PODCAST 032 - 4 MUST DO'S - ANGIE COLE.mp3 (transcribed by Sonix)

It's time for The Savvy Realtor Podcast. I'm Walter Storholt alongside Angie Cole the owner and broker in charge of A Cole Realty serving you throughout the Triangle teaching you about the ins and outs when it comes to buying or selling a home. You can find the team online by going to A Cole Realty dot com that's A C-O-L-E Realty dot com or by calling 9 1 9 5 7 8 3 1 2 8 that's 9 1 9 5 7 8 3 1 2 8. And now it's time for one of the top realtors in the Triangle. Angie Cole and The Savvy Realtor Podcast. Angie I saw an article that talked about the four must do's this year to sell your home fast. Wanted to see what you think of these things and how do you help your sellers achieve these goals if they indeed are as important as this article said they are.

One note that it mentioned was to get your home as close to move in ready as possible and that buyers are more attracted to homes that don't have a lot of nit picky projects to worry about it move in time.

Yeah that is so true. I'd say this time and time again. But remember when buyers are looking at homes there's typically you know maybe five homes are taking a look at from the five homes they're trying to delete the other homes off the list to find their favorite. They're not walking in the door and trying to just fall in love with your home. So the way that your home would be deleted is if it's not move in ready. So the buyer starts to tally up. OK we're going to have to spend money here. You know it's going to take this amount of time to get this done. That's not going to be you know convenient with us living here and now your home has been put on the backburner. So yes a move in ready home is very very important when it comes to marketing and selling your home.

Yes absolutely. The other thing I mentioned this is an obvious one. Professional photos. We all love our our camera phones but you got to get those pro photos.

Yeah. Guys even with your editing tool on your phone do not use your phone for taking pictures of your home when you're trying to sell. So yes professional photos are definitely number one. Very very important also is super important because remember most buyers they start their search online and when they're starting their search they are just zip in through pictures. So just scan through the pictures if they don't like what they see they then go on to the next home. It doesn't matter how much we fluff your remarks you know all of the little data put into our MLS sheet. What really matters is how your home shows as far as the photos and will that then you know drive the buyer to your home for showing well.

And then you ask the question if you're listening to the show today will photos I'm not taking photos of my home to get it to sell wouldn't that be the agent doing that. Yeah the answer is absolutely yes. Oh yeah. That's not a given that your agent is taking those highly professional photos. Go look at their other listings and see what kinds of photos they've taken at other home an indication.

Yeah. And I. And ask them to show you. I mean in person when I'm out of listing presentation I can pull up my phone and show you recent listings and our photos you know the quality of them and that's coming out of my marketing budget. As far as paying for those so that's not something that you as the seller and our client would have to take care of. But yeah I'm always amazed whenever I speak with especially sellers that they're listening has now expired and the first thing I will go to is the pictures. Let me compare how were your pictures on your old MLS listing and almost always they're hideous. I mean I see people in the the reflection of mirrors. You know I see one room where it's really dark. The next room where it's really you know light it's just it's it can be bad over zoom.

No it's it's bad it's bad. It's like texture matter but they matter so much.

I mean you know once again we did make your home attractive to the buyer like everything else in life you wanna make sure you putting your best foot forward on all fronts.

But especially when it comes to photos. Yes I make sure that that's a really important thing to your agent because it should be a showcase tech improvements was another tip to make sure your home sells fast in today's market. So that's to attract millennial buyers. This article pointed out do you see that being done a lot in today's market. Like smart features being promoted a lot of that kind of thing.

So you know I'd say about 50 50 I do see a lot of builders who are trying to go that route of really just you know maxing out the hams all this techie stuff green tech kind of all goes hand. You know I I feel like it really depends on the consumer in that aspect as far as who's buying the home. I know for example may I could care less about that stuff. I don't know. How do you work it in the first place. I'm good just with my iPhone you know but for some people that could be super cool and trendy. So I think it's great to you know mention it in your you know MLS data sheet. You know as far as these extra features because those are improvements but they definitely don't need to be the main focused of your home as far as getting it sold because once again some buyers that's important to them.

Other buyers could care less of like this has been around longer right marketing that the home might have like a fantastic security system and it's like Okay that might be great for some buyers with some may not want yet and it may even see it as a red flag like right. You have all that.

Yeah I did was there Brooke I actually had that happen to a seller in the past. I mean they had it was actually the homeless tenant occupied in his tenant had it was like a huge TV with all of these different key blocks on it showing the different views of the different cameras. And people were walking in almost freaking out like why do you had this much surveillance. What is going on is this area not safe so it could always work against you. So to me Do you not put your money into tech improvements you're not going to get your money back out of it.

Yeah. Not maybe a must do then. We could probably take that off the list it sounds like. Yeah. Last but not least I know you'll agree with this one clean clean and clean a little more. Best investment you can make as a professional cleaning before list.

Yes. And I tell you what I have helped my cleaner to just really grow her team because we cannot get enough of her. She's awesome. I'm like Marissa MERCIER You need to come through and clean this home and it's amazing because you know people I mean live clean and there's some really clean people. But you know when it comes to selling your home you need someone to really do a deep cleaning. You need to clean those appliances clean the oven you know wipe down the baseboards do the windows sealed. And so a professional cleaning which you know is based normally on square footage and how long it takes them to clean. You know but she'll come in and she'll do it it's anywhere from around like 250 to around like 450 Max but 450 Max means you had a really dirty home and they were there for several several hours.

Yeah. Her team is awesome. When they came to clean our home right before listening. Yeah. She came out and they just got to work. Like when they were just I was finishing at last the last couple of minutes. And last detail repairs on the home and finished painting one room and they were working all this dancing all around me and yet I was just watch sounds like.

So this is how you know this is a clean house. I know it once again. Yeah. People they think that their homes clean until they get it professionally cleaned and then it's like oh I'm like taking notes. Yeah. You got to make sure you do. I know I know.

Yeah so definitely and invest a couple of hundred dollars into getting your home professionally clean because you know you live there you know and you might be a little dirty and grimy and you know buyers don't want to come into your home and you're trying to think about living in your home with your your grit and grime so yeah get it scrubbed.

Absolutely. Do you remember the rainbow vacuum cleaner salesman. You mean like the door to door real vacuum cleaner salesman. I mean I don't know if people. I don't think people still do that maybe they do.

You know I would seen one along. I actually I'm not the rainbow wine but maybe it was like Dyson or something or Kurt had maybe one of those. Yeah there was definitely a salesman in our neighborhood and last couple of Michael Brown and Ellen. Yeah. I'll never we avoided unfortunate Sorry sorry sir and we purposely did not answer our door. And I'm glad my husband did it because he's the worst about like guy in the house like that yeah. Oh yeah. Like Oh we could probably use this. And like now we do not need a five thousand dollar vacuum. Okay.

When Morrissey came to our house and clean it reminded me of when I was little and a rainbow vacuum cleaner salesman came to the home and my parents like would never have normally really sat down with somebody or done that but for some reason they let him in that night. My little kid memories are obviously you know sometimes you blow things out of proportion of aid but it felt like he was there for hours. Probably hanging out with your family whatnot. But my mom was you know neat freak and she was very like Thoreau. She would we joke about it now like you know always critiquing my vacuuming and like you're terrible at vacuuming and you needed to get his lines right all that kind of stuff. So she took a lot of pride in how clean the home was and sure I ever forget he had her take her vacuum vacuum a spar over and over and over that was already clean and vacuum the vacuum back of it. And then he comes over with the rainbow and does like one pass. And she was like and shows her how much dirt it picked up and it was we were just like oh my gosh.

Did you buy it. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. They still have it. It's like 20 years old. That's awesome. And it's that's a really good investment. It's a Rockstar is a super clean home now.

Yeah she does. I love it. So it reminds me that when the professional cleaners come to your home they get stuff that you miss so they actually clean the cabinets. Wow. So yeah. Impressive unlike maybe some movies if you're thinking about selling your home in the near future you know before we wrap up for the show today if you haven't heard earlier on the program we're talking about this great tool that Angie Cole and her team have put together that helps you find out the potential value of your home if you're going to sell it in today's market. And the cool thing is you can get this without really doing anything for a few clicks of a button on your smartphone and you can find out that potential value if you're thinking about selling in the near future maybe sometime later on this year. It's just a great tool to go ahead and utilize to get you to start thinking about what would be the value of my home if I sell it in today's market. Angie and her team have put together this tool for you. So all you have to do is text the word listing to 5 5 5 8 8 8. Just text the word listing to 5 5 5 8 8 8 will happen is we'll text you back with a link. You click on that link and put in your homes information and we'll send you that estimated home value again if you were to sell your home in today's market what that might look like it's an initial estimate. It is a starting point. If you're looking to sell your home soon just text the word listing to 5 5 5 8 8 8 to take advantage of that tool. Andrew thanks so much for joining us on today's program had a lot of fun with you today. And we'll look forward to doing it again next week. Sounds great. Thanks Walter.

That's Angie Cole of a Cole realty here in the triangle. If you have questions for Andy want to talk to her about buying or selling your home here in the area. Call or text her at 9 1 9 5 3 8 64 77 and you can have a one on one chat about what you're looking to do. 9 1 9 5 3 8 64 77. This is a savvy real tour with

Let's shine a little light on some of the Triangle's best areas right here on the neighborhood spotlight.

Time for the neighborhood spotlight featuring some of the cool nooks and crannies of the triangle. And this week I hear we're headed back to rally for the neighborhood spotlight where we're going.

Yes we are going to South Raleigh and the neighborhood is called enchanted so enchanted exits off of Lake Wheeler and Penny road. Beautiful area. That neighborhood is just well-established very mature with large lots you know gorgeous trees is just an air Berry stately neighborhood is a great way to describe it. Most of the homes range around 25 hundred up to seven thousand square feet. There are some big homes in that neighborhood as well. Yeah we have amenities such as a pool clubhouse tennis courts. The prices range from about 350 up to around 800000. And if you would like to get more information or maybe you're thinking about selling in this neighborhood we would love to connect with you. You can call or text me directly my number is 9 1 9 5 3 8 6 4 7 7 once again 9 1 9 5 3 8 6 4 7 7.

That's a nice neighborhood. Love it. A lot of spacing between the homes it's nice having you breathe in that area. It really is.

If you want to get more information again call Angie directly or send her a text. 9 1 9 5 3 8 6 4 7 7. If you want to learn more about the enchanted Oaks neighborhood in Raleigh 9 1 9 5 3 8 64 77 again is that number to call or text. That's this week's neighborhood spotlight. The Enchanted hooks in the south rather.

We're coming up on today's show so stay tuned. This is the savvy real tour called

It's time for the mailbag. We want to hear from you

Bird's going to start us off with a bang this week. Angie bird is in Kerry. And you know it's gonna be good when the question starts off like this.

I don't want to sound like a schmuck. Oh gosh but I probably will. Burt says we have some bad spots in our hardwood floors and a few light stains on the carpets. I really don't want to pay for replacing those. Can I kind of just hide or disguise those areas and hope it won't get noticed. Okay okay. Now I feel really bad for asking the question but at least I had to try. What else can we do to avoid having to go through replacements and repairs.

Well Burt you definitely should not hide or disguise those items.

Burt we've all been there done that right. Yeah.

Now I mean I know I can't just put a rug over it. You know you could. But remember I had the buyers will do their final walkthrough typically the morning of or the evening before closing. And at that point you have 100 percent moved out and all of that will now come to light and we wouldn't want any last minute hiccups or you know anything delaying your closing because now the home is not in the same condition as what they originally saw. So I would say you either need to of cautious make it well known that you know let people see the dirty carpets and the stained hardwoods or go ahead and get those fixed and replace. Now if you have the means to do so it is well worth it then you will come out on top by investing some money into making the home move in ready right. So replace your carpet maybe get your hardwoods refinished. We also we have a team of contractors and preferred vendors that we work with and they will come in and do free estimates so we can line that up for you and help you out there. But if you do those things I can bet you anything that we will get you a much higher price point vs. just listing the home as is because typically once you know someone starts to see something wrong they just start to look for other problems is what we see and buyers are picky they are you know there might be five homes that they're considering they go through they try to eliminate homes so your home might be one that they eliminate because they start to feel like there's too much elbow grease as you like to say Walter you know that they will have to put into your home so if you have the means to do it let's go ahead and take care of the carpets take care of the hardwood floors but if not do expect that you might not get just top value for your home.

You've been listening to the savvy real tour podcast. I'm Walter store Holt alongside Angie Cole. She's the owner and broker in charge of ACO realty here in the Triangle and if you have questions for Angie we invite you to go online to a call realty dot com. Listen to past podcast episodes on the Web site read the blog and all the great information including the option to find a home right there on the website. That's a cool realty dot com and you can also call ante with your questions. 9 1 9 5 7 8 31 28.

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