How to Sell Your Home for Top Dollar in Hawaiʻi: What to Do (and What to Avoid)

Most homeowners think selling a home is simple—put it on the market, accept an offer, and move on.

But the truth is, the small decisions you make along the way can mean tens of thousands of dollars gained or lost.

In this episode, we break down what actually happens when you sell a home in Hawaiʻi—from preparing your home before it hits the market, to creating demand, evaluating offers, and navigating escrow.

We cover:
1. How to prepare your home before it hits the market
2. Which improvements actually add value (and which waste money)
3. What makes buyers stop scrolling and book a showing
4. The 10-day blitz strategy that drives stronger offers
5. What can kill a deal during escrow — and how to protect yourself
6. How to know if you should even sell in the first place

Whether you're selling soon or just exploring your options, this episode gives you the clarity to move forward with confidence.

📍 Based in Oʻahu | Helping families build, protect, and pass on wealth through real estate.
🌐 Visit us: iharateamhawaii.com
📩 Thinking about selling? Let's talk. Call us at (808) 427-3006!

@iharateam  |  iharateam.com  |  ihara@iharateam.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

How do you actually sell your home for top dollar in Hawaii? Most homeowners think selling is simple. You put your home on the market, you accept an offer, and you move on. But the truth is, small decisions along the way can mean tens of thousands of dollars gained or lost. If you've ever thought about selling your home, you've probably asked yourself, what should I fix and what should I leave alone? How do I know which offer to choose? And how do I know if I should even sell right now? Today we're gonna walk you through these questions and more so you can start to see what actually matters and what could cost you more than you realized. Welcome to the Advisor Podcast. We are real estate wealth advisors here in Hawaii, and our mission is simple to help families to build, protect, and pass on wealth through real estate. We believe in educating the community with the information and options that you need to make a good decision. To help us walk through the selling process, we're joined by JJ. JJ has sold over $150 million in real estate and works closely with homeowners navigating one of the biggest financial transitions they'll ever make, from preparing the home for sale to negotiating offers and guiding clients through escrow. Welcome, JJ. Thanks for having me, man. Always great to come on the pod with you folks. So today we're going to be talking about the home selling process and you know what are the different decision points that people make so that you can actually make the most amount of money during the selling process. So I guess let's start at the very beginning. You know, how should you prepare your home before it hits the market? Sure, sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

Yeah, that's a great question. And uh we do with that quite a bit, right? Everyone's kind of, how do I get started? And you know, we want to sell, but I think the biggest thing we always typically run into is I have too much things in the home or I I have deferred maintenance, right? So I think the first thing is kind of take a step back and take a look at or and observe, hey, what is it that's maybe holding us back from making this move? Because I think the biggest thing is taking that first step to get started. And in our seminars and anyone we meet with, we kind of go over how important just taking that first step is. Um, so I would say, you know, decluttering. Um, if you if you do have a lot of items in the home, start kind of purging through them, start identifying, hey, what are things that we need, what are things we may not need. But then also taking a look around the home and and seeing, hey, is there any different maintenance that maybe we can take care of? Right. But of course, um, and I think all of it is subjective, right? And it all depends on what someone's situation is. But one of the key things that we like to do when we help anyone is come in and take a look at the home because we can make things easy for them, right? We have, you know, vendors and we have connections where we can help them declutter their home where they don't have to. It can be all the way from them not touching a single thing, just handing us the keys and and leaving, or they can be involved in that process of picking and choosing what they want to keep, what they want to get rid of, maybe what they also want to donate because it could be valuable to someone else. And then also take a look at the exterior, even interior. You know, what what are some things that we can do to help maximize the value of their home?

SPEAKER_00 3:18

Yeah, that's a great point. And we'll touch on that actually in a little bit. But, you know, I think when we first started, um, we had a lot of seniors that, you know, an 80-year-old woman who's living in the home 80 years, she's collected a lot of things, right? And she doesn't know even where to begin, right? There's stuff everywhere, and she doesn't know how to even start the process, right? So that's right where you mentioned where we help a lot of our clients, you know, help them declutter their home, right? And sort their things, you know, what are they gonna keep? What do they want to sell? What do they want to donate, or what do they want to toss? And we help them guide them through that process because it's a lot of it gets personal, right? All the things that they've collected, the memories that they've had, the families that they've experienced the home with. And so slowly guiding them through that process um to help them start to declutter, right? For sure, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 4:09

And I think um also in the book Property Decisions, right? We Dan and Julie, they talk about where, you know, there's clients that we meet that have been collecting things for 50 to 60 years, right? Their whole life is is encapsulated in everything that's in their home, right? And for some of them, yeah, some things are very monumental or very close to them, and and but there's other things that they kind of keep over the years. And sometimes when they start telling us the stories or telling loved ones about those items that are in their home, now they feel like, hey, it's okay for me to move on from them, or maybe someone else can enjoy that. So, you know, those of you who are watching that are going through that, maybe um their parents or or loved ones, you know, kind of indulge in that, take advantage of that experience to have them tell you, hey, where did you get this or where did you get that? And that kind of helps with that process of of decluttering too.

SPEAKER_00 5:00

Yeah, to enjoy what the home has done for them over the years and and cherish that memory with the people that you love. So that's a great, great uh tip for people out there. Um, you know, what improvements do you think actually add value and what improvements, you know, just kind of waste money?

SPEAKER_01 5:17

Yeah, yeah. Um, you know, it it all depends on the property, right? Um, but whenever we're assessing a property or helping a client self-discover, hey, what might be the best route for them to go, we first like to kind of figure out what what is, you know, we like to use the term is a juice worth the squeeze, right? Because we truly believe that if you're gonna put in effort to repair your home or make some some some repairs or or you know, do some maintenance on the home, we believe that you should get return on that, right? We believe you should probably should get double the money that you're putting into it. So, for example, if you're gonna put 10 grand into repairing your home or renovating the home, we believe you should probably get 20k or more, right? So that's where we start. But typically the most common um repairs or or maintenance that we typically do to help maximize someone's value is is painting and flooring. Those are the two things that have the most, typically the most um effect on getting a higher price.

SPEAKER_00 6:13

How do you when you say is the juice worth a squeeze? How do you know? Like, are do you squeeze it? How do you know?

SPEAKER_01 6:20

Yeah, yeah. Um, you know, clients always joke around about that that saying that we we say, but the the way that we look at it is, you know, we take a look at the home, right? Because for example, there's homes that are completely original from 1930, 1940, right? Or there are homes that have been renovated throughout the years, and maybe there's a bedroom or or a bathroom or you know, part of the kitchen that hasn't been renovated. Um, but you know, if we're talking about an original home, right, what we probably would recommend is you know, paint, right? Interior paint, freshening up, even the exterior paint, those are typically the most valuable things you can do. Because when you start to do flooring in maybe an original home and it kind of turns into a game of where do you stop? Right. Or you can do renovations to an original home and you know, you renovate the kitchen, you renovate the living room, and then now someone's going through the home and they're like, wait, what about the bathroom? What about all these other different rooms throughout the house? And it almost can look those make those parts of the homes look a little more dated than they already are. Um when it comes to a home that's been renovated over the years, though, right? And let's say there's a bathroom or maybe the kitchen cabinets and things like that are a little dated and it's not the whole entire home, then those times it can make sense of, hey, maybe we should redo this bathroom, and then it'll make the home look essentially fully renovated, therefore get you the most amount of money.

SPEAKER_00 7:40

That's an interesting way to look at it. And I think you are right that it really depends on the situation, right? Um, you know, we we invest as well and we do flips, and I think people can kind of take that education and and use it to selling their original home, right? Of hey, if I leave my home as is, you know, hey, maybe it'll sell for this amount, right? Let's say it's a million dollars, or hey, if I fully renovate it, maybe I can sell it for one five, right? And that cost of renovation, let's call it two hundred thousand. So if I put two hundred thousand in it, I can sell it for one five, I'll make another three hundred thousand. It's like, oh, that then it makes sense to do it, right? So I think walking them through the process of you know, what could it sell now versus what could it sell if we put renovations? How much does that cost? How long is it gonna take? And then you can make a decision, right? Of of is it gonna be worth it to to actually make those improvements, spend the money and determine is the juice worth the squeeze? Right.

SPEAKER_01 8:36

Yeah, yeah. I think another thing too, right, is when you're when you're deciding on what repairs to make or how you're gonna go about it, it's not just the money that it's gonna take to do so, right? It's also time. It's also you know, added on cost of holding the property. And maybe, you know, there are all there's always the possibility that the longer you hold on to a property where it stays vacant while you're doing repair work, things can happen to the home, right? For example, we just had that big storm come through, right? You never know what could happen. So it's making sure we sit down and go over all of your options and you decide what's best from there. Because it's not as simple as should we do the work or not do the work. It's if we were to do this work, what can we get from it? How long will it take? And what will it yield us? But it's also like if you don't do the work, it's it you need to really think about how are you gonna market the home? How are you gonna price the home? Because at that point, although you're not spending the money and the time to to go ahead and try and get that extra money, if you want it to be simple and and fast, we can do that as well. But it's making sure you price it appropriately. So you people because people are gonna come in and look at the home and say, I'm gonna need to do this, this, and this, in order to get the home to where they need it to be.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

Yeah, no, I think that's a really good point because you know, for example, like you could have an older, charming, classic, let's say Monoa home, and the sellers are like, Oh, I want to change, I want to put a new flooring, and we're like, Oh no, like that's original hardwood floors, like a lot of the buyer that's gonna be buying this likes that, right? And kind of determining, you know, who's the buyer and you know what would the buyer appreciate, right? So yeah, I think that's a very good, good observation. Um, so now that we've prepped the home and we've made any improvements, if we did, um, you know, when a buyer first sees your home online, um, what makes them want to see it in person or what makes them you want to just kind of scroll past?

SPEAKER_01 10:26

Yeah, yeah. I think um in this day and age, I think first impression is is the biggest thing, right? I I think now that there's so much technology and you know everyone is doing their home search on whether that's Zillow or any online platform that they're looking at, um, kind of the thing that makes people maybe stop scrolling or even on social media is that first impression of what the house looks like, right? So we highly recommend staging professional photos, professional video, because you know, in this day and age, a lot of home, I believe there was, you know, we went to just went to a conference and they were talking about um, what is it, 60 or about 50% of homeowners literally see the home that they're gonna buy online or on social media before they even see the home. So, you know, we believe in in first impression is super important and presenting the home at its in its best light is the most important because that's what gets people to the house.

SPEAKER_00 11:22

Yeah, you know, one of my personal pet peeves is when I'm looking at listings for helping a buyer is I just see iPhone pictures or their thumb is in it, or you can see them in the mirror, or like there's just stuff all in the photo. I'm like, you could have taken two minutes to just move it to make the photo look better, but I think that's one of my pet peeves personally, what I see.

SPEAKER_01 11:45

And we, you know, we're we're on the MLS and we see like there's a home being listed for 1.5 or 2 million dollars, and then there's these iPhone pictures that are not even straight, right? They're crooked, and like it's like you know, so that you know, and then a lot of people say, How come this home isn't selling? Because they drive past it, it looks really nice from the outside, and there's only five pictures, and they're all iPhone pictures. That can really, really make a difference in selling your home.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

I actually just saw one, man, that was um, they didn't even get out the car. You could see the the car rearview mirror in the picture, and that was like two pictures, and they didn't even get out of the car.

SPEAKER_01 12:22

I was like, oh man, didn't even have the the time and effort to turn around and take it took it out of the rearview mirror. I also even saw one that someone like the home was was sold apparently in like 1970, and what they did was they just took a picture of the newspaper clip of the home and posted on the the MLS nine. And like you could at least drove there and took a picture in their own. They just took a picture of an old newspaper clipping, and yeah, yeah, those are things that can definitely be a negative when selling a home.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

I think also to your point is the staging, right? Because when the home is staged, that makes the photos look brighter, it makes them feel better when they walk into the home, right? That it feels good, right? Because when you sometimes you walk into a home that's empty, you kind of kind of feel empty, right? Kind of feels cold, maybe a little bit. Um, so I think staging also does help a lot.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

Yeah, yeah. And and that's something, you know, that we recommend to any seller, whether you have an original home or a fully renovated home, right? Just having stagnation in there makes such a big difference because to your point, it helps people imagine what they can do with the space. Um, I think with the newer generation or the, you know, the way that we are now, a lot of us, you know, we need a little bit of push or a little bit of um, you know, kind of inspiration of what can we do here? Because, you know, um we're we're we're in the day and age where we're kind of all looking at everything online and you never really get a feel for it until you're in the house. So some people like virtual staging too, which is a cheaper alternative, but kind of the negative of that is that they see these nice furniture, they see the nice design in there, but now when they're there, there's nothing in there. So it's almost like a letdown rather than a wow, this is really nice.

SPEAKER_00 14:02

So yeah, once you put your home on the market and you've created that first strong impression, you know what strategies actually help drive stronger offers um when your home hits the market?

SPEAKER_01 14:12

Yeah, um, you know, we do what's called a 10-day blitz, right? Um, and not too sure how common that is in Hawaii. We haven't really seen it as well, but we we found a lot, a lot of success with it where um typically what we do is we go live on a Friday, right? And then we we have our first showing or first open house on a Sunday, and then we have private showings that entire week and another open house on Sunday, and an offer is due on Monday, right? And what that does is it allows a seller to fully, fully test the market, right? Because some people can be on trips or maybe they're busy that weekend and they can't make it to the open house. But what we allow is for that 10-day process for you to be able to do research and and do your due diligence and come and see the home and fully test the market and then have a due date, right? Because what because what's important about having a due date is you create what's called an auction effect, or that's what we like to try and and present. Um, where you know, I think a lot of people think, hey, if I price my home this way and I hope to get this price, or if I price it at 1.2 million, I hope to get a million, right? But you know, when people go down that strategy, it's almost the adverse effect, right? Where they sit on the market and now they start chasing the market down, and then you know, they're stuck in a place where they're at the mercy of one buyer. Whereas if you have a due date and you have a you create a competitive situation by pricing the home correctly, now you create a little bit more leverage for you so you can not only negotiate the best terms, but also the highest price.

SPEAKER_00 15:40

Yeah, can you walk us through a time where this worked for you know a seller and how that played out?

SPEAKER_01 15:45

Yeah, yeah. So I can talk, kind of talk about like a negative, right? Where one time we had a seller saying, hey, let's we want a list at 1.4 million, but we're kind of like, hey, you know, we data, the data shows or what buyers are looking at supports more around 1.2 million, you know, and you know, we recommend to to set a set an appropriate list price and then therefore create, you know, a higher um or competitive situation with our 10-day blitz. So that seller elected to say, hey, no, I want to try and list it at this price, and and we, you know, we'll we'll try to get or end up at 1.2. Time went on, you know, a couple months went by and they said, okay, we'll drop it to 1.2 now. And then we still didn't get offers at 1.2. Then it we waited another month, then we dropped it down to 1.1, waited another month, dropped it down to just under a million. And at that point, we got an offer at 950,000 because we were on the market for four months, right? Whereas we truly believe if you went on the market with the price that the data supported, maybe at 1.2 million, you maybe could have got 1.2 or 1.25. But just because that time on the market and chasing the market down created a lot of people to think, man, what is wrong with this home? Rather than, wow, this home is well priced, you know, we got to put our best foot forward in getting it. So on the other side of the token, when we've explained to clients that, hey, we believe you can probably get 1.2 million for your home, we recommend maybe just listing just below that, right? Um, and just for example, we had one over the this past weekend, right, where we reviewed offers, we ended up getting $150,000 over the asking price, right? And and seven different offers. So not only did they get a higher price, but we were able to use all of the terms from other offers to try and get the best situation for our client and waiving a bunch of contingencies too, so that escrow process is seamless and a lot easier.

SPEAKER_00 17:39

Can you maybe explain, you know, how that actually plays out? Like, how do you actually, you know, get that $150,000 over list price? Like, what is that strategy? How do you get there?

SPEAKER_01 17:50

Yeah, yeah. So what we do is so after, so we have an offer due date, which is typically on that Monday, like we talked about. Um, once offers are due around noon on Monday, we spend the rest of that afternoon vetting all of the offers, right? So, for example, let's say we get five offers, right? What we're gonna do is we're gonna call each one of the agents, call their lender if they're getting financing, just learn as much as we can about the buyer, what their motivation is, but also make sure it's a legit bona fide offer, right? So calling the lender and saying, hey, do you have all of the documents that you need in order to get to closing? Have you reviewed all of their financial documents, right? Is there anything else you need from the buyers to get to closing? Therefore, we can take out as much surprises as we can. So that's the vetting process. And then from there, you know, there's a lot of times where, for example, we'll get three offers. The top three offers will be very similar, right? But because they set an appropriate list price and we went through the 10-day list and they got a call uh, you know, a few um or competitive situation, right? From there, now we can call the top three and say, hey, you guys are all very similar. You know, um, what we the sellers are recommending you come in at your highest and best, and that's what really drives up price when other buyers feel like they're competing.

SPEAKER_00 19:05

I think that's what you mentioned is how you create that you know bidding war feeling where you know, shoot, I love the home. This buyer's hey, maybe they put more money out. I'm gonna increase my price, right? And that's how kind of how you can pin people against each other almost to drive up values um so that the seller can make as much as they want to, as much as they can, right? So um, you know, let's say we you know we get an offer and we get accepted, we start opening escrow. Um, what is what actually happens next once I get an offer and I accept it?

SPEAKER_01 19:36

Yeah, yeah. Sorry, if I can just touch a little bit on the the last thing we talked about as well. When you're talking about, you know, um, when we always talk to people about is not it's not only price, right? Because for example, you can have one buyer, let's say our list price is a million. You can have one buyer that comes in and I'll give you an offer at 1.2 million, but if they're the only buyer that you have, during this this next section that we talk about, the escrow process, they can grind you down, right? And you can end up with less than what you maybe thought it would be. But right with but with multiple offers, what it also allows for is to put leverage on the buyer that's in escrow. So you can not only keep keep that buyer with the terms that you had, but hold them accountable on what we agreed upon in the contract.

SPEAKER_00 20:20

Yeah, I think a lot of people don't think about that, right? Um who has the leverage, right? When you're there's only one buyer, buyer kind of has the leverage because there's no other buyers that want it. But when there's multiple buyers, then the leverage goes to the seller, right? Because they can dictate, hey, we have all these buyers. If you don't want it, we'll go to the next guy.

SPEAKER_01 20:37

Correct. Yeah, and it's like, hey, you know, we want you to agree that you're not gonna ask us for any credits or repairs. But you can't do that if they're the only buyer in town or or interested in your property.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

Okay, so yeah, let's say we get an offer. What happens next?

SPEAKER_01 20:50

Yeah, yeah. So so typically when uh we we our seller chooses which offer they want to work with after we're done vetting it and present it to our seller, after they choose uh the buyer that they want to work with, um, we go ahead and you know open up escrow with that buyer. Um, but we also feel is really important is to try and get a backup, right? And that's why, again, I know we sound repetitive, but the competitive situation is important because we highly recommend that you get a buyer in the backup position because that also gives you leverage when you're negotiating through the home inspection period, through these different contingencies of hey, you know, when they typically would come and ask you for a 10, 15k credit, um, you can simply say, hey, we have another buyer that's waiting to come into escrow. And that that moves things along much easier too for a seller. So it's not only price, it's also terms. And I think a lot of people overlook that too.

SPEAKER_00 21:43

You know, I think a lot of people think once I get an offer, I accept it, it's kind of a done deal. But, you know, through our experience, we realize that you know, actually one out of four escrow's the deal actually falls apart. So what kind of causes that and how do you actually minimize that to prevent that from happening?

SPEAKER_01 21:58

Yeah, great question. So um, you know, I think yeah, the stat is about 25% of of escrolls fall out of escrow, right? Our percentage, I would say, is probably, you know, five percent, maybe, right? But the way that we're able to to help our clients through that is because uh we front load a lot of our information, right? So during a purchase contract, there's seven contingencies, right, that you need to pass the J1, the seller's disclosure, the termite inspection, the condo documents, the preliminary title report, survey and staking, and then also um financing contingencies that you need to pass, right? What we have found success in is we like to front load a lot of that information. So we're gonna as when we're representing sellers, we're gonna fill out the seller's disclosure statement before we even go live onto the market, or to the survey before we go live, or the preliminary title report before we even go onto the market. And what that does is it allows us to be able to not only properly disclose what we can about the property, but now when people are saying, hey, we're interested in this home, what should we know? We send them all of this information so that they're aware of that, right? And before we even go into escrow, we're gonna say, Hey, Mr. Buyer, you know, here is all the information on the property. Are you okay with this? Because that's where majority of the surprises come up in escrow, and that's what causes transactions to cancel. Where, you know, once you open escrow, and then now you decide to do the seller's disclosure, and now the buyer's not happy about something that they see in the disclosure and they're like, Okay, we're gonna cancel. But now you've lost all that time where now you have to go back to the market. And typically when you go back to the market, the activity is not the same.

SPEAKER_00 23:36

Why don't more people do it up front? Like, why do people wait till you go into escrow? Like, what is it about that?

SPEAKER_01 23:42

To be completely honest, it's it's it's more work for us, right? But you know, for us, we truly feel like if we're gonna be representing any client, we want to represent them in their, you know, and do what's best for them, right? Even it's a little bit more work for us. What we do know is that if we take the proper systems and and processes to be able to front load a lot of this information, we know the back end part of it is gonna be a lot more less stressful, right? So what we always tell our sellers is hey, we're gonna do a little bit more work up front. We're gonna help you through the through ordering the survey, ordering the preliminary title report. You're gonna have to do the seller's disclosure statement as well. And the reason why we're doing this is because we want it to be a lot easier for you during the escrow process, which tends to be the most stressful for a lot of people.

SPEAKER_00 24:26

And I think when you provide everything up front, that also um helps you fight off any attacks of any credits or anything like that. Because we just had one where you know they did the inspection, they found these issues and they said, Hey, we want a 10k credit for these issues. And we can say, Hey, we've already disclosed that, right? Buyer and seller agreed to price. You guys already knew that before we agreed to price. So because you already knew that, we're not gonna give you this credit. And they accepted that and they continue to move forward.

SPEAKER_01 24:53

And it also helps the buyer be comfortable with what they're getting into, right? Because when we help buyers, not a lot of sellers' agents do what we do, right? And we're kind of like, hey, is there things that we don't know about the home? Is there things that we need to know? And it also helps the buyers put their best foot forward in a price, right? So if you were to really think about it from the buyer's side, if they read through the seller's disclosure statement and they, you know, they they looked at it and they reviewed it and even the survey, and they're like, man, there's not not much wrong with this, and we're okay with this. They're more inclined to offer more money on your property too.

SPEAKER_00 25:26

Yeah, it helps us both sides, just provide clarity on the property and any deficiencies or benefits to the property. Okay, well, now we have a lightning round. So um, I know both the we're gonna ask, you know, if you could choose one or the other, and right, I know both of them may be important, but if you had to choose one, which one would you choose? Okay, okay. So if you could only do one, would you declutter or deep clean? Probably declutter.

SPEAKER_01 25:50

Declutter. Yeah. Because you can deep clean, and if you have a whole ton of clutter in there, yeah. So if you had to do either one, I'd probably choose to declutter it. Yeah, so people can see the space.

SPEAKER_00 26:00

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:01

Um, how about painting or flooring? Uh that's a tough one. Um, but you know, I think probably painting, right? Because, you know, I again it all depends on what condition the home is in. But painting can can make the home look brighter, can also help with the curb appeal on the exterior, right? Because people can fix the inside or they can the issue we also run into sometimes is is when people are picking what type of flooring to put in, the new buyer may not want that as well, right? But fresh paint and things like that, that's something that people are like, I can live with that for for a while.

SPEAKER_00 26:36

Uh, kitchen update or bathroom update? I would say probably kitchen. Staging or a lower price?

SPEAKER_01 26:42

Um, I would recommend staging. I'd recommend staging because you know, like we talked about is the juice worth the squeeze. I think staging almost every time will allow you to make almost double the money that you invest in staging.

SPEAKER_00 26:54

Yeah, if you could only choose one, photos or video? Photos. Open house or online marketing?

SPEAKER_01 27:01

In this day and age, online marketing is super important, but I think people going to the house, no one's really gonna be able to. I mean, there are people that buy sight unseen, but people actually have to be in the home and and see the home in person in order for you to really like the home, right?

SPEAKER_00 27:16

So definitely both is important. Um, if you could only choose one, would you price it low to drive demand or would you price it high to negotiate?

SPEAKER_01 27:25

I'd always price it lower to to drive demand. I think you know, it sounds a little cliche, but what I would tell everyone is you can always overprice your home, but you can almost never underprice your home, right? At the end of the day, we use the same words like you can list your home for a hundred dollars. That doesn't mean you're gonna make a hundred dollars, right? Or you're gonna get an offer for a hundred dollars. What buyers are gonna do is they're gonna look at the data, right? They're gonna look at recent comps in the neighborhood and they're they're gonna, you know, decide to submit an offer that they of what they feel it's worth, right? But again, the key is to get multiple buyers interested, not just one.

SPEAKER_00 28:00

If you could only choose one offer due date or take offers as they come, offer due date. Offer due date.

SPEAKER_01 28:07

The reason why is because if you just accept offers as they come in, how do we know that was the best offer? Right? If you accept an offer on the fourth day, you're on the market, but someone came back from a trip and is willing to pay a hundred thousand dollars more two days later, you know, that's not the best thing for you as a seller.

SPEAKER_00 28:24

Would you rather have one strong offer or multiple average offers? One strong offer. Okay. Uh highest price or cleanest terms?

SPEAKER_01 28:35

You know, I I would probably say cleaner terms. Cleaner terms. I know that might sound a little, you know, or some people may not like that, but I mean, obviously, I wish to always get you guys the highest price, but we can have the highest priced offer, right? But if we don't have tight and clean terms, then they can just drive that price down and drive that price down, unless, you know, so for example, we can get an offer at 1.5 million, right? Compared to maybe an offer at 1.4 million, but the 1.4 million offer has great terms, no credits or repairs. You know, they're waiving a bunch of contingencies such as the survey and disclosure statement. But if you have that offer at 1.5 million, now they do their home inspection and they find an issue with that, they ask you for a hundred K credit. And then they find another issue with the seller's disclosure statement and the survey, and they they drag you down even more, and it can end up being less than what you got.

SPEAKER_00 29:25

Would you rather choose a cash offer or a financed offer?

SPEAKER_01 29:28

Of course, we'd always, you know, a cash offer, right? But there's there are, you know, there are pros and cons, some right cash, you don't have the contingent financing contingency that you deal with with a loan for appraisal and things like that. But you know, to be completely honest, sometimes buyers that are getting a mortgage have a little bit more motivation and a little bit more tied to the property because they have to put in a lot of work to go get pre-approved, submit all these documents and things like that, where a cash offer person may just say, Hey, here's my proof of funds, and may not have the same motivation.

SPEAKER_00 29:59

Okay. Well, thanks for thanks for doing the lightning round. Yeah, thank you, man. Um, kind of more one of the final questions is, you know, we understand how you can sell a home, but how do you even know if you should sell your home in the first place?

SPEAKER_01 30:12

Yeah, you know, I think it's it's um what what we do is we help people kind of kind of assess their properties, right? So we as a real estate planner or real estate advisors, what we what we believe in is creating holistic plans, right? For anyone that has a property, whether you're thinking of selling now or or thinking of selling in the future or maybe not even thinking of selling at all, what we do recommend is to take a look at your portfolio, take a look at your home and and really ask yourself, do I have a plan? Right. Because it doesn't necessarily need to be now or in the next six months or the next year, but do you have a plan for how you're gonna transition or pass it down to your kids? Do you have a plan on how your investment properties are gonna be doing over time? And um, I think number one is is getting getting clarity on that and creating a plan. And we can sit down with with anyone who's interested. It's you know, we it's complimentary. We sit down with them, we go over and assess their their portfolio, even if they just have a home they're living in. How do we create a plan for you folks to be the most successful going forward? And I think that's the first step. Because a lot of families come to us and say, hey, we're doing fine, the home's working great for us, you know, we don't have any issues, but as we dig a little deeper, ask a little bit more deeper questions, most times, most often than not, there is maybe an underlying issue or something that that they could improve on.

SPEAKER_00 31:34

I think everyone always should start with a plan, right? And start with what are their goals, right? Because I think a lot of people come in and they don't know what they want life to look like, right? So getting understand, taking some time to really think about what is the life that you want to live and how do you use your assets to to actually be able to do that, right? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:53

Another thing too is we've been doing a lot of pre-inheritance plans, right? We're helping, you know, because to be completely honest, for for the newer generation or younger people, right? They they don't have the down payment or they may not have enough money to buy a home here. But parents and grandparents and uncles and aunties have these investment properties that they bought a long time ago that may not be performing as as well as they want it to be. But, you know, now they set they do they sell those and help their their kids buy a home.

SPEAKER_00 32:22

So nowadays, you know, for kids to buy a home, it's in Hawaii, it's very, very hard. Yeah. And so um we help a lot, we help a lot of families bless their family so they can start building wealth and have some ownership here in Hawaii.

unknown 32:35

For sure.

SPEAKER_00 32:35

For sure.

SPEAKER_01 32:36

We want everyone to stay home, man. We want the local, we want local families to stay home and buy homes here and build roots here. And that's one of the ways to do it, right? You know, have get help from family. So awesome. Well, thank you for joining the podcast, man. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00 32:50

So if this episode gave you clarity or was helpful at all, um, make sure you subscribe so you don't miss any future conversations. And if you're thinking about buying, selling, or just want to explore your options, visit iharateamhoi.com