The Smart Seller's Guide: The Walkthrough That Can Save You Thousands

Before you remodel, repaint, or replace anything, learn why a pre-listing walkthrough can help you avoid costly mistakes, prioritize the right improvements, and prepare your home for a successful sale. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome back to the Idaho Life Show. Garrett and Shelby with you here at Idaho Life Real Estate, and we've been talking this hour to every homeowner in the Treasure Valley who is thinking even quietly about selling in the next year. Segment one, we said the headline plainly. Before you spend a dollar on improvements, meet with your trusted realtor. Shelby, if you don't mind, if you can walk us through what that visit actually looks like, because I think the mystery is kind of the part why people don't make that first call.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Yeah, I can I know it seems a little bit overwhelming, but honestly, the first visit is extremely informal. We sit down at your kitchen table and we ask what you're thinking, what your timeline might be, where you're hoping to land next. Then we walk the house room by room. We're not there to judge anything. Honestly, I always tell people they can even have a dirty home. I'm not judging them at all.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

I'm perfect with that. Right. We see past everything.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

Right. So we are looking at it through buyers' eyes. What is going to draw a buyer in? What is going to give a buyer pause? What are the cheap fixes? What are the expensive fixes that don't actually pay back? And what is already great and just needs to be a little bit highlighted and showcased, right? And we tell you the truth in your own kitchen. No surprises later.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

That's right. I think that's important about the no surprises part. And the the value of that walkthrough is is twofold. One, we tell you what to do. Two, we tell you what not to do. That's probably that second part saves people more money than the first one does because the things that people think are going to pay back, unfortunately, often don't, but that's okay. And the things that people think don't matter often do.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

They really do. So let me give you a few a few real examples from this year. We've had sellers who were ready to spend $12,000 on new quartz countertops because they saw on social media there that's what buyers want.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

That's trending, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:55

It's trending for sure. We walked the kitchen, looked at their existing solid surface counters, looked at the cabinets, looked at the floor plan, and told them for this house in this price range in this neighborhood, no. Don't do it. Clean and stage the kitchen you have. Leave it as it is. Save the $12,000. The appraisal will not reward you for it. And the buyers in your range are not actually looking to go walk away over your existing counters. That's right. Right?

SPEAKER_01 2:26

It depends on that price point. You know, these might be a perfect first-time home buyer situation where they'd rather save the money and you're not going to get that money back. So that's right. So it's uh again, great reason. So another reason here, a seller had another kind of example. Um, a seller had two contractor bids to refinish their original hardwood floors, you know, really nice original floors you can tell. Um, you know, deep down those real solid wood, uh old ones, eight thousand dollars just to refinish it. We walked to the house and told them no. The floors, they had character, they had that they read you know, authenticity. That's a very, very, very cool. They were going to photograph beautifully, and a buyer in that neighborhood would see refinished floors as a flip. You know, saved $8,000. Same family had cracked grout in the master bathroom. We spent spend $200 on regrouting that tonight because buyers will actually fixate on those little small things that you don't think mattered that are cheap, but it's it's really true.

SPEAKER_00 3:27

It's so true. And one more. We had a seller two months ago who was about to repaint the entire interior in a trendy dark green because their daughter said it was in style. We walked the house and said, please do not do that. Don't do it. We need a warm neutral, grayish or off-white, if you will. That paint color will scare half your buyers out of the front door before they reach the kitchen. $2,000 in paint, the wrong color, would have cost them maybe $15,000 on offers. That's a lot of money. The right color, free advice on the front end. That's why we're here, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:03

Don't get me wrong. I mean, there's a lot of really cool houses that have that dark green. It is, it is trending, but you do take this buyer population and you immediately skim it down quite a bit because they're just like, that's not my style.

SPEAKER_00 4:13

Yeah, my couch won't match.

SPEAKER_01 4:15

Exactly. And these are not unusual stories. I mean, these they're virtually every week. Yeah. Yeah. And the seller almost never sees it coming because it's they're in their house, right? They love their house, rightfully so. They lived there in it for 15, 20, 30 years. They cannot see it the way a stranger walking through it on a Saturday afternoon in their open house, can't see it that way that they're gonna see it. And that is the entire value of that early walkthrough. Fresh eyes, really honest, honest eyes, eyes that look for, you know, at over 400 houses a year.

SPEAKER_00 4:50

Yeah, exactly. Okay, and now I want to tell people the single piece of advice from this episode that probably saves listings the most money, the most money, right? And almost nobody knows about it. If you're planning to sell your home in October, November, December, January, or even February, and you live in the Treasure Valley, you need to call your realtor right now, this week, in June, and have a professional exterior photographer come to your home while the valley is still green. It's so beautiful right now. Beautiful out there.

SPEAKER_01 5:25

There's nothing wrong. You know, if you are one of those people that that decide to sell last minute, it is December, there is snow on the ground. It's not the end of the world. It's not, it's normal. Buyers understand that, but having photography done now, and not just iPhone pictures, but your realtor's professional photographer to come out there, they won't do the interior. Don't worry about that. Just the X tier. So don't worry about getting everything cosmetically fixed up and fine. Your realtor will, you know, most likely, at least our realtors do in our office, will pay for that expense up front today. Absolutely. It will make you a lot more money.

SPEAKER_00 6:01

It will make you a lot more money for sure.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

This is one of the best things that we do for sellers in our pipeline, if you will. And and we do it at no charge because it's it's gonna come. You know, here's the math. Most of the listing photos a buyer scrolls through online, they are the exterior of the house in the beginning, right? The front of the house, the backyard, the street view, that's the initially what's gonna attract them. And if you list in in November, your exterior photos show a brown lawn, maybe you know, some covered part snow snow in the morning, some bare trees, dead flower beds, and a kind of grayish Idaho sky, which you can, you know, Photoshop or AI out, but still that same house photographed in June or July shows green grass, leafy trees, you know, your beautiful blooming flowers, maybe the garden, the blue sky behind the roof line, same house. Two completely different impressions for that buyer.

SPEAKER_00 6:54

100%. And buyers shop online. The first thing they see in is the cover photo. That's the absolute first thing.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

Call it also the hero photo. It's another word in our industry. The hero photo.

SPEAKER_00 7:06

That's right. If the cover photo of your fall or winter listing is a brown yard under a gray sky, you have lost a meaningful number of clicks before anyone has read a word of your description. If your cover photo is your green summer yard, you are getting clicks all winter long. That is the entire game for the first 48 hours of a listing.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

And it stands out from the others that are just bare.

SPEAKER_00 7:29

It makes a really big difference when you're competing.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

So if you're even considering a fall or winter sale, I mean, it's not a for sure thing. Call your realtor this week or the next week and have them send their photographer out there while the yard looks great, the way you remember it. And the interior shots, we can take a closer look at those and get those done. Closer listing day. No problem, you know, a week before that. But the X-iors, you just can't, you know, go back to them in November. The, the, the window is right now, you know, June and July, before the heat kind of browns out that lawn in August, September. And we're a little bit concerned about that too. I know there's been some talk about you know the uh the canals getting low as well. And so I'm not sure how long we'll have to water our our lawns this year and make them still look the green way they do today. So we we really bank on those photos for our sellers and pair them with the interior shots taken right before the listing. And it costs a seller nothing. And it's one of those highest leverage moves throughout the entire prep process.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

Yes, and one more thing on this. We also recommend for sellers who know they're listing later, but want to time the exterior photos perfectly to be intentional about the yard this summer, mow the day before, edge the beds, pop in some annuals for color, pressure wash the driveway. A $200 Saturday afternoon turns into a cover photo that pulls buyers all winter long.

SPEAKER_01 8:48

Ta-da. Easy. Ta-da!

SPEAKER_00 8:50

Yep, that's it. That is one of the best returns on time and money in the entire seller's toolkit. And it's only it only works if you call early. That's right. Right?

SPEAKER_01 9:00

And real quick while we're on photography, let's talk about what a good real estate photographer does and what those real good photos look like because this is something that a lot of sellers, I don't think they realize it's included with us, right? We don't sone's, we don't send someone out with a phone. No, it's not their iPhone and they turn it sideways and try to get good exposure on it. We send a professional, not just a photographer, but a professional real estate photographer with HDR equipment, great lenses, a variety of lenses, and the experience to shoot a house the way it actually shows. And they come at the right time of day with the right light on your house, depending on which direction it's facing, and they shoot the exterior from angles that you know really flatter the property. They shoot the interiors in a way that conveys the real space, not distorted fisheye look that the buyers have learned to distrust. And that photography package on the open market runs 400 to maybe a thousand dollars, depending on the home. And we include it. You know, it's not a separate line item, and that's how we list every single home.

SPEAKER_00 9:57

Every single one. And the syndication piece matters just as much as the photography. Once those photos are taken, the listing goes live on the MLS, but it also syndicates to roughly 30 other sites: Zillow, Realtor.com, Redfin, Homes.com, all the regional sites within hours, right? We pair that with paid Facebook, Instagram, and Google ad campaigns running every single month several thousand dollars a month across the brokerage. Putting your listing in front of buyers who aren't actively searching but are open to the right house. Most sellers think MLS is the whole game. MLS is actually the starting line.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

Just the beginning.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

It's just the beginning. What happens in the next 48 hours after a listing goes live is where the offers come from. And that takes intentional work.

SPEAKER_01 10:48

Yeah. And that internal data, internal database that Idaho Life Real Estate have is a piece that not everyone has. I mean, we have more than 27,000 active buyer profiles in our system. And real buyers with real criteria, real price ranges, get their email the morning, it hits the MLS, and our system runs every buyer profile against that listing, notifies them the same day, if not sometimes instantly, depending on the buyer what they want. And sometimes that's where the first offer comes from. It is buyers who are already waiting for a house just like yours in the neighborhood you live in at the price point that we listed at. That's the kind of network that makes the difference on day one.

SPEAKER_00 11:26

It really does. And one last thing on the early call point before we head to break. People sometimes ask, what if I call you and then I decide not to sell? Garrett? It's totally fine, right? It happens all the time. We are not going to chase you. We are not going to harass you. We are not even going to add you to a mailing list. You can't get off of, right? We I know I don't want that for sure. So some of the best sellers we ever work with are people who called us a year and a half before they listed, decided the timing wasn't right after the first conversation, and called us back when it was. The first conversation is a planning conversation, not a sales conversation. Treat it that way.

SPEAKER_01 12:07

That's right. Thanks, Shelby. And coming up after the break, the easy prep list, the things that every seller can start this weekend, this month that doesn't cost much and they do not require a contractor.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

I like it.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

The wins that pay back the most for the least money.