there are some things that we can do to make it more appealing.” And one of the things the husband said to me was, “We keep getting older couple coming to the home, we’re not getting younger couples or single people or families coming into the home and we don’t know why” because there was living room, there was a main room for a family room, there was huge dining room and eat in kitchen. It was perfect for families of today but it wasn’t attracting them so when I went over to and looked through the home with them I walked through the home and I said to them, “We need to edit about 80% of what you have in this home.”
And when I was doing the market analysis I had shown them homes of similar era that hadn’t sold in the same neighborhood – they were built in the tens, twenties and thirties – and I said, “What do you see about these homes that are all similar?” and they couldn’t tell me. I said, “They all look like museums, they don’t look like comfortable, accessible, relevant homes – they all look like a museum you would walk through ninety or a hundred years ago. None of this, again, is a reflection of your taste, it’s beautiful.” They had sixteen oriental rugs in their home, we removed all of them, you couldn’t see the hardwood floors and they were stunning. They had artwork on the walls that was beautiful, they were art collectors, they had them all on these big, heavy, gold-gilded frames and then they had actually had each frame lit by a little light above it so they had an electrician come in and put a plug behind each of the paintings so each painting had its own lighting. So I said, “We need to get rid of 70% of the artwork in the home. It can’t work, it’s too heavy.”
So what they had to do is they had to re-drywall the walls. They had an electrician come in, recap the plugs for the lighting, re-drywall and repaint and we put a few of the paintings back up. But they edited about 70% of the stuff they had in the home and when it was done I had Shirin, who is a stager I work with in Seattle, bring in some contemporary pieces. We used their furnishings but we brought in a few contemporary pieces, they had sun room, we brought in a white leather lounge chair and some modern pieces on the dining room table to allow people to know that you can mix modern furniture with more conventional furniture in a classic home. We put it on the market; photos, video, website all hit the market on Monday. On Wednesday we got a full price, all cash offer from a family in Texas who had seen the video.
They then came out to do their inspection, and they had a week long period to do their inspection where they could have walked away, but the house was exactly what they had pictured it was going to be because the photos and the videos were so representative of what was there, they loved it. And so it sold the third day on the market for full price, all cash and we actually listed it at $200 000 higher than it had been on the year before. But it was just allowing people to imagine themselves in the home and it wasn’t overly cluttered, it was before and the stuff was beautiful but it didn’t feel relevant to today’s buyer. And so by transforming it, and as a matter of fact that couple bought another home and they actually loved the feeling of their home so much after they edited it that they did not overcrowd their new home at all. They said, “We love living this, we love living lighter.” So it was a very nice lifestyle change for them as well.
But it was nerve racking to me to tell them, “I think you need to do all this stuff.” They did it and I had the advantage of saying to them, “Look, you tried it this way for a year and it didn’t work, we need to try something else. We need to make a change, otherwise if we just put it back on the market in the same condition I think you’re going to have the same outcome at the end.” So it was just really me listening to them, listening to the reasons why they felt it didn’t sell and doing something about that was really important. And they were thrilled, they couldn’t believe it.
JULIE: That’s an amazing outcome and you know I talked to another realtor during my summit who also said not ever realtor wants to be that kind of a bad guy, it’s not really a bad guy, but the honest, truth telling agent because the honest, truth telling agent doesn’t always get the listing if the seller takes it personally. But I think the take away is people shouldn’t take it personally when their agent recommends changes to their home for marketing reasons.
MICHAEL: Absolutely. And do you know how you get around that? When I’m walking through the house with them for the first time the sellers always ask, “What do we need to do to repair the home for market?” And I always say, “If you end up choosing me I will come back and we’ll have special meeting and we’ll walk through the home together and we’ll discuss all of that. If you don’t choose me and you choose somebody else you should get that list from the person you chose because obviously the person you felt was the best choice for you and the best fit to give you advice on your home.” So I don’t even talk about any of that until after they hire me to be their agent because at that point there’s kind of a trust factor that’s been set. So I never go through that with them on the first or second visit, ever, I always say, “Listen, let’s do that later. There is plenty of time to do that, I am more than happy and we’ll have a meeting just about that because that’s how important preparation is.”
JULIE: I just really love that idea that they not going to have to listen to any negatives on the first meeting with you and they’re really just trying to meet the realtor they connect with. And then like you said, you’ve built that trust with them and now hopefully they’re going to go ahead and do the changes that you asked for. I love that. So Michael I see that you have a blog on your website and I wondered if you wanted to tell people how to connect with your website so they can read your blog.
MICHAEL: Well you can get all the information that you like on my website which is mackerman.com. My blog is a little bit different, I don’t do a written blog – I do video blogs. I am much better at talking than writing so I started video blogging in about 2009 and I’ve got a couple of hundred. I also had a YouTube channel, you can go on YouTube and just Google Michael Ackerman and my blogs will come up. But it’s just it’s 2-3 minute videos about real estate; my favorite new condo projects, how to prepare your home for market, what inspections you should do on a home, how important it is to pick your lender early – there are all sorts of subjects that I go over and it’s just a service to the public to dispel some of the mysteries of real estate and to lift the curtain so if people have a question they can just go on and use it as kind of a how to guide.
I don’t really ever ask people to use me as their agent, people who’ve liked my personality have gone on and have become regular viewers of my blog do often times call me and want to use me as their agent but that’s because they like my personality. But anybody can go on for free and listen all you’d like about anything about real estate. And if anybody has any questions they can always reach out to me, my email is on there as well.
First Impressions
Shirin Sarikhani
Seattle Staged to Sell and Design
Born in Iran, Shirin moved to the United States when she was very young. As an adult, she lived in London for a while. After arriving in Seattle she decided that she’d like to start a home staging business. And that is how Seattle Staged to Sell began in 2005.
Since then she’s been very successful and added some new designers to help her with her large workload. And after a lot of home owners saw how wonderful she made their homes look when they were getting ready to sell and they decided to hire her to also help with design for their new homes. So that is how Seattle Staged to Sell and Design started.
JULIE: So you’re in Seattle and we talked briefly about the fact that it’s pretty common for homes to be staged in Seattle when they go on the market right?
SHIRIN: Yes, basically home staging somehow started in Seattle back in the 1990s by Bob Schwartz and so real estate agents and home owners in the Seattle area are very used to the idea of home staging. And very few homes come on the market that are not staged. And even though right now we are having
