Bryan Vogt: Welcome back to Ready Set, Sold, I’m your host, Bryan Vogt, thank you so much for joining us. One of the things I wanted to talk about, I left you with the last segment is, is we had two situations. We had two houses that were very, very similar, it was, in fact, by the same builder. So the square footage, everything was the same.
Just so you know, builders will build in other areas. Fallon, Illinois. They will build in other areas of the subdivisions and the hot houses, in particular, many times, they’ll re-build that house, because it sells and it’s a desirable house.
And so we have this situation where we had one and within in two weeks, they were able to get their house sold and they were able to move onto life and they didn’t really even negotiate, they felt that they got everything that they wanted and they were tickled pink. Couldn’t believe it.
And the other house that again, was in three months’ time, they got an offer, it was somewhat painful because they were on the market for three months, and just so you know, it’s not unusual for sellers, from our experience, that after 30 days, and sometimes sooner, but 30 days, things get a little tense. What’s going on? Why isn’t it selling? Why don’t I have a contract on there?
And so the longer that goes on, the more nervous. The more pressure. The more concern. It makes it even much more difficult as far as just daily going on. We’ve heard of situations where married couples really have had some strain on their relationship, just getting this house sold. And so you have that scenario.
So again, the mini-house, went with the idea of is how many people can I attract. There’s always gonna be a few people that may not want my house, but how can I attract the most amount of people in the shortest period of time? I mean, it just makes sense, right? When you have as many people as you possibly can in a short period of time, your chance of success in getting a contract, getting an offer, accepting your offer and selling your house increases dramatically.
So what did they do? Well, let’s start talking about what they did and what maybe the house in [inaudible 00:02:17] could have done and had different results. One thing is they painted their house. They went through not just a certain house areas that needed painting, but they went ahead and did the entire home. All in one color. All one neutral color. And that was fantastic. In fact, that’s something we would encourage. If you’re gonna do painting, go ahead and do the entire house, or at least sections of it. Depending on what the situation is, but they went and they did the entire house.
That means the bathrooms. The nursery. The master bedroom. Everything was the same color and it looked fantastic. Neutral colors work because buyers are trying to see themselves in your house. And if there’s different colors, it makes it difficult. It’s again, perception is reality. Buyers are trying to see themselves in your house. And many times, when you know you have a deal, is when a buyer says, and this is in the buyer’s agent, when the buyer’s agent’s listening, is when they say something simple as, “This feels right. This could work.” Yes, square footage, all those things are factors, but when it comes down to it is is can I see myself in your house? Can I live here? Is this gonna work for me?
And by having neutral colors, it works fantastic. The other house? You know what, there’s some things they knew that they needed to paint, but they had some pretty wild colors. They were nice colors. They were pretty. I think most people would agree they were pretty. But again, they were too personalized. And we talked about just before that, buyers really do look at colors and they may like the color, but it’s not them, and they can’t see themselves in the house.
Remember, buyers are always trying to picture themselves of being in their house. So neutralized colors is so important. The other aspect of it, just on, when you think about it, just on the amount of space. There’s four walls to every room. Four walls to every room, so what are they gonna see the most of? And that is the paint, that it’s gonna be the walls, and so you take that from the master bedroom and the bathrooms and even the kitchen. All those areas. So that is what they’re gonna see the most of and that has an influence on when they’re looking to buy.
The other house didn’t do those things; didn’t take that direction. They kind of kept their colors. Again, they were very pretty colors, but again, they had some … if I remember correctly, the agent was talking about this, I believe it was something of mustard yellow, which can be very beautiful color, but it can also be something that people don’t like at all or it’s just not something they would pick. The same thing with the flooring. The ones who went for the money understood the fact is that they really had meant to replace the carpeting. It got away from them, and they went ahead and did the flooring. Got everything lined up.
The other one, well, they thought about it. And they really were thinking about, but instead, they decided to do $3000, I don’t remember if it was a three thousand or five thousand dollar carpet allowance. Which may sound good, but in many cases, what that does is is tells the buyer up front, you have a problem with your flooring and when you put that out there, I’m not saying it never works, but many times, when you see that, when buyers see that, they will look down and say, first thing they’re gonna look at is the flooring.
And then they usually tend to do three to five times higher, so they want more moneys than even what the seller is allowing for. So, it may sound good on the surface, but many times, it runs into difficulties.
So, they decided to go that direction too. It wasn’t that their carpeting was, shall we say atrocious, it just was worn. It was just worn out. They’d had it for years, they had meant to change it, even when they moved it, it was really kind of on the borderline, and they never did.
Now you had the painting and you had the carpeting. So, did they get people coming into their house, ones that were going into [inaudible 00:06:28]? Yeah, they did. They got a few people in there. But they didn’t get the masses that they were expecting. And again, this turned on, this went on and on and on, and they got two or three in a month’s times, and 30 days, and just if you don’t know, the rule is, after 30 days, and this is National Association of Realtors, and we’ve found this to be true too, your showings dropped off.
When you’re going for the many and the few. When you’re going for top dollar, getting top dollar again is very very doable. Doing some work, okay, I’m not gonna lie about it. There’s some work involved sometimes. Not every time, many times sellers maintain these things. They do neutral colors. They have some of these things already in place. But understand the importance of it, because in the end, it usually costs you money, time, and frustration.
So with them, what we’re gonna be talking about in the next segment is pricing, and a pricing strategy, and what pricing strategy the one for the many used and what pricing strategy the other house that took three months to sell, finally sold, not for the money they was hoping for, but it did finally sell. So we’re going to talk about that in the next segment, of why pricing can be so critical when you’re going for the many versus the few.
With that said, hey, like us on Facebook. We’re on Facebook. Go to Ready Set Sold with Bryan Vogt. Please like us there. The other thing is we have podcasts, we’re really excited about. Go, and you can go to either Google Play, you can go to iTunes, this situation, go back in here, replay anything you had in mind. Go there. Check it out. I think you’re going to really, really like it.
Ready Set Sold with Bryan Vogt #11-02: Totally different outcome if you are selling to the few
August 5, 2017