Ken Dolan: Hi everybody. Every once in a while, a question we get on the radio really, really applies to us, more often than not but the question we’ve got not long ago Daria was really hit home with us, is how do you sell a home when homes aren’t selling? Does that sound familiar? We listed our house.
Daria Dolan: Yeah, we listed our house.
Ken Dolan: Oh boy.
Daria Dolan: I mean, it could have been better. But the good news is we don’t have to sell.
Ken Dolan: Yes, you know it’s one of the worst slumps in about 60 years so a lot of people and almost Florida to California Texas are really, really6 faced with the challenge of being really creative when it comes to selling their home.
Daria Dolan: Well in the last set of numbers that came out shows that now with more fees to starting to soften up as well so, unless you leave in some unusually successful place at the moment.
Ken Dolan: Where is that?
Daria Dolan: If you are thinking of selling your home or trying to sell it right now, you’ve got problems. So we have some suggestions for you.
Ken Dolan: We hope that they’ll work and now here’s the deal. Some of them would be pretty darn obvious to you like okay—but I think 3 or 4 might be really, really interesting and might just do the trick; the first of all, I’m not sure if we’d violated this in the past either, is find a broker or an agent who knows the homes in your area. You know, but I got a friend, he’s over like on the next town like two towns over but I really trust him. So he doesn’t own any of our houses in my area.
Daria Dolan: Well and the other thing is you know, we all know what we would love to get for our house. But is it a reasonable price and particularly, is it reasonable in this environment. You know, I mean, the last round of numbers show that sales, the prices of houses kind of had a little up tip but what nobody is taking into consideration is those closing numbers on the prices that the house is sold for, for houses that were probably booked for sale a few months ago. So that really doesn’t count. You need the broker to be brutally honest with you if you really want to sell.
Ken Dolan: Can I talk about a broker, one more thing?
Daria Dolan: Sure.
Ken Dolan: Yeah. When you talk with the broker, as Daria, as we just said, the broker was done businesses and why am I looking up here? I should be looking up. When you’re talking about beginning a broker, an agent to set your own clients, somebody who has done it in your area; fine. But also you would like to talk with somebody who sold but or sold a home through that broker or agent like how hard is he or she to deal with, are they pretty comfortable, they do the marketing and advertising, so get some referrals. What about a exclusive? Like a year maybe?
Daria Dolan: No.
Ken Dolan: No?
Daria Dolan: 3 to 6 months maximum and that’s after you’ve asked, what are you going to do for me? How often are you going to advertise this, are you going to do open houses, etc.
Ken Dolan: Would you say, if I’m going to do an exclusive, how about to give you one, what are you give me?
Daria Dolan: Exactly. Now, let’s talk about the house itself.
Ken Dolan: So nice pink wallpaper, maybe some purple, red, that’s what I —
Daria Dolan: Now both eyes, before we go inside.
Ken Dolan: That’s what I like.
Daria Dolan: I want you all to get in the car, drive around your neighborhood, look at all the houses and then come back in your driveway, how does it look from the outside?
Ken Dolan: Curve appeal.
Daria Dolan: Because if the curve appeal isn’t there, they are not going to set foot in your house or if they do, it will never ever no matter how spectacular inside, be quite what they are looking for to the outside.
Ken Dolan: All right miss, miss interior designer. She is really good at stuff like that. I can’t envision anything; couch, TV, TV, dinner, that’s my idea of inside until I met Daria.
Neutrals colors, pale, neutral, comfortable, homie inside.
Daria Dolan: Absolutely.
Ken Dolan: Inside. I’m talking inside.
Daria Dolan: So get that shocking pink, second bedroom, I suggest that you get yourself a can of paint or two over the weekend and have a little pink fro you.
Ken Dolan: Because I think some people, certain buyers like a little bit of imagination, if it’s really kind of wacky looking inside, don’t make them say, “yeah but if I will repaint it and then it look really nice like really new to a really pale and gorgeous colors”, don’t ask them to have that kind of an imagination and don’t let them trip all over the place on furniture by the way because you’re primed all of bunch of stuff down there.
Daria Dolan: You know, all houses are going to look spacious and not depending upon how much furniture is in the room and how that is fit. You know, maybe you need to call in the local furniture person or the decorator down the block and have them come in and just stay at your house for you.
Ken Dolan: I like that.
Daria Dolan: And then plan on hiring a little storage area from the duration if these are pieces of furniture that you don’t want to live without going forward but guess the amount of your house now. So if there is a lot of space to walk around and look so much bigger even if it’s small as you got it.
Ken Dolan: You say, well anyway, yeah but hold on, I may need that furniture from my next house so I run the storage place while the house is for sale.
Daria Dolan: It’s been expensive enough.
Ken Dolan: For a $100.00 a month, you can run a place to put all these wonderful extra stuff, if you may use somewhere else but guess what, you may be somewhere else sooner.
Daria Dolan: Also, when you get a call, when the broker has someone he wants to show your home to.
Ken Dolan: I’m going to get it all cleaned up and get ready for the tour around the house.
Daria Dolan: No, you’re not. You’re going to get all cleaned up and ready to leave the house and have the broker call you on the cellular phone or give them the number where you can be reached so that when they are leaving the property, he’ll call you and say you can go home again. There is nothing more off putting to us because we’ve been there.
Ken Dolan: I guess you’re right.
Daria Dolan: You’re taking a look at a house to see whether you want to buy it and the owners are there. Even though they are not following you around for room to room.
Ken Dolan: They are there.
Daria Dolan: You know they are there and you don’t want to open up closets, doors and you don’t want to talk frequently and that’s a bad scenario.
Ken Dolan: You know what I saw, just before we did this, I was driving through another neighborhood and I saw some ‘for sale’ signs; I know I shouldn’t use my hands but that’s —
Daria Dolan: No, no.
Ken Dolan: Oh okay. Is the fact that I see a lot of ‘for sale’ signs is but I don’t see the website, my realtor website where people can maybe take a virtual tour of my home so it’s kind of wacky to see a ‘for sale’ sign nowadays without your website or the website of your realtor to see you home.
Daria Dolan: And make sure there is a floor plan available and better yet a floor plan that has pictures of various rooms on it.
Ken Dolan: They can take away.
Daria Dolan: Because don’t forget if, particularly in a buyers market, buyers are looking at lots of houses to be sure when they do settle on one, they get the best value for their bucks and after you’ve seen a couple of three houses.
Ken Dolan: Or more.
Daria Dolan: You forget which one had the nifty kitchen and which one has the bathroom that need a remodeling.
Ken Dolan: You know my—
Daria Dolan: Speaking of.
Ken Dolan: Let me just one more thing.
Daria Dolan: Okay.
Ken Dolan: Speaking to remodel, hold your thought and don’t forget, a few pictures of the inside and the outside plus the floor planning cost you like a buck or some or buck and a half but as Daria says after you, got some of, one friend of ours that watch, saw 25 houses you’re looking to buy, after the 25th, you don’t know what you’ve seen, just a little package address and by the way which you may want to do is put some information on local plumbers, local doctors, local school information. Do a little bit of a homework for me, potential buyer because all of a sudden, who’s pocket am I going to come back to first when I say okay, now where have seen, what have we seen, they are going to come to yours; remodeling.
Daria Dolan: Yeah.
Ken Dolan: All right.
Daria Dolan: I do want to talk about remodeling for a minute. This one in particular recommendation came from a lister of ours, many years ago and it always stuck with me. If you’ve got an older home, you want to spruce it up little bit, change the door knobs, you’d be amazed where the brand new doorknob to look like. Even the drawer on the cabinets, in the kitchen and they are inexpensive enough, you’re going to go Home Depot, they sell and buy, you know, choices by the gazillion so think about replacing the handles on various doors, bathroom doors, etc. and if it’s an older bathroom, cost too much to try and remodel and give it more modern but if you just change the faucets, you’d be amazed with that could do.
Ken Dolan: You know why I like that Daria and I’m just thinking of it. You can paint, you can plaster, you can make it gorgeous, make other door effect and you got a some cramy old door knob on it. I know, wait a second, you paint it but it’s an old door and maybe an older house than I think. You know also, speaking of money, you know, as Daria said before you want to set a reasonable price, you may be ready just in case, don’t forget there is a buyers market, not a sellers market, you may be ready to talk about a little creative financing, might if you take back a second mortgage, might you help them with the down payment. So you might be ready to talk money. Maybe not the first time but maybe with the broker after the visit just be ready to be flexible.
Daria Dolan: And before the first visit, talk with the broker if you’re willing to do so, talk about giving him or her an incentive bonus. If they can get it sold within four weeks, get a contract for sale not close but a contract for sale within four weeks.
Ken Dolan: I like that and also and maybe the real state people may not like this but if you’re finding out to three months or six months even when it’s low, we understand, they are not going to have a 100 people go and buy your house everyday or walking in everyday but if you’re not, if your not happy with the advertising, a marketing that was promised maybe when you gave the exclusive then you may want to consider simply getting another broker. You know people try, some people try hard, others do not at all. Because another little tricky may not know, it’s a little bit of a Dolan aha. In most parts of America, when you fire a broker one and take on broker two, that appears as a new listing, it’s a new broker with a new listing. So rather than—around for year or two I’m going to put it with a new broker, it appears as a new listing and that might just help.
Daria Dolan: And while were on the listing, another thought for you. If you listed it a while ago and an outside shot of the house was taken for the newspaper advertising, please get it redone as the seasons change. Nothing is a bigger dead give away on how long the house has been sitting around. If it’s a winter scene and you’re looking at the housing ads in August.
Ken Dolan: Why didn’t I think of that?
Daria Dolan: Because I’m the brain.
Ken Dolan: I like that. So if you’re looking in August, don’t show me a picture of the snow. And then the last thing is and this like a not big Dolan aha but if all these doesn’t work; now some of it may work for you depending where you leave. You know what you may want to do, tell me if I’m right or wrong, you may disagree, don’t push it, if you can’t, just wait because if anything real estate is cyclical, it will back. Is that okay?
Daria Dolan: Absolutely.
Ken Dolan: Okay.
Daria Dolan: Absolutely.
Ken Dolan: Selling your home when you’re home won’t sell. Hopefully were helpful. We’ll look for some more ideas next time.
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