The Dangers of Overpricing Your Boise, ID Home

When I visit a homeowner who has the goal of selling their home, 9 times out of 10 the goal is to sell the house as soon as possible for as much as possible.  This is the perfect scenario.  Usually the seller’s next-best scenario is to hold out a little bit and still get the highest possible price.  As a homeowner myself, I get it!  There is nothing wrong with wanting to get the most out of your largest financial asset!  However, sellers with the “It won’t hurt” mindset when setting an unreasonable asking price for their home are in for a stressful time.  Here are 5 reasons why overpricing your Boise, ID home could hurt and even produce a LOWER sales price:

  1. In most cases, the home must go through the appraisal process. Even if the buyer, seller and their REALTORS® agree a price is fair, the appraiser may disagree based on comps he/she chooses to use.  In my experience, if the sales price is too out of alignment with these comps, the appraiser doesn’t even try to justify the sales price, resulting in a lower value.  Bad news.  However, if the sales price is “just a touch” high, an appraiser may bump up their assessment to match the sales price.  I’ve noticed that most appraisers try their best to meet the contract price if it is in the realm of reason.
  2. At a higher price, the seller will have fewer showings and the house will stay on the market longer. While this in itself is not particularly a bad thing, the result is that the home may become “shopworn.”  By the time the seller notices the lack of showings, the damage has been done.  The impact of price reductions are minimal and often overlooked, and agents who show overpriced listings rarely go back.  Even once priced correctly, buyers new to the market will wonder why the home has not sold yet and automatically think there is something wrong with the property.
  3. If the seller receives any offers, they will be low and insulting, often lower than if the house would have been priced correctly.  Buyers and their agents are really turned off by overpriced listings.  Buyers will think the sellers are greedy and even if they love the house, their offer will be made with a chip on their shoulder.  Receiving an offer is usually a very exciting time for a seller, but will be a very stressful time for an overpriced seller.
  4. Overpriced listings help sell the competition. The longer the home is on the market, the more sold properties buyers have to compare it to, making an overpriced listing look more and more overpriced.  A home’s sales price reflects a seller’s motivation, and sellers are competing with other homeowners that NEED to sell.
  5. Overpriced listings attract the wrong buyers. Every set of buyers in a particular price range are expected to see certain features in a property.  Here are a couple examples from my experience:

There is a beautiful, huge home down the street in my neighborhood of Hidden Springs, Idaho.  It sold in the summer of 2018 for $735,000 and we were all surprised when it was relisted the following spring at $899,000.  The sellers had made some minor, cosmetic upgrades, like upgrading some tile.  But the house was beautiful to begin with, and honestly there wasn’t much room for improvement.  At the new $899,000 price, the home was on the market for about two weeks before the sellers dropped the price about $25,000, then it stayed on the market for another week before the sellers withdrew it from the market completely.  While it is beautiful home, it is on a busy corner lot with essentially no yard and no views.  Boise, ID buyers in the price range of $900,000 usually want some acreage or a view.  I’m not sure the home had any showings during its short life on the market, but this would be a great example of attracting the wrong buyers.

Here’s another example of the first house I listed (my own, shortly after I started my career in real estate): My husband and I bought a short sale for $180,000 intending to live in it, fix it up, and sell it in two years.  For our first renovation, we did a pretty good job, spending more money than we should have on some updates, but there are still some things I like better about that house than the “nicer” one I live in now!  We finally finished with renovations in October, and threw it on the market for $295,000, hoping to sell before winter.  I had nearly no comps to work with (nothing in our neighborhood had been renovated), but after a buyer’s feedback about having old windows, I realized that our house was competing with new construction in the $300,000 price range.  After some price reductions that seemed to garner little attention (at least through the winter), we sold our house for $265,000 the following March.  We may have been able to sell faster (before winter, like we wanted) if we had appropriately priced the home at $265,000 to begin with.

When you decide to list your home, make sure your Boise, ID real estate agent shows you good comps and gives you a suggested asking price range.  I never like to “tell” a client what they should list their home at, rather present a range and explain that the home is likely to sell faster at the bottom, and may sit on the market longer at the top.  I always let the client choose their asking price, and if I think it is unreasonable, I won’t take the listing (I find it a bit unethical to do so as it gives neighbors a false impression of the market).  At the same time, I share the desire for all my listing clients to get what they want: the highest sales prices in the shortest amount of time by avoiding the dangers of overpricing!

The Day I Fired a Client & How Your REALTOR is Like Your Lawyer

I was a Matlock fan back in the day.  Whether you like those law-drama shows or not, they are prevalent.  You probably remember a scene or two where some poor soul is in a jail room with their lawyer who is pressing them: “If you’re not honest with me, I can’t protect you.”  This is the same for your Boise, ID real estate agent.  If I don’t know how you’ve messed up, I don’t know how to fix it!  I’ll use a couple examples from my personal experience to highlight why you don’t want to try to sneak anything past the person who is in your corner.

A couple years ago an older lady called me to purchase a new home.  Her husband had just died and left her some cash, so there would be no financing contingency.  Ruth claimed to be sensitive to air-quality; needless to say any house with moisture issues or smoke of any kind was not an option, but she also could not be exposed to the off-gassing of construction materials (e.g., newer carpets, cabinets, paints), so our search was limited to homes at least ten years old with no updates.  After looking at a few properties in her specified price range, Ruth reluctantly raised her budget and then found a condo with great views.  She insisted on making a low-ball offer that – surprisingly – the sellers accepted.  That is when I started to see some red flags.

Ruth did not seem excited about her new home; she had the “it’s good enough” attitude (and still thought she was overpaying for it).  She started telling me concerning stories about other properties she was in contract with that had fallen through for one odd reason or another (for example, she managed to terminate a contract because she didn’t like that the seller had the right to choose who would pump the septic tank).  At the inspection she picked apart bogus aspects about the property, like how the fully-grown trees nearly a mile from the home would grow even taller and block her views.  Still she chose to proceed with the transaction and submit an inspection response to the sellers.

Our request for repairs was reasonable, but the sellers were frustrated with having to do repairs in conjunction with the low sales price.  They agreed to all repairs but one.  When I told Ruth the good news, I was a bit taken aback when she said she’d think about it and talk it over with friends.  The next day I had a short and sweet email in my inbox saying she did not want the property.  When I asked why, I received a lengthy response listing every imaginable reason OTHER than the inspection findings, including the “feel” of the condo development and clauses she had found in the CCRs two weeks prior.  She obviously had a number of concerns, but because she did not share them with me, I had let her continue with the transaction and satisfy every contingency.

Ruth was lucky that the sellers refused to do that one repair because it put her back in the driver’s seat.  I had her sign the termination papers quickly before the sellers changed their mind, because if they had, she would have been forced to buy the property or lose her earnest money.  In fact, when Ruth bailed, the sellers came back and said they would make every repair she wanted, but again, apparently the condition of the home was not what bothered Ruth; they were things she should have seen and communicated with me when we first viewed the home and certainly before she spent money and time on the inspection.

At that time Ruth stated she wanted to continue looking for a house and was no longer open to condos, but I knew it would be a lost cause.  I got the feeling she could increase her budget to find something that suited her specific needs, but there weren’t any detached homes under $170,000 on the market, and even if there were, they would not have been in good condition and surely would have issues that interfered with her health (particularly moisture/mold, as the location she wanted was very humid).  Plus I was pretty disturbed that she had not been honest with me; I have never lost a client’s earnest money, and this was a close call.  I wished her luck with a different agent.  I recently looked her up in the tax records, and she never did buy a home.

I would like to say that I am not necessarily against clients’ changing their minds.  This happens occasionally, and so far I’ve always been able to get my clients out of a contract without too much drama.  However, Ruth was the rare case where a client chose to deceive me.  In some cases, a buyer or seller will default on the contract accidentally.  If this happens, a good Boise, ID agent will grovel, offer concessions, or problem solve some other way to keep her buyer’s earnest money safe.  Such was the case with Pete and Darby…

Pete and Darby desperately needed a new home as they could not afford the upfront costs of renting.  I don’t know their entire backstory, but they (along with their 6-year old) were living in a leaky trailer in a friend’s backyard when they came to me to buy a house.  They were qualified for a USDA loan at a price that wasn’t great, but they had options and weren’t picky.  They also seemed very realistic about their situation; the house they chose to make an offer on needed quite a bit of repairs to pass a USDA appraisal, so knowing the sellers would already be out paying their closing costs (USDA loans are 0% down), they made a great, full-price offer, and we were on our way.

The first red flag: they barely had enough cash to put down $500 in earnest money.  In reminding them that the inspection would be another $400, I respected Darby’s optimistic response of, “We’ll find a way and make it happen,” but was taken aback when Pete said, “We’ll start a GoFundMe page.”  Knowing they had jobs, no housing expenses, and were fully qualified, I was hopeful I could get them into a new home.

The inspection came and went.  Sellers agreed to all repairs (as I had flushed out with their agent before we even made the offer), in addition to a $2,000 credit for some plumbing issues.  I notified the lender to order the appraisal, which Pete and Darby were required to pay upfront.  I wasn’t sure how they were going to make that happen; the lender responded positively, but I got crickets from Pete and Darby.  In getting mixed signals, I decided this was ultimately an issue between my buyers and their lender, so I simply told Pete and Darby, “Any delay in ordering the appraisal will delay the closing,” and let it be.  I knew they were desperate enough to not want to delay closing!

Little did I know how desperate they were!  A couple weeks later I checked in with the lender, and found out the appraisal still had not been ordered.  Pete and Darby had communicated with the loan officer that they could not pay it until such-and-such day, and really, the lender should have made sure I was aware of this if not my buyers.  At this point I sternly reminded Pete and Darby that there are “Time Is of the Essence” clauses in our contract, and stated they should have let me know so I could have brainstormed solutions.  If the seller’s agent had asked the right questions and I didn’t have an educated and prepared answer, it could have been ruled that we were in breach of contract.  Pete and Darby would have lost the house, their earnest money, and the money they spent on the inspection.  A few hundred dollars might not sound like a lot to some people, but it was all they had!

I also discovered Darby had lost her job.  This was something I learned from the lender a couple weeks after the fact, who in an attempt to take Pete and Darby through underwriting had forwarded me an email with Darby asking, “Doesn’t my unemployment money count as income?”  I was done sitting idly by at this point.  I got Darby on the phone and told her to run down to the unemployment office and ask what employer would be desperate enough to hire her immediately.  To her credit, she had a letter of employment faxed to the lender that very day and started work later that week.  We had already managed to extend closing twice; meanwhile, their “friend” had kicked them out of his backyard trailer, forcing Pete, Darby, and their little boy to live in a cheap hotel.

It was even more tense from then on out.  I was micromanaging Darby and Pete was trying to micromanage the loan officer, who was losing patience.  Eventually underwriting came back stating they needed a full month’s worth of paystubs from Darby’s new job.  We extended closing a 3rd time, and in those negotiations, Pete and Darby lost the $2,000 credit for the plumbing, so they would now have a house without hot water.  We ended up closing five weeks after we were originally scheduled to.  Pete, Darby, and myself were all so tired of each other, this is the ONLY transaction where I have not heard from my clients and they have not heard from me after the sale!  But I am so proud that they made it work and are now homeowners.

The moral of these stories is to always keep your Boise, Idaho REALTOR® in the loop; this is how we protect you.  Like a lawyer, your real estate agent must know everything or she loses negotiation power which could cost you in a number of ways.  If something happens in your personal or financial life, or if you change your mind, try not to be embarrassed about it; remember your agent is your employee, and you’re the boss.  Your agent is there to act in your best interest, and in some cases, save your hiney!

Remodeling in Hidden Springs, ID

If you live in Hidden Springs, or you’ve ever driven around the neighborhood, you know there are a variety of housing styles here, but most of our homes look very similar.  My home in Hidden Springs, ID is no different.  For example, I’ve seen a lot of this type of trim above the door in downstairs offices:

Hidden Springs home
While the doorway is very decorative, it does not make the office very soundproof.

My husband works as a programmer from home (SO many Hidden Springs residents work from home!), and is often on conference calls with the rest of his team.  As parents of a toddler who isn’t exactly quiet (HA), we saw this room and thought 1) double doors  let lots of noise in 2) these double doors in particular are glass and let lots of noise in 3) the transom window is completely open and is going to let lots of noise in.  We got by for the first few weeks, but the lack of soundproofing became very apparent when my in-laws came to visit; my husband and I were making fun of them in the office (with the doors closed) when we heard their footsteps going up the stairs.  I’m not sure they heard our conversation, but we heard their FOOTSTEPS on the CARPET!  I was not willing to get rid of the beautiful doors, so I found a couple very straight 1x12s, sanded the heck out of them, bought (and then returned) a router from Home Depot, and covered up that transom.  I get really excited with my projects and thus am not patient enough to take “process” or “step-by-step” pictures, but here is the end result:

Hidden Springs, ID
And it looks the same on the other side, by my husband was working when I took this picture and I had the directive of “You better not get me in the shot.”

The next project we tackled in our new Hidden Springs, ID house was the functionality of the kitchen.  The builders of Hidden Springs were prolific with those stainless steel 50/50-split sinks.  I’m not knocking stainless steel, but unfortunately a 70/30-split or farm sink wasn’t available as an upgrade from the spec builders of Hidden Springs.  I hate these split sinks because they make my lack of cooking skill even more obvious.  Since I married nearly eight years ago, I have become a much better cook, but I still have stuck-on and burned food.  We have wonderful All-Clad Copper Core and Staub cookware we got as wedding gifts, and it is so frustrating when I know the problem is me, not my cookware!  And it’s even worse when I have a sink that I cannot soak my pans in.  Who wants their dirty cookware soaking on their countertop?  Our sink needed to go.

50/50 split sink
I’m not always that great at “before” pictures (“Rip the thing out already!”). This was the picture I put on Craigslist!

We started with calling three different granite companies to see if it would be possible to pop out the sink without damaging or having to replace the countertops.  Rocky at Artistic Tile & Granite out of Boise, ID was great; he pointed us in the right direction for a sink replacement (we got his one from Ferguson), got the old sink out with no problem, and modified the corners so the new sink looked like a perfect fit.  Let me tell you, a white, farm sink really brightened up the kitchen, and I love the composite material.  I really think every builder these days should offer composite sinks as an upgrade.

white farm sink
Artistic Tile also drilled a hole for a soap dispenser, a must have for people like me who don’t like cluttered countertops.

I also had a slight “decorator” problem with our kitchen.  Too often, white and cream clash, and this was the case with our kitchen cabinets, backsplash tile, backsplash grout, and backsplash outlets.  We had four different whites.  From far away enough, the kitchen looked bright and beautiful, but up-close, it bothered me enough to want to create more work for myself.

Hidden Springs, ID
Too many whites going on for my taste… I am a woman of contrast. : )

Again, I’m really bad at “before” pictures, but here is a picture of my juicing station after we slapped on some Grout Renew and changed the outlets to bronze.

Hidden Springs, ID
By darkening up the grout, the subway tile really pops, and I think the new outlets give the kitchen an up-scale look; those plastic plates on pretty backsplash?  CHEAP & UGLY!

The other problem I had with our kitchen was there was no trash pull-out cabinet.  The last time we had a kitchen without one was ten years ago in our rinky-dink condo, valued about a quarter of what this house is.  Our first renovation, we made one fit in the cabinets we had.  In our 2nd renovation, we got brand new cabinets and made sure a trash pull-out was included.  I think a lot of builders now make a trash cabinet standard, but that wasn’t the case with most Hidden Springs, ID homes.  If you have a stand alone trash can, there is a better way!  And in most cases, these can be retrofitted into your existing base cabinets.  I really think it impresses buyers, and it makes life soooo much easier if you have little ones who put their hands and mouths everywhere.

For us, it wasn’t hard to determine where to put ours.  We had a couple base drawers we could do without, and promptly removed them to get our measurements right.  Fortunately this “base space” was right next to the sink.

Hidden Springs, ID
For a couple weeks, our then 2-year old had a nice play nook.

We ordered this unit from Rev-A-Shelf along with an alder cabinet door from Barker and got to work painting & attaching.  A trash & recycling pull-out (get the double) makes life so much easier and your kitchen will look so much better with that trash put away!

Hidden Springs, ID
I couldn’t live without it!

With the kitchen issues resolved, I turned my focus to smaller projects.  I thought the non-painted rails on our stairs (this is typical in Hidden Springs, ID homes) dated the entry.  You can see how they looked in the background of the office picture (here it is again):

Hidden Springs, ID
Not horrible, but a bit dated.

This took a LOT more time that I had planned mostly because I thought the oil-based primer would be more self-leveling than it was.  I didn’t want the brush strokes to be noticeable, so I ended up sanding them out, which took three passes with three different grits of sanding sponge.  Then tacking before I could even paint.

Hidden Springs, ID
We’ll do something about that carpet another time, but the new look really brightened up the space.

Here’s another design faux-pas I’ve seen in a lot of Hidden Springs, ID master closets.  How is this functional?

Hidden Springs, ID
What are those cubbies for, shoes? I’ve seen pictures on the MLS of sellers stuffing their t-shirts in there, and honestly, I can’t blame them.

I have a thing against fake wood.  Not only is this closet system fake wood, but nowhere else in the entire house is there this color (or fake wood).  The cubbies definitely had to go, but I could live with the fake wood if it were painted to match the rest of the trim…

Hidden Springs Idaho
It looks so much brighter and is much more functional with the dresser in the closet.

Lastly we decided to pull the plug on replacing the downstairs carpet with hardwoods and refinishing the entire downstairs.  Because I’m pregnant, my husband wouldn’t let me install the floors this time, so we had to save up for this one.  Also because I’m pregnant, the dog smell from the previous owners’ labs coming from said carpet was really irritating for me.  After getting three bids, we decided to use A-Max out of Boise, ID, and OMG, they really are 99% dust-free!

But before we could do the floors, we had to do something about the living room built-ins.  I have seen this all over living rooms in Hidden Springs, ID: dated TV cabinets set at an angle.  A friend up on Town Ridge was complaining the other day that there are no homes in Hidden Springs that comfortably and aesthetically allow one to watch TV in their living room.  Fortunately for us, we have somewhat of a theatre room upstairs, so it made so much sense to turn that living room TV cabinet into something else.

Hidden Springs, ID
BEFORE: Yeah, it’s technically a “rec room” and can even pass for a bedroom, but why not go theatre with all those built-in speakers?
Hidden Springs ID
AFTER: It’s not as pretty as a theatre, but it works well for its purpose. We were able to get away with a bigger screen than the cabinet allowed by making a frame out of 2x4s and covering up the apparatus with curtains.  With a telescoping mount, we can still access the cabinets.

Anyway, back to the living room.  Here’s what those cabinets and the carpet looked like:

Hidden Springs ID
Get that TV out of that cabinet!

The goal we had for these built-ins was to have the right side flush with the back wall, mimicking the left side. When we measured the TV cabinet, we found that it was too deep to remove and reattach to the back wall, and too narrow to fill the gap that would be left behind.  I tried to convince my husband we could reuse the TV cabinet and make it work, but he thought it would look like a DIY job gone bad.  Greylock Custom Cabinets did most of the cabinetry in Hidden Springs, ID homes built in the mid-2000s, and I knew they could easily match our cabinets because this shaker style is so prolific in Hidden Springs.  All we needed was a set of base cabinets with some bookshelves.  We got a quote from Greylock for nearly $2,000!  These cabinets have real alder doors, but other than that, they aren’t anything special.  Since we had to pay for the floors, my husband finally agreed that we could reuse the cabinet and we came up with a plan that involved a rip fence for our Skilsaw.  I have to say, that is my new favorite accessory!  It avoided us from having to rent or borrow a table saw, and honestly, table saws scare me anyway.

Hidden Springs, ID
You can see where we ripped the cabinet with the back end on the ground. Then we removed the back piece of MDF and reattached it to the new, shallower piece and affixed it back on to the wall.

Obviously, we’re not quite done yet.  Now that the built-ins are flush, I think they look a little short and “stunted,” so we’ll be putting up some molding to make them ceiling height.  Finally: an “in progress” picture:

Hidden Springs, ID
We’ve still got to get the trim in and then some decor.

At this point you may have recognized my “decorator problem” in the picture above.  Yes, that beautiful tile is white and the cabinets are cream.  Of course, my husband wants to have all the cabinets repainted, which I would not be opposed to except for the price and the fact my kids will bang up a new paint job anyway.  We may just paint the molding surrounding the tile to avoid the white-on-cream issue.  I’ll update this with a real “after” picture when it’s completely done!

With the inside mostly finished and summer on the way, we turned our attention to the outside.  Most homes in Hidden Springs, ID have simple concrete slabs for patios.  They’re okay… but I don’t think ours had ever been cleaned, and besides a couple cracks and broken corners, there were strips of dog hair in the seams from the previous owner’s dogs.  I pressure-washed, patched, stained, and sealed it, and now we can comfortably go barefoot on it.

Hidden Springs, ID
My husband took a break to get a shot of me slaving away.  At least the tot was a good sport!

We also put up some solar shades to keep us from getting laser-beamed during breakfast on those hot, summer days, as the east side of our house has lots of windows, and the concrete patio reflected all that sun into our dining and living room.

backpatiobefore

Hidden Springs, ID
Before and after patio – we got that beautiful tree trimmed up, too.

We also completed a small retaining wall and created a flagstone path where the grass wasn’t growing anyway:

Hidden Springs, ID
This is our “trash walk,” taking the garbage from kitchen to can. : )

For now, we’re at a stopping point until fall when I can finish staining the fence and re-start my transplanting efforts.  In the meantime, if you live in Hidden Springs, Idaho and have similar outdated or dysfunctional features, I’d love to hear if you’re doing something with them – send pics! : )

Foothill Communities in Boise, ID

If you’re looking for an out-of-city lifestyle, the foothills of Boise, ID may call to you.  There are quite a few communities popping up in the foothills, but the ones I specialize in are in the western part of Ada County bordering Eagle.  Those communities would be Hidden Springs, Cartwright Ranch, Avimor, and Dry Creek Ranch.  All these communities have similar HOA rules and fees, currently about $350-380/quarter, including sewer.  If you don’t like living in HOA neighborhood, you’ll still find properties dotting the foothills (and I sell those, too!), though they may be much spendier.

Hidden Springs, ID
A layout of where these four communities are in relation to each other.

Here are a few differences between these four communities:

*Hidden Springs has an extra closing fee of 1/2% of the purchase price.  Hidden Springs is also the most established neighborhood as it is nearly 20 years old; nearly all the lots have already been built on, so there isn’t really any new construction.  Most homes in Hidden Springs show signs of age and out-datedness, and owners are starting to have to replace roofs and appliances.  However, Hidden Springs is a beautiful community with amenities you won’t find at the other three, like an elementary school, library, mercantile, and dentist.  There are miles of hiking trails and a community farm.  Homes range from $300,000 to about a million.

*Dry Creek Ranch homes have the largest sized lots and start in the high-$400s.  This is the least developed and the most expensive community between the four.  It has also received a decent amount of controversy since it was developed on and around prime farmland, and social media is abuzz about the lack of accountability the contractors have at cleaning up construction debris.  At the moment, there are only a handful of homes built.  DCR gives a buyer the opportunity to pick their lot and floor plan and build a semi-custom home, which are designed nicely.  DCR has lots sizeable for horses, and the long-term plan is that there will be a community farm and commercial buildings, just like Hidden Springs, and maybe even a school.

*Avimor is the only community with a year-round pool!  Avimor is also the lowest-priced among the four developments with some homes selling under $300,000.  These homes have few upgrades, and their setbacks are small and yards are tiny; even more expensive homes with a view have small yards, though the open space around the community abounds with hiking trails.  The first phases of Avimor look well established, but this community still has new construction going on, and probably will for quite a while as development is planned to extend to the west side of Horseshoe Bend.  This year Avimor and Hidden Springs will have a linked trail system!

*Cartwright Ranch has a lot of new construction right now, and buyers can choose their own lot and floor plan or select finishes on a house already in the process of being built.  The homes in Cartwright Ranch are being designed very nicely with a lot of modern upgrades, though many have tiny yards, if yards at all.  Many homes in Cartwright Ranch have what is considered “no-scaping;” the only “yard” you may have is a side slab patio with just enough of a setback to plant some privacy plants.  Cartwright Ranch is adjacent to Hidden Springs and residents can share hiking trails, but not Hidden Springs events or pools, and it certainly has a different feel than Hidden Springs.  Base prices in Cartwright Ranch start in the high 300s.

If you have any questions about Hidden Springs, Dry Creek Ranch, Avimor, or Cartwright Ranch, I am happy to help!

5 Tips for New Rehabbers in Boise, ID

You may have heard that the first step to financial freedom is to own a house.  The American Dream is a little harder to come by these days, and first-time homeowners in Boise, ID may find that the houses they can afford aren’t that great.  Been there!  When my husband and I bought our first house, we had over $140,000 in student loans and just enough cash for a 3% down-payment.  A second renovation and seven years later, the student loans are paid off and we were able to put 20% down on a house worth more than twice what our past two houses cost combined.  This isn’t all because of the two homes we “flipped,” as both my husband and I have made huge strides in our own professions, but my point is that it’s hard for young people to get going!  And even harder to get ahead!  That’s why I would encourage any 20- or 30-something with an interest in residential rehabilitation and motivation to learn a physically demanding trade to take a stab at it.  And honestly, I personally think every homeowner should have a basic understanding of home improvement.  If you can YouTube, you can make repairs on your house!  Check out our 1st Renovation, and Parts 1, 2, and 3 of our 2nd renovation, and then read some suggestions to do it right:

  1. Buy the right house

It’s true: location, location, location.  A good agent will help you find and decide on the right location to buy.   You may have heard the suggestion to buy the ugliest house on the block, and this is sound advice; don’t buy a run-down house in a run-down neighborhood.  Don’t buy a condo or manufactured home either as they do not appreciate like a “normal” house does.

The property you want to buy is the most outdated and/or neglected house in a middle income community.  You also want to buy a home that has some redeeming features.  Maybe it needs all new siding, but has a brand new roof.  Maybe it has hardwood floors under the pink carpet or solid wood cabinets that can be salvaged and painted.  You’re going to want to look for all the things you can work with to save money, because there will be enough difficult and costly improvements as there is!

As far as buying the house, an entry-level real estate investor (and that is what you are)  probably won’t be purchasing in cash, and that’s okay.  However, lenders won’t finance a property that needs significant repairs, so many Boise, ID sellers of investment properties will only accept cash.  You may find your options limited in this case, and buyer-competition high among the properties that will accept financing.  Sometimes a seller who normally would only accept a cash offer would be open to accepting an offer with a rehab loan.  There are two types of rehab loans, and I’ll say this: only get a rehab loan if you must.  They aren’t fun.  We got a rehab loan on our 2nd house, and our experience was so, so stressful.  I’ll write a blog on that later.

Your best bet for financing your first rehab project is to get a conventional loan.  They usually require at least 3% down and a decent credit score, but the appraiser won’t be picky about the property’s condition.  It is possible to get an investment property with USDA, FHA, or VA financing, but you’ll need to rely on your agent for this one.  USDA, FHA, and VA appraisers are especially strict when it comes to homes needing repairs, and a Boise, ID agent experienced with this type of financing will know the kinds of things an appraiser will look for.  If the seller is desperate (and able), they may agree to do some repairs prior to the appraisal to increase the chances of a successful transaction. Also, keep in mind you’ll probably want to have some extra money leftover as there will be at least one big repair you’ll want to do immediately after closing.  After all, your new house needs to be liveable!  Which brings me to #2…

  1. Live in the house while you work on it.

This is going to be your house for the next couple years.  First of all, since you’re new to real estate investing, you probably don’t have the assets to pay for two mortgages by living in one house and working in another (that will take at least a couple flips).  Secondly, the tax benefits are the best reason to rehab (thank you, Mr. Clinton)!  In its simplicity, the tax law states that if you live in a home as your primary residence for at least two years, you don’t have to pay capital gains on the profit you make.  Our closing checks were over $40,000 on our first house, and $128,000 on the second, income we didn’t have to report.  Don’t close on that house a day before the two year mark!

And I’ll warn you: it’s not heaven living in a house you’re working on.  It’s easy to get cabin fever when your house and “office” are in the same place, let alone living with drywall dust, tools laying around, piled up debris waiting for garbage day…  You will have some bad days, and your weekends will be monopolized for months on end as you try to get to a place where you can even remotely enjoy your home.  Just tell yourself it will be worth it come closing (and try not to do it with kids).

My husband and I lived and worked in both of our renovation homes.  The first one was the most emotionally challenging, especially since we had only been married about a year and were both new to rehabbing.  We were better prepared for the second house, and while we still had some arguments about features we wanted to add, there weren’t drag-out fights!

  1. Your Budget & Time

It will happen to you: you’ll forget this is not your forever home, and you’ll want to, say, install that amazing soaker tub.  Be careful with your budget – the financial dangers of over-improving are real!  Rehabbing the home you’re living in involves a very fine line because it’s just as costly to under-improve.  Read more about that here.  When debating a high-dollar feature, always ask yourself if it will be a value-add when you go to sell the home.  Solicit the advice of your REALTOR®!

As far as getting the best value for your home, winter is a great time to buy in Boise, ID.  Prices may be lower, buyer competition has thinned out, and sellers may be more willing to help with repairs or credits for repairs.  Real estate investors can still get a fair deal in the spring and summer, though it really depends on the current inventory.  Sometimes your personal situation dictates that you buy during the busy season, and that’s just something you’ll have to roll with.

You’ll need some power tools.  You probably don’t have an arsenal of quality tools, nor a lot of money to spend on them.  For our first renovation, we were broke.  The tools we had weren’t that great, but we got by with a mitered chop saw, drill, power mixer, power sander, and a jigsaw.  We eventually added a pneumatic nailer, sawsall, Fein multi-tool, and Skilsaw, and I admit to taking advantage of Home Depot’s return policy a couple times when we needed a tool but really couldn’t afford it.  We had a friend with a table saw, and another with a hammer drill.  I got to know the nice old man at the hardware store pretty well who saved me hundreds of dollars when we had to rent the tile saw.  The best way to save money is to make friends!

Another way to save money is to keep in mind the seasonal climate changes when planning improvements.  Needless to say, planting a tree in the dead of winter is a great way to kill it and waste your money, but if you have a black thumb like me, landscaping may be the very first thing you’ll want to spend your time on; sometimes it takes a couple seasons to get your grass, shrubs, or flowers to come alive.  Another example is that in extreme environments like Boise, ID, it’s a good idea to install your hardwoods in the winter.  The last thing you want is to finally be finished with your home and ready to get all your hard-earned money back and then you see gaps between your floor boards… that could cost you if the buyer notices!

  1. Designing the Home to Sell

Right now, the rustic farmhouse style is all the rage in Boise, ID and everywhere else.  That trend could change, but in the meantime, embrace it by using stock lumber wherever you can.  You can make wonderful things with stock lumber, even furniture if you need to stage the home or can’t afford to buy furniture – it’s expensive, especially when you’re house poor!  In both of our reno houses, we built our bed from stock lumber (and never found room in the budget for a living room couch).  Our first house already had farmstyle elements, so we played on that as much as we could, with stock lumber barn doors, floating shelves, and built-ins.  Ana White was my constant inspiration.

stock lumber design
A little stain and poly goes a long way!
  1. Getting Physical

Perhaps the most important aspect of rehabbing your house is the demands the manual labor will put on your body.  You MUST start a stretching regime if you don’t already have one.  Do it every night even though you’re just going to want to fall in bed with a beer.  Yoga is great because it gives your body an opportunity to tell you which muscles you need to work on (because some are less obvious).  If you’re not one for yoga, or don’t know where to start, think about the basics you learned in high school PE.  Even now, over a year since my last renovation project, my left shoulder and my right wrist are still angry with me, and my hamstrings seize up even after a short walk.  We won’t even start on my back, but let’s just say I’m too young to feel this old.  Pay attention to your body and don’t let a house do you in.

Of course, there is more to rehabbing than just these five tips, but you’ll learn so much along the way.  If you need help, ask your Boise, ID real estate agent for suggestions.  Or send me an email – I’m happy to help!

 

 

Questions for Your Boise, ID REALTOR® – Ask This, Not That!

Not long ago I came across a Pinterest picture with a list of things to ask when interviewing a real estate agent.  I got the feeling these questions were conjured up by someone who was burned one too many times by a REALTOR®, but the more I looked around on Google, the more I saw some crazy or not-helpful-at-all questions (like “What is your List-Price-to-Sales-Price Ratio?”  Really?  What real estate agent would be prepared to answer that?!).  So naturally, I decided to come up with my own list!  Here’s a short and sweet version of “Ask This, Not That” when looking for your next Boise, ID REALTOR®.

ask the right questions

Question #1:

Ask This: How many transactions have you personally handled in the last year?

Not That: How many years of experience do you have?

An agent can easily fudge this question.  Let’s say an agent has been licensed for ten years… that sounds like a whole lot of experience!  But what if she has only sold a couple homes during that time?  There are several scenarios like this one where an agent’s number of licensed years does not equate to real experience.  On the other hand, if the REALTOR® honestly answers that they have only closed one or two transactions in the last year, don’t write them off quite yet as they may have a perfectly good reason, like a family emergency or moving into a different market.  But if it’s because they are a newbie, you may want to steer clear.

Question #2:

Ask This: Do you have another job?

Not That: Do you sell real estate full-time or part-time?

“Full-time” means different things to different agents.  A REALTOR® may consider herself full-time because she shows up at her Boise real estate office at 9 AM, Monday through Friday, and does nothing but wait for the phone to ring until 5:00 – she’s putting in the hours, right?  I knew an agent who had an office at one of those new construction communities, and yes, she was there at least 40 hours a week, taking people through model homes and showing off the neighborhood, but she considered every “field” agent (e.g., one who did not have an on-site office) to be “part-time,” an inaccurate (and snobby) perception.

Also, a part-time agent who only works, say 15 hours a week, can still accrue quite a bit of experience.  They are also less likely to pass you off to an assistant and give you more personal attention since they aren’t overloaded with their 40-50 hour/week mass of clients.  In my experience, I have seen a lot of mistakes made and a lot of balls dropped by assistants.  I choose to be a part-time agent to avoid hiring an assistant who may jeopardize my transactions or my relationships with my clients.  Plus, it’s just a lot easier on my family!

real estate humor
Ummmmm, NO.  If Billy’s mom wasn’t already crazy when she agreed to take on 11 listings, she certainly is now.  And Billy has run off and is doing drugs somewhere and his mom doesn’t even know he’s missing.

Unless the agent has a good reason (“good” meaning one that YOU are comfortable with), you probably want to avoid one who has another full-time job.  It’s a clear indicator that her real estate business (and clients) are not a priority.

Question #3:

Ask This: Describe a situation when a client got upset with you.

Not That: Was there ever a time when a client was upset with you?

The open-ended question makes this lesson a bit obvious, but the point I’m trying to make is: ANY agent who has ANY decent amount of experience has DEFINITELY had a client get upset with them (myself included).  If you ask the “not that” question, an agent is inclined to give you a non-committal answer of “Not really,” or “Once, a long time ago, and I can’t remember any of the details,” or if they are really sales-y, “Nope, all my clients love me!”  And if they really can’t think of a time when a client was upset with them, they don’t have enough experience to be your Boise, ID REALTOR®.

I believe it was Maya Angelou who said, “When a person shows you who they are, believe them.”  Really listen to the agent’s answer on this one as it not only reflects her character, but also gives you insight on how she perceives and treats her clients.  Is she dismissive of the question?  Of her client’s feelings?  Is she justifying/deflecting her responsibility, or taking ownership?  Did she give you a bogus or vague example?  Sure, it may not be a comfortable question for an agent to answer, but it’s okay to press her for more details – this is an interview, and you’re the boss!

The last questions for your next Boise, ID REALTOR® you’ll have to come up with on your own.  As it is rare for a homebuyer or seller to have NOT been burned by a previous real estate agent (after all, only 1 in 5 are any good), make sure you’re not going to hire “the same agent with a different face.”  Asking pointed, open-ended questions should not only give you some answers (and hopefully some peace in knowing you’re not going to have another bad experience), but it also opens up the conversation to articulate your expectations.  For example:

  • If your last agent never returned your calls or didn’t seem to have a sense of urgency in communicating with you, you could ask something like, “How often do you usually update your clients?”  With this question, the REALTOR® automatically knows constant communication is important to you, and she may be more likely to keep you updated on a regular basis.
  • If you don’t think your last agent marketed your house well, ask things like, “Will you have professional photos taken of my home?  Do you think I need to stage?  Who pays for that?  Will you do open houses?” and anything else you specifically want to know or expect.
  • If your last agent never seemed to be available, ask, “How quickly could we see a house if something pops on the market?  Will you be attending the home inspection?  Are you planning on going on vacation anytime soon, and will I be able to contact you?”

In the end, you’re the only one who can determine if you’re comfortable with the answers you receive!  After weighing the responses, you’ll really just have to trust your gut when choosing your next Boise, ID REALTOR®.  I’d love the opportunity to meet you and answer these questions!

 

Forget the Home Inspection – Get the Everything Inspection

Contrary to what the title of my blog may imply, every buyer should get a home inspection… as the bare minimum!  In the current Boise, ID market where a buyer is likely to pay top dollar as it is, the last thing a new homeowner deserves is a house they have to spend money on as soon as they move in.  A good agent will always try to get the inspection money back at the very least; the inspector almost always finds $400 worth of repairs!

Unfortunately, it’s easy for a buyer to get caught up in the excitement of a buying a new house (especially for those who have made several offers) and decline to ask the seller for any concessions, but remember a seller cannot back out of a contract based on the repairs a buyer requests (they can certainly reject all buyers’ requests, but only the buyer has the right to terminate the contract in this case).  Buyers should also remember that even minor things add up, so if the fixes are seemingly too little to ask the seller to repair, it never hurts to ask for a credit.  Most sellers would gladly throw a few hundred dollars toward the buyer if it means they can move on with their life (e.g. closing).

Here’s what I mean by the “everything” inspection:

  1. If the home has a sprinkler system, get it looked at. Especially if the property has had upgraded landscaping, there may be severed or crimped lines.  This could cost hundreds of dollars or more in irrigation line repair.  Boise, ID has a dry climate and unique soil characteristics; going without efficient sprinklers for just a few days can cause a loss of plants!
  2. Inquire about the last time the dryer vent was cleaned. This is not a high priority for a homeowner; unless there was a problem, chances are the vent has never been cleaned.  Companies that specialize in this can also tell you if the vent has rusted out from lack of cleaning (because the moisture builds up at clogs) or if the vent needs to be rerouted for better efficiency.  Either of these issues should be presented to the seller.
  3. If the property has a lot of trees or shrubbery, call in an arborist. Removing trees is not cheap, and it’s not usually something a homeowner can DIY.  All three properties I have owned have had at least one “bad” tree that needed removal.  Either it was pest-ridden, cracked at the trunk, or leaning toward/planted too close to the house.  Even if the plants on the property are all in good shape, if they look overgrown or need a good pruning (particularly if they are touching the house or hanging over the roof… Boise, ID is Firewise country!), this may indicate a lack of maintenance on the seller’s part and a future expense/hassle for a buyer.
  4. If the home is in a historic district (e.g., Boise’s North End), have the sewer line scoped. The materials we use for such infrastructure today are different than the materials we used a hundred years ago!
  5. If the home has had remodeling, ensure the correct permits were pulled. Often times your lender will take on this task, but they don’t always know when a renovation has been done.  A savvy buyer will recognize even the less obvious improvements, and a good agent will know the right questions to ask.

Remember though, a lot of service providers will not provide estimates for free.  Every company called out to look at the property could potentially charge a service call, which is why most buyers opt for a general home inspection and nothing else.  However, some home inspectors aren’t that great; in Idaho, a home inspector doesn’t even need to be licensed or take continuing education (which means they may not be up-to-date on codes).  In a perfect world where time and money don’t matter, there would be a home inspection TEAM, with a plumber, electrician, roofer, structural engineer, and Mike Holmes going through the house with a fine-tooth comb.  Fortunately, an experienced REALTOR® will know the best home inspectors.  And make sure you hire an agent who not only keeps an arsenal of good Boise, ID home inspectors but also attends the home inspection!

mike holmes
I love this guy!

 

The 80/20 Rule & What’s the Worst That Could Happen?

It’s tough finding a good real estate agent in Boise, ID; it’s hard to know where to start with our 5,000+ REALTORS®!  During my time in broker management, I realized that not every real estate agent is created equal.  My work consisted of reviewing every listing and sales contract of over 300 agents for state compliance, and I couldn’t believe the mistakes I found on a regular basis.  When I started fielding what I thought were simple questions from the licensees, I saw proof of the 80/20 Rule: Not only did 20% of the brokers do 80% of the work, but not surprisingly, it was the 20% that were any good!  If you’re a believer in the Pareto Principle, that’s a pretty scary figure – that means only 1 in 5 real estate agents will represent you well in a transaction!

There was a time I was embarrassed to tell people I am a real estate agent.  For one, there is a general dislike toward salespeople (which I TOTALLY get), but also the stereotypes can be true; so-and-so became an agent because she can’t hold down a real job, or she can’t do anything more, ah hem, “cerebral.”  Yes, some agents have such horrible time management skills or ADHD they wouldn’t be able to keep a 9 to 5 job if their life depended on it, and some agents truly are clueless.  I’ve seen agents who are great at building their business because of their charm and conversation skills yet are terrible negotiators.  There are those who boast of decades upon decades of experience, yet they don’t bother to learn the boilerplate in contracts.  Or maybe you found an agent in Boise, ID who is good at everything but never returns calls or answers emails.  There are so many ways an agent could create an unnecessarily stressful experience for their clients, which honestly, is the least of your worries!

the agent you chose over me

So, what could go wrong if you hire an agent who just isn’t that great?  If you’re a buyer, there is more at stake.  The most obvious consequence is losing out on the house you want.  An experienced agent will not only know the current Boise, ID housing market to help her client make an appropriate offer but will also be assertive if need be.  Sometimes a good agent must risk offending her buyer to explain, “If you really want the house, this is a terrible offer.”  Quick side note: it is license LAW (not just in Idaho; this is nation-wide) that if a client asks their agent to write up an offer, for example, for half the asking price, the agent must do it.  I have written up some bad offers in my time, but not without first trying to educate my client, which is in their best interest.  A poor agent may simply refuse to write up the offer (yes, I’ve seen this, and I don’t get what part of the law is misunderstood??) or will write up the offer without giving their clients any constructive feedback.

Another possible drawback of hiring a bad agent to buy your new Boise, ID home is that you could lose all negotiating power.  There are some lazy agents out there who want to make their commission with the least amount of work possible (I see this most commonly in “veteran” agents).  An accepted offer is just the beginning; there are several deadlines and subsequent negotiations where having an agent who is not mindful could, for example, force a buyer to buy a house “as-is” even if the inspection reveals thousands of dollars of repairs.  I recently represented a seller in this situation; the buyer’s agent missed the inspection deadline by only one day, but a contract is a contract!  Whether you are a buyer or seller, if you happen to default on the contract, the other side gets to call the shots.  A very scary thought!

Most possibly the worst outcome should you use a crappy agent to buy a house: loss of your earnest money.  It’s not easy to lose earnest money; you’d have to default on the contract first.  But one can understand how this could happen if your agent is not mindful and neglects to inform you of conditions you may not know about (or worse yet, conditions the AGENT doesn’t know about).  Using the earlier example where the buyer’s agent missed the inspection deadline, his buyers could have terminated the contract instead of buying the house without repairs, but my seller would have got their $5,000.  I have never lost a client’s earnest money! 

As for sellers, the main risk of using an inexperienced or insecure agent is a longer time with your house on the market.  If your agent isn’t comfortable educating you on the fair market price of your home (or worse: they don’t know themselves), your house may sit overpriced on the market for months on end.  This can become a huge problem for sellers if they need to move or have already bought another house, but some agents don’t seem to empathize with their sellers’ sense of urgency even if they understand that this creates a constant drain on a seller’s finances.  A good Boise, ID agent will refuse to take a listing if the seller insists on an unreasonable price instead of opting for free advertising with their sign in a yard.

Unfortunately, by the time you learn your agent is less-than-stellar, it’s usually too late and the fate of your home or finances lie in the crosshairs.  Worse yet, it’s very difficult to know beforehand whether an agent is going to do a good job for you.  Getting referrals from friends can be tricky because everyone has different standards and expectations of a real estate agent; an agent who did a great job for your friend may not necessarily do a great job for you.  So what is one to do?

There’s no magic answer, though you are less likely to hire a dud if you find a real estate agent who is “hungry” (don’t confuse this with hiring a newbie though as they may treat you like gold, but won’t know what to do when the going gets rough).  You never know what or who you’ll get by calling your Boise, ID Rockstar, and if you want personal attention, keep in mind a veteran agent will probably employ an assistant or transaction coordinator to help keep up with her many clients.  I do not employ an assistant or transaction coordinator so I can give my clients complete personal attention, plus details are more likely to slip through the cracks with an assistant involved.  I also commit to “juggling” three or less transactions at any given time; I choose to do only a handful of transactions each year, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like to work!

In conclusion, here’s my advice:

Don’t settle.  It’s a bit exhausting, but there is nothing wrong with interviewing multiple agents, including the ones your friends have suggested.  Do your due diligence, and if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Don’t reward poor or mediocre service.  If you weren’t completely happy with your last agent, don’t use her again just by default.  There are some great agents here in Boise, ID!

Don’t bail on a good one.  Once you find an agent you trust, stick with her!

rebound realtor

Renovating the 2nd House, Part III

Click to read Part 1 and Part 2 of this renovation.

This part involves much of what we hired a contractor to do.  I’ll say upfront that we weren’t happy with him.  He was expensive, used our garage to store materials instead of bringing a trailer, and was on-site an average of an hour each day, leaving us to manage the two weirdos that were his crew (one was a flat-earther, the other was creepy right from the start and ended up in prison for crimes against children that I shall not mention).  We were so jaded by the time it was all over that we couldn’t wait to sell the house and move on with our lives.

But first, let’s talk about the outbuildings.  The barn had seen better days.  Rats had chewed holes in the siding, and a lean-to that was erected from pallets was causing water to pool up and rot issues along the trim.  There was an ugly chain-link fence surrounding part of it; I put a “free if you remove it” ad in Craiglist, and a bunch of hippies happily took the fence, pallets, and an old rusted metal shed somewhere else on the property.  We ran some rope from our old truck around the two decent lean-to supports and pulled it down, then cleaned up all the hay and trash underneath, and the grass grew back beautifully like it had been there all along.  Then I pressure-washed the old cedar shakes and patched in new wood where it had rotted (a very basic patch job, but hey, it’s a barn), and caulked and painted the trim to match the colors we decided to use on the house.

rehabbed barn
Thank goodness for the hippies.

Then there was this fiasco.  This was The Artist’s “photo lab:”

abandoned building
“Photo Lab” because there was a dark room in the back with a sink that drained straight into the ground through PVC pipe.

Not even the fire department would burn it down for practice.  It had water and electric run to the building, so we wanted to make use of that, but Mother Nature had her claws deep in this thing.  The hippies took one look at it and said, “Score!”  They took pretty much all the framing, trusses, and some of the roofing, and my husband and I were left hauling the rest to the dump every Saturday over the next three months.  You would not believe how many chocolate milk cartons we found underneath that thing!  And rat carcasses.  Rats must love chocolate milk.  We had the water and electric tied off and ended up marketing it as an additional building site for a guesthouse, art studio, or stables.

And the garage!  Yes, this was technically an outbuilding because it was not attached to the house; a giant 20×40 rotted wood deck stood between the house and the garage.

open garage
Did I mention the garage was “open”? And notice the complete absence of landscaping.

Before I go into the construction process, let’s take a look at the kitchen.  You may recall from Parts 1 & 2 that you never saw a kitchen.  That’s because it was the absolute worst room in the house and needed a complete gut job!

ugly kitchen
First of all: UGLY. Second of all: none of this makes any sense. That’s how I know the architect was a single man. ; )
claustrophobic kitchen
I’ve combined two pictures here in an effort to show a panorama of the kitchen; you can see how narrow the walkways were, less than 30″!

You may barely be able to see it in the pictures, but there are wood countertops with stick legs in the very back – this was the only place where one could eat a meal.  There was no dining room or even space for a small table in this thing.  The dysfunctional layout made it easy to determine where the addition would go and what it would consist of.  Our objective was to connect the garage and home with a mudroom and add a desperately needed laundry room, dining room, and office.  Here we go!

Needless to say, the first thing that had to happen was getting rid of that deck and the breezeway roof.  Because the addition was funded through our rehab mortgage, we went through four contractors before finding one who would play game with the bank, and by that point, winter was settling in.  And because our contractor was so expensive, there were several projects we were forced to complete ourselves to be within budget and get the renovation done at all, including tearing out the deck.

removing rotten deck
My husband, hating life.

Construction doesn’t wait for the sun to come out, and even though we were sore for a few days, the foundation was poured on schedule.

installing foundation
The ladders are how we got in and out of the house for the next couple weeks until the decking was installed at the front door.

While the contractor’s crew handled the outside, we worked on making the kitchen less disgusting.  We had an electrician move some wires and put in recessed lighting and then hired someone to repair the ceilings from where we removed the beams.  We also had to hire a plumber because the beams had a vent line in it for the kitchen sink, which he ran through the crawl space.  Of course, everything was costing more money than we had planned, which convinced my husband to keep the fridge and dishwasher, but we learned shortly after closing that the oven had a broken seal.  Running a gas line to the kitchen was one more expense, but since we wanted to build for the high-end buyer, we felt a gas range was necessary.

remodeling kitchen
Left: those cabinets were stinky and in there so good! Right: kitchen looking better already!

The framing for the addition was going up!

building an addition
Left: mudroom framing looking at the front door. Center: mudroom framing looking at the mandoor. Right: the shealthing goes up on the dining room and office!

And the countertops arrived the day before Thanksgiving, though we learned we couldn’t use the new gas range until the county came out and did a pressure test on the line.  Good thing we hadn’t planned on holiday company!  We ordered the walnut butcher block countertop for the island from some place out in North Carolina, I think?  Anyway, that was a mess.  It was beautiful, but arrived about a month late. which was a pain because we couldn’t install the kitchen faucet until there was a countertop.  I can’t even remember how long we managed without a kitchen sink, a month? two?  We ate a lot of Subway.

remodeling kitchen
Don’t mistake my smile for remodeling joy – it was just really nice to finally have counters!

The drywall was going up and the interior rooms were beginning to take shape.  I mentioned earlier we had agreed to do certain projects ourselves in order to make the budget; debris removal was one of those projects.  We expected the contractor to leave all house debris, but we weren’t expecting him to direct the subs to do the same, and we didn’t appreciate picking up their Coke bottles and cigarette butts either.  Ugh, “professionals.”

newly drywalled rooms
Left: the new office. Thanks for the trash, drywallers. Center: The mudroom looking into the main part of the house. Right: the NEW DINING ROOM!

Creepy Guy on the crew knew a guy who could wanted the old cedar shake siding (to sell as kindling), and he was honestly a big help with the debris clean up.  However, once we learned Creepy Guy went to prison (from reading it in the newspaper, not from disclosure by our contractor, thank you very much), we asked that his friend not come by anymore.  He was probably a nice guy, but it really rattled us.  Anyway, the fiber cement siding and roof on the addition finished things up.  The pictures below was about how things looked when the crew left for good.  You may wonder why it isn’t finished?  Because we also had to do all the exterior painting ourselves.

new addition and siding
By this time spring was approaching, and with the warmer weather, we didn’t feel as much pressure to get the outside painted right away.

We were happy the house was “done” in time for the baby, but man, we really hated having to use such an expensive builder.  All the other contractors we spoke to charged about $35/hour, and this guy charged us $45/hour for each man and then didn’t even show up himself.  We figured it was because he was from a bigger city a couple hours away where that was the going rate, and wasn’t savvy enough to realize the market was different.  Plus, he was a spec builder and rarely did any custom builds for real people.  He actually came recommended by our plumber, and the workmanship wasn’t bad, but man, this was one of those cases when you really didn’t get the quality of service you pay for.  For this reason, I really don’t recommend a rehab mortgage; it seems the only contractors willing to work with this set-up were crappy ones.

Anyway, we refinished the front door – now the mudroom door – and got to work on the interior priming and painting (also a project not included in the contractor’s service.  He couldn’t even make the trim “paint ready,” citing that his painters always do the caulking).  While I’m at it, the flooring and lighting for the office and dining room were our responsibility as well.

refinishing a wood door
One has to get creative when one doesn’t have a shop or a table saw.

If there was one thing I learned from renovating the first house, it was how to prime and paint walls.  This didn’t make it easy, especially for a pregnant woman, but I was able to get all the wall painting done before the baby arrived, and just in the nick of time, really.  Having my husband’s office done was very important as he works at home, and on days I had to run to the office, show homes, or attend an inspection, I could simply put the babe in the pack ‘n play with my husband.  And yes, during this renovation, my husband had to work from a camping chair in the hallway, from a banquet table in the living room, and even from bed a few times.  Sometimes I don’t know how we managed it.

remodeled mudroom
Left: the office, looking out over where the new deck would be built. Right: the mudroom looking toward the main house. The room on the right is the office.

We tried to match the laundry room floor tile with the current white tile in the pantry and upstairs bathroom, and this was the best we could come up with.  We bought some stock cabinets and painted them black, and made a countertop for the utility sink with left over common board.  The laundry room closet also held the new furnace.

new laundry room
It was a bit boring, but at least it was a dedicated space (remember what the laundry room looked like before?) and hidden by a pocket door.

As for the kitchen, it was pretty plain-jane for a while.  It wasn’t until nearly a year later when I managed to get the backsplash in; my husband had some time off for Christmas and was able to take over baby duty while I worked.  Let me tell you, reaching over the counterop to do a backsplash is back-breaking, and the subway tile was stressful to get level and have even grout lines.  We wanted to install floating shelves between cabinets, and boring out 12 holes through glass tile took me DAYS.  Everything I read said “go slow and keep your bit wet,” so I was holding the 5-pound drill with one hand and spray bottle with the other for what felt like forever to make one hole… and then it would crack anyway.  I think my fault was that in being careful not to press too hard, I wasn’t putting enough pressure on the glass tile, which was why it took so long, but I don’t know why they ended up cracking after the fact.  Alas, at least the brackets and the shelves covered it up.  And I called in our bathroom tile guy to make the cuts for the outlets.  He did it on the way home from another job – cost me $50 but saved me from having to buy another tool and break tiles just learning to use it.

kitchen backsplash.
You can see the red lines on the backsplash where I marked where the brackets were going and where to drill the holes.

Lastly, I feathered in hardwoods in the dining room and finally, the interior was finished!

remodeled kitchen
Thankful to have a husband who can install lighting! I know it’s not hard, but I figure he can have this one thing while I do everything else. ; )

But the outside… there was a lot to paint!  I got to work, though I wasn’t happy about it:

painting with a baby
I would have rather spent those newborn months doing something else with the baby, but at least we were together.

The rains came back, and we saw how bad the trucks and construction had ruined the lawn and gravel drive.  Plus, the digout of the addition foundation essentially tilled the soil left it subject to flooding.

flooding and weeds
While we saved up for the landscaper, a friend with a hammerdrill helped us install some dry wells along the foundation, another thing that the contractor didn’t include in his hefty price.

To make matters worse, this was about the time we got fleas.  Fleas!  They are horrible!  Our indoor cat noticed them first, but I must have brought one in on my pant leg from working around the barn or pasture or who knows.  It took us weeks to finally get rid of them (the hard way as extermination wasn’t in the budget), but landscaping/hardscaping became a fast priority.  I never realized how expensive landscapers cost!  I was able to whittle the bid in half by doing some of the “easy” work myself, but we still paid a guy nearly $4,000 to install some underground gutters that ran to daylight and lay new gravel down part of the drive.

gravel driveway
Before and after the gravel work.

And I still had to build a deck and patio and lay edging myself!

woman doing landscaping
It wasn’t the most professional landscape job, but it was something I could manage on my own, and I didn’t mind the exercise too much!

The deck may or may not have been constructed perfectly, but it was level and pressure treated.  It used up the space between the house and the garage so the addition looked more “natural.”  At first we thought we’d do a simple patio here, but we learned there was a bit of a negative slope and decided a deck would be the best way to hide this.

new deck
We used Thompson’s WaterSeal on the deck, but it came off a bit after the winter, and it didn’t restain well. We’ll try something different next time.

I lied when I said we were done with the inside.  I made a build-in bench in the mudroom by the man door.  It wasn’t the fanciest piece of carpentry, but it functioned well and looked like it fit.

built ins mudroom
I used stock 1x12s for the seats and leftover plywood for the rest. We bought some funky coat hooks at the antique store.

Here are some drone shots so you can see how the addition fit in with the existing structure when it was all finished.

drone shots of house
In the center picture, you can really notice the patch of lawn where all the construction debris was piled. We reseeded it, but the house sold before the grass grew back.

For the big reveal!

remodeled house

And would you like to know the ironic part of this whole ordeal?  After nearly three years of blood, sweat, and tears first to get the Rehab Mortgage, then to find a contractor, then to pay tens of thousands of dollars out of pocket and spend hours and hours away from my new baby, we sold the home to a couple of chain smokers who on DAY ONE walked all over the carpets with muddy shoes.  As they were moving their Goodwill furniture into the house, we overheard Mr. Buyer say that he had never even been upstairs.  Heck, if I had known they weren’t going to go upstairs or didn’t care for clean carpets, I wouldn’t have tried so hard to clean up the cat puke from them.  This house really deserved owners who would love it, but unfortunately, it seems it will be ready for another renovation in just a few years. : (

The Truth About Open Houses in Boise, ID

One summer Saturday when I was 13, my best friend and I found ourselves at my grandma’s house in the southwest hills of Portland, Oregon (if you’re not familiar with the southwest hills, this is the neighborhood with million-dollar views of Mt. Hood).  Grandma wasn’t doing well and there was a lot of adult talk, so my friend and I decided to take a walk and look at the homes we would surely never, ever be able to afford.  As we were walking along, we found an open house sign in front of what we thought was a HUGE, EXPENSIVE ESTATE.  Anyway, being silly teenage girls with nothing else to do, we waltzed inside, met the real estate agent who was nice enough not to throw us out, and proceeded to run from one room to the next, fantasizing about living there and feeling like we had somehow tricked fate into letting us into this house and pretending like it was ours!  No one was in the home besides the real estate agent, and I hope he was listening to our squeals because I’m sure we were quite entertaining.  This was my first experience of an open house, and it was wonderful!

But here’s my point: serious buyers don’t go to open houses.  Teenage girls do, neighbors do, lookie-loo’s and criminals, but serious buyers?  They could care less.  Serious Boise, ID buyers are already working with an agent and can schedule a personal tour of the home at their convenience; why would they want or need to go to an open house?  And for the safety of your family, if your home is not vacant, it has no business being “open.”

thieves and neighbors love open houses

According to the 2018 National Association of REALTORS® Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, less than 7% of homes are sold due to an open house.  I would even go a step further and guess that 7% was in those ridiculously fast-paced markets where the agents simply send their associates an open house e-vite and the house is sold without having to list on the MLS (think Flipping Las Vegas… Boise, ID is a stressful market these days, but nothing like Vegas!).  If an agent holds more than one open house, they are either trying to build their business or appease their sellers.  Here’s how it works:

Building a Business

I’m happy to hold open houses on my listings; I want to build my business as much as the next real estate agent!  Open houses are a great way to get my face seen and build that name recognition, and they give me an opportunity to introduce myself to the neighbors.  There is also the bonus of meeting potential buyers who may use me as their agent down the road as they grow more serious in the homebuying process.  With over 5,000 agents in Boise, ID, open houses are a great way for me to break into the competition.

A lot of real estate agents don’t like doing open houses because we generally see them as a waste of time; however, it would be rare for an agent to refuse to do one at the seller’s request.  In these cases, the agent would simply send out an all-office email for open house takers.  And, lo and behold, the newbies jump at the chance of holding an open house in hopes of meeting someone who will eventually use them to buy a home (that’s why there’s a sign-in list at open houses, though I don’t use them with mine… it feels too aggressive.)  During the busy season, I get emails almost every other day from Boise, ID agents who don’t want to hold their own open houses!

Appeasing a Seller

If a home isn’t selling as fast as a seller expected, a homeowner may get upset and question whether the agent is doing a good enough job marketing the home.  This is when an agent, in order to appease the seller, may play the Open House Card to reassure their client and stay in their good graces.  Sometimes an agent will pull out all the stops and do this in conjunction with print advertising, saying, “Please Mr. and Mrs. Seller, don’t give up on me yet.  Let me put some ads on Craigslist, another in the newspaper, and hold a couple open houses.”  Putting ads in Craigslist is another tool (a dubious one, in my opinion) to wrangle potential buyers, and no serious buyer looks in a newspaper to buy a house anymore.  I wouldn’t necessarily say these agents are being dishonest by allowing their client to operate under the assumption that this marketing will sell their home, but I would say these agents, for some reason or another, cannot tell their clients the truth!

There was a home in my neighborhood of Hidden Springs, Idaho that sat on the market for nearly 90 days when other homes were selling in less than a week.  The home was nice enough and priced fair, but after seeing a hardwood floor estimator pulling out of the driveway on my daily walk, I guessed the carpet was in bad shape.  After a month and a half on the market, the real estate agent started holding open houses nearly every week.  It got ridiculous when she held the 5th open house the freezing weekend before Christmas, balloons and all!  When I see a Boise, ID REALTOR® holding open houses weekend after weekend, I can only assume it is because they have not been honest with their sellers, are “using” the listing to advertise themselves, or are simply clueless.

i love open houses

And it rubs me the wrong way.  First, holding so many open houses reeks of desperation, the very last thing a seller wants to project; the agent is actually doing their client a disservice!  Second, the agent is giving her seller the impression that the problem is not the condition or price of the house, but that the home doesn’t have enough exposure, and trust me: if the house is listed on the Boise, ID MLS, it has enough exposure!  Third, it gives the home-selling public the impression that open houses are an integral part of marketing one’s home; it propagates a misconception.

What’s the harm of a misconception?  Here’s a fictional but realistic scenario. Let’s say I am asked to visit a neighbor’s house to go over my marketing presentation with the goal of listing their home.  I go through my whole spiel, including statistics such as the 7% Open House thing, and when it comes time to answer questions, the sellers say, “So you’re not going to do open houses?”  I explain that I will do them, but an open house is not what sells a home, and we will need to take a good look at the feedback we’ve received from showings instead of resorting to holding open houses if it does not sell quickly.  This goes against everything the seller “knows,” and they start to doubt my expertise.  A couple weeks later, I see the house listed by another Boise, ID agent.  Because of a misconception, I have lost business and my family has lost income.  Consider having to take a pay cut from your job because of a generally accepted falsehood – a tough pill to swallow!

All that said, here is the bottom line: An open house CAN help in the initial marketing of a home; holding an open house the very first weekend on the market creates a buzz in the neighborhood and gives the impression that the property is a hot commodity.  I love doing this bit of marketing for my sellers – it’s a great kickoff to what I expect to be a successful transaction!  At the same time, I have a responsibility to provide accurate information to my clients as to why their home is not selling, and it would be unethical to hold an open house without giving my clients the full picture.  If your Boise, ID home is not selling, it’s because of its condition or price, not a lack of open houses!

Renovating the 2nd House, Part II

If you’re reading this, make sure you’re read Part I of this renovation, which details all the work we did on the bedrooms and bathrooms.  This Part II will show you what we did to the living room and a couple other problem areas, like the laundry room and utility closet.

Since the house did not have central air, the utility closet only consisted of a water heater with a rusted pan, another poorly-placed built-in cabinet (covered in rat poop), and a particleboard shelf with water stains in the very back.  After cleaning everything with TSP and/or bleach, I primed the entire room with Kilz; I don’t think I bothered to paint the walls.  Originally we wanted to put the furnace here, but the ducts would have ran too weird.  We ended up storing our boxes here instead.

before and after utility room
It took me two additional trips to the hardware store and a couple odd looks from the paint counter guy, but I managed to paint the linoleum tiles this checker pattern with only one can of paint.

And the laundry room… this house was so dysfunctional, I KNOW the architect was a single male who never married or had kids!  It was right off the kitchen, on the other side of the main-level bathroom shower wall, and it was a beautiful green and orange!

ugly laundry room
Blue arrow: abandoned water lines. Yellow arrow: where the washing machine’s drain pipe goes into the wall. Purple arrow: Dryer vent hole leading directly into the crawl space. No wonder the rats loved it down there. The brick is there to keep the rats out.

If you recall from Part 1, we borrowed some square footage from the laundry area to expand the size of the main-level bathroom (we built a new laundry room in the addition, so we didn’t need this space anyway.  A little trick we learned from the last renovation, bringing in the wall flush with the fridge made the refrigerator look flush-mount, giving it that built-in look.  Creating a brand new wall also let me easily install a spice cabinet niche between the studs.

2018-12-26 21_07_18-transtuesday2.jpg.pub - Publisher

I scrubbed and scrubbed that white floor tile, desperate to save the flooring, and Grout Renew’d the stains I couldn’t remove.  Hiring a carpenter for built-ins was one of the last things we did, and we saved money by painting everything ourselves… again.

As far as the living room:

living room
Notice the benches below the windows and the lack of electric in the ceiling.

There were defunct baseboard heaters under those “window seats” – we tore all this out the first week after closing, convinced it was part of the smell problem.  We were happy to find that the hardwood floors extended underneath the benches, though they had been painted black.  Good thing the floors needed refinishing anyway!

benches with wiring
Notice the electrical in the window seats – even the switch for the ceiling fan was down there!

The interior surfaces of the house were a project all of themselves as we were pretty sure the smells had permeated into the walls and floors, but before we could tackle that, there was more drywall work to do.  The stairwell had funky peep-holes looking into the living room that we needed to remove by framing it up.

artsy stairwell
My husband the first time we viewed the house, thinking something like, “If we buy this thing, and I’m not sure we should, this has got to go.”

I tackled the “stairwell slit” myself, though we hired out the reframing of the stairwell ceiling.  True to form, there was no light in the ceiling, so we had to have that wired in.  If you look closely at the blue arrows, you may be able to see that interior window space that led from the stairwell to the upstairs bathroom mentioned in Part 1.  Re-framing the ceiling here allowed us to simply cover it up.

reframing stairwell
The contractor was nice enough to leave their ladders and plank with us while we finished up the stairwell with prime and paint.  It was starting to smell better!

More about the walls!  There were more ill-placed built-ins that made the hallways claustrophobic.  During our broker open house, one of the agents actually asked me if we had moved the walls to expand the hallways!  Anyway, those shelves were in there pretty good, installed by a craftsman who used dovetails; between removing them and all the drywall anchors from the previous owner’s art, we went through a significant amount of joint compound and spackle once we were done installing the drywall.

patching walls
Left: the hallway to the master bedroom. Right: my husband by the front door.

We debated over and over again about how to finish the stairs.  Re-carpeting would be the cheapest route, but knowing how quickly carpet wears on stairs, and how picky people are about carpet, we finally decided to do wood.  In a house with a lower-price range, I would have just sanded and stained the 2×10 treads, but we didn’t feel we could get away with a short cut like that.  Besides, it really wasn’t too much to buy a dozen or so bullnosed, red oak treads from Home Depot and pay a handyman to replace them.  It took him a morning, and then I got to work sanding, staining, Waterloxing, and painting.  We also learned how to put up a handrail since it didn’t have one – shame!

refinishing stairs with baby
Left: one of my last projects before the baby. Right: about 5 months later.

 

remodeled stairwell
New ceiling and new light in the stairwell, and a preview of the new addition out the former front door.

Now let me tell you about refinishing hardwood floors!  First of all, this is not a project you want to do while living in the house at the same time.  Fortunately for us, we caught wind of a 2-week long pet-sitting gig, and took this opportunity to work on the floors.  Unfortunately, we weren’t done by the time the gig ended, and definitely wore out our welcome in the pet owner’s guest house for an additional two weeks.

I had already feathered reclaimed red oak into the master bedroom and areas in the kitchen, so by now the install was finished.  It was laborious, but installing hardwoods is pretty straightforward if you’re the kind of person who pays attention to detail.  It’s the refinishing equipment that makes the project intimidating.  If I remember correctly, we were able to rent the drum roller and finish during a 3-day weekend, though it was exhausting.  I don’t know if all drum rollers are like this, but the one we had “bounced” each time we let it down, no matter how gently.  We had to go horizontally, vertically, and diagonally across each bit of floor to get the finish off evenly.  I think we only used the drum roller on the lowest grit before we traded it in for an orbital sander.  This one didn’t seem to work as efficiently, but I discovered that tilting it made it work better.  The rental guy didn’t seem to appreciate that when I returned the thing – apparently it is a common hack with that machine, and someone should have told me not to do it when I rented it, but not my fault!

Then the edger!  My poor husband.  By now my arms and back were shot, and while I took to sweeping and vacuuming up sawdust, my husband finished the edges.  This involved being on his knees and using a large vibrating can to support all his weight.  Then doing it all over again once or twice at higher grits.  When everything was sanded and cleaned up, and all the rental equipment had been returned, the floors still did not feel smooth enough.  So THEN we rented a square buffer.  This did the trick to get the floors prepped just right, and got into the corners pretty well, too, but the machine (darn rentals) pulled to one side.  Did I mention my back was killing me?

Originally, we wanted to make our lives easier and finish the floor without stain, but we found the floors to be too discolored by the time the sanding was finished.  There were places the previous seller must have put potted plants directly on the floor, and all the flooring under the window benches had been untouched by the sun for decades and much paler than the rest of the floor.  Alas, we had to go the extra mile to stain the entire floor.  More hands-and-knees work.

sanded floors
Left: some of the worst areas of the floor before sanding. Right: a newly sanded floor where the window seats used to be.

Staining a floor is pretty straightforward, too, unless you go to sleep while it dries, and wake up to see a couple places you missed.  Then, naturally, you take a clean rag and touch up those spots only to find the stain is not absorbing the same now?  And it looks splotchy??  And it has ruined the entire floor, and dear God, I’m going to have to sand the whole stinking thing again!?!?!? @#$&^%!  Five months pregnant, stiff as a board, and at my wit’s end, my husband drove me to my real estate office, told me to stay put, then went and rented the buffer again and sanded all the floors in three hours.  Not all the stain was out, but it was good enough to start again.  This time we were more methodical with our staining, and the one or two spots we missed, we didn’t dare touch up.

The pet-sitting gig was long over by now, and if you remember that we were installing and refinishing the floors in the bedroom, you may wonder where we lived this entire time.  We had the mattress on the floor in the upstairs back bedroom…

sleeping on floor
It wasn’t tidy, but at least it was somewhat clean and kept us as far away as possible from the smells of the stain and finisher.

It was the best place to be since the upstairs bathroom was the only bathroom (and only clean room) in the house at this point, and with stain and 3 coats of Waterlox needing at least a night to dry, we quarantined the cat upstairs with us and just didn’t use the main floor for a while.  The addition and kitchen remodel was well under way at this point, so it was all a construction site anyway.

waterlox floors
The floors finally Waterlox’d and drying. Notice the modem cable hanging from the plastic bag in the far corner! That eventually got moved to the utility closet.

And I really can’t show pictures of the living room without mentioning refinishing the fireplace…

refinishing fireplace
The ugly and smelly fireplace, and my 6-month pregnant self eating a donut.

You can see from the “before” picture that the mantle was significantly singed.  It had a gas insert, but I can only assume it used to be wood-burning.  A lot of cleaning, painstaking sanding, and priming took place before the smell went away I could paint.  We also removed the gas insert and used some sheet metal and spray foam to block off the flue and a musty smell coming from inside.  After spray painting the inside with heat-resistant black paint, we refaced the hearth with marble tile and then just put some candles inside.  We didn’t have any money to put a new insert in, and figured the new owners could do what they want with it.  We also refinished the old front door as it would become a “mud door” for the mud room in the new addition.

refinishing door in living room
Yes, we lived in this mess!

To finish off the living room, I primed and painted every surface (even that dark purple window trim… what were they thinking?), then had an electrician wire recessed lights and a fan in the living room ceiling.  Trim is one of my favorite projects, and the new 6″ baseboards and 4″ window/door trim we put throughout the house made everything look so much better!

remodeled living room
The finished product! Our go-to color for accent walls: Behr’s Cheyenne Rock.

Between Parts 1 and 2, we have now covered the entire existing house except for the kitchen, which you can read about in Part 3, right after I take a mental break from my trip down memory lane!  As you can imagine, this house really took its toll on us, and it’s a bit exhausting to relive it!

 

Renovating the 2nd House, Part I

Compared to the 1st House Renovation, this one was much more involved.  We had gone through the arduous process of getting a Rehab Mortgage, and most of the $87,000 allotted for repairs was only for the kitchen, addition, and exterior.  This left us having to do the work and foot the bill for the rest.  Shall we get started?

Let’s talk about the redeeming qualities of the property: we weren’t thrilled about the “Rainforest Green” roof, but it was only a couple years old.  Both bedrooms upstairs and the living room had vaulted ceilings.  The main level had solid oak woods.  The house sat in the middle of five wooded acres with a barn and a 2nd outbuilding, both with power and water.

house to remodel
Look at that funky green trim, weather-beaten cedar shakes, and lack of landscaping… POTENTIAL!

Now let’s talk about how “livable” this house was.  The ductless heat system (I hate those things) pumped out enough air to keep us comfortable, so we essentially had a furnished roof over our head… but the smell!  Notice where we slept the first week after closing while we tried to figure out where the smell(s) came from:

tent in back yard
Thank goodness for that tent and warm weather!

The more we worked on the house, the more we peeled away the several layers of stink (it took MONTHS).  Day 1: removed all the carpets and padding.  Day 2: TSP’d the walls and mopped the floors.

dirty walls from dogs
Notice the dog-height dirt on the walls, and the lack of trim on the doorways. It was like that throughout the house!

By then, there was no reason why we should have still smelled dogs, but we did.  Along with hints of mildew, wood rot, apple cinnamon, and raw red oak (if you’ve never smelled it, it smells a bit like urine or vomit.  There were solid red oak floors throughout the main level, but the finish had worn off, leaving the wood bare and stinky).  We found the apple cinnamon plug-in located right by the drafty fireplace, which we swore was full of bat feces and mold.  To this day, I get nauseous if I smell artificial apple cinnamon or see a similar pile carpet.

There was the master bedroom and bathroom on the main level with two additional bedrooms and another bathroom upstairs.  The bathrooms were awful.  We gutted them both right away, though the downstairs one had to wait a couple years before we got the funds to finish it.  I got pregnant about a month after we moved in, so our budget and time took quite a hit.  But I am getting ahead of myself…

My husband would say the upstairs bathroom looked like a clown threw up.  Who would go to the trouble of painting perfectly good solid-core wood doors?  An “artist” would.  The previous owner considered herself an artist, and the builder was some artsy-fartsy, whimsical architect, so go figure: this house.  Anyway, we replaced both the toilet and vanity and grout-renewed the tile.  Since we’re both relatively tall people, I moved the shower head up (patching the fiberglass with some auto-body filler) and refinished the dingy shower surround with Rustoleum Tub & Tile.  This was the easy part; I learned very quickly that I do not enjoy drywall work on ceilings!  One side of the bathroom faced the stairwell ceiling, which was waaaay too high to ever be able to dust cobwebs.  Not only that, but the architect had built in some kind of interior skylight that let light from the stairwell into the shower area.

interior skylight
As you can see, this thing was so caked in dust, it wasn’t letting any light in anyway! Pretty nasty taking it out…

Since the skylight was located so high in the stairwell, it could never be cleaned, and it was tilted, so dust bunnies collected on it.  Also, the bathroom fan (one of those old heat/light/fan combos) hadn’t been cleaned in 40 years – you can see the strings of dust hanging from it in the picture below!  So we got the ducts cleaned and installed a new fanlight.

ugly bathroom
Left: the upstairs bathroom when we moved in. Right: everything done but the ceiling. See the purple fan/heater/light? Ugh, this “artist.”

I got through it, painted every surface, refinished the door, and installed new trim.  It was the only clean, finished room for several months, so needless to say it my favorite room in the house for quite a while!

updated bathroom
The finished bathroom! The marble tile backsplash was used with leftover material from refinishing the fireplace hearth.

The downstairs bathroom was gutted to the studs for nearly two years.  We ripped out the shower surround in this one as we could already see some areas of rot on the floor.  We patched the drain holes and had our pest guy spray some sticky chemical (I can’t remember what it’s called) to stop any spread of rot, and found there had been a family of rats living under the tub (smell #7?).  We re-framed the shower with some borrowed space from the old washer/dryer area on the other side of the shower wall to get a little more room; I really wanted a double vanity, which didn’t happen, but at least we had some space for our hamper.  I waterproofed the shower myself, but called someone in to do all the drywall, cement boarding, and tile.

bathroom drain
Left: the downstairs bathroom when we moved in. There was no natural light, yet The Artist decided the ceilings should be painted aubergine, and the walls… orange?!  Right: the rat-nest drain when we gutted the bathroom. In the background: the master bedroom closet which we also gutted because we discovered a leak.

Of course, we replaced the toilet and vanity, and I painted all the walls and installed new trim.  We were happy when this was FINALLY finished, but the tile shower pan wasn’t the easiest to clean.  The end result:

updated bathroom
The shelves in the foreground were DIY, inspired by Ana White.

The two bedrooms upstairs were fairly straightforward.  We ripped out the carpet of both, primed and painted the walls and ceilings, put new closet shelves up using stock lumber (why do people think particleboard is okay in closets?), removed the wall cadet heaters, and put in new windows to code.  In the front bedroom we had to re-frame the exterior wall for a dormer to accommodate the roof line for the addition.

new dormer
Left: Our kitchen cabinet people made a mistake on our order, so we got a free 3-drawer cabinet that we installed in the open closet of the front bedroom as a built-in. Right: the electrician installing wiring for the kitchen below and the new dormer.

Neither rooms had lights in the ceiling, so we had electric run and my husband installed a couple new ceiling fans, then we had new berber carpet installed in the bedrooms.  We didn’t take very good “before” pictures of these spaces, so I’ll use the MLS pictures:

remodeled bedroom
The back upstairs bedroom: notice the new duct in the right corner – this house finally got central heat!
remodeled bedroom
The front upstairs bedroom became the nursery – look how much bigger the dormer makes the room! And the painted doors make it feel so much brighter.

Now for the downstairs bedroom, the “master,” which the seller used as her “art studio.”  At some point she had cut a hole in the wall and installed a makeshift doggie door, then had someone completely unqualified patch up the interior, leaving the flap to essentially expose the studs to the elements.  Not pictured: me, nervously removing and replacing a portion of rotted 2×12 rim joist with a Sawzall and sistering disintegrated exterior studs.  It was the first and only time I have dabbled in structural rehab;  the house did not crumble on top of me, so I consider that success.

doggy door
An exterior and interior shot of the old doggy door. You don’t have to look hard to see the patch job…

The bedroom had some pretty cool wavy-glass windows.  Initially I wanted to save them, but finally agreed with my husband that it wouldn’t match the rest of the house when it was all said and done (plus they were drafty and painted shut).  We took those windows out very carefully and found a significant amount of wood rot; not even an antique store could sell them after a year.  You’ll also see a funky space in the back right corner of the bedroom where there was another tall window.  Of course, the seal was broken and there was wood rot.  We framed it up, dry-walled over it, and waited for new siding to take care of the window.

ugly bedroom
The carpet was as disgusting as it looks, and what was with the mauve walls?

There were newer Milgard windows in the living room, so we installed matching windows in the master after removing the window seats and hidden baseboards.  Looking back, we should have installed windows on the entire wall, as it faced west and one could see sunsets from bed on clear nights.  I’m not sure why we didn’t do this, but I think it had something to do with not having a place for a TV in the entire house, so we figured we could at least put a place for it in the bedroom.

faux fireplace
We lived with that unfinished wall for nearly a year until we had funds to hire a carpenter, and then a bit more with blue tape until I had time to paint.
installing hardwood floors
3-4 months pregnant and hard at work! I wouldn’t recommend rehab in flip flops, BTW (but I did it anyway!)

Then the skylight… UGH.  Having a skylight in your master bedroom is the last place you want it unless you love waking up at dawn every single day.  And the way it was done was so silly.  They simply exposed the 2×8 floor joists and painted them.  The skylight shaft was 2 stories; right above the bedroom was the upstairs hallway with some weird painted glass art.

ugly skylight
Left: the skylight in the upstairs hall. Right: looking up at the skylight from the master bedroom.

We tore out the whole thing, sealed up the bedroom ceiling (remember how much I love doing drywall on ceilings?) and put in new sub-floor upstairs. We also removed some ill-fitted, ugly cabinets in the upstairs hall.

bad built-ins
I’m sure this was a great use of space for The Artist who had tons of junk laying around.

A few months later, we had a carpenter build us ceiling-height built-ins, including a storage window seat under the skylight.

custom built-ins
Left: gutting the upstairs hall. Right: badly needed storage! This was how it looked by the time baby arrived. We tried to save money where we could and painted everything ourselves.

Here is the finished master bedroom sans the funky skylight:

remodeled bedroom
The faux fireplace might not have been the best use of space, but I’m sure I could have made it more decorative had I spent more time on Pinterest.

And the finished upstairs hallway, making use of the skylight appropriately!

hallway with built ins
We really liked how it turned out – it was almost like having a bonus room.

It was hard to find a stopping point for Part 1, but that’s going to be it!  Click here for Part 2!

 

 

Top 3 DIY Home Projects for Winter

If you’re like me and a bit compulsive when it comes to fixing up your home, the cold winter months won’t stop you.  The holiday season is not known for being the time of year for home improvement; you certainly don’t want Christmas guests judging you over unfinished projects!  But if fixing up the house sounds more enjoyable than slaving over an oven or stuffing yourself silly with turkey during your time off, all these projects are doable over a 3-day weekend:

  1. Interior painting. Painting is a great winter project because you can stay inside the entire time.  No running back and forth to the garage/shop/back patio to use a saw or get materials.  A high-quality paint and nap will save you a lot of headache in the long run.  Sherwin-Williams has great paints; they can be expensive, but they frequently run 30%-off sales.  Personally, I loathe the Home Depot paint counter (it’s always busy and I tend to know more about paint than the employees), but for a reasonably priced paint, Behr Ultra isn’t bad.  Primer is cheaper than paint, so put a couple coats of tinted-primer on if you’re going from dark to light or light to dark (if you’re painting bare drywall, make sure to get a drywall primer first).

Don’t limit painting to your walls.  Beef-up and brighten your baseboards…

painting baseboards
I love this little trick with trim – thank you, Pinterest!

fireplace mantel…

before and after painted fireplace
Here is the before and after of our painted fireplace from House Renovation #2, along with an “in process” picture of my 6-month pregnant self enjoying a donut.

…or take care of those outdated cabinets once and for all.

before and after painted cabinets
Courtesy of Tasha at Designer Trapped.

Even old floors can look new with some paint!

painted vinyl floors
See the end result at Designer Trapped.

If you’re painting wood, you’ll need to sand first (and maybe even strip), so prepare for a bit of a mess in this case.  Just make sure to use the right paint for the job, and keep in mind if yours calls for oil-based paint, you may want to wait for warmer days when you can open windows for ventilation.

 

2. Install hardwood floors. This is a project best to do in cold weather because wood expands in warm weather and contracts in cold.  If you install in summer, you are more likely to see your floors pull apart from each other come winter when your planks “shrink,” leaving unsightly gaps.  Remember to acclimate the wood, leave an expansion gap according to the manufacturer’s instructions, and don’t rack the planks too tight.

You’ll probably need a quality, non-shrinking wood filler.  I love the Timbermate fillers, and they come in species-matching colors.  Be sure to install matching flush-mount heat registers – I consider this a must for aesthetic appeal and resale!  It may be tricky to get your cuts just right around the heat registers if you don’t have specific tools, so this is where the filler helps.

flush mount heat register
See how lovely those flush-mounts are? This was from our first renovation.

Install solid wood (as opposed to engineered, which is plywood with a hardwood wear layer), but remember there are places only engineered hardwood can go, like on concrete slabs.  You may be able to get away with engineered hardwood depending on your homes’ price range.  Ask your real estate agent for her opinion.

 

  1. Home gym or theater.  Either of these is certainly a frivolous addition to your home, but if you have the room and extra cash, it may help you get through winter’s dark days a little easier.  Deals abound this time of year for media or gym equipment, but keep in mind it’s easy for this project to run away with your wallet.  You may need to remodel an entire room with new floors, light/fan fixtures, audio/visual equipment… and then you’ll want to furnish it.  Still, whether you’re watching a movie or burning off some pumpkin pie, both are great it’s-too-cold-to-go-outside activities.

My husband and I are currently working on our home gym:

black and yellow home gym
…and the tot helps out by entertaining himself with my yoga strap.

On a final note, any renovations that require a contractor are best done in winter.  Not only are contractors more likely to return your call, but they often slash their prices during the off-season.  Big projects that involve a permit are usually processed faster in the colder months as well.

Happy winter home-improving!

Pre-Sellers: Futureproof Your House AND Wallet

Pre-sellers: this one’s for you!  I like to consider the majority of homeowners “pre-sellers,” those who have no plans to sell their home in the near or defined future.  Many homeowners become very comfortable in their home and never ponder the complexities of resale value or prepare for the day they will sell because it feels like a neither-here-nor-there scenario.  This is an easy pit to fall into, but there will be a rude awakening for these homeowners; everyone sells their house eventually, and the market won’t care how much money you spent, say, reconfiguring your entire floor plan just for kicks.  If pre-sellers adopt a resale mentality, the selling process will be less stressful, and they will likely walk away with a bigger closing check.

think resale
It’s so important, I’ll say it twice!

Here are a few money-saving tips to futureproof your investment whether you live in your house for five years or another 15:

  1. DON’T replace your cheap or banged-up stainless steel appliances if they are in working condition.  Stainless steel appliances (no matter the brand) sell themselves, but this could change in a decade, or whenever it is that you’ll sell your house.

DO buy a counter-depth fridge if you need to replace your refrigerator.  The additional cost is worth the improved feel and appearance of your kitchen.  One of my biggest pet peeves is seeing a new, bulky standard-depth refrigerator in someone’s kitchen!  What a waste!

  1. DON’T replace your windows unless you really can’t live with how drafty/ugly they are. Windows are notoriously a bad investment.

DO have broken seals repaired, but it’s okay to wait until you’re ready to sell in case another seal happens to bust; usually when one goes, another one is not far along, and you only want to call the window guy out once.  Some manufacturers, like Milgard, have seal guarantees with specific timeframes, so I always advise buyers to check out their windows as soon as they move in.  And if your screens are bad, they aren’t too expensive to repair, but you could also simply take them out and store them in the garage when you’re ready to sell.  This will allow you to wash the exterior windows with ease, and buyers are less likely to notice missing screens than damaged ones.

  1. DON’T install cheap carpet. People are picky about carpet.  Some people don’t like it at all, so you may lose both money and buyer interest installing carpet if your current flooring is, ah hem, “done.”  Oftentimes sellers are motivated to install the cheapest carpet possible in a house they plan on selling, but buyers recognize cheap carpet, especially if it reeks of chemicals.

DO install hardwood floors in the main living areas.  Yes, they cost more than carpet, but homes with hardwoods typically sell higher and faster.  Whatever wood species you decide (don’t choose bamboo unless you live in Hawaii), be sure to get matching flush-mount registers.  This is the new standard in flooring, and cheap metal registers do not go with beautiful wood floors!

  1. DON’T make interior painting a huge project you’ll undertake “someday.”

DO have paint samples for your wall and trim colors handy (and a Magic Eraser – oh, how many times I’ve avoided having to paint with that thing).  Having those colors (in the right sheens, of course) will allow you to touch up paint every now and then without having to repaint the whole house when it comes time to sell.  Buyers are very picky about paint!

  1. DON’T get a dog. I love dogs, but they can ruin a house.

If you already have a dog, DO wait to make any “dog-height” (e.g., anything Fido can paw, chew, or reach, including your lawn) improvements until you are ready to sell.

  1. DON’T over-personalize. I know of someone wanting to recess a $5,000 aquarium into the living room wall of their subdivision home, and even though tropical fish are nice to look at, altering a home to add something both expensive and esoteric as a fixture has costly implications when it comes to resale.

DO display your favorite pictures and things.  There’s a difference between hanging family photos and painting a mural of Bob Marley in the den (true story).

  1. DON’T let the HVAC tech or Water Heater Guy tell you that a shiny new system will raise your house value if your current system works fine.

DO get a new system if your appliance is kaput, by all means.  But if you can pay significantly less to repair it and keep the system functioning, buyers tend to only care whether the thing is working or not.

  1. DON’T upgrade based on trends. Right now the trend is an open floor plan with monochromatic design; think an all-white kitchen with no walls that lets you smell a burned dinner from every room in the house.  The quartz countertop craze won’t last either, and nickel fixtures are already on their way out.

DO upgrade with timeless materials, if you decide to upgrade at all.  A great way to save money is to love your house as it is and consider doing upgrades to match the market once you’re ready to sell.  It’s a good idea to ask for your real estate agent’s opinion before doing any remodeling.

  1. DON’T forget curb appeal, easily the best bang for your buck. A lush exterior will create buzz in the neighborhood, a plus for when you decide to sell.  Your neighbors will say nice things about your house without even knowing what the inside looks like.

DO plant now.  This will give trees time to mature, and if you have a black thumb, you’ll need a few seasons of trial and error to get the most out of your plants.

Like all investments, one should be prudent and consult a professional.  As a pre-seller, you don’t know if it will be a seller’s or a buyer’s market when you list, so there could be serious financial harm in making expensive upgrades or fixes.  You can bet there were people who bought a house in 2008, improved it “to the nines,” and lost quite a pretty penny at the crash; you never know when the pendulum will swing the other way!  There is no substitute for being prepared with time-tested suggestions from an experienced real estate agent.  A REALTOR® isn’t there to simply help you buy or sell a house; she is there as a constant resource through your homeownership experience.  Whether you plan to hire a contractor or do it all yourself, call a real estate agent first!

home improvement jokes
Don’t let this happen to you!

 

The Pre-Approval Letter & Your Earnest Money

If you’ve ever asked a real estate agent to show you houses without being pre-approved first, they may have given you a look that says, “You want me to work for FREE?” and, yes, we’ve all been jaded by that Very Serious Buyer who just wasn’t serious enough to get pre-approved.  But, from the perspective of a REALTOR®, there is more at stake than wasting our Saturday afternoon.  Here are three important reasons to have that pre-approval letter before you go house hunting.

soup nazi
20-year old humor from Seinfeld’s soup nazi… am I showing my age?
  1. With mortgage calculators widely available online, you can get a good idea of how much house you can afford, but there is no substitute for a pre-approval letter from a lender you have had a conversation with.  For example, an app may correctly calculate a price point, but it can’t suggest the best possible loan for your situation.  A real-life lender would, for example, let you know if you could go to a higher price point if you waited a few weeks for your credit score to rise, or if you need to buy NOW before interest rates rise or you’ll be priced out of the market (both situations my clients have encountered).  A good lender will consider your entire financial situation to get you the most accurate price and best loan package, as well as other detailed information that could be game-changing.  A computer can’t do that (and, by the way, I’m not a fan of those internet lenders either).
  2. More and more sellers are requiring the pre-approval letter as part of the contract and will not accept an offer without one (some even require it just to SEE the house). In the current multiple offer environment, buyers want to do everything possible to strengthen their offer!  Don’t let the absence of a pre-approval letter be the reason a seller picks another offer over yours.
  3. Most importantly, having that trusty pre-approval letter helps your real estate agent protect your earnest money.  If you are getting a mortgage, your agent will use a financing contingency that details the type of loan you will be using (e.g., Conventional, VA, FHA, USDA), when you will apply for the loan, and the total amount of down-payment.  Your agent only knows this information from the pre-approval letter you have furnished her.  If a real estate agent does not have the pre-approval letter for reference, she may include erroneous information in the offer, which is where things can get dicey.

Once an offer is accepted, it becomes a legally binding contract.  If any of its information is incorrect (e.g., loan type, amount down, etc.), Buyer must get Seller’s written permission to change it, even if there are perfectly good reasons to make those changes.  Maybe Buyer was denied a conventional loan but can qualify for an FHA loan; or maybe the contract was written with a 10% down-payment, but Buyer forgot to factor in 3% for closing costs and can put only down 5%.  Seller’s written permission is required!   If Seller agrees to the changes, everyone moves on with the transaction, but what if Seller has a back-up offer and says no?  Sure, the financing contingency would protect the Buyer’s earnest money, but Buyer would lose the house along with any money already spent on inspections.  The last thing we want is to depend on the good graces of the seller, so let’s get that offer right the first time!  This is why it is important to have a pre-approval letter from a lender who has fully vetted your financial situation.

“But how would the seller even find out?” you may ask yourself.  Idaho’s contract states that the buyer must “furnish Seller with a written confirmation showing lender approval… subject only to satisfactory appraisal and final lender underwriting” within a certain timeframe (usually 10 days).  This provision of the contract makes it difficult for Buyer to change anything without Seller’s knowledge.  If somehow a buyer sneaks something past the seller, the Buyer is still in default.  If Seller learns Buyer has defaulted, Seller has the option to terminate the contract and keep the earnest money.  Don’t risk it!

Talking with a lender and getting a pre-approval letter is an easy, yet essential, first step toward buying a home and protecting yourself during the process.  Using a REALTOR® who knows the law and plays by the rules is just as important.  But if worse comes to worse, remember that an agent works in your best interest, so we always have our clients’ backs.  On that note, I’m proud to say that no client of mine has ever lost earnest money!

fist get pre-approved
Enough said!

Financial Dangers of Home Improvement

What?? you say.  Kate’s lost it.  This makes no sense.  I’m adding value!  I’m making my house more marketable!  How in the world could I possibly lose money by improving my home?  Oh, yes… it is so so SO easy to under- or over-improve your house.

I must admit, even I was a victim of the over-improvement bug in both our renovations.  In Renovation #1, it was the master bathroom that did me in.  It wasn’t a big bathroom, so I wanted it to pack a punch.  Sure, it looked nice when we finished it, but do I think the house would have sold any faster or any higher if I hadn’t spent $4,000 on quartzite tile and a glass shower enclosure?  Nope, and it would have saved me hours of back-breaking work!  When we sold the house, we were happy with the profit we made, but an extra $4,000 would have been nice.

Renovation #2 was a much bigger project.  We were rehabbing the entire house plus adding on 400 square feet, and with the property situated on five wooded acres down a private drive, we tried to renovate with high-end buyers in mind.  This time it was the kitchen that tugged on our purse strings.  My husband wanted those cabinets with built-in pull-down racks and a pop-up mixer stand.  I thought a dazzling subway glass tile backsplash would cinch the deal.  The kitchen turned out gorgeous and functional, but we found that we rarely used our fancy built-in cabinets and potential buyers didn’t even notice them.  And while the glass tile was beautiful, a ceramic tile backsplash would have looked just as nice at about half the cost.  These weren’t huge over-improvements, but, again, I don’t think the house would have sold faster or higher if we had chosen less expensive features.

kitchen with butcherblock island
A note on ceiling-height wall cabinets: not worth it! Molding will make standard-height cabinets more beautiful, and you’ll actually use the top shelf.

It is tempting and thus common for an owner to over-improve their home.  I knew a lady who bought all new stainless-steel appliances for her single-wide manufactured home because she thought this would raise its value.  Without having a resource like a trusted REALTOR® in your back pocket, homeowners are generally under the impression that whatever money they put into their house they will get back at the closing table, and that whatever they love about their home every buyer will love.  To make matters more complex, neither contractors nor real estate agents will give you a straightforward answer; hearing “Don’t do it – you won’t get your money back!” is just as common as “This is your home!  If it will make you happy, have at it!”  From a practical standpoint, you need to ask yourself: Is this my forever home? and do I have money to waste?  In most cases, the answer is no.  Sure, when you sell your house and deposit that closing check of, say $150,000, you’ll be happy!  But wouldn’t $170,000 be better?

And let’s not forget the dangers of under-improvement.  “New” does not mean “better.”  I once showed a house with all new kitchen cabinets that looked like they belonged in a garage!

garage cabinets
Imagine these cabinets in your kitchen!

I heard of an inexperienced rehabber who took on a historic home, ruining it with vinyl trim and laminate floors; I think it ended up in foreclosure.  While this is an extreme example, it serves as a reminder that if you’re going to update a home, do it right!  Don’t try to save a few dollars by installing fake-brass doorknobs or booblights!

examples of boob lights
Courtesy of The Decorologist.

I live in Hidden Springs, and most of the homes in my neighborhood were built within 10 years of each other during the early 2000s.  At that time, granite countertops were standard, and now quartz countertops are all the rage.  If I wanted to sell my house, would it be worth it to upgrade to quartz?  Consider the comparables.  Both the buyer’s agent and the appraiser are looking at comps in your neighborhood.  If all the homes your house is being compared to have granite counters, it’s simple to see that upgrading to quartz would not be a prudent investment.  On the other hand, if your Hidden Springs home happens to have laminate countertops, upgrading might be worth the investment considering the standard in the neighborhood.

With home improvement being a fine line, what should you do if you want to renovate?  Whether you plan to hire a contractor or do it all yourself, call a real estate agent first!  As both a REALTOR and a rehabber, I have a proven intuition of how to get the biggest bang for your buck.  Even if you aren’t planning on selling your home anytime soon, I would be happy to see what you’re working with; opinions are free and non-obligatory!

ask a realtor quote

Not a Real Estate Newbie Either!

In a prior blog I wrote about my early real estate career and working under a Principal Broker’s directive of; “We don’t want rockstars, and we don’t want newbies.”  There are one or two Rockstars in every market, but the general public is more likely to encounter a Newbie (especially during a boom in the housing market).  My heart goes out to Newbies… I mean, we all have to start somewhere!  But if you want an experienced agent, here are some quick ways to identify Newbies:

  1. They seem uncomfortable during the initial meeting or a listing presentation (e.g., talking fast, fidgeting, not making direct eye contact).
  2. They try to impress you with their real estate company instead of their personal service.
  3. They have another full-time job.

When real estate agents first enter the real estate profession, we have completed hours and hours of education and passed a licensing test.  It’s a lot of work, but this only puts us at a very crowded starting line.  It can be a slow, difficult start for new real estate agents.  A licensee could easily go months or years before making their first sale.  This is why it can be difficult to figure out how experienced your real estate agent is even if they disclose how many years they’ve been in the business.

I had the good fortune of being a Newbie during the housing crisis as I was able to practice real estate without being a risk to the homebuying/selling public – that’s right, Newbies can be hazardous for your financial health!  If you had interviewed me 10-12 years ago, I would have checked every single box in the above list, but my full-time job was still in real estate.  At one point I was working for three different brokers, doing everything from drafting up earnest money dispute letters to double-checking contracts to attending inspections and walk-throughs.  Like every good assistant, I was doing all the work! and actively learning the profession at the same time.

Most agents don’t have the luxury of being an assistant, and many would turn up their nose at the thought!  After all, we go into the real estate profession to be our own boss… why would I work for someone else?  It is common for new agents to want to “hit the ground running” without partnering with a mentor or seeking out practical experience through assisting.  These are the Newbies you certainly want to avoid; they don’t know what they don’t know!  I frequently come in contact with “experienced” agents who have learned a plethora of bad habits, and I can only assume they did not have enough quality training when they entered the profession.

So how do you ask a real estate agent about their experience?  They could say they have been in the business for ten years, but what if that means they have only sold one house over a ten-year period?  It’s also worth noting that one cannot determine how experienced an agent is by their age.  The perception is that younger real estate agents have less experience, however, it is not uncommon for a middle-aged person to become disillusioned with their career and strike out at something different, or for a newly retired person to become bored and take up real estate as a hobby.  I would encourage anyone in search of an experienced real estate agent to disregard the age factor.

I left assisting after about a year and got a job as Compliance Manager at a real estate brokerage.  I still had not sold any houses, but my knowledge skyrocketed in reviewing the listing and sales contracts of over 300 agents.  When I finally had the opportunity to sell houses, this is what it looked like:

  1. Sold my condo
  2. Bought a house (with my new husband) and renovated it
  3. Sold the renovated house
  4. Bought another house

I’m not ashamed to say my first few transactions were my own, and I honestly wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.  By the time I got my first real client, I had four sales under my belt and three years of real estate experience from my assistance and management work.  I was so much more prepared to navigate someone through the real estate process.  Would you want someone with any less experience handling the affairs of your largest investment?

With all that said, how can you tell if an agent is truly experienced?  Let the agent sell you on themselves (or their company, if they must), but also do your own research.  An experienced agent will have a website and a Zillow presence, including client reviews.  If an agent has blogs or social media accounts, you can get a great idea of the kind of person you will be working with – you don’t want any surprises after you’ve signed the dotted line!

bad house listing
Maybe this listing agent was a Newbie.

Renovation #1 – Lessons Learned!

We bought a cosmetic fixer for our first project.  Since we were living in the house while working on it, it had to be functional and not too, errr, disgusting.  This house really fit the bill; it was a tri-level and, theoretically at least, I could work on up to two levels at once while keeping one level a construction-free zone.  My husband had some remodeling experience, but I had just learned the difference between 60 and 220 grit sandpaper, so we didn’t want to bite off more than we could chew.

The lower level was a daylight basement on slab concrete, which had sunk below the footer.  The previous owner attempted to hide this with cheap laminate, and the floors were pulling away from themselves around the perimeter of the entire downstairs.  I ripped out all the flooring and poured buckets and buckets of self-leveling concrete.   The two bedrooms in the downstairs got coooooold on that concrete slab, so I laid down cork underlayment before installing the padding and carpet.  And because we were on a budget, we laid the carpet ourselves using glue and tape.

Arrows pointing to broken flooring.
Before: See where the flooring is breaking away from the footer?
rooms recently renovated
After: That bedroom looks a lot cozier, doesn’t it?

The rest of the downstairs consisted of a hallway, den, and bathroom that had already been somewhat updated.  We glued down engineered hardwoods in the hall and den.  We replaced an out-of-code Man door, turned a plant shelf into a bookshelf, replaced barely functional bifold doors with barn doors, and updated the light fixture.

before and after of a bookshelf wall
This improvement involved re-framing the plant shelf to extend its depth enough to hold books.

The mid-level was simply the entry and the living room.  Not pictured: me, sanding, staining, and poly-ing the stairs and every. single. side. of. every. single. rail.

before and after of entry
We replaced the ugly door and light fixture, and installed a slate landing pad. Using the 1″ tile for the border avoided having to rent a tile saw.

We noticed a neighbor replacing some old siding on his house, and asked if he wanted the sawn cedar planks on our living room ceiling – he happily took it all down for us!  With the ceiling open, we installed recessed lights and had new sheetrock put up.

Before and after of fireplace.
Look how much brighter the room looks with the rough sawn cedar ceiling gone.

And get this: all that carpet in the living room?  Reused it in those bedrooms downstairs!  Then I put the hardwood floors in its place.

before and after of living room
Trimming those triangle windows… caulk stepped in when my geometry failed!

The upper level was the master bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and dining room.  We changed out a window in the master and bathroom; they were both old and leaky and ill-sized.  The master bedroom window was too tall and did not allow any room for exterior upper trim.  The bathroom window was in the shower, and too low for comfort.  We resized both window holes and patched the sawn cedar siding with some from the living room ceiling.

removing a window
This window needed to come out anyway!

The bedroom had absolutely no lighting.  I guess in the 80s it was commonplace to connect the outlets to light switches because everyone loved floor lamps or swagging their lights on chains.  Ugh.  Anyway, the bedroom looked better with the slightly smaller window and can lights.  We didn’t do much more to it other than paint and add some 1x12s for closet shelving.

before and after of bedroom
We built the bed, too – thanks, Ana White!

The kitchen had awkwardly placed cabinets and was clad in sheet vinyl that was surprisingly very difficult to remove.  The OSB underneath the vinyl also had to come up in order to install the hardwoods, and some laborer was obviously very trigger happy with the nail gun.  A nail every 4 inches!

badly placed cabinets
This is what we were dealing with. Ugh, some builders.

The morning the countertop people were scheduled to measure, I woke up with a start, thinking, “I need a fridge surround.”  Thank goodness Home Depot opens early!  With Ana White as my constant inspiration, I built a very simple fridge surround with sanded plywood, iron-on veneer, a new stock cabinet, and some trim.  I had already performed a little carpentry work on the other cabinets to eliminate a 3” gap and make the counters snug around the range – you can see where I added some wine niches on the upper and book slots on the lower cabinets.

before and after fridge and pantry
We converted an ill-placed coat closet into a pantry, and my curved drywall turned out beautifully. I think this was when my husband started to take me seriously.

We moved the island away from the wall and installed hardwoods in the hall, kitchen, and dining room.

before and after kitchen
That heinous, floating pantry cabinet was sent to the garage where it should have been all along.

As a side note, I would say a “must” in every home, whether you plan to sell it soon or not, is a pull-out trash cabinet.  The logical location in this instance was in the island since we were moving those cabinets anyway, we we had size constraints since we wanted it in the middle of the room.  Not being able to find a cabinet that was sized both skinny and tall (probably for good reason), we ended up building it from scratch and installing it in the middle of the other two base cabinets.  It functioned okay, but after the countertops were installed, we realized the trash bin would never, ever come out.

before and after kitchen island
It looked great, but the trash cabinet? Not our crowning achievement.

And here’s something more I learned: if it fits the style of the house at all, try to embrace the rustic farmhouse trend. This will open up a slew of things you can build with cheap stock lumber!  Stain makes 2x8s look wonderful (have I mentioned Ana White yet?).  We had exposed beams running throughout the house so this was easy to pull off.

corner open shelving
We solved those awkward corner cabinet problem with open shelving built from stock lumber.

The master bathroom turned out to be an expensive mess and we weren’t thrilled with how it turned out.  We found some quartz tile we liked and started envisioning a spa bathroom, forgetting this was not our forever home.  I ended up taking out the old tile floors with a masonry chisel; looking back I should have Grout Renew’d them and been done with it.  Like the cabinets in the kitchen, we reused the vanity cabinet and painted it black.  We built the wood countertop from some solid maple flooring we got at the ReStore.  I never liked vessel sinks, but it was the only way to get double sinks out of that vanity and keep the top drawers functional.

before and after bathroom
The shower actually turned out pretty nice! but tastes change, especially when you’re discovering your style as you go.

One lesson learned: don’t rip out a cast iron tub unless you absolutely have to.  You may have plans for a beautiful tile shower with an elegant glass enclosure, but if you have a typical middle-class house, you won’t get your money back.  Even if you break it down with a sledgehammer, it is sooooo heavy to move, and we regretted sending a perfectly good piece of cast iron to the landfill.  Clean the tub, tile the walls, and buy a nice shower curtain.

The 2nd major lesson learned is embarrassing, but if I pretended it didn’t happen, I wouldn’t feel good about myself.  Unless you’ve got popcorn ceilings, don’t try to change the texture.  It can be expensive, messy, and/or labor intensive, especially if you don’t have the professional tools.  We had truly awful 80s texture on every surface in the house, and I had the bright idea to flatten the walls by troweling joint compound by hand.  1700 square feet later, I had to sand flat every inch of those stinking walls, and then I had to PAINT every inch of those stinking walls.  Do you know how many layers of primer a thick skimcoat of joint compound absorbs before it can hold a layer of paint?  About four.  I had tendonitis in both wrists by the time I looked up at the ceilings and thought, “You’re not so bad after all, Texture.”

Overall, the renovation was successful.  Considering the arsenal of tools we bought, our profit wasn’t incredible, but it was still worth it.  When we sold this house, we weren’t sure we would renovate another, but then we found a cottage on five acres that deserved some love…

I’m Not a Real Estate Rockstar

In my early real estate career, I worked as a manager for a small brokerage.  The Principal Broker and I worked closely together to develop marketing materials to recruit the “right” agents; he often told me, “We don’t want rockstars, and we don’t want newbies.”  When I left the job to work in real estate full-time, I encountered a Rockstar every now and then, and I got to thinking; why would a buyer or seller ever want to work with one?

How do you know if a real estate agent is a Rockstar?  Here are the signs:

  1. She publicly touts her sales volume or number of transactions for any given year.
  2. She has several 7-figure listings and considers herself a “Top Producer.”
  3. She has scores of reviews, most of which do not name her specifically.
  4. She has a team of at least a dozen people and refers to herself as “we” or “us.”
  5. She has a whisper reputation of being difficult to work with.

Rockstars are great at marketing themselves!  They spend tens of thousands of dollars on professional videos and search engine optimization, but do they effectively serve their clients?  Here are some scenarios of what may happen if you hired a Rockstar…

Example #1:

You call Leslie, leaving a message about buying a home in the $300,000 price range.  Someone from her team, Kevin, calls you back and sets up a time to meet.  You make an offer on a house and that’s when things get stressful.  Turns out Kevin has only been licensed for a few months and is having difficulty navigating through the contingencies.  Three months and a few white hairs later, Kevin manages to close on your home.  You never once talked with Leslie.

Example #2:

You call Leslie to sell your home valued at about $450,000.  She wows you with glossy brochures and the promise of an open house every other weekend.  The open houses are held by someone different each time, and you have a hard time getting any feedback.  With your house not selling as quickly as you thought it would, you call Leslie and leave a voicemail.  Her assistant calls you back with some generic reassurance.  You talk to Leslie twice more; when you receive an offer, and when you close.  Overall, your experience wasn’t a bad one, and you’re over the moon to have sold your house.  You leave a glowing review for “Leslie and her team.”

Example #3:

You call Leslie to sell your luxury home.  She calls you right back and sets up a time to meet the very next day.  You’re impressed with her marketing, and even more at the price she wants to list your home: $1,600,000!  She says, “Call me day or night,” and she means it.  If she doesn’t pick up when you call, she calls you right back.  After a couple months of little activity, she suggests a significant price drop of $400,000.  You had a feeling the initial asking price was too high, but this was lower than you ever expected.  Leslie says something along the lines of “It’s not like you can’t afford it,” and feeling pressured, you agree to the new price.  Your house sells within a week, and you wonder if you reduced the price too much or too soon.

These scenarios are fictional, but the lessons are obvious:

*  Having a team with “too many cooks in the kitchen” may not be the best process to fit your needs.  Who do I call?  Am I supposed to call the assistant?  If I call the assistant, can I trust my message will be forwarded on?  Is it okay if I call the agent directly?  Why do I have ten email addresses to reach my agent?  What is a transaction coordinator, and when am I supposed to contact them?  These are all questions you probably don’t want to ask yourself during the homebuying/selling process.  When you hire me as your agent, you deal with me and only me.

* When working with a Rockstar, you’re not likely to work with her at all unless you’re buying or selling a high-end property.  And here’s the thing with luxury real estate: it’s a different beast.  Homeowners at this price point are particularly aware of bad service and can thusly be high-maintenance.  Agents can’t afford to let them slip through the cracks for fear of a poor reputation revolving in the country club community.  And it makes sense why an agent would want to get their foot in the door of the luxury market; if every transaction is essentially the same, why spend energy impressing a $300,000 client when you can impress a $2,000,000 client?  I assist buyers and sellers in all price ranges and don’t see clients as dollar signs.

home loan financing
The breakdown of all my buyer-represented transactions – I help all kinds of buyers!

* Rockstars can have an ego.  They are used to telling people what to do; it is easy for them to forget that they are technically an employee of the client.  Rockstars tend to have strong personalities, and when they’re challenged, they may not know how to respond appropriately.  This is when you’ll hear rude or tactless comments, maybe even a raised voice or a bullying manner.  A good agent is firm without being pushy.  I never forget who’s boss!

If a Rockstar agent has a large team, she can disperse potential clients all day long while her crew divides and conquers.  That’s not a client-centered real estate business; that’s a factory.  Buyers and sellers don’t want to feel like a piece of meat being processed by several different hands along a conveyor belt.  Buying or selling a home is not only a personal experience, but can also be a stressful one, and minimal personal attention does not suffice.  I handle no more than three transactions at once, turn away business if I have to, and have absolutely no interest in becoming a Rockstar.  I simply want to provide the highest standard of service.  If you’re considering buying or selling, contact me and let me know how I can help!

service is forever

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