? Removing minimum 50% of your stuff everywhere. Rent a storage unit if you need to. Box it

up and put it in the garage if you need to. But if your stuff, if you've got knickknacks, if you've got

storage things on the top of the cabinets in the kitchen, buyers can't picture their life in the house if

your stuff is everywhere and there's clutter on all these horizontal surfaces.

Rachael Novak:

[6:23] And the last thing, for sure, for this week, is fixing small repairs. And this would go along with

performing like a pre-inspection. And for most of our clients, this is what we recommend doing. So

week one of this 30-day countdown, getting ready to list the house, having a pre-inspection done,

and that kind of gives you a checklist of items to address, small little repairs to do, small tiny little

leaks in the sinks that you didn't know existed, or, you know, small cracks in the drywall that you

couldn't see, your hairline fracture, whatever, those kinds of things. Every little thing that, you know,

you have seen, that you've dealt with for years, that you hardly even notice anymore living there,

it's time to take an objective look and address all of those items.

Mike Novak:

[7:06] Yeah, back to the, you know, depersonalization. I showed a house the other day, like a $1.5

million house to a buyer of mine, and there was at least 35 enormous photos of this family in this

house.

Rachael Novak:

[7:17] So how did that make your buyers feel?Mike Novak:

[7:19] Weird.

Rachael Novak:

[7:19] Yeah.

Mike Novak:

[7:20] Like, it was a beautiful family, but it was just like... This is really weird.

Rachael Novak:

[7:24] Well, because what it does, like psychologically.

Mike Novak:

[7:27] They couldn't stop looking at it. Exactly.

Rachael Novak:

[7:28] Because what happens psychologically is the buyer is going in this house and like you've got

these faces on the walls looking at you and you're like, oh, my goodness, like I'm invading these

people's home.

Mike Novak:

[7:39] Right.

Rachael Novak:

[7:39] Right. Like that's subconsciously what that does. So removing all of the pictures of your

family, removing religious references, removing, you know, anything that would be super personal

is also very important along with the decluttering for sure.

Mike Novak:

[7:53] Yeah, absolutely. And I think on the pre-inspection thing, you're almost like rolling the dice as

a seller right now if you don't do that. And this guidance varies from market to market. But in our

current market, I think the compelling reasons to do this is to know, of course, if there is any issues

before you bring them home to the market so you can fix them. And then ultimately hopefully

negotiate a much stronger contract with the buyer that doesn't include an inspection contingency.

You know, we've done another podcast talking about why contracts are falling apart right now at

really high rates. And so it's kind of like just a cheap insurance policy to make sure like, hey, the

deal's going to stick together. No, I don't have any big surprises. It's like $500. Do it.

Rachael Novak:

[8:30] Exactly. Yep.

Mike Novak:

[8:31] Like I'm going to go to all my clients right now.

Rachael Novak:

[8:33] Exactly. So that's week one, guys. Like this is kind of like the preparation for the rest of the

preparation, like getting the deep clean, getting stuff out of the house, like getting that pre-inspection, having kind of a checklist of all these little repairs that really should be addressed that

buyers aren't going to want to deal with. Okay. That's kind of week one. And it doesn't sound like a

huge list, but trust me, that's a, that's a lot of stuff to do. Okay. As we move into week two, week

two, now that we've decluttered, now that we have kind of our checklist of things for the inspection,

now that we've deep cleaned everything and can actually see, okay, what, what needs to really be

done, now we can implement some quick, high ROI wins. Okay. And what I mean by that is things

that are going to cost you a little up front and they're going to make a big difference in the

perception of value in the sale price when you actually hit the market. Okay. So number one, by far,

one of the best, biggest ROIs that you're ever going to have is freshening up the paint on the inside

of the house. So fresh, neutral paint. If you, you know, if you have kids and they wanted to

customize their rooms and you've got a blue room and a pink room and a purple room, it's time to

make those neutral. Love your kids. They're amazing. I'm sure their rooms are darling and their

cute posters and their stars on the ceiling are everywhere. Pull all of that down. Neutralize the color

in the room. Paint it like a nice, agreeable gray. Sherwin-Williams is one of my favorites. Or just a

pure white, okay? Make it very, very neutral.

Mike Novak:

[9:55] One of the mistakes I see sellers make with this is they paint the ceiling like a white color and

they paint the walls like gray, which is really cool and has a very high-end feel, but it's expensive.

You know what I mean? That requires a whole nother level of preparation for the painter to mask

those lines and cut those lines in. And it's not going to come back. If you look at what builders do in

our market, builders don't do that unless it's north of like a million dollars in certain places, like

north of a million and a half dollars. They just paint the same color everywhere. It's just so much

faster, which is so much cheaper.

Rachael Novak:

[10:29] Right. Because what happens, like you're saying, is it creates so much work for the painters

to have to cut in the lines between the top of the wall and the ceiling. And if there's any

imperfections in the execution of the paint on either side, it's immediately visible.

Mike Novak:

[10:42] Right.

Rachael Novak:

[10:42] So it looks sloppy.

Mike Novak:

[10:43] It takes a long time to do it. And because it takes a long time, it's expensive. Like that can

probably shave 30 to 40 percent off your interior paint bill by just doing that one thing.

Rachael Novak:

[10:52] Or not doing that one thing yeah so just doing all one color just do all one color and that's

that's what we've done in the majority of like the remodels or cosmetic updates that we've done

with our clients is honestly just a white white wall with a white ceiling like yes it's boring to live in for

sure but creating that neutral space like that is the fastest visual transformation that you can makefor buyers to come in and say oh it's a total clean slate right for sure the next high roi and quick win

would be updating any like light fixtures so bathroom fixtures especially especially if maybe you

bought kind of a builder grade home and they have like the kind of old just nickel plain flower bud

kind of looking you know sconces above the the bathroom the sink lights like updating those so

they're a little bit more modern you can get light fixtures as cheap as 50 or 60 bucks on Amazon

even, or, you know, Home Depot, and have an electrician come do all those in one trip, very

inexpensive, you can pay 500 bucks, 600 bucks for the install, plus a couple of those light fixtures.

And that just instantly updates a bathroom that instantly updates a bedroom if you've got, you

know, sconces on the wall. So very easy, very inexpensive update that will totally transform the

space very quickly.

Rachael Novak:

[12:06] And the last one on week two, very important one, carpets, okay? The age of offering a

carpet credit are long dead, long, long dead. Nobody is going to see a high level of value in a home

that needs new flooring from the get-go.

Rachael Novak:

[12:25] They, what will cost you, like say you've got three bedrooms that all need, you know, new

carpets, or they need to at least minimum be professionally cleaned, okay? A professional cleaning

on three-bedroom carpet is probably somewhere in the $400 or $500 range. New carpet is

probably somewhere in the $2,500, $2,000, $2,500 range for those three bedrooms. A buyer will

walk in, and if even one bedroom has a stain, has a rip, has a tear, has something that they would

think that needs to be replaced, that's $10,000 off the purchase price. Okay. This is a very easy

ROI, very easy return on your investment because buyers will notice those floors. They're looking

for those things in the floors.

Mike Novak:

[13:03] Right. Notice too, on the light fixtures, we didn't say plumbing fixtures. I get asked that

question a lot. And that's a pretty low ROI upgrade. People don't even really notice it.

Rachael Novak:

[13:11] It's so true. Like the sink fixtures, the only one sometimes, and this is totally customized,

totally dependent on the home and the sink and the layout is a kitchen faucet sink like or not the

sink the kitchen faucet itself that would maybe be the only thing that i would swap if it were like that

really older super cheap just kind of single faucet that doesn't have like an extender kind of like an

extender hose might be the only thing that i would suggest but again that's a case-by-case basis

for sure okay so those are the first two weeks so now you've got your checklist you've done some

really quick high roi you know, adjustments, you've put a little paint in, you've decluttered

everything, you've changed out a couple of light fixtures, you've made sure to schedule

Rachael Novak:

[13:52] clean the carpets or schedule the replacement of the carpets. Okay, now week three, now

we've got to go outside. Okay, we've got to talk about curb appeal. What are the quickest things,

the easiest things to get done that are going to have a high ROI? Because you only get one chance

for buyers to walk up. And I don't know the exact statistic, but it's somewhere in the range of buyerwalks up and within seven seconds makes a determination whether or not this house feels like it

could be the right one. And curb appeal has everything to do with this. Then they go inside and it's

a whole nother ball of feelings for them. Okay.

Rachael Novak:

[14:26] So number one for curb appeal, you've got to power wash. You've got to power wash your

steps, your walkway, even potentially your driveway. If it's covered in moss, if it's covered in old

stains, if it's covered in, you know, growth, overgrowth, it's not going to look crisp. It's not going to

look clean. It's going to look old. It's going to look dated. Okay.

Mike Novak:

[14:46] Gutter lines are another one I'd mention.

Rachael Novak:

[14:47] Yes. So gutter lines, I was also going to say siding, right? If you've got, say you had your

home painted five years ago and it looks great, but you've kind of got this mildewy look or you've

got you know kind of some some you know whatever from the wind that has just made it look kind

of dull get get that thing power wash like.

Mike Novak:

[15:05] Pressure wash that thing i do want to warn people do not pressure wash your roof correct

you will take years off your roof by doing that if there's moss on your roof use a moss treatment or

hire a moss treatment company to come handle it but i've seen people literally ruin their roofs by

pressure washing them.

Rachael Novak:

[15:20] Yep.

Mike Novak:

[15:20] It blows the asphalt shingles like literally apart.

Rachael Novak:

[15:22] Yep. That's a great point. So you're pressure washing everything, driveway, walkways,

siding, not the roof. Gutters, yes. All right. In regards to actual landscaping, having any existing

garden beds trimmed out, so refreshed with weed whacking, trimming out the side of the yard, and

then fresh mulch. I always suggest as dark of a mulch as you possibly can. Don't do a really light

mulch. Make a contrast. You want the gardens to have a contrast to the grass. If you have an area

of grass that's really dead, I've even had sometimes the gardeners go in who are doing a

landscape trim.

Rachael Novak:

[15:59] Create another little garden bed in there, put one little inexpensive bush in the middle of it,

and boom, now you've got like a really fresh looking yard. So fresh mulch, trimmed landscaping,

super important. It can be very inexpensive, but it looks clean. It looks simple. It looks well cared

for. And that's, again, the first thing the buyers see when they come up. And if that looks cared for,

that's a great sign. That's the initial perception of value for them to say, oh, this home is obviouslywell maintained. They care so much. Even their yard looks nice. Okay, so very important. And then

last thing with the curb appeal, front doors. This is, this one is so often overlooked. There are so

many people that have like these really like decent front doors, but they are some just totally bland

color or faded because it's in the sun, you know, half of the day for years and years and years. And

one of the easiest things to do to create great curb appeal is just repaint the front door, have it

repainted. I'm telling you, you can do this.

Mike Novak:

colors?

[16:55] What are your favorite colors? I know you have your styling guide, but what are your favorite

Rachael Novak:

[16:58] This is an interesting question because this is completely dependent. I tend to like a darker

front door on lighter homes, so like a black front door, something really bold. Most recently, actually,

we did... To kind of tie in the inside and the outside. I had my clients, they did all new cabinet

painting. So literally on this house, it's currently on the market. We just listed last week. They did a

full remodel. So we did paint everywhere. We did trim and doors, paint everywhere. And then they

painted all the cabinets, so kitchen and bathrooms. And they did really nice kind of sage color,

lower cabinet and white uppers, which just made it look really nice, really fresh, very modern. And

what we actually did was we painted the front door that same sage color so when you walk up to it

one it looks really cool the house is white so it's got a nice contrast but then you go inside and it's

got a ton of congruency between the front door and the kitchen so that that felt really nice that

looked really good i like.

Mike Novak:

[17:52] Black i like bold red and i like that like bold royal blue color you know what.

Rachael Novak:

[17:56] I'm talking about yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah i think red is red is in my opinion cliche like it

looks really nice but it's kind of like that really classic like red front door like a like a farmhouse kind

of red front door so um you don't see it quite as much there's a lot of like greens and blues that

have come in that are very popular but again kind of depends on the on the on the actual house

itself the style of the house the neighborhood all that but those are kind of week three like how to

really address the curb appeal specifically to do power wash everything except the roof.

Rachael Novak:

[18:28] Trim up the landscaping, put brand new mulch, dark colored mulch in the garden beds, and

get that front door upgrade. Either a new door or repaint it, make it look nice and crisp. Now with

one week left to get this baby really ready for the market, we've done all of these things. We have

decluttered. We have cleaned everything very, very, very deeply. We have now maintained it.

We've removed personal items. We've done these little repairs.

Rachael Novak:

[18:54] We've had all these contractors coming through, doing all these things. This week is a

preparation week, and this should be working in tandem with your agent, okay? So the week priorto actually listing your home, and this is market dependent, because some markets you can do the

coming soon phase, and ours has to be totally ready before we hit the market, but getting

professional staging done. And by professional staging, I don't necessarily mean bringing in

furniture unless it's a vacant home, But I mean, arranging your furniture, getting a professional

consultation with how to arrange furniture in each room, if there's any other furniture that needs to

come out to make the rooms look bigger. Because staged homes sell for more money, period.

Because you are giving the buyers the exact blueprint, the framework of how the home could look.

You're selling the lifestyle of this home, and that's what buyers need to see.

Mike Novak:

[19:44] I think it's not just how it looks, it's how it feels when you go into it. How does this feel?

Rachael Novak:

[19:48] Yeah. So one of the best like explanations that I love to give, and I have a strategy guide

coming out here in the next couple of weeks that you can grab for super cheap, like seven bucks.

And I explain this in detail, all of these things in detail in the strategy guide. But I kind of explain it

like, man, if I were to go to a Broadway show, right, say we're going to go to like a beautiful

Broadway show, and this actor comes out on stage, and they're in their street clothes, and they

don't have any makeup on, but their acting is really good, right?

Rachael Novak:

[20:19] That's going to be an okay performance, right? They've acted the part of this character, but

they don't really look the part. They look still modern, and they don't have the... They're not really in

character. You know what I mean? So you're like, okay, well, they're a good actor, but there was

kind of something missing. They'll... The loss of something here. Whereas if a Broadway actor

comes out, they are in absolutely like full character dress. Their makeup is completely on point.

And it's, I mean, it's caked on, but under those lights, you can see the details. You can see the

detail on their face. You can, you can, they've just stepped into this character in every possible way,

right? With the makeup and the hair and the clothing and all this. And they're a great actor. It's like,

man, I believed that person. That person was so in character. Like that's exactly what we do with a

staging in a home. right? These actors are going on stage to play a role. These homes are getting

staged to play a role. We are literally marketing and selling this lifestyle of this property and giving

the buyers that idea of what is possible, selling the space. So staging is way more important, I

think, than people give it credit for.

Mike Novak:

[21:22] Yeah. No, it's huge. We sold our personal house last year, and it was expensive to stage it

wasn't like eight or ten thousand dollars.

Rachael Novak:

[21:29] Yes it's eight thousand and.

Mike Novak:

[21:31] The home sold in like 16 days.Rachael Novak:

[21:32] All cash yeah like.

Mike Novak:

[21:34] It looked it really looked amazing it.

Rachael Novak:

[21:35] Was one of.

Mike Novak:

[21:36] The best presentations i've seen of a home in that area.

Rachael Novak:

[21:38] And like had our furniture been there it would have been fine but it would have it would have

had a less polished look right it wasn't like a professional makeup job right so that's kind of my

point is like you don't necessarily need to bring in all different furniture like we did for our house last

year But like you do need to have a consultation of some kind, like a lot of professional stagers,

myself included, will come in and just do consultations and tell you how to arrange the furniture.

Right. And if you don't want to spend a couple thousand dollars or your agent isn't able to or

whatever, like that is that is an option to do.

Mike Novak:

[22:11] Yeah. And in full transparency, sometimes agents will be able to offer staging in their overall

package that they give you as a seller. They might increase their commissions to cover that cost, or

you may have to pay that direct as the seller. That's going to be agent-to-agent, depending on what

they are comfortable doing, because it's a big upfront investment for them to take on.

Rachael Novak:

[22:31] Human exactly but if we know that you know staging a staged home sells for three or four

percent more than non-staged homes it's a no-brainer it literally no brainer it pays for itself and

pays your agent like it's literally a no-brainer so yeah.

Mike Novak:

[22:45] Everyone does better for sure.

Rachael Novak:

[22:46] Exactly a lot of.

Mike Novak:

[22:47] Our sellers are like shocked when they see their home vacant and then when they see it

fully staged by our team.

Rachael Novak:

[22:51] Like it.

Mike Novak:

[22:52] Looks shocking to them.Rachael Novak:

[22:53] Well and again like we are like the point of staging is to sell that lifestyle, is to create this

perception of value that is much higher than just the empty home sitting there itself. And it works

every time. So the other part, of course, is professional photography. No joke. I sent a list of homes

to a new family that I'm working with who are going to be moving up here from a different state. And

as I'm looking through some of the homes that I'm sending them and looking at these photos, no

joke, I hadn't seen this in years. one of the bathroom photos had the agent with their phone in the

mirror, taking a picture of the bathroom.

Mike Novak:

[23:29] What was the price point of that home? It was like 900. Right. Not that it's excusable at any

price point.

Rachael Novak:

[23:34] I'm just curious. But like $900,000 home and I've got the agent with his iPhone taking a

picture of the bathroom. Guys, like guess that the I don't even remember what the bathroom looked

like. All I was staring at was that guy in the mirror. So like professional photography is so key.

Again, this is these photos live online forever with this house, right? Like they will be online for

everybody to see. And if you are not selling the home itself, and you are showing up in the mirrors,

or if you are if your angles are bad, or if you are getting a weird, you know, viewpoint of the room,

making the room super skinny, or really, you know, too big or too spread, whatever it is, it's not

going to convey well, it's not going to compel buyers online to come see the home. So those

professional photos that you have done by a real estate photographer are so important, because

almost a hundred percent i would almost say almost a hundred percent now buyers start online

like.

Mike Novak:

[24:30] That's where i see houses i always tell my sellers that the first showing doesn't happen in

person it happens when they see it online because there's just so much more information available

on the homes now online than there was like 10 years ago so buyers are super savvy when it

comes to looking at homes digitally and they will go through it with a really fine tooth comb but

when they look at the photos they do make a pretty snap decision like in about two or three

seconds in the first photo or two or three, do I want to see more or not? And so if the pictures don't

pull them in, right away, they just move on to that next listing. Exactly.

Rachael Novak:

[25:04] Yeah. So it's not just the quality of the photos, the angles of the photos, but the staging

within the photos, right? Giving identity to each room that they see. So, you know, like to your point,

when you've got bad photos, like as a savvy buyer, obviously, and as a savvy agent, I unfortunately

know that like, because those are bad photos, that might be a good opportunity to go see that

house because it's likely it's not getting a lot of traffic, but the ones that we see with great photos

that are well presented, like those ones can get competitive because like they're compelling a lot of

people to go see it.Mike Novak:

[25:37] I would say about a third of the time I go on appointments where a listing didn't sell, the

photos are the culprit.

Rachael Novak:

[25:43] Interesting. A third.

Mike Novak:

[25:44] About a third.

Rachael Novak:

[25:44] That's a lot.

Mike Novak:

[25:45] Yeah, that's a huge amount. The other two thirds that there's another third that's priced, like

they didn't position the home price correctly and they didn't go through all these presentation

Transcription by CastingWords components that we're not going over with you so price

presentation you know.

Rachael Novak:

[25:57] Absolutely positioning.

Mike Novak:

[25:59] Those three things.

Rachael Novak:

[25:59] Exactly so you know so the the whole point of this was to show you guys kind of like okay

what what is this state what are the stages of things that i need to do to address and again like i

mentioned super important that if you're working with an agent you're not calling them up saying

hey i want to list next week like one listen to this come prepared if you've done a lot of these things

awesome but make sure that you're bringing somebody in with a professional eye, somebody in

who can give you kind of more customized, specific advice. We with our clients literally walk

through the home, give them a room by room specific checklist on exactly what to do in every

single room from top to bottom. So there aren't any questions. There is no guessing. You are

literally working off of a checklist for those couple of weeks leading up to getting on the market. So

very, very important. And if you're an agent listening to this, do that. Offer that to your clients. Make

sure your clients in your pipeline, they know when to get you involved because that's super, super

important. That preparation is so key in order to generate activity early with the listing because you

don't get another opportunity to have a first impression on the market. Once you go live on the

market, you've got to have nailed price, you've got to nail condition, you've got to nail presentation.

Like those are all super important things. So if you're able to, you know, plan ahead with this,

working alongside with your agent, get these things done in this order, be prepared to do that. And

you're going to have better outcomes.

Mike Novak:

[27:20] Yeah, that's a great list.Rachael Novak:

[27:22] All right. All right, guys. Well, that's what we got for you today. If you have any questions or

did we miss anything? If we missed anything at all, hit us up on Instagram. I'd be actually curious to

know. You can find me at Rachel Novak or.

Mike Novak:

[27:34] At Real Mike Novak too. And if there's questions that you have about real estate, whether

you're a buyer, seller, agent, feel free to comment on those and let us know what they are or direct

message them to us. And if there's something that we think might resonate with like a larger

audience, that's not just like a unique one-off situation, we may consider talking about it and putting

it onto a podcast topic in the future.

Rachael Novak:

[27:56] Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, totally doing a Q&A. All right, awesome guys. Well, we will see you

next tim