Ready Set Sold with Bryan Vogt #18-01: Kelly Etheridge: Top 3 reasons staging is a must for sellers

Speaker 1: Welcome to Ready Set Sold with your host Bryan Vogt. Are you wanting, or you’ve been thinking about selling your house but don’t know where to start? Good thing you found Ready Set Sold. And now, real estate broker Bryan Vogt.
Bryan Vogt: Good morning everyone. This is Bryan Vogt, your host of Ready Set Sold. Thank you so much for joining us this Saturday. I hope you’re having a fantastic weekend.
Well, it looks like, hopefully, the hurricane situation is a little bit under control. I know some islands out there got hit again, but just a friendly reminder before we kind of get into the program that I know Texas and Florida, we’ve talked about in previous shows, that they really need our help and hopefully you’ve donated to the Red Cross, you’ve done your part in helping the cleanup.
I’ve noticed some people have actually gone down there. I think they’re well on their way to recovery but it’s going to take some time. For those who are sending in donations, hey, you know I thank you and I know that the victims of the hurricanes thank you also, but it’s going to be a long recovery. Hopefully the season is over for them and they can get back on track.
A little bit brief history about the program. We’ve been on now, I guess for about three months, actually over three months. The whole genesis of this program started with a book I wrote called Ready Set Sold: 12 Proven Steps to Sell Your House Fast and for Top Dollar in St. Louis Metro East.
I wrote to book for various reasons. I think the biggest one was that there was just so much information and not so good information out there from the TV shows that they’re on, the cable networks. They’re always telling you how to, what you have to do to get your house sold. They’re based on the East Coast, West Coast, and maybe if that’s how you sell houses out there, but there was really nothing here for St. Louis and particularly the Metro East market: the O’Fallon, Fairview Heights, Collinsville, Belleville, Waterloo area.
I wanted to give them kind of a road map that they can use.The twelve steps, and the reason why I put down proven steps is because it’s not theory, it’s not conjecture … these are proven things that sellers do, that we’ve recommended, and they do them, they get top dollar and they get a fast sale for their house.
I wanted to put that all into a book and it became a number one bestseller, the radio program contacted me and said “Hey, how about doing a show based on the book?” and that’s where we’re at right now. Each week we try to give some true value information that can help you whether you’re looking to sell now or even down the road whether that’s a year, two years. People up to two years out are starting the process. Whether it’s now or down the road, that’s what the book was written for. On the program I give it away absolutely free no strings attached, no costs, no nothing.
The actual book all you need to do is go to Readysetsold.org, not dot com, Readysetsold.org not dot com, and get the book. Like I said it’s free, we’ve had some great success a lot of people have been ordering it from the radio program so that’s been great. Really my goal is to try to get everybody who has any thoughts whatsoever as far as selling, giving them information in order to get their house sold for top dollar and fast sale.
With that being said, you can also and we’re kind of really excited about this, been around for about a month or so. We have all of our broadcasts on podcasts. That’s Google Play, or you go to iTunes you can find us. One of the things is we understand that there are people that can’t always catch the show, or maybe they missed part of it and there’s a segment that they want to kind of follow back up with. Well the good news is now that you can go there, and you can pick out a particular show or you can pick out a segment that you really wanted to know a little bit more about or hear again. It’s an opportunity for the listeners to definitely get the information they need to make the decisions that’s going tobenefit them.
We’re also on Facebook so please like us on Facebook, Ready Set Sold with your host Bryan Vogt is all you need to look for. Those are different ways of being able to get ahold of us and contacting us.
A brief history about me, I’ve been in real estate now for going on two decades. Been building a successful real estate team, we’ve had some tremendous success. Been in the Metro East area in those markets and … basically just passionate about real estate, just passionate about helping people especially on the selling side, we work with buyers of course too. But especially on the selling side, of helping sellers get the information so they can make decisions for themselves. That’s kind of where we’re at, we’re always looking for new team members. we’re avidly growing our team. That’s what we’re doing now and the market has been hot and it continues to be hot we haven’t seen success like this in years so that’s a great thing.
So let’s talk, get into our program talking about today. We’re going tobe talking about how important staging is: Staging a house gets you a fast sale and top dollar. This first segment we’re going to start with the top three reasons staging is a must for sellers. The second segment we’re going to be talking about is the three must do’s before putting your house on the market. Third segment we’ll be doing why do you make such a difference in the sale of your house and that’s natural and the lights from your lamps and other things.
Also, number four: the two illusions you need to create as a seller to get your house sold for buyers. The last one is going to be the 5,000 dollar tip in this situation is going to be hundreds of thousands of dollars that you can save by just following this tip. With that said, I’d like to introduce one of my team members Kelly Etheridge is with us today on the radio. Kelly, how you doing?
Kelly Etheridge: I’m doing great, hi everybody, how we doing?
Bryan Vogt: I’m doing fantastic things are going very well, we’re having some great success with the market. What I wanted to start with is the three things that we talked about and one of the reasons why I wanted to have Kelly on here is because not only does she list homes, on our team but she also works with a lot of buyers, and she sees a lot of this, these things that we’re talking about when it comes to selling your home and what actually buyers look for traditionally.
I think the three things that we wanted to start with is … number one: What staging is. Staging is simply trying to present your house in the best possible light so that buyers see everything in this best possible light is going to get you top dollar, and a fast sale. What staging does it will often shorten the time that your house is on the market. We’ve seen that happen. By shortening your time on the market, it also saves you money because you have that traditional cost of principal and interest, utilities … things that people don’t always think about when they’re selling your home, that you’re paying for it as your house is on the market.
Also, having a staged home tends to get higher offers. Not always, but many times having the staging set properly gets you more money and stronger offers.
The third reason is pretty simple: Get your house under contract you have offer and acceptance. You can kind of relax, you can kind of start living back into your house, so there is some work maybe upfront but maybe hopefully, two to three weeks maybe thirty days, is all it will take.That sellers find that they can do, but boy when it comes down to two to three months or even longer with no offers or no activity that becomes a problem.
Those are the three things that we really focus on the most the value of having it staged. Kelly, I mean I know our segment’s running a little bit short but I know that walking into a staged house with buyers is a totally different atmosphere than walking into a non-staged home isn’t it?
Kelly Etheridge: Absolutely, yeah. When you walk into a home that’s been staged you can just see the expression on the buyer’s face. There like, “wow” and they can see themselves moving into this home, putting their things into it, versus a home that is just jammed packed with someone else’s stuff. The buyers face is just completely different like “I just don’t know about this …” is just a total different feel.
Bryan Vogt: I think that’s what’s important about that because you hit a great point there, and that’s feel. Buyers buy on emotion. They buy on feel, they just feels right it just looks right. Yes, square footage all those things come into play, but the number one factor is that buyers buy on feel and you can create that.
Sometimes that illusion of making things feel not only larger but also everything that is done that no one’s living there that puts you well ahead of other houses that maybe that haven’t had the staging or haven’t done the additional work that they needed. In the next segment we’re get a little bit more in depth about it, we’ll be talking about the three must-do’s you really need before you put your house on the market and this is for the sellers.
Hey you’ve been listening to Ready Set Sold, with your host Bryan Vogt, and Kelly Etheridge is with me also she’s a fantastic team member. We’ll be back after a few messages.we’ll see you on the other side.

We’ll see you on the other side.