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Refreshed: The $40K Fix That Made $180K · Market Ready

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We call it our refreshed version. Refreshed is creating a home that
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someone can move into right away. Every listing has a [music] story. This is the
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market ready podcast. What happens when you put a senior,
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their adult child, two almost adult grandkids, 11 cats, a chicken or
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multiple chickens, and a dog that has an eye falling out into a two-bedroom house
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with one bathroom, and you need to get it ready to sell. That's what we're talking about today on
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this episode of
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Market Ready. And I am psyched to have Corey Whitaker, the poor soul who had to
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figure that whole thing out on the show with us today. Cy, it's great to meet you. Thank you so
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much for being here
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with us. Thanks for having me. When you first warmed this story up for me, I thought, wait, what
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did I just
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hear that correctly? Like, cuz the list just kind of kept going of of this process. Before we jump
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into it, Corey,
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why don't you just tell everybody a little bit about your background, what you do, and where
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you're located. Okay. I'm a realtor for Windemir Real Estate
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in the Northwest. I've been in the business 21 years. Uh we've sold over
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900 homes and I have a team of three that I pay to work with me and help me
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um serve these people. So, there's four of us to serve about 65 to 75 clients a
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year. That's amazing. And I love that you said that you have people that you pay to do
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that. Like there's actually employees that have to handle this process, right? New employees.
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I love it because so many agents are like, I have a team of seven. Of course, like six of them
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barely even work and they're just, you know, part-time
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licensed agents. And I'm like, it's not the same thing. But yeah, so let's dig into this story
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because I,
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you know, we here on the show, we're always looking about how do we get properties ready? What
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is the best way
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to get them ready? And I know this is a specialty area for you, which is why I was really interested
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in talking to you
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today. But walk me through this story. How did this property come to you? And
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then what what was your like the first 15 minutes of this experience like?
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Okay. Well, um the senior seller found me online. Um it's in the shoreline area
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in Washington, which is north of Seattle. and I do the highest volume of
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business in Shoreline. So, when someone is searching for an agent in Shoreline,
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my name will often pop up and um she checked me out online and she thought I
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looked nice and I'm approachable and so she called me and I went over her and um
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from the outside it, you know, I mean, we we work with a a lot of weathered
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homes, you know, tired homes. homes. Uh we also work the high end along the view
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corridor. So we work everything. And um it was fine. It was a little rough, but
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walking inside the home, the seller was apologetic that it was so full of
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things. And that's where I learned that not only was she living there, but three
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other males and ultimately learned the 11 cats and a dog and had the chickens
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outside. I will say that. So, it was a lot and we see a lot, you know, pretty much floor to ceiling
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in many of the
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rooms, although the two bedrooms were utilized by the sun and then the other
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one was utilized by the grandkids. and grandma was sleeping on the couch
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and um so it was very well lived in. I couldn't see floors and I couldn't
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That was the greatest line ever. It was very well lived in. Nothing was more politically correctly
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said ever.
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[laughter] Well, we are very sensitive to the situation as you can imagine that I
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could not see floors or walls. Um, so,
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uh, I had no idea what was underneath everything. And, uh, when I talked to
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her, we walked outside, uh, the deck was trashed, the siding was trashed, there
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was a little out building, uh, that was full, that was intended to be, um, a
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guest getaway or, you know, a she shed sort of thing, but
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of course it was full. and um she was moving east of the mountains and had
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started packing. And so that's what the story was was I'm packing so it's full
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of the things that I'm taking with me as well as my my boys things. So, it was a
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lot and I said that I could help um and I explained the process to her that I
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would follow up with her and share with her my thoughts in writing kind of
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loosely an as is price with me suspecting the worst and then a potential
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improved price and a really wide range indicating that we don't know what we
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don't know until we get get going. And I said, "So, if you decide to work with me, then I will
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have you sign a listing
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agreement and I will send over my listing concierge to dig in because that
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is why I hired her and that is her job." And she said, "Oh, no. I'm I'm working
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with you." And I said, "Okay." And and I said, "So, that was sort of decisive.
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Did you do some research in advance?" And she said, "Yes." and I feel
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comfortable with you and this is a lot. And I said, "Okay." So, I sent over the
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listing agreement and then I sent over my um listing concierge, Summer No Dine,
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who has been the saving grace. Um we I
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hired her in 2022. So, she I had gotten tired of managing
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vendors as more and more sellers wanted and needed help prepping their
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properties. And I found myself coordinating,
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you know, never doing things myself, but coordinating vendors. And then, of course, if one
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can't make it, like the
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pressure washer dude, now you have to reschedu everyone cuz you can't do the windows afterwards.
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And I was down at my
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daughter's graduation in Arizona and that that happened. I the pressure
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washer guy got CO and I am shuffling vendors because we had a deadline to hit
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the market based on the seller's needs and we couldn't adjust and I thought I
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am too late in my career to be doing this. I do not want to do this anymore.
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And so I met with my stager Summer who I had outsourced staging with for 10
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years. So very well aware of her. She had a huge staging business, lots of
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logistics, touch hundreds of homes a year and worked for three of the big
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agents north of Seattle. And uh and we went to lunch and I I was
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just hitting her up for ideas like who is this person I can hire? Is it an athome mom who can
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call vendors during
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the day? Do I pay them hourly? Do I pay them per project? What do you think? And
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she said, "I would kill for that job." And I said, "Really?" And she said, "Yeah, to be able to go
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deeper with
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sellers and really help them and not just move furniture in and out of hundreds of homes sounds
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wonderful to
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me." And I, you know, I said, "I could never afford you." She said, "I don't need to make that
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much money." And in 15
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minutes, we decided to work together. And it has been the biggest blessing to
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my business, to me personally, to free me up, to have a partner in this
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business, and to sellers who love her. She is warm and smart. She adjusts to
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all personalities. She's got the design eye, but she really takes them under her
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wing and she also knows, like myself, how to say really hard things in a
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loving way. And so she blows in and just takes over.
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I love it. I also Why is it always the pressure washer guy? It's always the pressure washer guy. I
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don't know. Every time I hear that can't be a fun job. The damn pressure washer dudes. Um, so
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So, okay. So, she shows up at this home and immediately resigns the next day.
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Yeah. [laughter] No, but she did say, and this says a lot
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because we I mean, together since 2022, we've had hundreds of listings. And she
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said, "This was the saddest." She said, "And not the worst. We've had worse, but
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this was the saddest." And I think it had to do with the personal situation that you could just
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see and feel,
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right? And so, um, she started, she creates a
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schedule, you know, you're moving here, so move and then we'll see what we're
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dealing with. We literally couldn't have in flooring vendors, painters. We couldn't we
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couldn't have anyone in
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until it was empty because we had no idea. And so once it was empty, of
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course, floors, interior paint, we already knew deck needed to be rebuilt.
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There were some repairs. One of the young adults had driven a car into the
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front of the house. Of course they did. Damaged the inside wall of a room that
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we were going to call the wreck room. And so, no pun intended. Yeah, that was a
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surprise. That's a first too after so long. I haven't seen that. And um so
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that was a surprise. And so um she she collects bids uh for all of those things
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and then we present uh to the client uh you know approximately what it's going
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to cost and then we have some decisions to make. What do you think? And in this
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case, um, by doing the repairs, we could hit the market for about a 100,000
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higher. Wow. Than we would have hit the market, maybe even a buck 50, because it was so bad.
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And by cleaning it up and and me knowing what summer can do and what our vendors
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can do and knowing that area so well, I knew we could go on as a cute little cottage
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instead of what it was. So just for the math sake, for those
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listening, you're talking about, we'll call it $100,000 going on the market for $100,000 more.
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What do you think the
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total cost for the work was? It was 40,000. So they're looking at
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approximately a $60,000 increase and yeah starting with the list price and we
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ended up with four offers and $110,000
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over list. So her net
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go back one second. You put it on and you did what? And we got four offers and
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it escalated an additional $110,000
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above list. Above lists. So a $40,000 investment
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to the house that had what? Four people. 11 chickens.
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No, 11 cats. 11 cats. Chickens and a dog with its eye falling
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out. God bless it. actually just for a $40,000 investment on the capital
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improvement of the property netted them then on average we just said 180,000
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combined over if they had just put it on as is. Yep. That is
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the math's a little off but yeah amazing. Well again I you know if anybody knows me since I got
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thrown out
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of every school that I went to that's no one surprised that my math would be off at that point.
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It's really it's really
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close. But yeah, for sure. And it was it was wonderful. And it couldn't have happened to a
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better person. The person
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that we worked with was absolutely lovely. Probably our most grateful
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client. She said, "That kind of money changes my life." Yeah.
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My life. You know, I mean, sure. Yeah. And especially living in that situation, I
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would assume you know you you things are not going well. Like it's a tough life situation at that
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point,
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right? Yes. And it's interesting because we work a lot of the high-end and we have the same
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conversations. There's we
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do I mean it's rare that we don't do carpet and paint and repairs. I mean we
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call it our refreshed version. You know, you have an as is, refreshed, and then
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flipped, which there's a big jump from refresh to flip, but refreshed is
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creating a home that someone can move into right away. It's clean. It's
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neutral, new carpet, everything's fresh and in good condition and ready to move
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in right away. And that means, you know, clean windows, refresh yard, and carpet
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and paint usually. and and that is the sweet spot at most price points in our
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area, you know, and in our corridor, you know, there's a lot of families that are very busy,
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maybe dual income. We have a
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lot of empty nesters. We have a lot of downsizers. So, refreshed here is the
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name of the game in most areas and price points. And the return is often double
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or more of their investment. And so for and in the story that you just told too, it sounds like from
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a a
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financial standpoint, these weren't folks that had 40 grand to put out off the top, right? Okay.
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No. No. No. And so you were able to secure some financing for them. Yeah. Yep. There's uh a
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product that's
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available to us that the that we can offer the client. The client applies
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super simple application online. There's also a calculator there that shows if I invest
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X amount and sell the property and return the funds in 90 days. It's paid off at
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closing. There's an interest rate that's not low, but it's a convenience loan and
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is shortterm. So, I just did one recently where for a
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$30,000 investment paid off in 90 days, it was about
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$1,450. So, you know, $1450 for what will likely gain the seller
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100. Yeah. Um borrowing 30. So, they'll more than
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double their return. It will cost them about 1,450 bucks to utilize this
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convenient loan and they don't make a payment during the loan period. And the application really
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is simple. So,
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with our senior sellers, we sit down with them and help them through it. That's the biggest thing
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that
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intimidates them. It's like, I don't want an application. I don't want to pay interest. So, we
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have to show them it's
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not about their income. It's about the equity in the home, right? And there's a lot of equity of
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the home
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here in the Northwest. And especially for for seniors as well, too. Many of them have been in
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the home
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for 10, 15, 20 plus years. Yes. Um, ironically, no, not me shamelessly
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plugging, but I wrote two books on uh called the senior partner on helping, right, this generation.
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And one is
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written for agents to better understand how to support them, and one is written for seniors 65
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and over. One of the
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things when I was doing research for the books that I found most interesting was
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what created the most stress on seniors in the process was the actual lack of
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preparation and understanding the economics of it way before it started.
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Yes. Right. And so you just hit a really important point too that I think that for a lot of people
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when they understand the economics in advance huge
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difference. Right. and and it really helps settle a little bit of that concern. So, I think it's
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great that you're doing that to help people walk
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through that process collectively because again, you know, especially in that generation, the
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forms, the online digital signature, it's not it's not
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easy. Well, and for it's it's that the online,
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it's the figuring out the funds, and it's the stuff is so overwhelming. And
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so that's where the best scenario is when we can encourage them to move. Take
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the stuff that they're taking with them. Move and take your stuff and hand us the keys. And then we
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can, and this is all
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summer, I say we, but Summer takes the lead as soon as I have a signed listing
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agreement. and we haul, we donate, we have someone on our list of vendors that
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sells things. We can take care of absolutely anything and that takes away
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the overwhelming feel. There was just another one that we're doing in Edmonds where the lady was
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like, "No, I need to
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be here. I can't move first." and we convinced her that move just she's so
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overwhelmed with dealing with this stuff. She's frozen her and so we were
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able to say just worry about the stuff you're packing up and taking with you and we will
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literally handle the rest.
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And once she wrapped her head around that, she was great and we'll make her so much more money. And
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and I think that
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I want to touch on this if we can and you know because it's it's such an amazing story especially
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the one that you just told about you know an
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unfortunate situation difficult situation turned into a net positive that had really fantastic
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results but
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you're saying to me that this isn't just a okay that was a cool story. You're saying this is
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really more of the norm
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of the process now of what it is that you're able to do. Tell me a little bit about this and how you
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position the the
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listing concierge because I think it's a really nice term that is great in
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theory, but you actually have it put into practice because I can see a lot of agents out there. Oh, I
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have a listing concierge. What's the stager that shows
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up? We just gave it a fancy name, right? We're very good in real estate about giving fancy names
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and things that aren't really actually real,
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you know? Yeah. In fact, talk a little bit about that. Yeah, it's funny because when I say listing
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concierge, I say listing concierge
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because it sounds so fancy and we're not that fancy and so we're we're pretty
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grounded group. So, we've actually played around with different things to call it. She's really our
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our seller
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support, our listing prep person. And while she was a stager in her past, now
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she oversees our stagers and everyone else. And so, um, I'd say that I say I
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have someone on my payroll whose job is to make your process easier. And she
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will literally do anything. We had a seller who fell down on his way on a
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cruise. his girlfriend fell down, broke both of her feet. Oh my god. And she took them food until
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family
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could get in into town. Wow. You know, it's just and that's just above and beyond. She's got a huge
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heart
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for anyone she meets, whatever walk of life. But um that's how I position it
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that once you sign the listing agreement, my job is sales and strategy
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and negotiation and Summer's job is making the house the best that it can be
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to present to the market and she's going to help you. She'll do it for you if you want to hand over
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the keys or she'll
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work alongside you if you want to control more of the process. And so
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she'll come over and then she'll follow up with very specific email list of, you
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know, what things are going to cost and then we'll have a meeting strategically to talk about, okay,
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now that we know
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what the costs are, is it worth it? It always is. And um and if someone says, I
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don't have money for that, we have a solution. So we have a solution for any hurdles that can get in
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the way of them
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making more money. and having a much easier process because a moving ready home that's vacant
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and staged is going
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to sell faster and for more money and with less interruption than any other
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scenario, which is a a fantastic um thing. And just for everyone listening too, we'll
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put the the product that uh Corey's referencing in the show notes if you have questions. I'm sure
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people are
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like, "What's that product and how do I use that? That sounds amazing." So, we'll put that in the
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show notes for everybody. But the other question I
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wanted to ask you because this is a big differentiation point. Do you have
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something that you give people that goes through the list of things that your concierge person can
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do? Like is there
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something someone can see these are all the things that this person does? Yes, we have it in our
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sales packet.
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Okay. Yeah. and and could you share some of those just I mean I just want people to understand what
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this is because I think
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that again it's very easy I think for a lot of us to say yo yes we have a
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concierge service that we offer but that's not really when you what I find is for a lot of the
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clients that I work with and
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when I just so you know when I say clients I mean agents cuz I work with agents directly but a lot
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of the agents
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I work with um will say things but there's no actual list of services
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that's shown because they want to make that level of a commitment to something cuz it's scary.
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Yes. Yes. Yeah, we do. Um and and I include I include it in my fee and
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um that's where we are able to justify
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maintaining our fee where a lot of agents are starting to discount for
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business. Um but because we have such hight touch high service um I maintain
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my fee and so we do we say you know coordinates with vendors will help with
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design choices stage you know we stage we do a 3D
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walkthrough tour and so we list everything that's involved with the
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listing prep support as well as the marketing in that list. Something that I
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always point out to people too, um, if you, and I love 3D tours. I know there's
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agents out there that are like, I hate those things. They're so confusing to use. I'm like, but
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they're not for you.
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Whether you know how to use it is not really relevant. Consumers out there really enjoy them.
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They actually
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increase the length of time somebody spends in property up to 60%. And what I always tell people
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is a lot
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of these tours have the ability for you to put pins on things inside the property. And those pins
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can be put on
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things that then when someone clicks on it, it expands out and gives details about that thing.
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So, if someone has a
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really cool oven, if somebody has a really um a great uh deck on the back,
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like you I actually encourage agents to start using the the resources available in some of these
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great tours now where
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they can put pins on very specific things and that when someone clicks on it, it gives them a lot
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more information
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because what you're doing is really creating a living walkthrough in essence the things that I
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would say if I was in
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the home. Super cool. and also put a pin right on the front door. And the reason is is
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that when someone's inside the entry area and they see a pin on the door, when you click on that, if
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you have that
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expand and then talk about all the things that people can do that are cool in the area. Oh, what
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a great idea.
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So, these are really simple little things that again keep people engaged, make them more
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interested in the
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property itself, and also demonstrate to the seller that it's not just a tour, right? Or it's
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not just a 3D thing.
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we're really working to help somebody see the work that your concierge, right, just put into making
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this an spectacular
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property. Um, so anyway, just a fun side note on something that I think is um a
25:32
good opportunity for agents to take advantage of, but um as as we come to
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the end of our chat, and by the way, I could talk to you forever about this because I find this
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fascinating. I love it, too.
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You're doing this for 50, 60, 70 homes a year. Yeah, we did 83 homes last year,
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but the average is about Well, the average a couple years ago was 65. So, we're probably up to
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about 70 average
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now. So, just to put that in perspective because I just want I want agents to understand that we're
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talking about what
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five to six homes a month. Seven. Seven homes a month. Okay. Again, math was never something. This
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is why you
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don't that's at our high point. That's okay. We've certain last year. So, yeah, five to six on a on a
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regular basis.
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Okay. And and this is important because you in order for someone to execute that at the level
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that you're talking about,
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you have to have a really strong process in place. There has to be systems and rules and boundaries
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and limitations.
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So, you know, I would encourage anybody listening to this that wants to learn more to reach out to
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Corey directly and
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really understand what is that process, what is that system in place, right? Because again,
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everything I know about
26:41
real estate and all the work that I've done over the years learning from consumers directly, the
26:45
agents that resonate the best with consumers are the
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ones that have structure and systems in place. The more dialed in it is, the clearer it is, and the
26:53
earlier and more
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often you help somebody understand the process, the better the transaction, the better the
26:59
relationship, and the higher
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likelihood that they're going to refer you to somebody else because that's how they feel most
27:04
supported. So, I just wanted to put that in there
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because that's really a testament to the business that you've built and created and I'm really
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impressed by this to have
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that many properties run through a concierge system and service where everybody gets the same
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level of
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service. You got to have that really dialed in is to make to make that work because operationally it
27:23
can't be easy.
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It's true. And anytime something is just a little bit rough, we'll say, "Okay,
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how do we not do that again? That was not fun. And so we're constantly even
27:38
now after so many years dialing it any anytime there's a challenge. And we'll
27:45
sometimes now, you know, we're at a point where do we want that? Do we want that business? And boy,
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you know, it's
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that one's really hard for me because I know in some cases
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it's not going to be pleasant. And yet I believe in my heart I'm the one to
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help them. And so I'm like, "Oh man, that's that's going to be a rough one."
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But I know we're going to do right by them. So it's hard to to not help when we see especially
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the rougher
28:17
situations. And and so it's an interesting dilemma for me. I've
28:23
found as my career's gotten bigger. I'm the I'm on the executive team for
28:30
Windemir's premier program. I'm on the board. And so more and more people associate me with luxury
28:37
and high-end
28:38
listings. They also see the pretty homes with views on my website. They skip
28:44
right over the fixers that we work on. And so sometimes people say, "I know you don't really
28:49
want my mom's fixer,
28:51
but I have to constantly tell people, I I will help everyone." So whether I'm
28:57
the person or I can refer the person, I will help anyone who needs our help and
29:04
we end up taking them because we know we'll do right by them. I love it. What a great way. Now,
29:10
at the
29:11
end of all of our shows, we like doing a little trivia. if you'll be so kind as to play along with
29:15
me. You don't have to
29:17
get these right. We just like throwing some trivia out there for the fun of it. Okay. I'm terrible at
29:22
trivia.
29:23
So am I. But I mean, we already pointed. I'm not good at math, so why would I be good at this
29:27
either? But here we go. You ready? What is current day? What is the
29:32
highest return on investment for a home improvement that someone could make on
29:38
average? What is the highest ROI for any one single improvement someone could
29:44
make in a home? I have no idea. Double, triple. Well, what would what would the improvement be?
29:50
Oh, I think you know it's people don't people talk about kitchen and baths,
29:57
but I find that windows are a biggie in the Northwest. A lot of windows have
30:04
failed here and we have a lot of older homes that have say single pane. So with
30:11
our weather I think dual pane good windows make a difference.
30:17
Okay. What is the answer front door?
30:22
Really? Well that's that's good to know. We entry door replacement.
30:29
Okay. particularly if you go to a steel door recoups roughly 188 to 216%
30:37
of the initial cost driving the highest [snorts] perception of value by any one
30:42
item from the exterior interesting that I love that
30:48
um number two okay garage door replacement yes
30:54
194% to 268% uh it's the number one uh exterior and
31:00
then from the inside, fresh paint. 107% ROI on fresh paint.
31:06
And you have to do carpet. No one likes other people's carpet. I don't disagree. I think that
31:11
it's it's
31:12
kind of a trick question because if you're looking at the return on the investment, they're looking
31:16
at like what does this cost me to do versus how much
31:19
money do I get back based off of that. So, obviously windows obviously are again a big
31:25
selling point and very expensive, but they're also the highest return I think perception-wise. I
31:29
would totally agree,
31:31
but I thought it was interesting. Front door, who knows? It's very interesting and it is something
31:35
that we never overlook. And I
31:37
always say paint is the biggest bang for the buck cuz it's cheap and we have a really inexpensive
31:42
painter that's worked
31:44
with us for over a decade. I love it. Corey, this has been fantastic. Thank you so much for making
31:49
the time to chat with us today. Really
31:51
fascinating. Um, and love the the work that you're doing. I would encourage everybody and anybody to
31:55
reach out to
31:56
Corey directly to learn more about the work that she does in her concierge services. And thank you
31:59
again for making the time to be here with us today. We
32:02
really appreciate it. You're welcome. Thanks for having me.
32:10
[music]