 Hey, hey, hey, I'm super excited that you guys have joined me today. Thank you so much I am excited today to be sharing with you some small home repairs to help you So you don't spend thousands of dollars if you get ready to list your home and sell your home And today we're being joined by a whole bunch of people from all over and I'm super excited We already have several people that are in our our list here. Hi JS. Good to see you We have a Julio. It's great to have you guys here We have a LDM DRD that stands for something super important. It's a secret though and we have Let's see kefir g65. I just love that you guys are here. Thank you so much for joining us You guys are in for a real treat today now. We do not have Aaron Brown with us today He had something special going on and you know in the real estate industry There's always something that allows you to help service your clients. So he's not here today, but I'm super excited. We've got another realtor here to join us and it is Brooke Bryant so I'm going to introduce you to Brooke and I'm gonna let her share a little bit about herself and Give us a little bit of information. So hi Brooke. How are you today? Hi? I'm great. I'm so excited to be here And to share these topics with you. Yeah, there's so much you can do to help your house sell without spending tons of money Um a little bit about me. Um, my name is Brooke Bryant. I'm with Bryant Realty Homes in Charlotte, North Carolina I'm a native of the carolinas Grew up in Rock Hill, South Carolina And I've been helping my clients buy and sell and invest in real estate in and around charlotte for the past 11 years Well, we are super excited that you've joined us today I come from the cleaning end of things and having Brooke here from the realtor side is going to be able to answer a lot of questions for us that We might not know or there might be like another version of the cleaning end of things And so as we're putting together the small home repairs I'm really going to lean on her to tell us like give us the inside scoop What are what are home buyers looking at and what are the expectations when you go to sell a house so that we don't Run into thousands of dollars that we could have avoided, right? So that's what we're here today to talk about. Oh, I just love this. I'm super excited You guys so many of you have joined us. Thank you, rachel rose from england I love this. Thanks you guys. This is awesome. We have a Uh, how do I say this? Peret perine? Uh from and I don't know where perine is from but we've got frankendall We've got monica. You guys. This is just awesome. This is gonna be so much fun So as we jump in today, I've prepared a couple of slides for you that I want for us to be able to take a look at And again, these are going to be home repairs that we we can focus on right up front The first one is going to be leaky faucets and I say leaky faucets because if you've owned a home for very long It's easy to have some kind of a leaky faucet at some point And I don't know how important this is from a realtor side I will I will lean on you brook share with us It's just it's just such a Very often such an easy repair to make and you can get Faucet repair kits online or at your local home improvement store for 20 dollars or less and The important part of that is if if you've got a buyer looking at your home and they see a leaky faucet It puts them in the mindset of plumbing issues It could put them in the mindset of something much bigger and oh if that leaks Is there another leak has there been damage to the subfloor under the cabinet something like that? So you just want to remove that That stigma right off the bat with something as easy as fix fixing a leaky faucet Well and the leaky faucets are interesting in the house cleaning industry because if we don't fix the leaky faucets A lot of times that water can drip down And it can if there's anything inside the sink any kind of sediment any kind of Rust or something like that it can stain the insides of the sink And then the risk that we run into is when homeowners are walking in or home buyers And they're looking at that all of a sudden it adds age to the property And so they're looking at that and they're like oh look at those sinks. That's just horrible That's you know and it's it's actually and can be an easy fix So absolutely This this is the first one that I want you to stop and again a wrench You know something gasket Gasket some plumbers tape Very often. They're just very easy repairs to make Yeah And so there's there's one suggestion that I want to make especially if we have rust inside the sink And this came to a conversation that actually started as we were getting started Julio says I have an electric stove and the silver plates are burned and dark. What product is good for that? Thank you for the answer I wanted to address that real quick But this also fix it fixes in with the leaky sink if you have that rust and the hard water that's built up Because of the leaky sink the product that I recommend and I'll make myself big here on the screen so you can see this It's called bar keepers friend. The bar keepers friend is been around since like 1938. I mean 1838 It's like 160 years old or something It's it's been around forever and it's really really a great product great for hard water stains, but it's Really low on the pH scale And so it's almost like an acid like you would use like a toilet bowl cleaner So it works really well for hard water stains and would work great for the burner on the stove So what I recommend is that you wet the area either with spraying it with water and then Just making a paste like sprinkle this on there and make a paste Do like finger painting where you just swish it around and make sure that it's covered the area really well And then leave it on for two minutes at the end of two minutes take a non-scratch scrub sponge And wet it and that should come right off that will also come off for the sinks Like we saw the leaky faucet and the stainless still sinks that will also work for those burners of the stove So quick fix and this is a couple bucks. This is available at most grocery stores You'll find it oftentimes at walmart. So it's just a powdered cleanser and it works better than just about anything I've ever seen So there you go All right, uh brook when we're talking when we're talking about um Uh the leaky faucets one of the things that that is often overlooked are the leaky pipes that happen underneath the sink Where then it damages that wood that's underneath the the cabinets What do you guys think of when you see that what what do you guys run into? Again When i'm working with a buyer and looking at a home You're not going to walk into a home that there's just nothing wrong with it There's always going to be something wrong your big concerns are the major systems and water water is You worry about mold You worry if the cabinet Has damage then to something below the cabinet the subfloor does that have damage is their mold growing there? So that's that's the big concern Um and again fixing a leaky pipe is usually very easy. It's a it's a quick fix Um and one thing that brook said to tag along with that one of the things in house cleaning that we recommend for our house cleaners Our homeowners is that they'll take like a plastic bin. You can get these they're a little bit better than a shoe box They're like 19 court bins. They're just plastic bins Lots of people put their hair care items and their lotions and potions and all that stuff underneath their sink We recommend that you put one of those right underneath that p trap the p trap is that p Thing that the right there that you see that bend in the in the curve that you put that underneath there If that ever leaks it's going to leak in your plastic bucket and it's not going to leak on the The flooring of your cabinet here. We've run into lots of homes where Because that's not a really strong floor board The water will eat through that or if there are any cleaning chemicals that are underneath the sink It will eat through that and then you're not talking about just Replacing a basket that's a little grungy. What you're talking about is replacing that whole bottom of that cabinet So don't do that if you can avoid it. So that's really smart I mean everything else if you think about it like your water heater is on a drip pan Um, your washing machine is on a drip pan. Your furnace is on a drip pan So that's really that's a really great tip to do that Um in under all of your sinks kitchen and bathroom. That's a great tip Awesome. I want to say hi to Regine from Ontario. Hi from Ontario. We've got uh, a b coup honor from new mexico. Yay. This is super exciting We've got melanie from mcallin, texas And uh, paren jumped in and said uh from new jersey. You guys this is so cool. We've got lin from uh, Toronto This is just we've we've got a whole mountain park here people from all over. This is so cool All right, so while we're talking about bathrooms and bathrooms are a really serious subject for us because Believe it or not when a home buyer comes through a house What they're looking at is they're looking at two main areas They're looking at the kitchen where they cook all their meals and they're looking at the bathroom People spend about an hour to an hour and a half a day in their bathroom And that's where they get dressed in the morning. They take their shower. They get there ready for bed at night They're in and out of the bathroom multiple times a day if they work at home If they don't work at home, it's usually two or three times in the morning two or three times in the evening There's a lot of stuff happening in there a lot of bathrooms are connected to closets So people going in to get closed to do laundry. There's a lot of activity in the bathrooms So when it comes to the bathrooms homeowners are coming in and they're thinking to themself Is this is this my new haven? Is this where i'm going to be spending my time? And so one of the things that we have to focus on when we're talking about repairs These are small home repairs you can do on a budget What we're looking at is we're fixing running toilets and running running toilets is really an interesting Thing that we have to deal with because whether you're aware of it or not If it's your own home oftentimes you miss the running toilet You don't really pay attention to it because it's just your house, right? There are weird sounds in people's houses and they don't pay attention to the fact That the toilet just keeps running and running and running But a homeowner that's walk walking in you're going to think what does somebody just flush the toilet? Is there someone else in the house and then it keeps running and running at the back of their mind? They're thinking there's something wrong with the plumbing here And while it might be something as simple as either the fill valve And if you look in this picture this this blue Thing over to my far left is the fill valve where it fills the water up the tank That and then also the stopper which is it's called a flapper This is the flapper a lot of times it will erode over time And it erodes because people put like these bleach tablets and stuff in the back of their toilet to prevent the toilet from getting Having rings in it or whatever and it will eat that little flapper right up And so on average we replace the the flapper there in customers homes of homes that we clean On average once per year and so it might go like 13 or 15 months But every single year that should be replaced and it costs about a dollar and a half to replace. It's not expensive at all Yeah, I've noticed I've noticed that uh in my own home They seem to wear out a lot more quickly than they used to I don't know if you know they don't make them like they used to or not but um It is a quick easy inexpensive fix, but you're right in your own home. You can just kind of become immune to the noises that your home makes so Kind of always take the approach of looking at it from fresh eyes You know there's something here that I'm used to that somebody else isn't going to and that's a that's a good easy one to fix Well and one of the things the fill valve can be replaced It's really really easy to do and that's a little bit more money. Those are about 12 dollars And so when you think of hiring a plumbing a plumber and having the plumber come out and replace all of that It's an easy fix and the reason I say that is if you get in a situation Where your toilet is running and a realtor doesn't know oh, it's just the fill valve Or it's just a flapper that could be replaced for a dollar or two What they're going to do is they're going to say oh, let's get a plumber out here to inspect all of the plumbing And that's going to be a really expensive add-on to your home closing costs That didn't have to be because once they write that in the in the notes It's possible that they're not going to let the homeowner fix it Then at that point they will require a license to plumber to come out and take a look Well, generally when you're A buyer is going to get a home inspection once they go under contract. They're going to get a home inspection And anything that the seller can do to make that home inspection report as clean as possible It's going to put that buyer in the mindset of wow, this home is in great shape It's been really well maintained well taken care of And if there's a lot of things on the report even if they're just teeny tiny things It puts that buyer in the mindset that it hasn't been well maintained And yeah, this isn't something we're going to let the The seller just do a ten dollar fix for we want a licensed contractor to come in there and and take care of the work for us And then have the seller pay for a reinspection So it can save you a lot of money Melanie said I nearly had a heart attack when my water bill wound up by more than 80 dollars And I found out it was a leaky toilet valve, which is just insane. Yeah And the leaky toilet valve can be replaced for like I said for like 12 bucks I have a friend she was out of town her toilet valve Leaked while she was gone. They're having the flooded the entire downstairs of their home They're having it all redone and yeah for a very quick fix So um and like angela said our kitchens our bathrooms. That's where we spend the most of our time They get a lot of wear and tear so You know keep keep a check on those things to save yourself a lot of time and and and stress Awesome. Thank you for sharing that with us The next thing that I want us to take a look at are the cracks in the walls and the ceilings Now any home that has settled and this is it can be a new home. It can be an old home But once the foundation settles it's easy to get cracks in the walls in the drywall And it doesn't mean the home has been neglected and it doesn't mean that the house is old What it means is that the house has just settled and there's there are stress Cracks that we need to start looking for because it looks like oh, no the house is falling apart, right? So if we're fixing the cracks A lot of the time when we're we're taking a look at this We can just go around the house and my recommendation is that you do like you do When you buy a new house and like brook said if you look at the house with new eyes And so i'll grab the blue painter's tape and I know Construction people hate when new buyers do this but do this if this is your own home Go through the house with new eyes and take a look and go. Oh, I've got a stress fracture here in this wall Put a piece of blue tape on it. I've got one over here in the corner of this room Check all of the areas in your house like the window sills if they're starting to separate from the From the window pane a lot of times with the the moisture in the air if you have like really What do you call them severe climates where you have cold cold winters and warm warm summers The the wood on the window panes will Contract and expand just go through and anytime there's like separation Put a blue piece of tape on it and then when you get your spackling and your caulking You can come back through and you can start making these small repairs because the small repairs believe it or not You're talking about a little bit of spackling in those areas Sand it down a light cover of just touch up paint You don't even have to paint the whole wall and it can make the wall look brand new again Absolutely and that Again, those small cracks are more often than not a result of the home settling But I can put that buyer in the mindset. Oh, is there something serious going on here? Again the home inspection there, you know, the inspector is going to look at the foundation of the home But you just want to eliminate any of those obstacles Right off the bat if you can and that's um Fixing those cracks. It's going to give the the home a nice clean appearance and eliminate that fear that wow something big is going on structurally with the house Going back just a second, uh frankendall said The chain may need to be adjusted and that's talking about the toilet if the toilet is running Just by adding just making it tighter or one-link looser That's that's absolutely correct You can change when that flap comes up and down and make sure that it's seeding properly over the hole Where the water flushes down the toilet for it at opening and and refilling itself. So that one's free Yeah, it's a very simple fix Well, a lot of these are really simple fixes and you just have to know what you're looking for And so like the other night my husband and I were sitting there and going back to the uh one one more thing before I get off on that frankendall also mentioned that um Uh, where is that it just disappeared something about a dishwasher that uh Is this it when I bought my home the seller thought the dishwasher was broken took off money for it And the fuse was tripped and it just needed to be flipped It's little tiny things like that that if you don't know, um, I know that when we bought our home I was a hundred percent sure that the whole electricity in the side of the house was out And it was also the breakers had not been turned on And so we got an electrician to come out because this was during that first stage of hey come check everything out And we hadn't we hadn't moved in yet, but I went to plug something in and nothing worked I'm like this is bad wiring and the guy comes over I felt so stupid He came over and he flipped the breaker and like everything worked I was like Are you kidding me? Is that all that was wrong? And I I didn't I didn't know the house and again nothing had been Moved into yet, and I just assumed that the electrical wiring either wasn't complete It hadn't been finished something was wrong with it and all it was was the breaker So again as you go through there are simple fixes, but please please check Karen says hi from indiana also looking to sell my home and have been trying to do many repairs painting, etc You guys I love this. This is so awesome Because we're we're all we're all in the same thing together, right? Esperanza says checking in from Philadelphia. You guys this is so cool But when we're talking about fixing the cracks in the walls also don't forget about the nail pops I was sitting there the other night with my husband and we're watching tv And I'm like what is that in the ceiling and it looked like a leak like there was a leak from up above Which means something in my roof was leaking. He said I don't know but that looks horrible And it was like the whole ceiling had just kind of like caved in a little bit And as I got up close it was just a nail pop that was coming through and it just popped the dry wall off And it was completely dry and there was no staining around it But it was really unsightly and then the the plaster dropped off and now like there's a little hole there And it has to be re-spackled. Thank goodness. That's all it was But if somebody were to walk through the house today, they'd go, oh look your ceiling is falling And they probably take off, you know five grand for that just to get that fixed and it's And nail pops are in a new construction. You'll find nail pops a lot and it's just the the the drywall is There there's pressure on it. So it's pulling that drywall screw out and usually the fix is to put Two additional drywall screws in there a little spackle a little paint And it'll hold for years and years and you won't have that anymore So again just the cost of a couple drywall screws in some some paint. It's it's an easy fix Well, and these little tubs of drywall They're they're like five bucks or something. I mean, it's not a lot of money Just a piece of sandpaper and oftentimes You Depending on the color of your wall, you may not even need to paint your wall I know that I filled up a lot of the The little holes and nail pops in my wall and I'd taken a bunch of pictures down And I think there's a realty rule. I think somebody told me once I don't know if this is still true But if you have like racks hanging up Or you have displays of stuff hanging on the walls, you have to leave those there You're not allowed to take them down like drape drapery hangings and all that stuff You you have to leave the the rods and all that stuff there unless you paint over them and you spackle over them And you close them down and make the wall look new again But I had taken a bunch of pictures down and I had holes in the wall And they were like those screws where it screws into the wall and it expands So there are these big holes in the wall and I spackled over all of them And when I sanded them down it was like Do I even need to paint and I was like looking from every angle and I'm like, I think that's the same color as the wall And I never painted you couldn't tell so right well and and very often if you're selling your home The buyer is going to come in and want to paint a different color So if you're doing these sorts of repairs and you're making Repairs with the spackle you may want to ask the buyer do you want me to When I take my pictures off the wall I can fill in those little nail holes And I can leave the spackle here for you to do that if you want just you know as a good gesture So that they can make those repairs before they then paint And speaking of that, I'm glad you brought that up Rook because I know that when we sold our last home It had tile flooring on it and one of the tiles needed to be replaced And I had a really hard time trying to find a replacement for that So when we moved to our new house, I said hey as they were laying the tile floor Is there any chance that I could buy from you an extra box and they come in a box They're like six or 12 tiles or something that I could buy an extra box for you of these exact same tiles from the same Dailot from the same whatever in the event that whenever gets chapped or cracked or broken or whatever If I ever go to sell the house I now have the spares that we can do the replacement So that i'm not scrambling around trying to find one and then you get it in and it doesn't match and all that stuff Great idea. Yeah, and if you're going to if you're going to do home improvements yourself Or have it done and replacing your tile have some extra on hand Because that your tile could be discontinued and you don't want to have to redo the whole thing Yeah, that's a great tip and so One of the things that I do want to bring up Is that if you do if you're not lucky like I was lucky and you do have to do touch up paint It might be a good idea to go ahead and decide what you're going to touch up Are you just going to touch up in one room? Are you going to paint the whole house if you have Unique colors in the in the rooms of your house or you've painted it for something specific You might consider taking it back to a neutral color. I I'm really curious to hear Brooke's opinion on the paint. Do you prefer neutral and what's in season right now? Or people go neutral or they go like all bananas with like turquoise paints and pinks and what are people doing? neutral always sells best everything was 50 shades of gray for a couple of years there. It's trending back towards warmer Beiges is the new trend Extreme colors can be difficult to sell again A lot of people are going to paint the house when they get there But also a lot of buyers have a hard time seeing past Your things your colors your belongings and seeing their things there. So anything you can do To make your house look clean fresh neutral It's going to set it apart from a home that that is that doesn't have that where they see A wall painted a color that they would never choose it You know if they're looking at three homes that day You want to be the one that they remember as having the least to do to it. That's the most move-in ready Speaking of that one of the things in the cleaning industry that has been really important for us Has been to make sure that stuff doesn't look like it has fingerprints on it And so if we if we do the thing with the caulking and the Spackling where we've just kind of fixed all the corners and the edges where the molding comes together Oftentimes we can just paint this with a light paint. That's the same color as the trim already And that way it doesn't look like oh the wood has separated or it's older or any of those things We can fix it up really quickly and then if there are any little nicks and dings and cracks or people have run through a door With like a sofa or something while they were carrying it in and they bashed part of it out We can patch that together and paint it and out all it just at a glance It looks like everything is nice and new again And that's really important especially in the cleaning industry because we spend a lot of time scrubbing baseboards and Sometimes a fresh coat of paint does wonders for making it look brand new Yeah, and it just makes the home feel like again like it's a well maintained home that it has been cared for and that extent, you know It stands to reason if you took care of this in your home you took care of that in your home, so Speaking of painting Karen said She painted and did many repairs during covid I painted every single room in my house and I put in a new kitchen because I knew that would be a selling point I love that and if you can do this right now before you put your home on the market It's going to improve the value of your home and it's going to Improve the perceived value I know that whenever we've sold a home and we've sold condos and homes and stuff as we've moved through our lives But one of the things that we've always done is we've made our own checklist If I was a new buyer and I went into a home What would be important for me? And then we've gone through we've made those repairs and the cool thing is when people walk in they're like Does somebody live here man? This looks like brand new and I'm like, yes Because if we can do the repairs for a couple bucks and like with this painting and the and the baseboards and moldings and stuff That's not an expensive repair. You're talking about a maybe maybe a can or two of caulking Which is going to cost you what five or six dollars You're talking about a can of paint which is going to be what 13 dollars or something And sometimes you don't even need a whole can you just need like a little touch up can which is one of those Little small cans and I'll use one of those little mini rollers And I'll take like one of the little sponge paint brushes And I'll just like touch up the area and then roll it over with like just there's no paint on the roller Just a little roller to smooth it out. That's all you need And so oftentimes the repairs are really really small and super affordable But if somebody walks in and they're they're like, hey, wow, this this is awesome I don't need to do all these repairs oftentimes It's just the perceived value and they can look right past to what is you're selling Which is the home in the space itself and not have them Nickel and dime you on all the little tiny repairs that you could have done yourself Right if you get an inspection report that's a hundred pages versus an inspection report that's 10 pages It's it's just going to be more To to the seller's benefit and a better Negotiating point to have a good clean inspection report without these little things that pop up that You know the inspector has to cite But it's a 30 second repair with the you know tightening with a screwdriver, but it shows up on the report And that's the perceived value Well, and some of these areas like this is always a troubled area in a lot of homes because as people open the doors Especially an outside door There will be like water that comes in either from a rainstorm or there's a rain spout that comes down And it's very close to the door and then it splashes and this area looks unsightly Oftentimes and we've had lots of people come out and inspect them over the years As we've talked to home Home owners that are doing either a move in move out clean because the cleaners are really involved in this process And as house cleaners oftentimes we're onsite while the repair guys are there trying to do the last minute tidy up stuff So we've had a lot of opportunities to ask This is a hot area this right here what you're seeing in this picture Because this area will be discolored from rain and it looks like the wood is warping or is You know rotted or something like that oftentimes It's just a water stain and so if you can paint over this and it's not a permanent damage That needs to have all the molding in the door replaced by all means before the inspector comes paint over it Just make it look nice and tidy again Small and that's the first impression of your home too. That's The the first thing that a prospective buyer is going to see Is that the entryway into your home? So make it as a good experience as you can Yeah, uh frankendall asks brooks opinion on staging. Is it worth having someone come in to stage the home? Um, it really depends on your market. So the charlotte market has been a seller's market um up until the past couple months It go on the market and before the end of the day you'd have multiple offers So in that situation I don't see the benefit of staging um It slowed down a little bit here, but it's still a good market and charlotte's projected to be strong in 2023 If you're in an area where homes are selling slower It may be a good idea. Um, it it's Never a bad idea to have a stager come to your home and even if you don't do a full on staging They can offer you other services like helping you edit your home. Um It repositioning things that you already have Taking personal items off of the walls to help that buyer better vision their Their things in the home. So, um Stagers provide a very valuable service. Um Depending on your market But you don't necessarily need to do the full blown get all, you know, your things out new things in Yeah, they they can they can Customize their service to what you might need to help you get the the best benefit of their services Well, let me ask you this brook because that's a great question. Um It would it make more sense to speak to the realtor first and just say hey based on your experience What's happening in my market and do I need to hire a stager and then or do you talk to the stager first? Well, the realtor's well the realtor's going to be able to give you An idea of how long you can expect your home to be on the market based on other sales in your area They'll do a competitive market analysis a comparative market analysis and say, okay In this neighborhood homes tend to stay on the market 15 days or 90 days So that's going to help you um and these homes are selling at 100 or more of the ask price So that tells you okay. It's a hot market. I probably don't need to do that um Or if it's a slower market, then yeah, we may need to look at some things like staging and there's actually virtual staging now So if your home's vacant and there's no furniture in there, you can do virtual staging which is um I guess ai generated furniture that um is placed into the home to kind of help Buyer see it online what it might look like But yeah, talk to your realtor to see what your market trends are like And then usually your realtor is going to have a couple of suggestions from stagers that they've worked with Oh, I love that because that way you're not going dark. Just trying to figure out. Hey, I've never had this done before and like Here's the thing for most homeowners. They don't sell their homes every day And so it's a once every 10 or 20 year process And so to find a stager and then try to work with somebody I think like you said work with somebody that the realtor knows because if they're working together They're probably both on the same page as far as oh, here's what's trending in the market right now Here's what we know we need to have we need more plants We need more of this or whatever and they can they can help you help yourself instead of just you know Yeah, your realtor should be able to should have relationships with stagers and home inspectors and um Trades people who can help you make repairs, you know a lot of these um or diy Projects but you may have something that you need a license professional in and your realtor should be able to help you Make those connections. Well, let me ask you this question then because this just occurred to me Um, does it make more sense then to do all of these repairs before you call the realtor? Because if the realtor comes and sees that you know The bottom of your door has like some discoloration or whatever If you then hurry and do the repairs between now and the time they list your home Are they going to forgive you for that or are they going to? Remember that you had repairs and the toilet was leaky and underneath the bathroom sink was leaky and all this stuff Is that is that going to be held against you or? Well, no your realtor really is just there as your advocate. So you're just um If you know things need to be done just go ahead and do them and then you can say to your realtor Hey, by the way, we just replaced this we just replaced this we just did this we did this and your realtor may even make um Put together a list of added benefits for your home or key features of your home that will include We just replaced this toilet with uh You know low consumption something like that But no feel feel free to to start making those repairs yourself doing things because very often people think okay I'm going to put my house on the market in the next year. So go ahead and start some of these things and um and and just let your realtor know what you've done and um, you know that these things aren't going to pop up on the inspection report because we've taken care of them Awesome. I love that answer. Thank you so much. I guess that's what I was hoping you would say Is that is that wrong to say that I hope that's what you would say? No, of course you want the realtor to come in and say wow, this is the best maintained home. I have ever seen There you go. Uh abq couponer says when I sold my house I left a binder listing specific paint colors for every room doors baseboards Including where the type of paint and uh where I bought them from that is a fantastic idea I absolutely love that because if there is a specific type of paint and you can't match it That you're you're doing all kinds of tricks. I know that one of the homes we lived in the trick was um We actually picked a part of the drywall and took it in and then they matched it with something So the rest of it would match and we had to repair the drywall But then we didn't have to repaint the whole entire room because we just wanted this one little area fixed So there are there are tricks that you can do but how easy if you just have a binder, so I love that Yeah, that's great A couple other questions here, uh, Virginia so 8 says if you've moved out of state and your house has been empty on the market for more than 30 days Is it necessary to have a cleaning service? Is the house on the market and if the house is on the market my suggestion would be yes Because when people come to the house you've got people walking in and out And you don't know if they walked in on a rainy day if they track stuff in on the carpet You don't know if they came in and they they ran their hands in the kitchen sink But they left the water in the sink and now there's like splotchy water in the sink That could then have crystallized or turned into a hard water look You don't know if the toilets have built up a ring around them And oftentimes even if nobody's been in the house like we ask people to please flush your toilets At least once every couple days even in those bathrooms that you're not using in your house And run the the brush around the where the ring is so that the rings don't build up in the toilets Just because water's flowing through the house doesn't mean it's not going to leave a ring somewhere And the last thing you want is a new buyer that hasn't been in the house for I don't know It's been on the market for 30 days You bring a new realtor with a new buyer and they come in the house And you've got stuff tracked in from the last person You've got water spots that have been there for a couple days Maybe The dishwasher smells bad when you open it There are things like that if it's been wet for it was wet on the last cycle and you hurried and moved out It's been in there for a month and nobody's opened it up and no air is circulated through that There are things that can happen in a house as well as You don't know if like maybe you wrote and got inside the house and they left Poop in there or even if they died in there Yeah Yeah, get get somebody on the ground and get them in the house just to make sure that your house And I mean you're going to pay a couple hundred bucks for a cleaning service to come in and go through the whole house again But that couple hundred bucks could be the difference of you selling your home and not selling your home Right. So when you're in that selling process, you want to give all the chances you can to have people come in and just say Yeah, this is what we see. This is what we want Absolutely. Yeah, and it's just always good too to have another set of eyes on your home You know, what if there was a leak and that cleaning service called it or Is it just just to have somebody else helping to keep tabs on things? We did a move out clean and the people had moved out. They'd been gone for It had been like three or four months. I mean it had been a few months But what had happened is there was some kind of a roach infestation and they didn't know that But when we went in the house to clean just kind of like to tidy up and check and make sure everything was okay We're like things are not okay. You've got hundreds of roaches all over live and dead roaches And we're like we can't even come in here. We need to get a pest control service in here first And so then the pest control people had to come and then we had to come back and then there were even more dead bugs but imagine Imagine if a prospective buyer had come in and had seen that You know what? I mean, I would rather be the house cleaner that catches that Then a prospective buyer that walks in and they're like, nope, we're out of here And they turn around and they walk out never to even give your house a chance. Yeah So yeah, that'd be a tough one. I don't know that I would not want to be the one show on the house that day It was so gross and I mean we're we're we're used to it. We know how to deal with that But but if I were a home buyer, I would have turned around and walked out And my first thought would have been if the house is this neglected What else has been neglected and I would have just I would have wondered did did something else happen And that's what most of these repairs speak to You you don't want a prospective buyer to think that the home has not been well maintained uh-huh Um, Karen has a great suggestion She says although a lot of people may already do this saving paperwork when you get an appliance fridge water heater mower Leave these for the next homeowner and I love that My suggestion and recommendation is usually in the kitchen There is a drawer that is close to the refrigerator and oftentimes it's not it's not where we put our silverware Where there's usually another silverware drawer But inside that kitchen drawer is where we put all the warranties for everything that way when repairmen come And they leave you their cards like oh, hey, here's my card that goes right inside that drawer If you ever need touch-ups for hardwood flooring if it's a an appliance warranty All that stuff is easy to find and if somebody were to come in for example Like let's say that the homeowner had moved out of the house and the house was on the market for 30 days You could have all that stuff still in that same drawer and when you send in somebody remotely They know exactly where to look for that stuff and you just say hey It's in that first drawer right there to the right of the fridge And Karen along with that that is a great idea along with that if you've got um Vendors who have serviced Who've done a refrigerator repair or hvac? maintenance or repair or a plumber that you have used who knows your home knows your systems Attach that along with them and you know if you've got if you've had a certain pest control company coming out to your house For five years. I'm new to that home. I'm just going to keep the service that you've got so it's uninterrupted So if it provide that information as well would be great for the buyer Um ab cube honor you guys have all the great tips I should let you guys up here and have have you give us all your tips as well ab cube honor says I also include a list of names addresses and telephone numbers for nearby grocery Dry cleaners clothing store hair salon plumbers, etc. And that is just awesome, especially for somebody new that's just moving in Not to steal your thunder, but we do the same thing in the house cleaning industry We take a checklist with us and as we clean the house We we leave a checklist for the person that's paying us and we take that checklist into your remember How I said all of your warranties are right there in that drawer and the realtor knows that it's there We put our checklist right on top of it and we say hi Welcome to your new home or the house cleaning area in your home We just cleaned your house And if there's anything that doesn't meet your satisfaction call us We'd love to come back and make it move in ready for you We'd like to welcome you to your new home by the way and they're looking at everything that we checked off And they're looking at has our prices. It has our contact information It has our rules and regulations And what do you know we get the bid usually for being the house cleaner for that new homeowner that just moved in Oh wait And the people that just moved out are our recommendation because we did the move out clean But we also cleaned their home while they were living there So what happens is As they meet all their new neighbors guess what we service the neighbors houses as well So it's a great way to pick up business and just because a customer moved doesn't mean you lost the job Maybe you just picked up a new customer All right Replace worn or damaged flooring and this can be a hardwood flooring. This could be a ceramic tile This goes back to make sure that the flooring does not raise questions that nobody's asking We want to make sure that if we have the ability to maybe touch something up or replace the grout For example, I know lots of homes after 10 or 12 years will start losing pieces of grout and it's not it's not that anybody did anything wrong It's just that it's sanded grout. It's like cement and as the house settles Sometimes the grout will crack like there's just be a hairline fracture And because the grout cracked a little bit and it's not connected to the tile All of a sudden it starts picking away and when you go to vacuum the floors and house cleaners are guilty of this all the time You vacuum the floor and it picks up little bits of the grout and finally there's no grout left It's just like tiles that are close together, but there's like And then you walk in it looks lousy And instead of replacing the whole floor and redoing all the grout I'm not kid and go to the hardware store Take a piece of the little grout and you can actually take like a little screw driver and pick out some of the grout That's there I'm not can take a little piece of the grout with you to the hardware store Match the grout while you're there any of the guys at the big box stores like home home depot and lows Can help you match that sanded grout get something that's almost exactly the same or similar And then go in and just fill it up you mix it with a little bit of water You fill it up you go over the top of it let it dry wipe it down clean up the sides of it And just drift it over slightly over the other grout that you have so that it kind of blends in And it doesn't look like you got to replace your whole floor Again, you don't want to raise questions that no one is asking Right exactly. Yeah, people don't want to think oh is this because the floor is settling and there's a structural issue Yeah, just just eliminate that right off the bat Yeah, yeah, and it'll look nice and fresh and clean Well, and one of the things along with looking clean is we want to make sure that if there are cracks That we do replace that and I know that in my personal bathroom right now I have a chip that happened when we bought the home and it's not it's not that someone was being careless But the mirrors had to be reset and so the construction guy as we were moving in The construction guy that came in had his great big electric drill And while he was hooking up the mirror over the bathroom It fell off the vanity and it hit the floor and it just smacked one of the tiles And the tile had a great big gouge out of it And the floor was one of these floorings where it had like all kind of like weird little designs in it And it just from a distance it just looks like it's one of the weird little designs And I said to myself I hate that we Have this this happened and I could have replaced it right then But it wasn't a big deal to me at the time and I didn't have time to replace it And I said I've got the spare tiles when we move I'll go ahead and I'll dig out the grout and I'll dig out that tile And I'll put a new tile in for the new homeowner, but it never became a priority And so if you have a crack or a chip tile and it's not a priority No, no no shame But that is going to need to be fixed before the next person moves in right right the buyer's going to be much more nitpicky Than you who lives in the home is Yeah, you may have been willing to live with it in this particular situation. I was working around the clock It was a really busy time of my life. I'm like, you know what? It was an accident I'm not going to file a report or anything. It's just it is what it is a half spare tile It's not a big fix. I'll just do it when we sell the house. But here's the thing Um, my business took off during covet because the entire world suddenly was like, oh cleaning sanitizing and disinfecting My businesses went through the roof and I stopped doing a lot of the little stuff around the house That I normally did which are little fix up projects as they need to be done And my husband who wasn't doing any of that is now doing all of that He's like, what is with this house? We need to sell this house and get like a smaller house And so I said, well, let's get the house ready to sell. Okay, let's do that right now Let's get rid of all of our surplus stuff. Let's clean the house. Let's do the deep cleanings Let's do all the home repairs then if you still want to sell the house at any time We can just pick up and go because we will be ready to do that And so we've been going through a lot of these home repairs which are not fun But I promise you this and here's the really cool part If you do it like we're doing it right now and there's no pressure like we got to be out 30 days Um, you can you can do it whenever you have a day off You can say I've got four hours right now I can go ahead and I can fix this problem and then you can fix it And you're not under any stress or pressure to like we'll just we'll just pay whatever to have somebody do it There's no pressure. We can do it, right? Well, and a lot of real estate transactions break down At the the point of negotiating Negotiating repairs the buyer will say hey, we had the inspection done. Here's this Report we want you to fix everything repair everything on here and the seller is like no way you already Came in low on the price. We're not going to do that. We'll fix this this and this and we're going to do it ourselves and we're not going to have a professional so it can break down so if you can eliminate any of that tension by Having these repairs done before you put the house on the market so that they don't show up on the inspection report Then hopefully you'll be able to avoid that Well, we had um We had a issue with our stairs And I don't know what it was but when we bought the house and I think it was literally when we bought the house um The stain had been put on the wood and I don't think the wood had cured or wasn't on there long enough or something And then in order to move the furniture in they they put this paper over the top of the stain on the stairs And they taped it with painter's tape And so it happened when they pulled that off pulled off like a layer of the stain and it just looked Unsightly for as long as we lived in the house and again, it wasn't a priority. It wasn't a big issue It wasn't a big deal, but about a year ago Looking at that every day. I said when we go to sell the house whenever that is this is going to be one of those things It's going to trip up the process because right now I have to have the stairs sanded down and I have to have them restained Because from day one when they lifted that painter's tape off It lifted off that top layer or the shiny part And then it just kind of discolored over the years because it wasn't sealed And so We're going to have to take it back to its natural state and we're going to have to redo the stairs and it wasn't an inexpensive project It was actually a huge project where because of the shape of our house They had to like tape all the walls and they had to tape all of the openings And then they had to come in and sand everything down and it took a whole crew about a week to redo our stairs It was a huge project And I say thank goodness that we did it when we did because now we've been able to live for another year In the nice they look fabulous now But we're not rushed up against the clock because if somebody were to move in today And we had to take that off the price of the home They would have taken $15,000 off or more because of the cost of the stairs And the the re-sanding and the labor and the staining and all that stuff And we were able to do it for significantly less than that But it was a huge project Well, and most of these repairs are making your home more enjoyable for you to live there So, you know the sooner you do them then Forget who made the comment earlier about the leaky toilet and the huge water bill. Yeah, go ahead and do it You don't have to pay that water bill plus when you're ready to sell. It's done So yeah, make your home as enjoyable as you can while you're living there, too Yeah, good point the Railings on the stairs sometimes while we're running up the stairs we grab those railings kind of like support to pull ourselves up And sometimes they just come right out You cannot sell a house with stairs that are missing railings And so those have to be replaced and sometimes it's as significant as taking off the whole top bar And then reinserting it because it slides inside a hole It's like putting it inside a little post and then it has to be redone. And so if that's the case Do all of those repairs because again, it's going to be far less expensive if you do those with a diy And you either do it yourself and you watch a youtube video and learn how to do it Or if you'll hire a local handyman and have them come do it Then if you were to have like a realtor say, oh, here's this licensed handyman or journeyman or whatever And they they recommend somebody and it ends up being a whole lot more You know, yeah, this is a safety issue. So we want a general contractor to come in and inspect it. Yeah just If you can get it done beforehand and done in a good workman-like manner then Eliminate that popping up on the inspection report or being a safety concern for the prospective buyers then you're better off Yeah, thank you for that. Also update old and broken appliances You wouldn't know how important this is but there are a lot of people that moved from their last house and they brought the appliances with them and then there are a couple years into the house and then the The refrigerator conks out on them and they're like, oh, this is so horrible And then they either replace it or they don't sometimes people Will get just another refrigerator and plug it in and I'll deal with the other one later We had this happen on several homes that we've done move and move out cleans for We walk in and there's like a working fridge and right next to it is like a dead fridge that hasn't worked in a long time Like guys haul this out somewhere So haul it out get rid of it if you're if you're not going to use it and don't just like push it Into the living room or something we've had we've had them left in the homes Washing machines and dryers and dishwashers and refrigerators and appliances They need to actually be carried out and a lot of services when they bring the new appliance If you didn't buy it at the nick and ding, nick and ding dent and ding store A lot of times when they deliver that they'll carry the old appliance away So make that part of and usually it's like an extra 30 bucks or 40 bucks or something like that Make sure that that's part of the agreement that you get that old stuff out because if that's still in your house Not only is it unsightly, but it Has to be dealt with at some time before the new buyers can move in So if it's sitting outside or if it's sitting on the property or it's just out back out your back kitchen door But it's sitting there on your patio Literally pay somebody to get rid of it. It's it's not helping you in any way To keep a broken appliance kicking around your property Yeah, that's I don't even know what I could add to that. That is a no brainer. Yeah, get that one out of there Lynn says a couple of houses ago We thought we'll do that when we sell it and by the time we finished the landscaping etc and rearranging the furniture I I liked it so much. I wanted to stay I've I've heard people say this I've heard people say that by the time they they put the love back into their house They're like, why are we selling this? I want to stay. I totally love it here And that might be all that you need But check this out like what brook said earlier if you do those small repairs right now And we're not we're not talking about anything really expensive yet I'm pretty sure we'll have one of these conversations one day where we just bring all the guns out Say knock down those walls and do this and that but these are inexpensive repairs that you guys can do today Absolutely and Do them to get your house ready to sell and if you fall back in love with your house even better Yeah, keep it um A lot of the uh, and i'm not knocking a keya or anything But a lot of the furniture that we buy that comes in boxes and we assemble it ourselves Have little tiny pegs that you put in to like hold shelves and stuff together And a lot of times the pegs will go missing and so a shelf might have three of the four And then what you don't realize is when you go to put something on it The shelf will teeter and it either breaks or all the stuff falls off as house cleaners We absolutely hate when those pegs are missing and we don't know that because we go to wash Or clean the bookshelf and then it teeters backward and then all the stuff falls off or teeters forward missing those pegs Please don't do that to a new a new person if you're leaving the shelving there Either buy the pegs because they buy replacement pegs at like home depot and lows They buy those replacement pegs that just fit in those little slots to brace the stuff But if you're showing your home you want to make sure that everything on there is stable It would be horrible if you had air looms or something that was priceless And somebody came in and they're like, oh, these are nice shelves and they just touch them And the shelf comes off and the stuff breaks It puts the perspective buyer and the realtor in a bad situation. You don't want to do that So make sure that all of your shelving is fixed if you're planning to move and if you're not taking the shelves with you um, there is a closet here and I want to show this to you because Ah, this is a closet in my house And the reason that I show you this is because um when I started when we bought the house I wanted to do a podcast and so part of my design here was this was going to be a podcast closet And so we had extra padding from the the the guys that installed the the carpets So I asked them I said is there any possibility that you could leave some extra padding with me because I want to Padding all in the roof and the sides of this closet so I can sound proof the closet for my podcast And they said yes So I also asked can I get a glass door that has the little glass on it? So I don't feel claustrophobic inside this little closet with the door closed And that I can see out and I can have some sunlight and they said yes So I got an extra door and I got some extra Talk about diy some extra carpet padding and I just used an electric staple gun And I stapled it to the sides of the wall and the ceiling of this closet So it's a hundred percent sound proof. All right flash forward a few years And the technology that we have now are little tiny microphones that you can just wear on your lapel And it picks up an incredible sound and you don't actually need to be in a sound proof cage So as the sound proofing Improved and it just became a lapel microphone on my collar I was like why am I inside this little tiny room when I could just be out in my regular studio? Right So what I did was I moved out of the closet and I never fixed the closet But I needed the closet space So I was guilty of just taking one of those great big still shelves. I moved it in there I actually built the shelf inside the closet because I didn't Have the time and I hate myself for this I didn't have the time to rip down all the stuff To fill up all the holes to paint it again to hang up the original shelving that came in it So I put one of those great big still five five feet shelves inside that closet And like I said, I built it in the closet. So now I got to unbuild it in the closet to get it out But the new homeowner, I promise you this they're gonna walk in and go. What on earth is that? Right. I know I know that closet is a realtors nightmare I know it is and I know that unless this person is crazy and they're like, oh, I have a podcast too It's like, what are the odds of that right? I'm probably going to have to rebuild that closet back to its original configuration. So now it stores all of my Electronic equipment in there and some firearms. We keep that up out of the reach of children and in that door And that door has a lock on it So it's just out of the reach of anybody that might be there But that is a closet that if you were to go through a house and you saw something like that Um, you're not you're not going to accept that as like okay. That is not okay That's a great point though. That works for you or worked for you Um at that time If you're thinking about selling your house You need to walk through it and think about it from somebody else's point of view or have a family member or a neighbor Or somebody do that with you. How do you see this? This worked great for me It might not work great for somebody else. We might need to make some changes And I'm I'm completely expecting that I will have to take that back to its original configuration So maybe one Saturday when I'm doing nothing like that will ever happen. Yeah, good luck Um, I might I might take on that project, right? And that's going to be a whole weekend project for me to rebuild that closet So it's exactly as it was when I found it and that would be fair to the new person That's moving in because they might they might just have regular use for a closet and nothing that I had planned for it So so there's that All right, moving on. Um, we do need to test all of the electrical outlets I know that over the course of homes that we've cleaned A lot of times we go to plug in a vacuum or something and the plug just doesn't work and it could be something as simple as the um The breaker being flipped and it could be something as A mouse climbed through the wiring and they chewed it and like part of the wiring doesn't work And so literally either get one of those little meters and go test everyone Or flip the breakers on and off and have somebody on their smartphone going. Yeah, this one works. It doesn't work Plug in something like a power strip that has a light on the end of it So when you plug it in, you know, it's it's operational But go to every plug in your house This doesn't require a lot of a lot of work But one of the things that we've discovered I know in my own home as I've had to replace some electrical outlets It's a little tiny electrical box. It usually costs three or four dollars And it could be something as simple as when just the grounding plug or the little pin on it stopped working Or it could have been fused fused out or shorted out or something. You replace that. Sometimes it's just the wiring Sometimes the wiring just came loose But we've repaired that I was like, well that cost me a dollar and 34 cents. That was a really easy fix, right? Yeah and and and going back to um one of The other comments about leaving information for the for the new buyer If you know of outlets that are half-hots, um, you know, where you can plug a lamp and and turn it on from the switch If you can let Let your realtor let um other buyers know that that way they don't think oh the outlet doesn't work But you know, it operates with the switch those kinds of things can help too Yeah, I've got one more comment you guys. I just looked at the clock. Ah, I'm out of time This has been so much fun and we went so fast. We're gonna have to do this again I would say same time same place next week. Let's let's pick up where we left off Melanie says the worst thing that ever happened, uh, that I ever found in a house was they installed in The ac and a bedroom closet that made the room completely unusable for a children's bedroom Wow Why did they do that? That wasn't a very good move and I don't know why I had like a um a heat exchange in a closet before And yeah, and then you don't then you lose access to the closet and uh, there can be noise with it too. So yeah, that's I don't that'd be a tough one to fix Ah You guys this has been so much fun I just I really appreciate you guys taking some time out of your day to spend here with me Thank you brook so much for joining us This has just been so great and I'm glad that we were able to get a lot of our questions answered Thanks for tagging along great comments Thank you very much. All right. Same time same place next week you guys We will pick up the conversation and we will continue on how to get our home ready for sale So thank you very much and you guys have a great week. Goodbye guys