Speaker 1: Welcome to How the Money. I'm Joel and I and
Speaker 1: Matt and today we're discussing selling a house for top
Speaker 1: dollar with Mindy Jensen. Chedule. Our guest today knows pretty
Speaker 1: much everything there is to know about residential real estate.
Speaker 1: Mindy Jensen. She is a licensed real estate agent in
Speaker 1: Colorado and she's been buying and selling homes for about
Speaker 1: twenty years now. And not only does she buy and
Speaker 1: sell for her clients, but she is an investor herself. Specifically,
Speaker 1: she has this effective way of flipping properties and we'll
Speaker 1: actually we'll get into that here in a little bit.
Speaker 1: But Mindy she works at Bigger Pockets dot com where
Speaker 1: she helps investors learn the proper ways to invest in
Speaker 1: real estate, and she also co hosts the podcast Bigger
Speaker 1: Pockets Money. And so today we'll spend the majority of
Speaker 1: our time though, it's talking through the ways that our
Speaker 1: listeners can sell their homes for the most money possible. Mindy,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for joining us on the show today.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to talk
Speaker 1: to you guys today. I love real estate. So hit
Speaker 1: me all right, hit me with your best shot, don't
Speaker 1: just hit me. Great song too, By the way, Mindy, also,
Speaker 1: you wrote a book like this is how Much you
Speaker 1: Love real Estate? You wrote a book called How to
Speaker 1: Sell Your Home. And if our listeners stay tuned till
Speaker 1: the end of the show, we're going to give away
Speaker 1: ten physical copies autograph of your book. So that's so awesome.
Speaker 1: Stay tuned for that. By the way, the first thing
Speaker 1: that we lead off, the first question that we lead
Speaker 1: off asking people is about craft beer. Because Matt and
Speaker 1: I drinking craft beer on the show. It's really important
Speaker 1: to us. Today on the show, we're drinking a beer
Speaker 1: called Slamming at the Club by Casa agree a Specialty ales,
Speaker 1: and I know you love craft beer as well. What's
Speaker 1: your splurgs? What's your craft beer equivalent? As you're saving
Speaker 1: money and being intentional as you save for the future,
Speaker 1: what are you willing to spend a little bit more
Speaker 1: on right now? Well, it is absolutely a splurge. It
Speaker 1: is literally the dumbest thing you could spend money on.
Speaker 1: It is a car. On the Bigger Pockets Money podcast,
Speaker 1: one of the questions we ask of all of our
Speaker 1: guests is what is your biggest money mistake? And most
Speaker 1: people have some version of I bought a brand new car.
Speaker 1: I don't actually buy new cars. I bought a used
Speaker 1: car back when I was in high school a thousand
Speaker 1: years ago. I had a friend who worked at the
Speaker 1: accurate dealership and I was picking up up after work
Speaker 1: and I walk in and I'm like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: what is that? What is that car? That's the most
Speaker 1: beautiful car I've ever seen in my life. He's like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's the new NSX. Like wow, that is amazing. How
Speaker 1: much is it? He's like sixty dollars. I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: that's not going to be my car was in high school. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of There was a lot of
Speaker 1: money back then. It's a lot of bunny now, but
Speaker 1: it was even more back then. So fast forward like
Speaker 1: ten years. This car came with this coffee table book
Speaker 1: instead of a sales brusher because it was sixty dollars.
Speaker 1: And I found copy of that coffee table book at
Speaker 1: a thrift store. So I bought it, thinking something, I'm
Speaker 1: going to own an NFX, and I packed it up
Speaker 1: and moved it every time we moved, because, as you
Speaker 1: alluded to in your introduction, I do live in flipping,
Speaker 1: which means I move every two or three years, so
Speaker 1: I'm packing up things a lot. We started talking, my husband.
Speaker 1: I started talking. I'm like, you know, I would really
Speaker 1: like to own one of these cars now that we're
Speaker 1: financially independent, you know, let's let's look at them. And
Speaker 1: we found one and it costs forty thousand dollars, which
Speaker 1: is that is an absurd amount of money to spend
Speaker 1: on an old hunt Yeah, old Unda. I've got a
Speaker 1: friend who has one too. He's like, yeah, I got
Speaker 1: an old Honda. When I went to get license plates
Speaker 1: for it, she's looking. She's like, is this thousand dollars?
Speaker 1: I said, that'lls like, why would you pay so much for? Well,
Speaker 1: you and you and your husband you're both into cars, right,
Speaker 1: You guys are both kind of car nerds to a
Speaker 1: certain extent. I know, I know your husband, Carl, he
Speaker 1: really wants a Tesla M right. Yes, he is a
Speaker 1: supercar nerd. I am not so much. But I was
Speaker 1: always really really excited about this car. So he bought it.
Speaker 1: He drove it home from Wisconsin is where we found it,
Speaker 1: and I started driving it to work when it was
Speaker 1: nice outside and you know, it wasn't gonna rain or
Speaker 1: hail or snow or whatever, and I felt so awesome
Speaker 1: in this car. It's like who I feel like, it's
Speaker 1: not you know, I'm driving down everybody's looking at you,
Speaker 1: Like as you drive down the road in an NSX,
Speaker 1: people will come up next to you, like the passenger
Speaker 1: is hanging out of his car with his camera, like
Speaker 1: taking pictures of your car. And it was a perfect specimen.
Speaker 1: It was like the most beautiful type of this car.
Speaker 1: And then I was driving down the expressway and there's
Speaker 1: this guy in this super jecta pickup truck and he
Speaker 1: starts coming over and I'm like, no, no, don't hit me,
Speaker 1: don't hit me, and I'm hugging my horn and he
Speaker 1: finally like sees me at the last minute, and that
Speaker 1: kind of flipped a switch in my head, like you're
Speaker 1: sitting on a pile of forty dollars driving down the
Speaker 1: road and you could get into a car accident and
Speaker 1: ruin it. So I said to Carl, maybe we should
Speaker 1: sell this car. He's like, yeah, I've been thinking about
Speaker 1: that for about six months now, and uh, yeah, we
Speaker 1: should sell it. And then I swear the next day
Speaker 1: a house came on the market that we wanted to
Speaker 1: buy and we needed to close really quickly, and we're like,
Speaker 1: let's sell the car so we can buy a house.
Speaker 1: So for you, it was a car. You know, I
Speaker 1: feel like a lot of people do have that car
Speaker 1: storage old. That's sure something that I feel like you have.
Speaker 1: I I kind of have that story of spending I
Speaker 1: don't know, maybe more money on a vehicle than I
Speaker 1: had ever really wanted to. But you're always pretty good
Speaker 1: about finding those deals, spending a bare minimum amount that
Speaker 1: kind of get you there. Right. I tried, but sometimes
Speaker 1: it bit me. Sometimes I did go too cheap with
Speaker 1: car purchases, that's for sure. Oh I've been there too, Jill. Right. Oh, man,
Speaker 1: like the eight beater, I've I've done that and it
Speaker 1: didn't last me very long. No, it doesn't. Well man,
Speaker 1: do you like he alluded to, you are financially independent.
Speaker 1: You're known online sometimes as and that's because of your
Speaker 1: goal that you and your husband Carl, that you had
Speaker 1: to reach financial independence in fifteen days or less. And
Speaker 1: you know that was a while ago. But where did
Speaker 1: you guys get that that crazy goal? And actually, like,
Speaker 1: how how's it going? Because you don't get to talk
Speaker 1: to folks every day who are financially independent it's going perfect.
Speaker 1: Thanks to have a nice day now. So Carl was
Speaker 1: a software developer. He loves computers almost as much as
Speaker 1: he loves cars, and he loves programming computers. He was
Speaker 1: I was a stay at home mom, and he was
Speaker 1: having a really, really bad day. It turns out there
Speaker 1: was a bug in the code that he was writing.
Speaker 1: And the code that he was writing was for blood
Speaker 1: bank software. So if you have surgery and you need
Speaker 1: units of blood, this software would choose the unit that
Speaker 1: matches with your body, blood type and all this stuff
Speaker 1: so that you don't die, because if you get a
Speaker 1: different unit of blood it's like not compatible in your
Speaker 1: body's like no, we're just going to die instead of
Speaker 1: you know, figuring it out or whatever. Obviously I am
Speaker 1: not a blood person, but having this code that could
Speaker 1: kill somebody really gave him a lot of stress, which
Speaker 1: is kind of the dumbest thing I think I've ever said.
Speaker 1: Writing code that could kill somebody. The code that could
Speaker 1: kill somebody was killing him. Yes, So spoiler alert, he
Speaker 1: didn't write the code, and it turns out there wasn't
Speaker 1: a bug, but for about a week, his whole team
Speaker 1: didn't know that. So he just had all this stress
Speaker 1: and anxiety, and he finally sat down at his computer
Speaker 1: and he just banged out how do I retire early?
Speaker 1: And this little website that probably you've maybe you've not
Speaker 1: heard of, it's called Mr Money Mustache popped up and
Speaker 1: he's reading through. He's like, no way, and he keeps reading.
Speaker 1: He's like, this guy's selling something. What is he selling?
Speaker 1: So he keeps reading, he keeps reading. He's like, wait
Speaker 1: a second, this is just a math problem. This guy
Speaker 1: is laying it out and he laid out the four
Speaker 1: percent rule in a way that Carl had never seen before.
Speaker 1: He's like, oh my god, we could retire really soon.
Speaker 1: And he comes running down the stairs. It's like, hey, hey,
Speaker 1: we can retire in about three years or six years
Speaker 1: or whatever it was. And I'm like, okay, great, because
Speaker 1: I knew how stressed he was about his job. And
Speaker 1: he's like, and I'm going to start a blog about it.
Speaker 1: I'm like, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard of it,
Speaker 1: because why would you Why would you blog about that?
Speaker 1: He only knew of Mr Money Mustache and uh get
Speaker 1: rich Slowly at the time, but he decided he wanted
Speaker 1: to start a blog about it. We figured out our
Speaker 1: current net worth, we projected how long it would take
Speaker 1: us to get to our desired net worth of one
Speaker 1: million dollars in investable assets. Uh, he thought it would
Speaker 1: be about fifteen hundred days. So he was like, well,
Speaker 1: that's the name of our our blog. Great, good luck
Speaker 1: with the blog. I thought he was going to run
Speaker 1: out of things to write about, and he cranks it
Speaker 1: out all the time. So yeah, that's how fifteen hundred
Speaker 1: days came to be. And that goal mindy of something
Speaker 1: specific like days, I gotta imagine that was like a
Speaker 1: driving force the whole time. That being the blog name,
Speaker 1: that being kind of the time period that you guys
Speaker 1: have picked out. That had to be really really helpful
Speaker 1: in kind of nudging you at the times where you
Speaker 1: probably wanted to kind of bow out or stop socking
Speaker 1: away as much money as you were and maybe starts
Speaker 1: spending more today. Did that kind of specific timeframe? Was
Speaker 1: that a big boost in helping you guys continue to
Speaker 1: attack that goal? You know, I'd love to agree with
Speaker 1: you because that sounds way better than saying we're just
Speaker 1: really cheap and we didn't spend a lot of money,
Speaker 1: And we both knew that you needed to invest, so
Speaker 1: we did. And he's a tech guy, so he would
Speaker 1: invest in things that he knew about. He was having
Speaker 1: a problem at work one day, a different problem, and
Speaker 1: he's like, oh, man, I don't know how to do this.
Speaker 1: And his seat mate said, oh, you should google it.
Speaker 1: And he's like, what this is way a long time ago,
Speaker 1: like you should look it up in Google. And Carl's like,
Speaker 1: what is that? So this guy shows him and Carl
Speaker 1: types in his question and there's his answer. He's like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, what is this? What is this amazing
Speaker 1: thing called Google? And when they went public, they did
Speaker 1: this like Dutch auction thing, and he like bid on
Speaker 1: stock and they're like, okay, everybody bid this much or
Speaker 1: this is the average of everybody's bid or whatever the
Speaker 1: stock price is going to be this. So he bought
Speaker 1: a ton of it. And then Facebook came out and
Speaker 1: he bought a ton of that. And you know, we've
Speaker 1: had some duds too, but we've had some really great products.
Speaker 1: And once Apple came out with the iPod, all you
Speaker 1: see everywhere you go is white headphones. Everything else was
Speaker 1: black headphones, but Apple has white headphones. You see white
Speaker 1: headphones and everybody's ears. You're like, Oh, that may be
Speaker 1: a thing, you know, that might be a good stuck Like,
Speaker 1: I think that's gonna be something I don't I don't know,
Speaker 1: just a hunch. Well maybe I have a quick follow
Speaker 1: up though. So we're talking about financial independence. So for
Speaker 1: you guys, like obviously, besides you being able to kind
Speaker 1: of buy the card your dreams for a short period
Speaker 1: of time, they're right, how did financial independence change how
Speaker 1: you guys live? Because of all the folks we've talked
Speaker 1: to who are financially independent, I feel like y'all are
Speaker 1: maybe what I would call the most normal. Like you've
Speaker 1: got a couple of kids, you live in Colorado, Like
Speaker 1: the kids go to school, you're still doing weird stuff
Speaker 1: to make money, which we're gonna talk about a second.
Speaker 1: You guys still live like a super normal life. You
Speaker 1: haven't bought in like your own island or anything like that.
Speaker 1: But but yeah, so how have you realized that financial independence? Like?
Speaker 1: What has that changed? So the biggest change is that
Speaker 1: Carl doesn't have to go to a job that he hates.
Speaker 1: And I think in fire financial independence retire early most
Speaker 1: people focus on the R E. And you know, I
Speaker 1: gotta get to financial dependence so I can quit my job,
Speaker 1: so I can quit my job, And that's what he did.
Speaker 1: But we were financially independent for a while before he
Speaker 1: took the leak, before he actually quit his job, because
Speaker 1: he had a really good paying job. He was making
Speaker 1: six figures, he could work from home. Why would you
Speaker 1: walk away from that? And he didn't know what he
Speaker 1: wanted to do after he quit his job, so he
Speaker 1: just stay for a little bit longer. And then I
Speaker 1: got the job that I have now, working at Bigger Pockets.
Speaker 1: I love my job. I've never had a job that
Speaker 1: I love more. So it was okay for him to
Speaker 1: leave because we sort of had a cushion. I don't
Speaker 1: really feel like I'm working because I get to talk
Speaker 1: about real estate all day long. I get to talk
Speaker 1: about money all day long. I don't have to work there.
Speaker 1: I get to work there. I love going to work.
Speaker 1: I feel guilty when I go to work. You know,
Speaker 1: I'll be leaving the house and the girls are fighting
Speaker 1: with each other and Carl's like wrangling them, and I'm like, see,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go have a good time at the office,
Speaker 1: you know. But I really enjoy what I do. I
Speaker 1: love everybody that I work with. It's just a really
Speaker 1: great experience. So he gets to run his own life.
Speaker 1: You know, he works at we have partnered with that
Speaker 1: very little known blogger Mr money Mustache on a coworking
Speaker 1: space in our town of long Mont. But it's not
Speaker 1: really a job, Like he just really enjoys talking to people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's just hanging out and like he works on the blog,
Speaker 1: he's We just bought a house. Oh, this is a
Speaker 1: good segue. We just bought a dumpy house that we're
Speaker 1: fixing up. So perfect segue. Let's get into that. So
Speaker 1: you guys are still normal people despite having a chief
Speaker 1: financial independence. But you guys are still doing live in
Speaker 1: flips and and we really want to talk a lot
Speaker 1: about selling a home man because you literally wrote the
Speaker 1: book on that. But I'm really really interested in how
Speaker 1: you guys have used the live in flip strategy to
Speaker 1: help build some of that well, to help you a
Speaker 1: chief financial independence. So can you first share with our
Speaker 1: listeners what a live in house flip is? Okay, So
Speaker 1: a flip is when you take an ugly house and
Speaker 1: you make it look beautiful and you sell it. A
Speaker 1: live in flip is when you buy an ugly house,
Speaker 1: you move into it as your primary residence while you
Speaker 1: fix it up. You have to live there for well,
Speaker 1: you don't have to. But I lived there for two years,
Speaker 1: and then when I go to sell it, I pay
Speaker 1: zero dollars in capital gains taxes because it was my
Speaker 1: primary residents. I lived there for two years and I
Speaker 1: pay zero, zero capital gains taxes up to five hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dollars um because of the section exclusion in the
Speaker 1: United States text Code. So I've never hit that five
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars. I'm really excited about this house, not yet,
Speaker 1: not yet. The house that we just moved from. We
Speaker 1: bought four a hundred and seventy six thousand dollars. We
Speaker 1: put about a hundred thousand dollars into it, and I
Speaker 1: could list it today and sell it tomorrow for five
Speaker 1: five I could list it and sell it a little
Speaker 1: bit longer for probably five seventy five or six hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dollars because I've lived in it. Yeah, because I
Speaker 1: lived in it, because I you know, I did all
Speaker 1: the I didn't do all the renovations myself. And when
Speaker 1: I say I, I mean my husband and I we
Speaker 1: did hire some people, like we put a second story on.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of work that you're going to do
Speaker 1: on the side with kids asking for dinner like it's
Speaker 1: a time to eat. It's like, no, I gotta, I
Speaker 1: gotta add the second story to the house. I'll be
Speaker 1: done in in six months. Yeah. Yeah, So um an
Speaker 1: air fire and chicken nuggets are your best friend as
Speaker 1: a live in flipping mom. So that brings us to
Speaker 1: another question about it. Well, and first I want to
Speaker 1: say on the tax thing, you said up to five
Speaker 1: thousand dollars tax free in profit from the living flips,
Speaker 1: and if you're a single individual, that's two fifty dollars.
Speaker 1: Because if you live in a home for two years
Speaker 1: and you sell it, you're not taxed on the gains. Right,
Speaker 1: But if you live in it for less than two years,
Speaker 1: then it's not technically a living flip. It's just a flip,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna pay tax on the profit that you
Speaker 1: make from selling out house. Right, Yes, ish if you
Speaker 1: own the home for less than a year, even if
Speaker 1: you're living in it. I believe it's Texas regular income
Speaker 1: if you sell it after living there for one year
Speaker 1: but not living there for two years. I think it's
Speaker 1: tax as long term capital gains, which I believes. But
Speaker 1: if this affects you, please talk to your c p. A. Okay,
Speaker 1: all right, that's good stuff. Oh it's great advice. Well,
Speaker 1: I want to know more about, like, what was the
Speaker 1: hardest part of living in the home while you're actually
Speaker 1: working on it, right, because obviously you weren't in its
Speaker 1: while that second story was being put on. Right. Oh, yes,
Speaker 1: I was. Are you serious? Okay, Well, first of all,
Speaker 1: I want to know about that. But I mean, the
Speaker 1: reason why I asked this is because we added onto
Speaker 1: our home, my wife and I and our kids. We
Speaker 1: lived through a home renovation and man, it was one
Speaker 1: of the hardest things we've ever done. So we've always
Speaker 1: lived in our flips because we're cheap and we're not
Speaker 1: going to pay rent at one place, or you know,
Speaker 1: pay a mortgage in one place and pay a mortgage
Speaker 1: in another place. We could just live there. We chose
Speaker 1: to live in flip in Colorado in the winter time
Speaker 1: because that's when the construction workers were available, so that
Speaker 1: was freezing cold. Um, it's out for everybody. I can
Speaker 1: sit here and make it sound really, really awesome, because
Speaker 1: when I cash a check for a hundred thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: that makes me happy. Not every flip is going to
Speaker 1: give you a hundred thousand dollars in profit. But once
Speaker 1: once you sell it, it's really easy to be like, oh,
Speaker 1: that wasn't so bad. It's like old birth. You have
Speaker 1: a baby and you're like, oh, my goodness, it hurts
Speaker 1: so much to have a baby, and then once the
Speaker 1: baby comes out, you're like, oh, I love this baby.
Speaker 1: I can totally do it again. So you just forget
Speaker 1: about the pain. But it is a mess, like it is, Oh,
Speaker 1: plan to be out of the house during drywall day
Speaker 1: and hire somebody to come and clean it for you
Speaker 1: when you're done, because that's the messiest part. But you know,
Speaker 1: when you you pull the dry wall down to you know,
Speaker 1: do whatever you're doing behind the walls, you still have
Speaker 1: outer walls, so it's not like the whole house is
Speaker 1: ripped apart and there's varying levels of living flipping. You
Speaker 1: can do just a cosmetic flip right now. The house
Speaker 1: that we're in, Oh my goodness, we got such a
Speaker 1: smoking hot deal on it, but it's basically cosmetic. I
Speaker 1: have an ugly kitchen, but I can use it. Like
Speaker 1: the cabinets still holds stuff and the all the appliances
Speaker 1: are new, but the cabinets are really ugly. The countertop
Speaker 1: is this white tile countertop, and I've been living in
Speaker 1: my house, my other house for about five years now
Speaker 1: with the solid surface countertops, so having a tile countertop
Speaker 1: and like, wow, why did they ever do these? Like
Speaker 1: all the grout gets all dirty and growth. Of course
Speaker 1: it's it's it's the worst well many, I mean, that's
Speaker 1: something that we haven't really talked about on the show much,
Speaker 1: is living flips. But I love it because I think
Speaker 1: there are a lot of people that after hearing you
Speaker 1: know how you do it and the money that can
Speaker 1: be made from it. Men, living flips are just an
Speaker 1: awesome way to go for a lot of people, especially
Speaker 1: if you're okay dealing with the mess while you're doing it.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I love hearing that party story. But you
Speaker 1: really really want to get into selling a home and
Speaker 1: helping people figure out how to do that, especially considering
Speaker 1: this is Erring in February. A lot of people are
Speaker 1: thinking about selling their homes. So we're going to get
Speaker 1: into that right after the break, all right, We're back
Speaker 1: from the break and we're talking with Mindy Jensen about
Speaker 1: selling your house for top dollar and Joel, like you mentioned,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of folks are considering selling their house.
Speaker 1: It's kind of at the beginning of the year, the
Speaker 1: ramping up. It's about to be spring. So maybe that's
Speaker 1: our question for you next, is when is the best
Speaker 1: time to sell a house? You know, we've seen the
Speaker 1: stories about how the spring season it seems to be
Speaker 1: the hottest time to sell the houses that start, and
Speaker 1: it's starting earlier. Maybe I don't know. I've seen stories
Speaker 1: about spring housing sing season starting in January this year
Speaker 1: because there's so much pent up demand. Yeah, so okay,
Speaker 1: maybe you remember back in two thousand and eight there
Speaker 1: were there was this housing crash because people were losing
Speaker 1: their jobs. They weren't buying and selling houses. When you're
Speaker 1: not buying and selling existing houses, you're not building new houses.
Speaker 1: So there is this huge glut of people who want
Speaker 1: to move but can't because there's nothing on the market
Speaker 1: where they want to move, but they can't because they
Speaker 1: don't have a job. And now they finally have a job,
Speaker 1: and all these people want to move. I've seen the
Speaker 1: last three four what years, awes, so probably the last
Speaker 1: four years. Every spring, and I live in Colorado where
Speaker 1: spring selling season starts in February. Every spring, there is
Speaker 1: just this mad rush of people to put their house
Speaker 1: on the market so that they can go find another house.
Speaker 1: So the best time of the year to sell is
Speaker 1: during the spring selling season because that's when the most
Speaker 1: people are looking. So, you know, economic basic law of
Speaker 1: supply and demand. The most people are looking, the more
Speaker 1: demand there will be for your property. I just helped
Speaker 1: somebody buy a house. We closed on December. There were
Speaker 1: no other offers on this property because nobody is looking
Speaker 1: between Thanksgiving and Christmas, Like that's the worst time to
Speaker 1: try and sell a house. But now is the best
Speaker 1: time to try and sell a house. If you have
Speaker 1: a house to sell, you need to get it on
Speaker 1: the market as soon as you can, and you need
Speaker 1: to have it looking as good as possible now. If
Speaker 1: it needs a brand new kitchen and a brand new
Speaker 1: bathroom and all the things that it needs, it can
Speaker 1: still be clean. Obviously, the nicest house is going to
Speaker 1: sell for the top dollar, But the cleanest house is
Speaker 1: going to sell before the dirty house, and it's going
Speaker 1: to sell for more money than the dirty house will.
Speaker 1: So the best time to sell is in the spring.
Speaker 1: You want to know what it is you're selling for.
Speaker 1: If you've got a job transfer, you kind of don't
Speaker 1: have a lot of leverage selling your property. If you
Speaker 1: have a new baby on the way and you're living
Speaker 1: in a one bedroom condo, you kind of don't have
Speaker 1: a lot of leverage. But if you just want to
Speaker 1: sell because you're sick of living here, you know, oh,
Speaker 1: maybe we want a bigger house, you have a lot
Speaker 1: more leverage and you can be more choosy with with
Speaker 1: what offer you accept. Yeah, so so you say leverage,
Speaker 1: What do you mean by that? Is it just kind
Speaker 1: of like you said, is it being picky about about
Speaker 1: the offers and just waiting longer? Or or yeah, what
Speaker 1: do you what do you mean by that? Yeah? Well,
Speaker 1: so let's let's use the one where you have a
Speaker 1: baby on the way. You have a one bedroom condo,
Speaker 1: you feel like it's not big enough for you. You You
Speaker 1: need to buy a new house. You moving with a
Speaker 1: three week old baby is a terrible idea. Ask me,
Speaker 1: I've done that twice, stupid. Um. So you want to
Speaker 1: move before the baby comes so you feel more pressured
Speaker 1: to accept whatever offers out there. So that's really what
Speaker 1: I mean by leverage. Whereas, when if you decide, you know, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm going to sell my house I'm sick of it.
Speaker 1: When somebody comes in with a really crappy offer, you
Speaker 1: can be like, no, I'm not going to accept that,
Speaker 1: and you can either pull it off the market or
Speaker 1: figure it out wait for a better offer. Well, in
Speaker 1: your opinion, mindy, what are the biggest differences between selling
Speaker 1: an owner occupied property, like it's my personal home, I
Speaker 1: live in it, versus an investment property that someone selling.
Speaker 1: Oh so, Well, an owner occupied property, you have more
Speaker 1: control over what the property looks like. Obviously, if you're
Speaker 1: trying to get top dollar for it, you're gonna make
Speaker 1: it look as nice as possible. You're not going to
Speaker 1: leave dirty dishes in the sink and crumbs on the floor.
Speaker 1: Whereas if you're selling, you might surprise you a filthy animal. Okay,
Speaker 1: everybody else listening would not do that. Don't be like Joel. So,
Speaker 1: if you're trying to sell an investment property that has
Speaker 1: tenants in it, it's not going to show as nice
Speaker 1: because your tenants are probably not going to care about
Speaker 1: the appearance as much as you are. So you know,
Speaker 1: it's kind of a what should you do? Should you
Speaker 1: wait until the tenants are out and then try to
Speaker 1: sell it, but then you're not so you're not getting
Speaker 1: rental income from that during the time that there's no
Speaker 1: tenants in there. Or do you try and sell it
Speaker 1: with tenants in there and just say, hey, there's tenants. Sorry.
Speaker 1: You know that's uh, that's a bit of a gamble there.
Speaker 1: When you're selling a house that you flipped, especially if
Speaker 1: you haven't lived there, you want to stage the house.
Speaker 1: You want to have really nice furniture in there and
Speaker 1: make it look as nice as possible because you are
Speaker 1: trying to get the highest dollar for that. Gotcha? Well,
Speaker 1: so many So let's say someone has decided that they
Speaker 1: want to go ahead and sell their home, like you mentioned,
Speaker 1: to have it clean right step one? You laugh, you laugh,
Speaker 1: But that become a real estate agent and you will
Speaker 1: walk into these homes. Did they did they not know
Speaker 1: I was coming today? But on that note, right, what
Speaker 1: are some of the other things that need to be
Speaker 1: done to the physical house, to the property in order
Speaker 1: to get it ready for the listing? Okay, so if
Speaker 1: you are listening to the show something's wrong with your house.
Speaker 1: The door knob doesn't open right, or you have to
Speaker 1: like lift up the sliding glass door to get it
Speaker 1: to close, or like whatever. Fix that that's gonna show
Speaker 1: up in the home inspection. The buyer is going to
Speaker 1: discover it at some point. Fix those weird little things
Speaker 1: that you know you should be doing. You know how
Speaker 1: you have that window that like doesn't close quite all
Speaker 1: the way and you have to hit it from the outside.
Speaker 1: Like fix all those things, because that's just gonna cost
Speaker 1: you money later when you're listing your house. There's this
Speaker 1: thing called a material defect. Material defect can also be
Speaker 1: pronounced very expensive to fix. You need to disclose those
Speaker 1: if you know or if you should have known, Like
Speaker 1: the roof is leaking, there's black mold in the root
Speaker 1: in the attic, you should have known that there's black mold.
Speaker 1: Get up there and look at it. You should fix
Speaker 1: that or disclose that. That's an issue. If you don't
Speaker 1: and the buyer can prove that you knew about it
Speaker 1: and didn't disclose, they can sue you, and they they'll
Speaker 1: probably win, which is kind of a scary thing. I
Speaker 1: probably kind of derailed this show there. But you know,
Speaker 1: fix the little things. The broken tile in the kitchen,
Speaker 1: replace the tile, put linoleum in, fix that one tile.
Speaker 1: You know, make the house look as nice as possible,
Speaker 1: because you're going to get lowbald on the offer price.
Speaker 1: If you don't, well, I think you're Yeah, you're completely
Speaker 1: right on that. And I think one of the things
Speaker 1: that we have a problem with a humans, it's like,
Speaker 1: we look at our house and it's harder to see
Speaker 1: the faults, and so we almost maybe even need a
Speaker 1: friend to come in and pick our house apart to
Speaker 1: a certain extent, so that we know what to fix, right,
Speaker 1: can't they can't that be helpful? Yes, an honest friend Exactly.
Speaker 1: You don't want some yes man friend, but you want
Speaker 1: somebody to come in and be like, hey, it smells
Speaker 1: like you have a petting zoo in your house. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: If you have a cat of the time, it smells
Speaker 1: like you have a cat in your house. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: probably not gonna buy your house if you have a cat. Exactly.
Speaker 1: If you have you know your buyer might have allergies.
Speaker 1: If you have a dog, oh my goodness, please don't
Speaker 1: leave your dog at your house during a showing, have
Speaker 1: a neighbor come over and walk the dog or take
Speaker 1: them to their house, or even board the dog, especially
Speaker 1: if you're first listing the house. I went into a house.
Speaker 1: You knock on the door and you hear these dogs bark,
Speaker 1: and you're like, what is going on here? You open
Speaker 1: the door. Five of the biggest dogs I have ever seen,
Speaker 1: like it behind a baby gate in the master bedroom,
Speaker 1: and all I can think of is they're going to
Speaker 1: knock down that gate and come attack me. We didn't
Speaker 1: even go in, Like, don't have animals in your house
Speaker 1: when you're trying to sell the house. And if you
Speaker 1: do clean the litter box every day, like wipe up
Speaker 1: after the dog, you know, pick everything up. Just the
Speaker 1: cleanest house is going to sell. The nicest smelling house
Speaker 1: is gonna sell. And you can tell when there is
Speaker 1: like those little glade plugins, you can tell when that's
Speaker 1: covering up the smell of a dog. So so when
Speaker 1: we're talking about getting these repairs done right, you have
Speaker 1: your picky friend come in and be like, yo, your
Speaker 1: house is not up the snuff and eat some work.
Speaker 1: Do you have any suggestions, any guidelines on how people
Speaker 1: should go about thinking about doing repairs themselves or hiring
Speaker 1: someone to do them. Should they be kind of trying
Speaker 1: to tackle the little stuff on their own and and
Speaker 1: saving that money for the bigger things that might be
Speaker 1: wrong with your house? Or what do you think how
Speaker 1: should we handle that? Well, let's look at what's really
Speaker 1: wrong with your house. If your paint needs touched up.
Speaker 1: Anybody can paint. You can get a pap brush and
Speaker 1: a count to paint, and you know, touch up the
Speaker 1: little spots that your kids knocked into. Anybody can clean,
Speaker 1: anybody can back you. There's things that you should do yourself.
Speaker 1: If you have a leaky faucet, you should call a plumber.
Speaker 1: If you have you know, you want to change out
Speaker 1: all the electrical fixtures, like all the light fixtures because
Speaker 1: they're old and brass and kind of outdated. Have those ready,
Speaker 1: but call it professional and you know, spend the money
Speaker 1: on that. Now. I am a big d I Y person,
Speaker 1: and I would say that electricity isn't that hard. But
Speaker 1: the time to learn how to wire a house is
Speaker 1: not when you're going to sell it. Maybe on your
Speaker 1: own time and your own property. I'm watching those YouTube
Speaker 1: videos trying to become an amateur electrician. I think I
Speaker 1: got this. That's probably not gonna work out. I'm recording
Speaker 1: this in my office where I just installed six can
Speaker 1: lights all by my big girl self. That's totally impressive.
Speaker 1: I've personally, I've never installed electrical for me. It just
Speaker 1: totally scares me. Like we've talked about this before on
Speaker 1: the show, because I have not sat down and actually
Speaker 1: learned it. But I think once you know what, you
Speaker 1: know it and you can feel confident. But I lack
Speaker 1: that confidence right now. Well, I will invite you over
Speaker 1: because I have a lot of electricity work to do
Speaker 1: in my house, So come over any time and I
Speaker 1: will rearrange my rehab schedule to do lights, outlets or whatever.
Speaker 1: But I will say I should caveat this with My
Speaker 1: father in law is an electrician, so he has shown
Speaker 1: me how to do things. He showed he showed Carl
Speaker 1: how to do things, and then Carl showed me how
Speaker 1: to do things. Step number one, turn off the electricity
Speaker 1: at the breaker. The real question is is how come
Speaker 1: you are the one doing all the electrical work and
Speaker 1: it's not Carl. He's the one that's got the electrician heritage.
Speaker 1: So well, because I was thinking a YouTube video for
Speaker 1: bigger pockets doing it for work. Well, so I have
Speaker 1: a related question them and you real quick. So, I
Speaker 1: mean we're talking about repairs, right, like the things that
Speaker 1: you need to get your your house basically up to
Speaker 1: up to par. When does it make sense or does
Speaker 1: it ever make sense to make improvements on the property
Speaker 1: just for resale? Like you know, you hear people doing
Speaker 1: that where they've had the worst countertops for the twenty
Speaker 1: years that they lived there, or or even just a
Speaker 1: few years. But then right before they sell it, you know,
Speaker 1: they go through all these small renovations to get it
Speaker 1: ready for the listing. Does that ever make sense to
Speaker 1: go ahead and do those things? Yes? Would you like
Speaker 1: me to elaborate? Of course, please please. So you walk
Speaker 1: into a house and it's got a decent layout. You
Speaker 1: like the kitchen, you like the bathrooms, but you cannot
Speaker 1: get over the fact that every single wall is painted
Speaker 1: fluorescent orange. If you're selling this property, your agents should
Speaker 1: come in and tell you you have to repaint all
Speaker 1: of this. Nobody's going to buy this house in this
Speaker 1: fluorescent orange. You can actually get a really big discount
Speaker 1: on a property just because they didn't paint. What what
Speaker 1: about those bigger improvements like potentially remodeling a bathroom or
Speaker 1: or completely redoing a kitchen. Oftentimes, you know what you
Speaker 1: read is your return dollar for dollar. It's not going
Speaker 1: to make enough of a difference, right Like you're you're
Speaker 1: making sixty cents on the dollar when you renovate a kitchen,
Speaker 1: or seventy cents on the dollar when you renovate a bathroom.
Speaker 1: So does it ever make sense to do a bigger
Speaker 1: remodel like that before you sell the house. I think
Speaker 1: it makes sense if you are doing the work yourself.
Speaker 1: So we just did a bathroom here in the house.
Speaker 1: It cost us a thousand dollars. We pulled out I
Speaker 1: don't know why they do this, but in Colorado they
Speaker 1: carpet the bathrooms were disgusting. So we pulled out the carpet,
Speaker 1: We pulled off the wallpaper. We put a new vanity,
Speaker 1: a new toilet, tiled the floors, painted the walls, and
Speaker 1: then behind the toilet and vanity, we put this kind
Speaker 1: of like ship lap board up. All of the materials
Speaker 1: were a thousand dollars plus. You know, time, I don't
Speaker 1: think about the time. I know a lot of people
Speaker 1: are like, oh, you need to pay yourself. Well, I
Speaker 1: just remodeled the bathroom for a thousand dollars. I don't
Speaker 1: what to put, like my time into it is different
Speaker 1: if you are getting ready to sell your house, a
Speaker 1: carpeted bathroom versus a tile bathroom. The tile bathroom is
Speaker 1: going to make the house sell faster. I'm gonna look
Speaker 1: at that carpet and think that's disgusting. It's got mold,
Speaker 1: it's got you're in stains, Like, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: disgustingness in a bathroom. I wanted to be crisp and clean,
Speaker 1: and that's what the new one looks like. So if
Speaker 1: you're doing the work yourself, you should absolutely consider doing
Speaker 1: that before you put the house on the market. But
Speaker 1: again going back to your why are you selling it?
Speaker 1: Because you've got a baby coming, you really don't have
Speaker 1: time to put that work into it. It took us
Speaker 1: a whole week. But Karl doesn't have a job, so,
Speaker 1: and I say that lovingly. He is retired, but I
Speaker 1: sometimes call him unemployed. I'm sure he loves that too, right,
Speaker 1: He's like, do you that make you feel bad? He's like, no,
Speaker 1: I don't care. Well, I mean we're talking about, you know,
Speaker 1: being able to get a lot of money from selling
Speaker 1: your home, and so one of the ways that you
Speaker 1: might be able to save money when it comes to
Speaker 1: selling your house is to do a for sale by owner.
Speaker 1: And so we're gonna get to vats uh and a
Speaker 1: few other things right after the break. All right, we're
Speaker 1: back from the break. We're talking with our good friend
Speaker 1: Mindy Jensen about how to sell a home and get
Speaker 1: top dollar for that home. And maybe we just talked
Speaker 1: about how somebody's house their property, it's all set up
Speaker 1: and ready to go, hopefully now they've made the repairs,
Speaker 1: they've decluttered, they've cleaned it. So let's get into who
Speaker 1: is going to sell the house. So what's your take?
Speaker 1: How do you feel about selling a home by owner?
Speaker 1: Should fizbo be a legit consideration or is that just
Speaker 1: like a stupid move for people? Yes to both that
Speaker 1: all the above Joel's favorite dancer. So, I am a
Speaker 1: licensed real estate agent in the state of Colorado, and
Speaker 1: if you'd like to buy a home, give me a call.
Speaker 1: But I also wasn't a licensed real estate agent in
Speaker 1: any state, and I did sell my house for sale
Speaker 1: by owner, and a lot of people want to put
Speaker 1: the time in to sell their house by themselves. They
Speaker 1: want to saved the commission. Uh, it is a violation
Speaker 1: of the Sherman Anti Trust to say that the going
Speaker 1: rate is whatever. But typically a real estate commission goes
Speaker 1: for between two and a half and three percent per side.
Speaker 1: So there's the selling agent and the buying agent. So
Speaker 1: around five and a half or five to six percent
Speaker 1: of the sales price goes to the real estate agents.
Speaker 1: So some people look at that and they think, oh
Speaker 1: my goodness, I'm going to sell my house for four
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars. I have to give somebody twenty to
Speaker 1: two thousand dollars to do this. I'll just do it myself.
Speaker 1: I understand that I was in that same boat. And
Speaker 1: if you're willing to put in the work, you're willing
Speaker 1: to do the showings, you're willing to do the advertising,
Speaker 1: you're willing to you know, accept the contract and read
Speaker 1: through all the stipulations and all of that, then FSBO
Speaker 1: is a really valid way to sell your house. If
Speaker 1: you're not willing to do that, if you don't have
Speaker 1: the time to do that, you're too busy, you don't
Speaker 1: feel comfortable doing that, you should use a real estate agent.
Speaker 1: The eye buying is not something that I really have
Speaker 1: a lot of experience with. This is your like your
Speaker 1: Zillos and your open doors and that kind of thing
Speaker 1: where somebody will you list. You say I want to
Speaker 1: sell my house. They say, hey, will buy your house.
Speaker 1: Here's the price will give you. And they say, you know,
Speaker 1: we'll give you four thousand dollars for your house, minus
Speaker 1: a ten percent commission minus these repairs are going to
Speaker 1: cost twar so minus that, minus minus this, minus this,
Speaker 1: and in the end you typically end up with less
Speaker 1: money in your pocket than if you went with the
Speaker 1: traditional agent or you sold it for sale by owner.
Speaker 1: It all goes back to your why why are you
Speaker 1: selling the house? Are you selling it because you need
Speaker 1: to get out of it right away, or are you
Speaker 1: selling it because you're sick of it. When you list
Speaker 1: with a traditional real estate agent, they put it on
Speaker 1: the MLS or the Multiple Listing service. It makes it
Speaker 1: available in a database to every real estate agent. So
Speaker 1: if you're looking to get the most eyeballs on your property,
Speaker 1: that's the way to go. But when you do that,
Speaker 1: you're you know, you're giving up five to six percent
Speaker 1: of the sales price. If you want to go for
Speaker 1: sale by owner, you can list the property you plan
Speaker 1: to sign in your front yard, you have an open
Speaker 1: house yourself, you can start marketing the property and it
Speaker 1: doesn't start counting days on market, which is an indicator
Speaker 1: of how long the house has been for sale when
Speaker 1: it's on the MLS. As soon as you put it
Speaker 1: on the market, that's one day on market. And the
Speaker 1: MLS seems to be one of the most important things
Speaker 1: when you're listening at home right that's where all the
Speaker 1: agents go in order to know how which homes to
Speaker 1: show to their clients. So how important is it to
Speaker 1: be on the MLS. And if you are attempting to
Speaker 1: do for sale by owner, is there a way that
Speaker 1: those people can get their home on the MLS? Yes,
Speaker 1: there is, joll Yeah. Being on the MLS is where
Speaker 1: all the agents go. Um, that's where I go when
Speaker 1: somebody calls me up and says, hey, I want to
Speaker 1: look for a property, Let me go to the MLS.
Speaker 1: Let me show you all the poties that are listed
Speaker 1: right now, and I get them a list based on
Speaker 1: their sales price or how many bedrooms they want or whatever.
Speaker 1: I can send them a list and they go through
Speaker 1: it and they're like, oh, I want to see these
Speaker 1: three houses. I don't have the time to knock on
Speaker 1: everybody's door in the city that we're looking at to
Speaker 1: see if they're interested in selling their house. I don't
Speaker 1: have time to drive around and look for for sale
Speaker 1: by owner signs, and I don't go on Craigslist and
Speaker 1: all those other ways to find for sale by owner properties.
Speaker 1: I go to the MLS because that's where the majority
Speaker 1: of the properties are. I want to say, but it
Speaker 1: kind of sounds like I'm just making that up, so
Speaker 1: I'll just say homes are on the MLS. If you
Speaker 1: want the most eyeballs on your property, you want to
Speaker 1: be on the MLS. There is a way to have
Speaker 1: your cake and eat it too. You can be for
Speaker 1: sale by owner with a flat fee MLS listing service.
Speaker 1: So you pay a real estate agent a flat fee
Speaker 1: thousand dollars to put your property on the MLS. They
Speaker 1: don't take care of showings, they don't care take care
Speaker 1: of negotiations, they don't take care of anything. All they
Speaker 1: do is listed on the MLS for you, So you
Speaker 1: get all the eyeballs. But you're still just doing all
Speaker 1: the showings yourself. Remember I said that it's two and
Speaker 1: a half to three percent per side approximately, So if
Speaker 1: you're not offering the buyer's agent some sort of incentive
Speaker 1: to sell your house, they may not show it. I
Speaker 1: think this is kind of a jerky move. You should
Speaker 1: show the house that your clients want to see, and
Speaker 1: legally you're supposed to show the house that your clients
Speaker 1: want to see, regardless of the remuneration to yourself. But
Speaker 1: there's no law that says what order you have to
Speaker 1: show houses in. So the house that offers, you know,
Speaker 1: one percent selling commission, it's probably gonna get shown last,
Speaker 1: if at all. If you know the oh, that's like
Speaker 1: the FISBO route right for see by owner. If you
Speaker 1: know that that's not going to work out for you,
Speaker 1: You've got a full time job, you don't have a
Speaker 1: lot of time to devote to the move. It sounds
Speaker 1: like maybe going with a real estate agent that that
Speaker 1: might make the most sense, But how do you go
Speaker 1: about finding the right one? Like what questions should you
Speaker 1: be asking specific agents when you're when you're interviewing them. Essentially,
Speaker 1: you should interview your agent and you should interview a
Speaker 1: lot of agents. You shouldn't just like drive past somebody's
Speaker 1: sign and be like, oh, I've seen that before. I'll
Speaker 1: call that person. You should absolutely question your agents. What
Speaker 1: would you list my property at? If they answer that
Speaker 1: over the phone, I'd be really leering. You need to
Speaker 1: come and see my house. You need to see all
Speaker 1: of these amazing improvements that I've done. You need to
Speaker 1: see the house itself, walk the house, you know, smell
Speaker 1: the house, listen to the house, and be in the
Speaker 1: house in order to give me a price. How did
Speaker 1: you come up with that price? Oh, I really think
Speaker 1: that this price will work. A property doesn't sell for
Speaker 1: what you think it's worth. Of property cells based on comps,
Speaker 1: and a comp is a comparable property located near the
Speaker 1: property that you're trying to sell. Similar in bedrooms and bathrooms,
Speaker 1: and you know, so similar in layout, similar in condition.
Speaker 1: That's a comparable that has sold recently. So if you
Speaker 1: can if your agent, your potential agent says, oh, I
Speaker 1: can get you four hundred thousand dollars because I just
Speaker 1: know that the market's going up, so I know we
Speaker 1: can get this. Well, why do you know that? Show
Speaker 1: me proof that that's what can happen because that's what
Speaker 1: the appraisers are going by. When you get a loan
Speaker 1: from a bank, they don't just give you a giant
Speaker 1: pile of cash. They make sure that the property that
Speaker 1: you're buying is worth that much money. So they're going
Speaker 1: to send an appraiser out. If the appraisal comes back low,
Speaker 1: they're not going to give you a loan. Let's say
Speaker 1: you have the property under contract for four hundred thousand
Speaker 1: dollars and the appraisal comes back at three. The bank
Speaker 1: is not going to give you a loan for four
Speaker 1: hundred thousand. They're going to give you a loan for
Speaker 1: three seventy five. And you have to come up with
Speaker 1: the difference. You have to ask the seller to drop
Speaker 1: the price or you have to walk away. So I
Speaker 1: think asking the agent how they came to the price
Speaker 1: that they came with is a good a good first step.
Speaker 1: When you know, if everybody's saying, oh, i'll listen for
Speaker 1: three seventy five and this agent says i'll listen for
Speaker 1: four hundred, A lot of times agents will say that
Speaker 1: to get the listing, and then when it doesn't sell,
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, you should drop the price. At three
Speaker 1: seventy five. Well, by that time, you've already got the
Speaker 1: days on market, your listing is considered stale, you've dropped
Speaker 1: the price, so you start to look a little desperate.
Speaker 1: So you definitely want to know how they came about
Speaker 1: that price before you sign a paper with them. You
Speaker 1: want to know how they communicate. You want somebody who
Speaker 1: communicates the way that you communicate. And if all you
Speaker 1: want to do is have phone calls, you don't want
Speaker 1: an agent who text you and emails you, and that's
Speaker 1: you know, this valid. However you want to communicate is valid.
Speaker 1: But you need to find somebody who communicates the way
Speaker 1: that you can communicate. How long have you been an agent,
Speaker 1: You could be very experienced, be part of a team,
Speaker 1: and then you're never going to actually work with Mindy
Speaker 1: Jensen the agent. You're going to work with one of
Speaker 1: her underlings because Mindy is so busy she can't work
Speaker 1: with you. If you want to work with Mindy, you
Speaker 1: want to make sure that you want to work with Mindy.
Speaker 1: If you don't care, if you just want her name
Speaker 1: on your sign you know, and that's fine too. If
Speaker 1: you just got your license, that doesn't necessarily mean that
Speaker 1: you don't know anything. I've been buying and selling real
Speaker 1: estate personally for twenty two years, but I have been
Speaker 1: a licensed agent for six years. So when I first
Speaker 1: got my license, I still knew a lot more than
Speaker 1: a lot of agents who had been doing it for
Speaker 1: a while, just because I had the personal experience. So
Speaker 1: having a newbie agent isn't necessarily a bad thing. You
Speaker 1: just need to know that that's what you're getting into.
Speaker 1: That's a great advice for picking the right agent. Maybe
Speaker 1: that's a lot of stuff to a lot of check marks.
Speaker 1: I think people can then look to to hit in
Speaker 1: order to make sure that the person they're hiring to
Speaker 1: do this really really important job that could potentially save
Speaker 1: or cost them in the tens of thousands of dollar range,
Speaker 1: to make sure they're getting the right person on their side.
Speaker 1: So I think that's some great stuff I want to
Speaker 1: talk about, like market conditions for a second. To me personally,
Speaker 1: I'm not currently planning on selling any of the homes
Speaker 1: that my primary or any of my rental properties anytime soon,
Speaker 1: but I guess I have this question for you, like
Speaker 1: should I be considering selling something because when the market
Speaker 1: conditions are ripe for a seller. Should somebody that hasn't
Speaker 1: thought about selling home maybe start to consider selling based
Speaker 1: on market conditions alone? Like, what do you think about that? Wow,
Speaker 1: that's a really interesting conundrum because I do believe that
Speaker 1: with uh not getting too political, we have an unstable
Speaker 1: political climate in Washington, and that can affect the housing market.
Speaker 1: That can affect the general economy of the United States.
Speaker 1: At this time that we're recording, we have some issues
Speaker 1: with Iran right now, and that could affect you know,
Speaker 1: the economy and the general market, the world market. If
Speaker 1: you want to sell, maybe now's a great time to sell.
Speaker 1: But why do you want to sell? You just said
Speaker 1: you're not interested in selling. Why would you sell? Why
Speaker 1: would you move to a new market? I personally have moved.
Speaker 1: This is my home, so to me, it's not a
Speaker 1: big deal to move. But I'm also not gosh, well,
Speaker 1: what do flips of every two years? You can rack
Speaker 1: a lot of them up. But like, I wouldn't necessarily
Speaker 1: just say move for the sake of moving. If you
Speaker 1: want to move to a new school district, if you
Speaker 1: want to move to a bigger home or a smaller home,
Speaker 1: now certainly a good time to start thinking about selling.
Speaker 1: But you know, if you're not thinking about selling, if
Speaker 1: it's not in your plans, then you don't have to,
Speaker 1: you know, except the first offer that comes your way.
Speaker 1: You don't have to accept an offer that you don't like.
Speaker 1: I don't know. You can always put your house on zillo,
Speaker 1: make me move, Carl put Carl put our house on Zillo,
Speaker 1: make me move at six dollars and somebody reached out
Speaker 1: to him, I'm moving to Longmont and I need a house.
Speaker 1: Can I buy yours? And like, no, we don't have
Speaker 1: any place to move to. I think that's a great
Speaker 1: way to think about it. Like if you put it
Speaker 1: this just astronomical price on something like Zillo, make me move,
Speaker 1: and someone is willing to pay that price, something that's
Speaker 1: you know, above normal market conditions, and you're like, I'd
Speaker 1: be happy to sell it if I was able to
Speaker 1: get that much, but it's just not likely. Then I
Speaker 1: think that's a reason to sell potentially. But yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I just think it's interesting that with these conditions where
Speaker 1: there is just this incredibly low supply, rates are so low,
Speaker 1: especially when we're talking about the cheaper homes, the starter homes,
Speaker 1: there's just not enough of them out there for buyers,
Speaker 1: and so the prices have just gotten jacked up in
Speaker 1: a big way. And it will be interesting to see
Speaker 1: what happens over the next few years, because I have
Speaker 1: a feeling that's not sustainable. I completely agree. And it
Speaker 1: goes back to two thousand eight and two thousand nine
Speaker 1: and two builders stopped building houses. They went out of business,
Speaker 1: and they didn't come back when the market changed, and
Speaker 1: now there's a favorable housing market, the builders have found
Speaker 1: new jobs and they didn't come back. There's a builder,
Speaker 1: a couple of builders in my area that will give
Speaker 1: you a job, train, you pay you while you're being trained,
Speaker 1: and then you have to sign like a one or
Speaker 1: two year contract with them to work for them building houses.
Speaker 1: But they'll teach you framing and electric and plumbing and
Speaker 1: roofing and like all the things that go into being
Speaker 1: a home builder because they can't find anybody to hire.
Speaker 1: So it's not sustainable to have these these starter homes
Speaker 1: growing up so crazy, but there were so many homes
Speaker 1: that weren't being built. Now that everybody has jobs again
Speaker 1: and every the economy is humming along, there's no place
Speaker 1: to buy, so you pay more because that's the only
Speaker 1: house is there, and you pay more in order to
Speaker 1: get the house. And the homes that are currently being
Speaker 1: built seemed to be in the higher end. The all
Speaker 1: the apartments and and I want to say all, but
Speaker 1: most of the homes and apartments that are currently being
Speaker 1: built are on the more expensive side. And that's just
Speaker 1: because there's more incentive right now, especially in this economy,
Speaker 1: to provide those types of housing, and so there's just
Speaker 1: not much in the low end. And because of that,
Speaker 1: it's really jack those prices up a great deal, right,
Speaker 1: And I mean, how much does it cost to frame
Speaker 1: a wall? You can buy like you order the framed
Speaker 1: wall from the wall framing company or whatever. It comes
Speaker 1: to you. It's a twenty by four wall already framed out.
Speaker 1: You just slap it together, you slip it's pennies more.
Speaker 1: It's like printing a T shirt. It costs twenty dollars
Speaker 1: to print one T shirt, but to print twenty T shirts,
Speaker 1: it's like print fifty T shirts. It's like twenty eight dollars.
Speaker 1: It's the all the setup and all the you know,
Speaker 1: all of that. So once you get people to crank
Speaker 1: out a house, I will pay more are for a
Speaker 1: five bedroom house, then I will a two bedroom house.
Speaker 1: But the builder doesn't cost it doesn't cost that much
Speaker 1: more to build a five bedroom house versus a two
Speaker 1: bedroom house. So why would I Why would I build
Speaker 1: these little houses that I'm not making much money on
Speaker 1: when I could build these big houses that I make
Speaker 1: a ton of money on. Yeah, so true. Mendy, Hey,
Speaker 1: this has been a fantastic conversation. I think our listeners
Speaker 1: are going to get a lot out of this, especially
Speaker 1: the ones who are actually considering selling their home. And again,
Speaker 1: we're gonna give away a bunch of copies of your book,
Speaker 1: How to Sell Your Home, which is essentially, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a guide and it'll take our listeners step by
Speaker 1: step through the entire process of you know, thinking through
Speaker 1: why it is that you're selling, you know, through the
Speaker 1: entire process. We touched on a lot of those topics,
Speaker 1: but there is way more to it than what we
Speaker 1: just discussed. And Mandy, we mentioned the podcast that you host.
Speaker 1: Where specifically can folks find you online? I am all
Speaker 1: over Bigger Pockets dot com. I'm the community manager there,
Speaker 1: so I am all over the forums. You can if
Speaker 1: you are not a member of Bigger Pockets and want
Speaker 1: to join. I will be your first colleague. I am
Speaker 1: also on every social media platform except for TikTok because
Speaker 1: I don't understand that one yet. Um, and I am
Speaker 1: dollars can teach you that one. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I
Speaker 1: am at Mindy at b P M I N dy
Speaker 1: y A t b P awesome. Well yeah, people can
Speaker 1: find you there and Mindy seriously awesome hanging out with you.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for taking the time to join us today.
Speaker 1: Oh I'm so excited to be on how to Money.
Speaker 1: This is like this is a bucket checklist item right,
Speaker 1: bucket list checklist items. And I love talking about real estate.
Speaker 1: So if somebody has a question about real estate, please
Speaker 1: email me Mindy at Bigger Pockets dot com. Awesome, all right, Well,
Speaker 1: thanks so much, Mindy. Thank you for having me on.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate it. All right, Joel Man, what a
Speaker 1: fantastic conversation we had with Mindy. She had a lot
Speaker 1: of great advice on just some of the practical steps
Speaker 1: that we need to take before we sell our home.
Speaker 1: So on that note, or maybe not on that note,
Speaker 1: I don't know what you're gonna say, but what is
Speaker 1: your big takeaway? From our conversation with Mindy Man, I
Speaker 1: think the thing that struck me the most was when
Speaker 1: she said, something is wrong with your house. And I
Speaker 1: think there are so many of us, truly who have
Speaker 1: this kind of pollyanna ish view towards our home. In
Speaker 1: our eyes, someone would walk in and point a couple
Speaker 1: of things out, and we might get frustrated or annoyed
Speaker 1: that someone would think that those things are wrong with
Speaker 1: our home. What are you talking about? My home is
Speaker 1: great and and maybe some of us don't have that view.
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe we can see all the flaws in our
Speaker 1: home very clearly, but I think you need to look
Speaker 1: at your home with a very critical eye before you
Speaker 1: do sell it. So, yeah, anything that you can do
Speaker 1: with obviously just the easy things painting and cleaning, but
Speaker 1: then on top of that, all those little things that
Speaker 1: might seem insignificant that you can fix, that you can
Speaker 1: take care of on the front end before people come
Speaker 1: to take a look at your home while they're considering
Speaker 1: the price that they're going to offer. Even just a
Speaker 1: door knob fix or making sure that window closes properly, right,
Speaker 1: those are kind of the little things that can make
Speaker 1: a big impact, and they can stick in a buyer's mind. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: something is wrong with your house. Find out what it
Speaker 1: is and get it fixed so that you can make
Speaker 1: top dollar for your house. That's what stuck out to me.
Speaker 1: What Mindy said, Nice man, Well, okay, so what I'm
Speaker 1: gonna share is actually really similar to that. But it
Speaker 1: doesn't have to do with your specific house or you know,
Speaker 1: like features of your house, but it has to do
Speaker 1: with what's in your house, that being your pets. Mindy mentioned.
Speaker 1: Just you know, whether you have a cat or whether
Speaker 1: you have a dog, you probably don't notice the smell.
Speaker 1: And I will say from personal experience for years having
Speaker 1: a big old Great Dane, you get used to the smell.
Speaker 1: But it's not until you don't have a pet that
Speaker 1: you realize, oh man, it smells really fresh and clean
Speaker 1: in here. Um. And so you know, even the smallest
Speaker 1: animals can have a lingering smell. Get those goldfish and
Speaker 1: hamsters out too, dude, Seriously, hamsters, actually hamsters and gerbils
Speaker 1: and rabbits. The goldfish, they don't really smell, right, I
Speaker 1: don't know. Then it kind of like smell like seaweed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: probably like wetness. And get me more out of there too.
Speaker 1: But either way, I think just kind of keeping your
Speaker 1: pets in mind. You know, she mentioned definitely not having them,
Speaker 1: they're like have a friend walk them. I think even
Speaker 1: maybe a step beyond that, if you know you're gonna
Speaker 1: have a string or a series of showings, maybe for
Speaker 1: one week where you're gonna hit it real hard, see
Speaker 1: if a friend could hang onto your dog for that week,
Speaker 1: maybe your your parents, maybe you're in laws, Maybe they
Speaker 1: can watch the dog. Maybe they can take the cats
Speaker 1: to where you can almost get a like a fresh
Speaker 1: restart on your home. I was really thinking about that
Speaker 1: when she was kind of talking through that, And I
Speaker 1: know I'm much more sensitive to the smell of animals
Speaker 1: now that I don't personally have a pet. And so
Speaker 1: there are a lot of folks out there, obviously who
Speaker 1: do have pets, But there are a lot of folks
Speaker 1: who don't have pets and who don't want pets and
Speaker 1: who do not like the way that they smell. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that could really be make or break. I mean,
Speaker 1: some buyers might say this smells like an animal, and
Speaker 1: I don't want it. And even if you know you're
Speaker 1: completely used to it, there are a lot of people
Speaker 1: that aren't, and so yeah, that's definitely something to be
Speaker 1: aware of. A good point. All right, Matt, what were
Speaker 1: your thoughts on the beer that we had on the
Speaker 1: show today? We had a beer that our friend Josh
Speaker 1: gave us from Casa Agrea out in California. This one
Speaker 1: was called Slamming at the Club and it was a
Speaker 1: clean cut American logger. Is what it said. It's gut
Speaker 1: this like sweet punk rock candas. Yeah. So the reason
Speaker 1: it's called Slaming at the Club this is, like I
Speaker 1: was reading the label, it's kind of an homage tribute
Speaker 1: to nardcore punk rock, which is a specific type of
Speaker 1: punk rock that originated in southern California. I gotta be honest,
Speaker 1: I'm reading some of the bands that they have listed
Speaker 1: on here. Read some of them. They're so good. I
Speaker 1: don't know any of them. But it's before a time
Speaker 1: as well. All right, then I feel better. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: one call Oh gosh, I can't even read some of
Speaker 1: you can't read. You can't read some of them. Fistfight
Speaker 1: on Ecstasy is one of them, which is that's one
Speaker 1: of the more tame ones. Yeah, all right, I'll name
Speaker 1: that one. But yeah, this one's called slamming at the club.
Speaker 1: It was a logger, and you know what, the sort
Speaker 1: of style that we have often. But like I've mentioned before,
Speaker 1: the more often that I drink some of these just
Speaker 1: well crafted loggers, the more I appreciate them because I
Speaker 1: see what loggers are actually supposed to taste like. They're
Speaker 1: not flavorless and they're not totally skunky. It's this nice
Speaker 1: blend of a clean drinking, crisp beer that has all
Speaker 1: that nice beer flavor but without that that cruddy aftertaste
Speaker 1: that you can kind of come to expect from some
Speaker 1: of the mass produced loggers out there. Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think clean and crisp are the two words that
Speaker 1: described this and that describe any really well made lagger.
Speaker 1: But the folks at Costa agree to they really know
Speaker 1: what they're doing. I feel like every we've had a
Speaker 1: bunch of different beer styles by that brewer at this point,
Speaker 1: and everyone that they've made just is on point. The
Speaker 1: flavors are beautiful, and this was no exception. This was
Speaker 1: a great lagger from them. I really enjoyed it, and
Speaker 1: so yeah, big thanks to our buddy Josh for sending
Speaker 1: this one our way. Thanks Josh. All right, Matt, and
Speaker 1: let's get around to that giveaway. Mindy is generously giving
Speaker 1: away ten copies of her book How To Sell Your Home.
Speaker 1: And if you want to be entered into this giveaway,
Speaker 1: all you have to do is review our show. So
Speaker 1: if you haven't left a review for us, we'd really
Speaker 1: appreciate it. All you gotta do is go to Apple
Speaker 1: Podcasts at click five stars preferably and say something nice
Speaker 1: about the show and what you've learned. Or you can also,
Speaker 1: if you're not an Apple person like me, go to
Speaker 1: stitcher dot com. You can leave a review there and
Speaker 1: then shoot us an email at how to Money Pod
Speaker 1: at gmail dot com. Let us know the screen name
Speaker 1: that you've left the review under. And if you've already
Speaker 1: left a review in the past, just send us an
Speaker 1: email let us know that you want to be entered
Speaker 1: into this giveaway, and you can be entered into. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: that's right. And so folks listening, if you want to
Speaker 1: be or in, you have until Friday at noon. Make
Speaker 1: sure you get that email into us by Friday at noon.
Speaker 1: That'll be when we close that giveaway and choose the
Speaker 1: names Angel. We'll have our show notes up on our
Speaker 1: site like we normally do at how to money dot com,
Speaker 1: and I think that's going to be at Man. So
Speaker 1: until next time, best friends out, Best Friends Out,