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Ready Set Sold with Bryan Vogt #14-01: Why making the wrong updates will cost you $1000’s

August 26, 2017


Bryan Vogt: Welcome everyone to Ready Set Sold. I’m your host Bryan Vogt. How you doing? Those that have listened on a weekly basis or just on occasion probably noticed that we had a different theme music this week in honor of the eclipse. That was pretty cool. I have to tell you, I was … Everyone knew about it. I mean, it was almost impossible to escape it, but I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. It comes Monday and I had my glasses and I get a text.
I think it was from my son or my daughter, I’m not sure, but they said it was starting. Just briefly what happened was is I went out and I got my glasses on and I started looking at it. It was really, really cool, but somehow or another I got the information in my head that it was going to last two minutes and 21 seconds. Why 21 seconds? I don’t know, but I had that stuck in my head.
I’m looking at it and nothing much is happening. I mean, I think there’s movement, but your eyes can be deceiving and nothing’s happening. Finally, I noticed there was sweat dripping draining down my face and I go, “Well, this is kind of silly. I mean, it’s a cool thing,” but I had to go and actually deliver a book to a seller.
As I’m driving down the road, I noticed that things were getting a little bit darker, and darker, and so I stop again to a parking lot and I go look. Get my glasses out and look at it. I keep driving and I get actually to the seller’s house and they’re having kind of a mini little party, which was cool. Hopefully, you guys had a way of celebrating yourself.
They’re sitting there and they said, “No, it’s not two minutes and 21 seconds. It’s an hour, or it’s two hours it’s going to take now to go through the whole process.” I said, “Wow, good to know.” Then I left there and dropped my book off and … Ready Set Sold book. I was driving and things got darker, and darker, and darker. Finally, I’m in Fairview Heights.
I pull over to another parking lot and I get out and I start looking. I’m going, “Wow, this is really, really cool,” and all of a sudden the street lights come on, and all of a sudden the crickets start chirping, and it’s a really, really cool thing. It just so happened, some three gals were driving by and they yelled out the window, “Hey, you have glasses just to look at it,” and I had the same glasses that probably everybody else had, cardboard glasses.
My first thought was, “Well, I don’t usually … This isn’t my sunglasses, but I kind of knew what they thought and it was all good.” I said, “Sure, and come on over.” We all kind of had a little party there and we watched the eclipse.
That was really neat stuff, so hopefully everybody had a chance that wanted to, take a look at it. I don’t know. I know it’s going to be a very, very long time before it happens again. Hopefully, you had the opportunity to look at it. With that said, let’s kind of go into what Ready Set Sold is. Ready Set Sold is a radio program dedicated to sellers mainly in the metro east, that are looking to get top dollar and a fast sale from their house. Whether you’re in O’Fallon, Glen Carbon, in O’Fallon. O’Fallon, Illinois, as I said. Shiloh. All those places, the metro east, this is what this book is geared for and that’s one of the reasons why I wrote the book.
One of the subjects we’re going to be talking about today about what not to improve and how it costs you thousands of dollars, was one of the things that I saw so many times that sellers would happen. Their intent was to do the right thing. Their intent was to spend the money, to get things so that they can get top dollar, and get a fast sale. Unfortunately, too many times they were spending their monies on the wrong things and that was usually because of the east coast, west coast. I don’t know, was there 50 programs now, 60 programs telling you how to sell your house and all the monies you have to do, and all the improvements? Again, that’s the east coast, west coast, and we’re here in the heartland, and specifically in the St. Louis, in the metro east market. That’s what this book is geared for, is our market.
Again, I think most people know that markets are regional and regional can be not only the metro east, but then it zeroes down to O’Fallon Illinois, or near Scott Air Force Base, or Glen Carbon. Then you start even moving down further, and further, and further until you get into your subdivision, or where you’re in the streets. In streets nearby if you’re not in a subdivision.
Again, location, location, location, location. What’s going on in your particular location is what’s the most important thing. I think sellers know that on one level, but sometimes they just have to be reminded that’s really where your top dollar’s going to be and the improvements that you make are going to have a vast, vast difference on the sale of your home. I say, “Improvements,” but it’s really more of updating. It’s things that most sellers already know that they would need to get done, so it’s just a friendly reminder.
The book has that too, just to make sure you get those things done because it does have such a crucial part in the sale of your, for most people, prized possession. I mean, the biggest investment that you’re ever going to have for most people is the sale of their house and making that go well is really important. That’s one of the reasons why I wrote the book. It became a number one Amazon best-seller. The reviews have been very kind. They’ve been very great. I’ve been very appreciative of that. It’s a combination of my 16 years of being in real estate and it’s putting it all together and trying to put it into a very easy to read, simple step-by-step program. Well, program I guess, or book to where you can take the information, you can take what you need. Maybe you have some familiarity what the updates are. Maybe move onto the pricing point.
There’s different parts of the book that you can use. Maybe you don’t need to read the whole thing, but maybe there’s sections you need to. That’s why I wrote the book. As I said, it’s been a great success. People have really latched onto it with the radio program. I offer it for free. You literally just have to go to ReadySetSold.org, not .com, ReadySetSold.org, not .com, and get the book. You can get a free copy of the book. It’ll be delivered right to your home or where you’re at. It could be … We’ve had people deliver it to their work. It doesn’t really matter.
Just wherever you want it to be mailed to, where we send it there. With that said, is also we’re really excited, not only if you don’t listen to the radio program, which I don’t know why you wouldn’t listen to the radio program every week on a Saturday, but in case if you don’t, there’s a couple ways.
Most people know that everything’s an app, so 1260 The Answer is … You can put on your phone, your smartphone, so you can always have it there. We also have podcasts and podcasts on iTunes. You can go to Google Play. What’s really cool about them is, is they are also set up to where they’re segment. Maybe you caught part of the program, but you didn’t catch it all and you wanted to go back and listen to just one section. They’re all broken down into sections, so that’s a really cool thing too. People, I think it’s more convenient for them to look at that too, or listen to that, I should say. We’re also on YouTube and so there’s just a variety of different ways and we’re always looking for different ways of being able to get the information out. Because that’s basically what realtors, at least in my professional opinion, I think most top realtors view their role is to give information to help.
That could be information from studies, or it can be just from their experience of what has worked and maybe things that maybe didn’t work and that you shouldn’t go in that direction. Always, the realtor should be the one that is more of a consultant, does have negotiating skills, that’s important, and the marketing. All those things are important, but really just sitting down with you, and having a conversation, and finding out what you want to accomplish, and that usually works out the best. With that said, what we’re going to be talking about today is step
number four. Last week we talked about the importance of updating and I cannot stress that enough. Again, we see it way too often. Doesn’t happen every time, but we see it way too often where houses go on the market, they don’t have the updates, and they just sit, they just sit. Many times unfortunately, sometimes it comes from the agent, but sometimes the sellers think that they only have to make minor reductions in pricing.
I will tell you, that a good rule of thumb is three times to five times. Again, if you have … We had a situation with a homeowner that needed the carpeting, and needed the painting done, and they chose not to do that. It was maybe a $3,000, $4,000 fix. It wasn’t that large of a home. At the end, by the time they sold it, by the three, three and a half months time that they had, they went ahead and long story short, they lost $15,000 by their own admission.
That’s why it’s so important. What we’re going to talk about today is we’re going to talk about in the next segment, basements, why they’re such a drain as far as cost goes. Also, adding onto your home. In the next segment, we’re going to be talking about the outside of your home. How rarely does that make you any money putting money into that. The last segment we’re going to be talking about is, what if you don’t have a bathroom, that extra bathroom, or that extra bedroom, and what you can do versus putting in a new one. Then also the $5,000 tip of the week. You’re listening to Ready Set Sold with your host, Bryan Vogt.

Talk to you soon.

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