894: Be Your Client’s Superhero with a Rock-Solid Plan for Selling: Caroline Carter

Aaron Amuchastegui: RockStar Nation, this is Aaron Amuchastegui. Excited to introduce to you a new guest, Caroline Carter. She’s the founder and CEO of Done in a Day. It’s a company that helps with transition and move management, and she’s helped more than 2,000 families prepare their houses to get ready for top dollar. This is a unique niche and I’m so excited today about all the different tips that she’s going to give us that’s going to help all of you agents out there, especially you listing agents as you try to provide extra services out there for your customers, and as they make the transition themselves. Caroline, how are you?

Caroline: I’m great, Aaron. I’m really honored to be here today. Thank you.

Aaron: Glad to have you. When this one airs, right now it’s kind of the crazy time of the Coronavirus where everybody is stuck at home, for the first time-

Caroline: Ever.

Aaron: -in my lifetime. The first time ever where they’ve just- everybody go home and work from home, and I think especially right now agents are looking to the news and looking to ideas and I think there’s going to be some stuff we’re going to talk about today that can help people right now while they’re stuck in their houses.

Caroline: Absolutely. This is a great opportunity for people who are stuck at home. Obviously we have to continue to do our jobs, but we can use this as an opportunity to begin to prepare ourselves to sell. Whether it’s a week from now, a month from now, two months or a year from now, there are things that we know that we can do in a strategic sequence that can prepare us, that we’re going to have to do anyway but we could take advantage of the time that we have at home now.

Aaron: I think that’s great. I can’t wait to get into that kind of strategic plan that you have. Before we jump into that, tell us how did you get into real estate?

Caroline: I was asked by a roommate of my sister who had recently lost her husband, was living in San Francisco with two small kids, and said, “I bought a house sight unseen, I have no idea what shape it’s in. I just know that I’m going to move there because I have family there. Can you go check it out-” not as a realtor because I wasn’t a realtor, “But go check it out and see what I need to do to fix it up. Paint, carpet, lighting.”

I had done my own houses, Aaron, but I had never done something like this professionally for anybody else. I did a sort of assessment if you will, an interior and exterior and I reported back and said, “Here’s what I think you need to do before you move in.” She said, “Great, let’s go with it.” I had the house painted, did some fast easy and inexpensive updates to kitchens, bathrooms, removed carpeting, refinished floors. Then she said, “Well all that is great, I’m just going to send ahead the 53-foot moving truck, could you just settle my stuff?”

I had never seen any of her stuff before, all of her household goods. In fact I scrambled and got a couple of people to help me and and settled her home in a matter of days so that when the family came, this emotionally broken family came, they were able to get to the business of settling in immediately. That was my first entrée into real estate, and you’d be interested to know, Aaron, even though we didn’t speak about this, I also after a couple of years in this business got my license in D.C., Maryland and Virginia as a realtor, and lasted about 20 minutes.

This is a brutal business, and I am so impressed by agents that are able to really serve clients long-term, because it’s not easy. Dealing with clients in this emotional space of selling their home and moving to the next home is filled with ups and downs. It’s a rollercoaster of emotions for sellers. I realized that what I enjoyed most about real estate was not actually selling– I loved prepping the houses, but what I enjoyed most was really diving deep with the sellers to help them strategically manage their time and money and the physical side of the process. After my 20 minutes of real estate, I went back to doing what I was doing but focusing on the bigger picture, not just the sale of the home.

Aaron: Your first project you worked on, was helping somebody move in. They said, “Hey, here’s my house, go move my stuff in,” and I tell you what, we’re in the process of moving to a new house right now and while we were on vacation last week that was the hope. Our purchase closed a little bit late, so we didn’t get to move it in before but that was kind of our dream to be able to show up to the house and have it all moved in and ready. Now is that still a service that you do?

Caroline: Yes.

Aaron: So you still do that part. How do you transition from helping people move into houses to helping people move out of houses? What was that like?

Caroline: In D.C. 15 years ago, there were not home stagers. Home staging was not a common service, and I put my ear to the ground, I was a newly single mom with three little kids, so I had to figure it out very quickly. I dug deep and I thought, “Okay, what can I do that I can monetize, that will really be of service to someone?” The one thing I realized was that I am incredibly organized, and chaos does not bother me like it bothers some people and sends them sideways. I am energized by chaos. I can create order out of chaos, where other people cannot.

I can walk into a room that’s either vacant and see it fully furnished, or I can walk into a room that’s a total mess, and see furniture where it’s supposed to be. Meaning, a layout that makes sense. What I did was I began to do some research on home staging, and realized that the only people that were staging their homes were the top, top agents who were doing it by themselves. There was no organization that was really working with the agents at that time to provide these services. That’s where I started.

I was taking my dog and pony show to the top realtors in the D.C. Maryland and Virginia area, and really listening to them about what is it that you wish you could have as part of your of services that you really don’t. What I heard the most was, “Someone to support this whole section.” Meaning, I want to focus my time on listings. I want to get listings. That’s my superpower. That’s where I want to focus, but yet I have all these client meetings, I have to walk these people through what they have to do to sell it top dollar. I have to help them secure the trades that they’re going to need.

It’s this whole entire process, and I thought, “Hey I’m good at that.” Okay so I only did one project, but, I’m from Jersey. I’m very can-do. I thought, “I’ll be that person,” and it started slowly but caught on very, very quickly, and a lot of agents said I was the best-kept secret in Washington. Now I’ve expanded our market into two markets, which is the Palm Beach area, because I personally want to live in the sun where- today it’s 80 degrees and beautiful sun. We’re also continuing to serve our clients in the last 15 years in D.C.

Aaron: Do people hire you? Do agents hire you? Just give us an overview of how your process works from the first time you get that call, to how far in the process you go.

Caroline: The short answer is the agents typically pay for my initial consultation. What is the initial consultation? The initial consultation is when they refer their client to me and I have all of the difficult questions and do all the hard work up front. Typically, they do not then need to return to the property until the day we’ve promised them it’s ready to photograph. What that means is, an agent who only needs to go with me once to see how I roll with clients, they refer me to their client, they typically pay the $400 consultation fee for this. I sit down with the client, and we immediately talk about schedule and scope.

Schedule meaning, what timeframe do they have in mind in terms of listing their property, and what else is going on in their lives. I try to really probe deeply to get a sense of how they’re approaching the sale of their home, because as you know, moving is one of the top five stressors or stressful life events along with death, divorce, illness and loss of a job. I want to know why, if they’re floating, if they’re going to try it, that’s going to tell me something about their mindset.

I want to know why they’ve made the decision to sell. Once we talk about the schedule, then we’ll begin the interior and exterior assessment. That’s when I will walk the property with them inside and out and point out to them how their current asset currently reflects, based on current buyer expectations. In order for them to sell at top dollar, they would need to reconsider, or they would need to update, not renovate.

It’s always fast, easy, and inexpensive updates because I’m very cognizant that no one has $20,000, $30,000, $40,000 under their mattress. Certainly, no one selling wants to spend this amount of money without justification. I’m very careful. We look at everything from curb appeal to outdoor living space. I walk them through my thinking in terms of how we’re going to massage, where they currently are into more of a visual and physical positive, rather than a negative.

For instance, if their landscaping is blocking the front façade of the house, I’ll talk about how we trim or sometimes even rip it out and start again to reveal the façade of the front of the house, which is your money shot in a virtual tour. I will walk them through– One of the things I was going to hopefully share today are the 10 things that agents need to talk to their clients about that will send buyers running, immediately to the nearest exit.

Once we figure out exactly what we need to address in terms of delayed maintenance, value ads, we will compile a list. We will then go to the estimate phase where I, using my contractors- they can use their certainly, but using my contractors. Typically most people will use mine for continuity. Then we get to the estimate phase and then we will hopefully go to contract.

The agent typically is not part of this process, unless they want to be. Most of them say, “You know what?” After they get to know me and work with me, at least once say, “Listen, tell me when you’re ready to photograph and I take care of everything else.” That is walking them through how to prepare their house to sell. Strategically how it’s going to work, where we start in their own house. Meaning they’re going to focus on exactly what they need to do, as opposed to what they want to do.

Meaning if you think about your own house, we all have home offices. There’s no one that can make the decisions in your home office, but you. There’s no one that can address your medical, your financial, all of your files, but you. You’re going to focus on making the decisions as a seller. I provide the teams that will support your efforts.

Aaron: You help them move. Then do most of them hire you for when they buy the new house and say, “Hey, help us move and take care of all of it?” Or do they say, “Can you help us figure out where we want to organize our stuff?” Or it’s just bits and pieces?

Caroline: Absolutely. For most people, they want soup to nuts and it puts the agent in a better position where they have more time. They’re not spending the time hand-holding. I have to be honest with you, hand-holding is not my strong suit. I work most effectively with agents and with sellers who are able to change their mindset from the beginning and understand that– As Americans, we move 11.7 times throughout our lifetime but some people don’t move for 10, 20, 30, 40 years.

We need to understand, we need to discuss what this means to them from an emotional point of view, because turning their home into a house, i.e. a marketable asset is very different from selling their home. This is part of the difficult conversation that I have with their clients that I’m hoping I can impress upon agents is necessary to have with your clients. We are not used to being told. Agents don’t want to tell their clients, “Listen, your house smells. It truly does. It smells like pet urine,” or whatever.

They don’t want to be the bad guys. Guess what? I have built a reputation of the last 15 years by telling the truth but providing solutions. What sellers need to know is, “Look, we all live like this.” Not really. “We all live like this, but there’s a difference when it comes to selling, we can’t sell like this.”

Aaron: I think that’s a great tip for agents that are out there. Most of our listeners are agents. We’re trying to teach them how they can take some of these tips and things that you’ve done and apply it to their businesses. That first tip there made a lot of sense. Tell them the truth but provide a solution. What do you think are the two or three most common things that agents should be telling them that they’re forgetting to?

Caroline: I don’t know, Aaron, if they’re forgetting to, or they choose not to. No one wants to. When you’re pitching a listing, the last thing you want to do is antagonize a seller. However, to create a long-term relationship and a referral base that’ll be with you for years and years- which I have effectively done. I haven’t done a lot of things right but the one thing I have done right is by truly meeting and addressing the difficult situations and questions, head-on.

I think the best place to start for an agent is tell me what you know, or tell me what you understand about the real estate process. Tell me what you understand about the short-term storage process because they’re going to need storage. Storage is a multi-billion dollar industry now because sellers cannot emotionally part with certain things. They need to know what that’s going to cost them, per month, per year ad infinitum, because what often happens is out of sight, out of mind and you’ll be paying on storage for 10 years.

I like to work with the agents who are able to have these hard conversations, but who also have the solutions and say, “All right, now, movers, have you thought about the move in? I know that you plan to be under contract before you’re going to schedule a move-in. That makes sense, but who is going to be your mover? Here are some fast hacks I can give you to make sure that you are making the best use of your time and money here. Look out for this, look out for that.”

I’d love to see agents extend themselves and their expertise beyond the sale. I totally get that you are not compensated for this. What I have watched is the agents that do this, the top agents in D.C. that look at the sale of the property in the context of their total home transition, meaning the sale of one house and the settling into the next house. Those agents are the agents that become the go-to resource.

Aaron: We had David Greene on here last week and that was one of the things that he talked about. He had heard tip on our podcast and went out and it was to go help people move. He started– Anyone that he helped buy a house, he would go help them move into their new houses.

Caroline: It’s exactly right.

Aaron: Load up boxes and furniture and things like that, and help them through that process of actually getting in to it. That created so much goodwill where he got to meet all the family members answer [crosstalk] basic questions all day and it turned into so many things. Yes, right now agents are looking for that extra niche that way that they can find extra things. What are two or three of the updates?

You talked about- you see houses and here’s updates. They’re not going to cost a lot of money. What are the most common updates you’re seeing where you get the most bang for your buck that you’re doing on 90% of the houses, 80% of the houses something like that?

Caroline: The first thing is paint is the best money you will ever spend. Your first objection and we’ve heard it for years is, “I just painted. I’m not going to paint.” I love my purple dining room, my eggplant colored bathroom or whatever it is, you have to stop right there because you didn’t have those hard conversations in the beginning before you started your tour.

Part of the hard conversation is, tell me a little bit about the value of your home? You have to understand where people’s mindset is to begin with. If they don’t understand the concept of turning a home into a house i.e a marketable asset, their largest asset for many of them- by the way this needs to become a financial conversation. The problem is the emotional backstory, for everyone. [crosstalk] Go ahead.

Aaron: Other than paint, right? Paint is a good easy one. I think most agents are recommending that, what are two other things that almost every one of your houses you’re saying, “We need to update this.“

Caroline: Carpet. Either remove it to reveal the hardwood floors or install it so that we’re not selling stained, frayed, pet stained carpet. Lighting is critical as you know, updating your ceiling fixtures, your lamp lights. You may have to invest going to a TJ Maxx or Marshalls or HomeGoods, in a couple of lamps, but lighting is critical. Taking down heavy window treatments and installing easy blinds, a quick trip to Home Depot. As a matter of fact, most of this can be done from Home Depot, one-stop shop.

You’re going to have to address standing water anywhere, interior or exterior, because it literally is an issue. Odor, you have to minimize odor, you first have to figure out where it’s coming from and then minimize it. Any delayed maintenance issues.

Aaron: That sounds a lot like our normal flips, right? When we’re buying houses for fix-ups, we’re doing a lot of that where you paint everything. Really, you talked about odor, when everybody repaints the house, that settles kind of 90% of the odor issues right there.

Caroline: I had a listing that he was a huge cigar smoker in the basement. We had to bring in a special company that addressed the– It actually got into the insulation. Listen, I think that the best money someone will spend is by looking at their own asset. Don’t worry about anybody else’s asset. Start with your kitchen, start with the bathroom, start with the overall impression of the space.

We can, as agents will often suggest updating knobs and poles in the kitchen, updating your lighting, perhaps updating your counter-top, painting your cabinets. In bathrooms we can provide updates without renovating the whole entire bathroom and when you’re writing up the listing you can say, “Updated kitchens and baths.”

Aaron: What are the examples of those things? What are the cheap, easy updates you do in the restrooms?

Caroline: I will very often replace an old sink with a cabinet from Home Depot. They have the three in one, the faucet, the granite basin and the cabinet. I will very often reglaze blue and brown tile, and reglaze it all to white and then install new hardware in a chrome. I will rip out old medicine cabinets. They don’t even sell them anymore, like the 13 inch medicine cabinets. I will surface mount mirrored medicine cabinets. I’ll do the same thing with a lighting fixture.

You can take off old degraded, brass shower doors, the builder shower doors and install a shower rod in chrome, get new chrome hooks and a white matelasse shower curtain, install all white towels and boom.

Aaron: Then you’re updated. Reglazing tiles, is that a big business? Are there a lot of tile reglazing companies out there?

Caroline: You know what, there are, but you really have to look for them and they are– I mean we’re not overrun with tile glazing companies but it’s a very toxic process. In fact it takes a day to prep, a day to do it and a day to kind of air out. What they do is they vent it from the bathroom window, but it creates a brand new– You can even do the floor and if you don’t want to do the floor, then what you’re going to do is you’re going to tile on top of tile because the most money you’ll spend obviously is in the labor.

You can tile on top of tile and raise the threshold, instead of demoling the tile. Paint, carpet, lighting, flooring, adding shutters where there aren’t shutters, replacing outdoor exterior lighting. Essentially what you want to do is you want to look at that asset and say, “How can I amplify or highlight the assets of the property and visually limit the liabilities?” Every house is going to have liabilities, but essentially what you want to do is focus on amplifying those assets visually.

Aaron: You meet with the people, you go through, you recommend these updates and obviously they’re customized for every house and every process. If an agent wants to start this process, because if an agent says, “Okay, I’m listening to this. I want to do a better job at this.” You talked about when they first get the listing appointment, that’s not really the time where they want to say, “Hey, it smells. You’re going to need to replace your carpet.”

Do you think they should reschedule for a new appointment and prep them and say, “Here’s what we’re doing next.” [crosstalk] Do you think they should [crosstalk] be part of their listing presentation?

Caroline: No. Why waste time? Because they are– What I have found over meeting with thousands and thousands of sellers, what I have found is that they are going to either be predisposed to doing this. They are willing to be educated and invest in the process, or they’re simply know-it-all’s and they’re not going to do it. What I have seen work the best is when an agent is able to say, “Look, we all live this way, but let’s talk about how we can showcase value while also helping you to pack, to move at the same time.” You see you’re clearing out–

Everybody talks about clutter okay, fine. We all have clutter, but you have to dive deeper than that, providing people with, “Look, here are the areas that you need to focus on, and here’s the order in which you need to do it and here’s why this is going to help you.” See people feel that agents, a lot of sellers feel that agents are only interested in the date to list their property, which is why by embracing the sales process as part of this home transition process, you can talk to somebody in a way that’s going to resonate with them beyond the sale.

We want to be full service providers. A lot of agents do want to be full service providers for their sellers. Understanding the process and at which point they can help them. I love your story about helping with the boxes. You don’t have to help with the boxes, you merely need to provide a step by step plan for people to follow. They’ll think you are a superhero because no one talks about this.

Aaron: No one tells them about that process?

Caroline: They don’t.

Aaron: Do you think agents should do that during their listing appointment or right after and go, “Here’s the process of what you’re supposed to expect.” You talked about opening up with, what do you know about the real estate process? And then being able to say, well here’s the process that we recommend and what makes us different with that. You talked about a top 10, you have this list of top 10 things that I think it was that agents should be telling their sellers or that [crosstalk] they may from. What is that stuff?

Caroline: I think during your initial consultation when you explained to them, “Look, I am here for you not just for to sell your house at top dollar as fast as I possibly can.” One of the things I say in the book is, “There’s no one out there that could possibly answer the question, when are you going to sell my house, and at what price point, over how many days? No one can answer that. You need to involve your seller from the beginning for them to take ownership of it.

You need to have that conversation about changing their mindset immediately from home to house because the buyer doesn’t care. The agent as part of their walk through is going to say, “Look, I am going to view your home as an asset. As a financial asset, as a product that we are going to work together to market to ultimately sell it top dollar. Here’s what I see and I’d like to discuss it with you.”

You are going to check at every certain point as we talked about before, standing water, you are going to actually physically show them. Talk to me a little bit about why there’s standing water here. Anything that beeps, squeaks, creeks., it has to be– With reference to late maintenance, it has to be addressed because it will become an issue with a potential buyer.

Aaron: Better to address it now instead of later.

Caroline: That’s exactly right. There shouldn’t be surprises.

Aaron: Is standing water one of the top 10 things?

Caroline: It is one of the top 10 things. Definitely, where we’ve all seen leaks in the ceiling, leaks in the walls, where it’s been professionally ameliorated, but there’s still evidence of the fact that there was water and there was work to be done. You need to be careful that there is no evidence, or if there is evidence, you’re able to back it up immediately. Visually, you know how the house speaks, the asset speaks, and we’re not even there.

We can’t be there to address every single thing a potential buyer sees and how that affects them. The second thing we talk about is odor. Must, mold, mildew, cigar smoke, cigarette smoke, all of it, pets. We love our pets, but pets have a footprint. Obvious delayed maintenance, leaks, foundation cracks. Let’s think visually about our roof, our chimney, the façade of our house, leaching.

Aaron: There’s so much delayed maintenance out there in houses.

Caroline: There’s so much.

Aaron: People getting ready to sell, that’s the last time the want– They’re already thinking about the next house.

Caroline: That’s exactly right, but here’s the deal. The golden rule in my business is to provide someone one year where they can do nothing but move in and enjoy the house. Meaning, there’s no major maintenance needed. You will go farther, faster in terms of your listing if you’re presenting that. You move in and do nothing for one year. Okay, the next, number four, is signs of rodents, any kind of rodents, pests, creepy crawlies, anything. They freak people out.

They don’t know if there’s an infestation. You want to make sure that there aren’t termites by your foundation or your fence. If there are, you want to address them. You can’t pretend that these things aren’t going to become an issue. Buyers are extremely focused today. They expect perfection, because it’s readily available on their phones, and they’re looking for perfection.

It’s not until they’ve seen X number of houses and they’ve been beaten over the head and have to really adjust their expectations with their budget, that they’re able to say, “Okay. All houses are going to have something.” Original kitchens and bathrooms, we talked about that. For buyers, that presents as, “Oh my God. I’m going to have to re-do the kitchen.” Listen, there’s a lot you can do to remove that from the conversation.

As I said before, update, look for paint, lighting, new flooring, anything you can do to buy a year in those kitchens and bathrooms. Wall-to-wall plush carpets, people don’t want it. We’ve all gone into those homes where the whole entire second floor is this almost like bedroom plush carpet. You’re better off installing a sisal berber blend, a low pile, it’s more updated in terms of its look. People appreciate brand new carpet. If there’s hardwood floors underneath, rip up the carpet, buff up the floors and add your shoe molding.

Bam, value. Creepy, unfinished spaces, attics, basements, storage areas. We’ve all seen in old laundry rooms the concrete steps that used to go outside that now go nowhere because the house- an addition was built out. Make sure that those windows are covered. That freaks people out, the stairs to nowhere. Old broken and degraded lighting, lights that don’t work or have broken glass.

Lighting sends people sideways if there are issues with the electrical. All of these things make them wonder if there’s some big huge issue behind what they’re seeing. That’s the reason we’re doing this in depth interior and exterior assessment. Number nine is brass, brass and more brass. Again, builder brass.

Aaron: It was popular once.

Caroline: Yes. It was popular once, but now we can remove it and replace it. Again, quick trip to Home Depot, and we’ve got chrome or brushed nickel. We seem to change every couple of years. Right now it’s chrome. It’s actually a mixed metal, chrome and brass together, but it’s not that yellow brass that we saw that the builders used. It’s more of a burnished brass.

Finally, number ten is old wallpaper and bold paint colors. People will often spend thousands and thousands and thousands on seller specific wallpaper. Meaning, we’re designing our homes for us, because we love this paper, we love this palette, but when you go to sell your house, you have to stop talking about you. It’s not about you. It’s about the buyer. It’s about where the buyer sees value. Often, a good painter can paint over wallpaper, but you have to neutralize it.

This is not a surprise, but you need to have these conversations about these ten things, specifically, from the get go. You need to figure out, where is your seller? What do they expect? Most sellers will say, and I’m sure you’ve heard this conversation too, “Well, listen. I’m willing to do a couple of things, but I’m not willing to spend a lot of money here. My wife and I have discussed it, and we think that about $15,000 is fair.”

I’ll say to them, “Fair for what?” They say, “Well, fair to get the house ready.” I’ll say, “Okay. I understand that. We have two choices here. We need to adjust your seller expectations in terms of the price point of your house,” because you also need to know where they’re expecting to sell it. Well, I’ve never met a seller who devalued their home. They always think it’s worth more than– [crosstalk] Sure. Exactly. Again, that gets back to that initial consultation, having those difficult conversations.

Yes, no one has $20,000 underneath their mattress, but very few of us live in a house where we’re not going to need to spend a little money to package it so today’s spoiled, visually overstimulated buyers will relate to it.

Aaron: I think those are great tips. When we go to flip houses, it’s kind of the same thing. You’ll tell people, “You want to de-personalize it.” If there’s special drapes over windows that somebody really had customized or the wallpaper, that sort of thing. People don’t want to see someone else’s memories. They want to start their own. They don’t want to see the names of the kids anywhere. They want to start their own.

As people get to see that house, you want a fresh slate. You want something that doesn’t bring any of that added attention. Going into the flooring and the different things, being able to have its own flavor in the house. I like that as advice when you get into there.

Caroline: I think as an agent, Aaron, it’s your responsibility to be the truth teller. It’s your responsibility to say to the seller, “Okay. I understand that you are not willing to remove the hall of forever, all of your family trips over the last forty years, but understand if you do not do that, this may in fact be the reaction, “It is distracting,” and then tell them exactly, “Here’s what it’s going to mean in terms of visual impact on the buyer.” [crosstalk] Go ahead.

Aaron: I think the easiest part of that, when an agent does that presentation, is just being able to visually show them the comps. We like being able to say, “Hey. If we want to sell your house for $500,000, here’s the house that’s the same size that sold for $500,000, and here’s the appliances, and here’s the fixtures, and here’s the finishes. If we make our house look like that, we’re going to sell for $500,000 and if we don’t, we’re going to sell for less.”

Caroline: Right, but here’s the rub. It’s easy for an agent to say that. A successful agent who wants to create this stream of referrals for years to come is going to say, “I have a plan. Here’s what you need to do first,” because the first question sellers ask me is, “I don’t know where to start. I’m overwhelmed. We’re already working full-time. We have three full kids that take everything from judo to ballet to math genius. There’s no time.”

They need to understand, strategically, and in which order, where they start and how they progress through this timeline. They need to understand the cost of short-term storage. The cost of delayed emotional decision making. “I can’t give this away. Maybe my kids won’t want it, but it’s great aunt Mamie’s dressing table.” There’s a cost for that. There are other options. You take a photo. You put it in a photo album.

You celebrate great aunt Mamie without paying storage. You need to be the voice of reason in this emotional rollercoaster. It is an emotional rollercoaster, with very high highs and very low lows for these sellers, because it’s like, “Hurry up and get the house ready.” They get it prepped and then it’s the waiting game. They need to be prepped to deal with the negativity. People are vicious. You and I both know this. Sometimes they won’t say a word. They’ll simply say, “What’s next.”

Aaron: I like what you said there. “The agents need to be the voice of reason during this emotional kind of unreasonable time, we’ve only got a minute or two left. You talked about that there’s a specific kind of process. Is that going to be the- I know there’s a couple of free gifts that you talked about. Is that going to be one of the things people can find? Do you want to– Can we jump into that process now or is that something they should go find out there?

Caroline: Okay, preparing your sellers for the process is really the most important part of this. What I’m hoping to share with your agents today is, understand from the moment they decide to sell, until the moment the last box is unpacked in their new home, you have an opportunity to be their superhero by telling them, “Okay, here’s what to expect. As we begin the preparation to get your home ready to sell, you need to go through the three–” The LA Times says that each of us has over 300,000 things in our homes.

Now, some of us more than others. In order to effectively go through this processes in an organized fashion, they’re going to need to touch each one of those items once and make a decision about it. Are they going to sell it, dump it, donate it, pack it? Once that packing and prep is over, then they’re going to go into what I call no man’s land, which is where they’re waiting, they’re waiting for the market to react about their house, then they jump into high gear again, once they have a ratified contract for the close date, then they’re going into the move portion.

If you can walk them through what to expect, the decisions they’re going to be expected to make, both large and small, over the course of this transition, they’re going to be better prepared, and they’re going to think you are a superstar for pointing all of this out. Even though some of it is negative. Just because we don’t talk about it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. It does exist for all of us, and it’s messy but it doesn’t have to be a free for all. That’s why I wrote the book, it’s to demystify this process, there’s a better way to to to do it to keep yourself and your family whole.

Aaron: To be their superhero. What’s your free gift, what’s that free gift for our listeners for today?

Caroline: The free gift is I would love to interact with any of the real estate rockstars, who would like to purchase the book Smart Moves on Amazon, I’m offering them 15 minutes of my time, which is the greatest gift I can give anybody, to help you put together your own home transition package in your location at the price point that you deal with. I think I can save you hours and hours and hours of time to let you know exactly what you should have in your deck, exactly the trades that you’re going to need and some of the fast, easy and inexpensive go-to’s that are in the book, but I’m happy to share them in terms of paints, carpets, lighting, quick fixes in the bathrooms and kitchens.

Aaron: Awesome. Smart Moves on Amazon, they buy that book, they can reach out to you, they get a 15 minute essentially coaching session with you, go through with them and say, “Hey, if you’re selling houses in Denver, Colorado, and here’s your price point, here’s what your own checklist should be.” and present to those people. [crosstalk] Now, how do they find you? How will they reach out to you?

Caroline: That’s right. Just put in Real Estate Rockstars in the subject line that I know that you was listening to the podcast today and they can reach me at carolinecarter.com. The website is carolinecarter.com and I’m on all social media. I’d love to be of service to your listeners.

Aaron: We will have all those links in the show notes. You guys can see that, Caroline, at carolinecarter.com plus Facebook, Instagram, all those fun places, reach out to her, tell her that you bought her book, you heard about her on Real Estate Rockstars and she will help get you customized to be able to do that. Caroline, any final thought, anything that– At the very beginning we said, “Hey, people are at home right now, what’s just one or two things that while people are hanging out at home for the next few weeks, that they can do if they’re thinking about selling their house sometime soon, that our agents can actually put that on their Facebook as a recommendation to potential?

Caroline: Absolutely start with- and I tell my clients this all the time, start with the most difficult tasks first, the tasks that take the longest. Two that come to mind immediately are our home offices. As I mentioned briefly, all of our files, you’re going to need to do that anyway. As a matter of fact, during the whole entire process when the house is on the market and we’re waiting for our offers and the move, you’re going to whittle it down to two or three file boxes that you may take by car.

These are the files that you need to function every single day for your family, for your kids, for your business, and so forth. The second thing we can do is create storage within our homes or in our own storage spaces. Get to those garage garages. Excuse me. Attics, basements, storage areas, laundry rooms. Take everything out, clean it like mad and begin to be mindful in terms of what you’re putting back because this is all going to need to be done.

You have time where you want to take a break from doing what you’re doing. Do a closet, begin to go through your clothes to donate anything to others that you no longer wear or that fits. Your entire house is going to need to be sorted, purged and organized, regardless of whether you’re going on the market in a month, two months or within this year, all of these things will need to be done. You can get a jump on them inside or you’re not exposing yourself to anybody else but you really can get this done. Take one project at a time, and just jump right into it.

Aaron: Yes, I think that’s something right now that, everyone’s at home, everybody has that home office and even if they’re not planning to sell soon, that’s a good tip of some things that people should be doing while they’re stuck .

Caroline: I have one more that I think is kind of more fun that our kids can help with too, and that’s organizing all of our photos. Our photo albums, our photos, our pictures that are in frames, we may want to keep the frame and ditch the picture or ditch the picture and keep the frame. All of that takes hours and you are really the only one that can make those decisions. Other people can support your efforts in terms of packing it or putting it in a box to donate it, but you are the only one that can make those decisions.

Use your time over the next couple of weeks to tackle one of the hard areas, and begin to make those decisions. You won’t be sorry, and you’ll get to live with it. Nice, clean, organized space.

Aaron: It takes a lot of time to do it. It’s not physically exhausting. When you’re getting ready to move, yes, you’re right, that is something that takes a lot of, what should I do with this and how saving this [crosstalk] framing. Love that. Caroline at caroline carter. Go check out her book, go reach out to her on social media and email and see if she can help you come up with your own plan of what you can present to all of your prospective sellers out there to help them.

“Be more than just an agent,” she said today, “Be their superhero,” help bring them from the beginning of the transaction, teach them what real estate’s really supposed to be all the way through it until they’re settled in their new home. They’ll give you a ton of referrals. I love that. Caroline, thanks for being on today.

Caroline: Thank you much, Aaron. It’s really been an honor.