{"id":95637,"date":"2018-01-11T00:02:52","date_gmt":"2018-01-11T07:02:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/renewsblog\/?p=95637"},"modified":"2023-02-09T19:11:28","modified_gmt":"2023-02-10T02:11:28","slug":"biggerpockets-podcast-261-tips-selling-properties-faster-money-mindy-jensen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/biggerpockets-podcast-261-tips-selling-properties-faster-money-mindy-jensen","title":{"rendered":"16 Tips for Selling Properties Faster and for More Money with Mindy Jensen"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Here on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/podcast\" target=\"_blank\">BiggerPockets Podcast,<\/a> we spend a lot of time talking about buying properties\u2014but what about needing to sell them? How does someone get top dollar and get their home sold quickly? Well, today on the podcast, we\u2019re excited to dive deep into this topic with <strong>Mindy Jensen<\/strong>, the Community Manager at BiggerPockets and author of the newest book from BiggerPockets, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/sellyourhome\" target=\"_blank\">How to Sell Your Home<\/a><\/em>. You might know some of these tips\u2014but others might just blow your mind (and make you thousands next time you sell a property), so grab a pencil and paper and get ready to take some notes! <\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/biggerpockets-podcast-real\/id594419649\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Click here<\/a>\u00a0to listen on iTunes.<\/p>\n<h2>Listen to the Podcast Here<\/h2>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/playlist.megaphone.fm\/?e=BIGPOC6998146932\" width=\"100%\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2>Read the Transcript Here<\/h2>\n<div style=\"overflow-y: scroll; max-height: 400px; background: #eee; padding: 20px; border: 1px solid #ddd;\">\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>This is the BiggerPockets podcast Show 261.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cThere\u2019s this tip that I have heard from a lot of real estate agents about how you wanted to get as many people as you can through the house. No. You don\u2019t win a prize for having 500 showings and no offers. You want to get as many targeted people into your house as possible\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>You\u2019re listening to BiggerPockets Radio. Simplifying real estate for investors large and small. If you\u2019re here looking to learn about real estate investing without all the hype, you\u2019re in the right place. <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Stay tuned and be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from BiggerPockets.com. Your home for real estate investing online. <\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>What is going on everyone? This is Brandon Turner, your host today on the BiggerPockets podcast, here with not just my co-host today, Mr. Scott Trench, but also my guest\/co-host, Mindy Jensen. How are you guys doing?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>We\u2019re doing great.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>I\u2019m doing wonderful.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>I\u2019m doing great.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Okay, good. So today\u2019s show, obviously beginning a little different than normal. Normally, we talk bad about the guests ahead of time and then we get them on the call. I\u2019m just kidding. We don\u2019t usually talk bad about people but we talk behind their back and then we bring them into the interview.<\/p>\n<p>Today\u2019s a little different because our guest today is also somebody who regularly\u2014is that the word, regularly\u2014hosts the BiggerPockets podcast as well, and that is Mindy Jensen here. So our guest and our guest host today, if you want to call it that, is Mindy. But before we do that, let\u2019s talk bad about Mindy behind her back. Scott, what\u2019s up?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>Hey, Brandon. Well, talking about Mindy behind her back, she has actually had a heck of a past couple of months, between hosting a bunch of BiggerPockets podcasts, continuing to do all the Community Management stuff, doing some sort of writing project\u2014I think we\u2019ll hear about that in a few minutes\u2014and launching another podcast, which she is also the host of.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Wait, what\u2019s that other podcast called, Scott?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>The BiggerPockets Money podcast where you talk about personal finance and building the foundation from which to begin investing in real estate and other big ticket investment items.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Yeah, I\u2019m really excited about that show. It\u2019s a great, fun show. It\u2019s related to BiggerPockets but not related to BiggerPockets in that we talk about real estate all day long here. Money\u2019s a big part of that. If you can\u2019t finance a property, if you can\u2019t afford to buy a house, you\u2019re not going to buy it. You\u2019re not going to get started investing in real estate and on and on and on.<\/p>\n<p>So yeah, the BiggerPockets Money show is a great way to learn about money, how to fix your financial house so you can start investing. We also talk about different ways to invest. I know this is blasphemous on the BiggerPockets podcast but real estate is not the only way to invest your money to grow your wealth.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Blasphemy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Blasphemy. That\u2019s the last time I will talk about anything other than\u2014<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>The point of all this though is that Mindy is the busiest person on the planet right now and you\u2019re going to hear a little bit about the things behind what she\u2019s doing in this upcoming show, right? Isn\u2019t that right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Nah, I\u2019m not going to tell you about that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>All right, so before we get to the show today. Actually, today we\u2019re going to focus in on one topic. Normally, we do interviews and hear people\u2019s stories. Today, we\u2019re actually going to zone in on a topic and talk about how to actually make more money when you sell properties and how to reduce your stress. It\u2019s something that we all have to deal with in our life with real estate investing. It\u2019s something I\u2019ve been dealing with a lot lately as I\u2019m selling some of my earlier properties.<\/p>\n<p>A lot of you guys don\u2019t know\u2014Mindy is actually a licensed real estate agent and she is an awesome real estate agent and she knows how to sell houses. So that\u2019s what we\u2019re talking about today. But before we get into that, let\u2019s get to today\u2019s Quick Tip. I was waiting for you.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>That was really awful.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Good job. All right, so today\u2019s Quick Tip is actually\u2014three months or so, I did a podcast here on the BiggerPockets podcast alone. It was called The 90-Day Challenge: How to Buy Your First Property Before the End of the Year, or something like that. Anyway, a lot of people have done just that. In fact, I get e-mails almost every day because now here we are, 90-ish days later and people are like, yeah, I took the 90-Day Challenge and I bought a property.<\/p>\n<p>So here\u2019s what I want to ask. If you are somebody who did that, who went and took the 90-Day Challenge and went out there and bought a property in those 90 days, do me a favor and let us know. Actually shoot an e-mail over to <a href=\"mailto:support@biggerpockets.com\" target=\"_blank\">support@biggerpockets.com<\/a> . What I want to do is actually put together a special either a whole episode of the podcast or maybe just a piece of a podcast, not really sure yet, just with some stories that people\u2014about what they did during the 90-Day Challenge. It\u2019s kind of a way to encourage everybody together.<\/p>\n<p>So if that\u2019s you, shoot an e-mail over at <a href=\"mailto:support@biggerpockets.com\" target=\"_blank\">support@biggerpockets.com<\/a> and just say, hey, I took the 90-Day Challenge, and then they\u2019ll make sure they get that over to me. So with that, 90-Day Challenge, hit them up. But yeah, congratulations to everyone who did that. We will be doing another 90-Day Challenge here. I mean, you don\u2019t have to wait for a 90-Day Challenge to buy real estate but if you want to join kind of a community to do that, we\u2019ll be doing another one here shortly. Make sure you guys pay attention weekly to BiggerPockets.com\/webinar and you\u2019ll see information there when it comes up.<\/p>\n<p>So, with that, let\u2019s move on and talk about today\u2019s sponsor. Today\u2019s episode is brought to you by our friends at RealtyShares.com. I love these guys. RealtyShares is a real estate crowdfunding platform that allows accredited investors to invest in pre-vetted real estate deals online. So investors can browse and invest in both residential and commercial properties that yield returns 8-16% annually. As a RealtyShares member, you can passively invest in professionally-managed real estate investments in a variety of asset types and geographies for as little as $5,000. All from the convenience of your own living room. So to learn more and to get started with a free account, just go to BiggerPockets.com\/RealtyShares. That\u2019s BiggerPockets.com\/RealtyShares.<\/p>\n<p>All right, a big thanks to our sponsors always and with that, I don\u2019t know. I don\u2019t really got anything else, Scott. Mindy, should we just jump into this content? People want to hear how to sell their properties. So you guys up for it?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Bring it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>All right, so today\u2019s guest is Mindy Jensen and we\u2019re going to do something fun here. I\u2019m going to actually try to pretend I know Mindy\u2019s entire back story, like I remember it from when we interviewed her on the podcast. You\u2019re going to tell me, am I hot or cold, Mindy. You ready for this?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>This is going to be great. I bet you\u2019re going to remember every single thing about me from Show 129.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Oh, that was a long time ago. All right, so Mindy Jensen was born in the Midwest.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Wow, yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Okay, and she was actually an only child. Yes?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>No.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Okay, she had a lot of siblings and she got into real estate when she was in her twenties by buying a house and then fixing it up and selling it. Am I correct?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Correct. It was a condo.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Oh, condo. Okay. And then she became a real estate agent. And today, Mindy is 29 years old?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Yes, 29 years old.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>And she\u2019s been a real estate agent for 18 years?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Sure.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Okay, and she is an expert at this. That\u2019s Mindy\u2019s story in a nutshell, and Scott, anything you want to add to Mindy\u2019s story?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>Yeah, Mindy has also been investing in real estate for over nine decades. A lot of experience here.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Nine decades.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Yes. I have this really amazing way to bend math so that I\u2019m 29 years old and I\u2019ve been investing for nine decades.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>That\u2019s fantastic. That\u2019s fantastic. So, the truth is, Mindy has been a real estate agent for how long?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Almost five years.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Okay, so in that time, you\u2019ve helped a lot of people sell houses and you\u2019ve sold a lot of houses yourself. I know you guys do a lot of live-in flips.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>I\u2019ve sold a lot of houses my own self. A live-in flip is when you live in the property while you\u2019re rehabbing it so that you\u2014and you do the work while you\u2019re living there so it\u2019s a nice disaster. But then when you go to sell, you wait two years after you buy the house to sell the house and then you pay zero dollars in capital gains taxes, up to $250,000 if I was single like Scott. Since I am married, I am exempt up to $500,000.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Wow, that\u2019s awesome.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>One thing I want to chime in about that is that some people are confused because they were talking about in the new Trump Tax Code whether or not they were actually going to change this rule so that it was going to be four or five years you had to live in your property. They had that one version and from my understanding they do not have that in the final version that passed. You can still do this exact same strategy that Mindy was just talking about and exclude those capital gains up to $250,000 or $500,000 for these sales.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>That is correct.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Which is the number one reason you should get married. Right there, so you can exclude more.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Yes. Right there. $250,000 right in the bank.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Forget love.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>I forget who said this but someone told me getting married to save money on taxes is like buying an airline to get free peanuts. I thought that was a good analogy on that one.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>That\u2019s not right at all. It\u2019s totally like getting married to save money on taxes. You save so much money.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>A ton.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>I wonder\u2014this isn\u2019t tax advice, I don\u2019t know that you could do this but like, could Scott be a currently single man and buy a property and fix it up and then, oh, I\u2019m going to make $400,000, maybe I\u2019ll just get married and get the exemption. Like, can you do that? I don\u2019t know. That\u2019s an interesting question.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>I don\u2019t know. If you\u2019re a CPA listening to the show, let us know on Twitter. MindyatBP is your Twitter handle, right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>That is correct. Let me know if I\u2019m committing tax fraud. I mean, I\u2019m already married. I\u2019ve been married for forever so I\u2019m not committing tax fraud. But let me know if Scott would be.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>No tax fraud here.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>All right, so let\u2019s get to today\u2019s show talking about 16 ways to make more money when you sell a house or a property. We will separate this. Now, the reason why we\u2019re talking about this today is specifically because Mindy has a new book. BiggerPockets is publishing a new book and Mindy wrote this book. And it\u2019s called what, Mindy?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong><em>How to Sell Your Home<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>All right, what\u2019s it about?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>It\u2019s about DIY anesthesiology? What\u2019s it about?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>Puts you right to sleep.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Oh my God. I can\u2019t believe I walked right into that. Unlike DIY anesthesiology, this book will not put you to sleep unless you don\u2019t care about real estate, in which case you\u2019re probably not listening to this show anyways. No. This is the essential guide to a fast, stress-free and profitable sale by me, Mindy Jensen.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>All right. And we will obviously talk more about this later, about the launch and all of that good stuff later today in the show. But I just wanted to preface on why we\u2019re talking about this topic today. One, because it\u2019s really important, especially right now in today\u2019s economy. Like, the market is really, really good for selling properties. That\u2019s why I\u2019m selling off a number of my properties.<\/p>\n<p>So I\u2019m looking at my portfolio saying, hey, this is probably the top of the market. We\u2019re probably there. We\u2019re close, anyway. Why not sell some of the ones that are maybe underperforming and then wait, when the market crashes, I\u2019ll buy a bunch more and then I\u2019ll sell again.<\/p>\n<p>So this is a very timely episode and your book is very timely as well because we know this is very, very hot right now, this topic. So, without further ado, let\u2019s get to 16 ways to sell your property.<\/p>\n<p>Number one, Mindy, what do you got? What\u2019s your first tip for selling faster or making more or whatever?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Making more money. Number one is going to sound like you\u2019re not going to make money off of it but you really are: Have a pre-listing inspection performed by a licensed home inspector.<\/p>\n<p>Pre-listing means before you put it on the market. You go and you have the property inspected by a home inspector. And you\u2019re going to want to do this for a couple of reasons. First of all, it\u2019s not that expensive. $300-$400 will have a home inspector show you exactly what they\u2019re looking at and what the buyers\u2019 home inspector is looking at. If they find something big or not so big, you have the opportunity to fix it in advance.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s say you have a bit of water leaking in through a roof, like a hole in the roof. Your buyer is going to freak out when they see this problem on their own home inspection. So when you go and you have the home inspected before you list it, you have the opportunity to fix this problem. All of a sudden, your roof doesn\u2019t leak, therefore you don\u2019t have to disclose that the roof leaks, because it doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>There you go. So true life story, two weeks ago. Okay, like two months ago, I put a house for sale as a flip I did. I put it for sale. I did not do an inspection ahead of time and so I put it up for sale. I actually never did an inspection when I bought the property. That was mistake number two there.<\/p>\n<p>But I thought, at the time I walked through it, this house was great. It was in really good shape. What do I need to do an inspection for? I mean, I\u2019ve been doing this for 12 years. I\u2019m not saying newbies should never do an inspection. But I was like, this is in really good shape, there\u2019s probably nothing that\u2019s going to come up. I\u2019m just going to go ahead and do it. So I did it. Did the flip. Went to put it on the market. Got an offer right away. Everything was great.<\/p>\n<p>Went down to like a week before closing and the appraisal had come back and the appraiser had seen that there was some rot in a beam that was underneath the house. So then, when we were supposed to be closing, we ended up having to get a contractor in there to go do all this work to replace a beam. It cost me like $1500 or something like that to replace this one beam. Really annoying. Pushing closing out a week, which is money right there. It would have been cheaper to get the inspection but anyway.<\/p>\n<p>Then, we find out on the day of closing after we recorded, that the contractor had lied. He was actually not a licensed contractor. He lied about being licensed. So then I had to send another contractor in to verify all the work and to certify that it was done correctly under their license and bond after the thing closed. Anyway, had a gotten a pre-listing inspection like Mindy just said, I would have avoided all of that and would have probably closed a week earlier and not have that drama and probably saved a bit of money. So there you go.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Yeah, thanks for not taking my advice, Brandon.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Anytime.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Or maybe this is my fault for not having recorded this show six months ago.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>You know, I asked you back then and you were like, no, I don\u2019t like you. I hate this.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>Another thing to remember is like, I remember going back to my first purchase that I ever got. I remember relying really heavily on this inspection. Most people are not like people on BiggerPockets who buy many rental properties throughout the course of a lifetime. They\u2019re buying one property, maybe two or three in their lifetime. So when you see, oh, a beam is rotting underneath this thing\u2014that\u2019s like an overwhelming problem for someone who\u2019s never hired a contractor or never done any of this kind of stuff.<\/p>\n<p>And it\u2019s normal day-to-day business for folks like us. And that\u2019s the power of having that inspection ahead of time is yes, avoiding giving the people that are buying this, making this the biggest financial decision of their life cause to worry unduly about these little things.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>So I\u2019m a big fan of home inspectors. I think that everybody should have a home inspection. Unless you are buying the house to completely knock it down to the ground and rebuild, and maybe even then, you need to have like a foundation inspection. I am not in any way talking smack about home inspectors.<\/p>\n<p>But\u2014here, she talks smacks. Here, she talks about home inspectors. They will always find something. There is no such thing as a perfect house. It doesn\u2019t matter if Brandon Turner himself built it all by hand. It\u2019s not going to be perfect. Sorry, Brandon. So you get this home inspection. They come in and they list everything. They have a really great ability to make something sound like a giant deal.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Yes. They do, right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>It\u2019s the language they use or whatever. So you find this\u2014they say, there\u2019s no GFI outlet by the sink. And you\u2019re like, oh okay, that\u2019s going to be like $1000 to repair. I\u2019m going to make the seller do it. It\u2019s like a $4 fix. Or maybe $10. I can\u2019t remember what a GFI outlet costs. But like, it\u2019s not a big deal.<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, if you don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on, if this is your first purchase, you could see all these little things add up and think, this house is just not ever\u2014it\u2019s going to fall apart tomorrow. So, you have the pre-listing inspection as the seller. You see everything that the buyer is going to see and then you have the opportunity to fix it.<\/p>\n<p>Or maybe there\u2019s not that much wrong. You are missing the GFI outlet by the kitchen sink so you go and repair it. You\u2019ve got a very short list with your pre-inspection. You can give that to the buyer and say, hey, here\u2019s the list of the things that the pre-inspector saw. Here\u2019s everything I fixed so now you don\u2019t have to have your own inspection. If I was your agent, I would recommend, yes you should absolutely have your own home inspection. But in a hot market, this could be all that the buyer needs to make the offer. They see you fixed everything. They see that it\u2019s a licensed inspector and they forego their inspection.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m not suggesting that foregoing an inspection is the best idea for a buyer. I\u2019m not suggesting that you\u2019re trying to pull one over on the buyer. But it could be\u2014every inspector is different so what your inspector finds, maybe the next inspector will find something slightly different that you didn\u2019t catch, but it\u2019s still totally worth the $300-$400 it costs to get the inspection done.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>All right. I like it. Good tip. By the way, there\u2019s one more sidenote because I like telling stories. I sold a flip one time, the inspector had written on there, \u201cThe siding has failed\u201d. Just like those four words. \u201cThe siding has failed\u201d. Well, what it was, there was a little bit of rot in the bottom six inches on one side of the house. Go cut off the bottom six inches and replace it with wood siding.<\/p>\n<p>No, the seller refused to buy the house unless we replaced 100% of the siding because the inspector said, \u201cThe siding has failed\u201d. Even when the inspector said, well, I\u2019m just talking about this one section. They said, no, you said it failed. And we ended up spending like $8,000 to get that deal done. And that was when the market was like really crappy so like there weren\u2019t a lot of buyers out there so we had to. Today, I\u2019d be like, no. Screw you. Back then, I was like fine. So we replaced all the siding, repainted the entire house because it had \u201cfailed\u201d. Anyways. I love inspectors. Yeah, they\u2019re great. All right, number two.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Listen. A home inspector is a good person to have in your toolbox. I will not allow you to talk smack about them.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>No, I love home inspectors but man, they can make things sound bad. All right, number two. What is it, Mindy? What do you got?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Clean up your home.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>That\u2019s obvious though, isn\u2019t it? Come on. Everyone knows that, don\u2019t they?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>You know what? As an agent, I got through a lot of houses. I want to keep up on my local market even if I don\u2019t have clients that I\u2019m helping buy houses at this moment. I go through every house that comes on the market in my farm area, in my local town, and nobody knows this tip. Honest to God, nobody knows this tip.<\/p>\n<p>When I was little, my mom made me take off my shoes when I came into the house because she had bought a house with white carpeting. I don\u2019t even know why that\u2019s a thing. And I\u2019m in the habit of taking off my shoes as soon as I walk into a house. But as a real estate agent, I am firmly getting out of the habit because people\u2019s houses are so disgusting. You walk in the door and you\u2019re like, oh, what is that? Like you take off your shoes because you\u2019re not thinking and you step on something crunchy or gritty.<\/p>\n<p>Don\u2019t have dirty dishes in the sink. Don\u2019t have\u2014clean your floors. Sweep and vacuum. Or hire somebody. Cleaning up your house just automatically puts your house head and shoulders above every other property because they\u2019re not clean. Nobody understands how to clean. This also applies to decluttering. Nobody wants your stuff. When you move out, all of your stuff is going to be gone. If you are a landlord, this is going to be a little bit different. If you\u2019re a flipper, all of your tools need to be picked up. Everything needs to be gone and even if you\u2019re just showing an empty house, have it cleaned. Sweep the floors. Don\u2019t look like a gross house.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>And I\u2019ll say, if you\u2019re like me, I\u2019m not a very clean person. In fact, as I\u2019m recording this podcast, I\u2019ve shoved all of the crap in my office just below the snake line of this computer. I\u2019ll give you a quick little glance of the piles of junk in here. Hire a professional to clean your place because they\u2019re just going to be able to do it in a very efficient manner and move all of the junk out of the way. I do that before I list any of my properties for rent and I certainly do it before selling a place.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>And it\u2019s not that expensive to have somebody come in. They\u2019re really good. They\u2019re really efficient. If you don\u2019t want to clean\u2014I wouldn\u2019t say you\u2019re not a clean person, Scott. I would say you\u2019re not the tidiest person I\u2019ve ever met in my entire life.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>You should see my car.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>I have seen your car. It\u2019s beautiful. Yeah, I\u2019m a big fan of that. In fact, that was one of my favorite thing\u2014my favorite first outsourcing gigs in my life. Like, when I would do houses, whether rental or flips. When I started outsourcing the cleaning, I realize that professional cleaners charge like nothing. I feel bad\u2014they make like nothing, and they do a really good job, a hundred times better than I could ever do.<\/p>\n<p>So like at the end of the day, you have like a bill for $150.00 and they worked for a whole day. And I\u2019m like, wow, you did an amazing job. It would have taken me a week to clean that house. But I\u2019m always surprised. It\u2019s not like a high-paying job, like $15 bucks an hour, maybe $20 bucks an hour, you can get most people to clean your house for. Anyways, so get a house cleaner.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Definitely hire a house cleaner if you\u2019re not willing to put in the time to do it but you know, get rid of your stuff. Let\u2019s say you\u2019re having a personal property that you\u2019re cleaning. You have things in your house. Nothing in your house is going to stay there. Your table\u2019s not going to stay there. Your pictures aren\u2019t going to stay there. Your dog isn\u2019t going to stay there. Pick up all these things that you don\u2019t need every day and put them away. Get a head start on packing and get the stuff out of your house. You want it to look like nobody lives there.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Yep. There you go. All right, number three. What do you got?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Does it pass the sniff test?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>What\u2019s the sniff test?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>My neighbors\u2014the sniff test is when you walk in and you\u2019re like, eww. That did not pass the sniff test. My neighbors are selling their house. I know they have two big dogs because I live right next door to them and I went and viewed their house anyway, and I walk in and I\u2019m like, oh, my God! It smells like wet dog in here. Like the dog had been out for a month and came in. It was really gross. I showed it to a client.<\/p>\n<p>The next time I came in, it was very flowery with an undertone of wet dog. Nobody is going to walk into your house and say, wow, your house smells like garbage! But if your house smells like garbage, the people that are walking in to buy it are going to walk right back out again and say no, thank you. Or they\u2019re going to offer a really, really low price. Like, what do they say\u2014cat pee smells like money, on BiggerPockets in the forums? They walk in, smells like money. It doesn\u2019t smell like money to you as the seller. It smells like money to the buyer because they know it\u2019s not that difficult to get rid of the smell. It isn\u2019t that difficult for you to get rid of the smell either.<\/p>\n<p>So ask your real estate agent. Ask a trusted friend who will come over and give you an honest opinion. What does my house smell like? And if they say anything other than, wow, I don\u2019t smell anything, you need to fix it. You can rent something called an Ozonator at a big box home improvement store. You can go through and\u2014what are some other ways to deodorize your houses\u2014dishes of vinegar. Little dishes of white vinegar around the house , the vinegar kind of sucks up the smell. Dishes of charcoal briquettes will also suck up the smell.<\/p>\n<p>I had an aunt and uncle who used to smoke like crazy. And when they\u2019d come to my parents\u2019 house, they\u2019d just smoke in the house which I think is weird now but at the time it was like the thing. And then every time they\u2019d leave, my mom would put little dishes of vinegar all over the house and these little plates of charcoal briquettes and it would take a couple of days but the smoke smell would be gone.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>I never knew that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>One thing I\u2019ve also heard is some folks won\u2019t like the smell of like the cleaning materials as well so if you\u2019re doing a lot of cleaning, at the same time, to try to remove the smell which is probably going to be happening at the same time, the tip was, bake a bunch of cookies. I don\u2019t know if I\u2019m going take that tip but if your house smells like fresh baking, that can help maybe overpower some of these other cleaning materials and those kinds of smells.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Yeah, that\u2019s a good tip, too. And no\u2014that\u2019s a really good tip because when you walk into a house and somebody\u2019s been baking cookies or baking an apple pie, it smells amazing. And you don\u2019t even have to actually bake something. You can just put a couple of caps of vanilla into like a baking dish and stick that into the oven for a few minutes. It makes the whole house smell beautiful and you don\u2019t actually have to cook anything.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Wow.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>Quick Tip.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Quick Tip! So I would caution against just using air fresheners. Those start to get really sickly sweet and sometimes you can walk in and be like, oh, I can taste that air freshener. It\u2019s too strong and overpowering and it doesn\u2019t remove the smell, it just covers it up. Oh, we are all three idiots. What about Febreze? Have you ever used Febreze? I actually bought a car once, which is not a house but it\u2019s the same thing\u2014I bought a car and the guy before me\u2014<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>To some people.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Well, okay. We\u2019ll talk about that later. The guy before me used to smoke cigars in the car with the windows up. It was really gross but I had no money and I had to buy a car. I took a bottle of Febreze and I sprayed it all over the car and it took two entire bottles. It was really, really infested, but two entire bottles of Febreze which is like, what, like $4 a bottle? And every smell was gone in this car.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>That\u2019s impressive. I mean, that\u2019s what their whole campaign is, right, on the commercials? It\u2019s like, have you gone noseblind?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Yes, well don\u2019t go noseblind. Get a bottle of Febreze.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Wow. And today\u2019s episode is sponsosred by Febreze. No. Scott, you can get on that. Get Febreze to sponsor the BiggerPockets podcast. All right, number four. What do you got, Mindy?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Number four. Take great pictures of your house.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>So good. Yep.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Okay, there is this tip that I have heard from a lot of real estate agents about how you want to get as many people as you can through the house. No, you don\u2019t win a prize for having 500 showing and no offers. You want to get as many targeted people into your house as possible and using things like wide-angle lenses or funky angles when you\u2019re taking pictures of the home aren\u2019t going to change the actual layout of the house. They will get people through the door but nobody is going to buy the house based on the pictures on the internet. They\u2019re going to buy the house based on what\u2019s in the actual house.<\/p>\n<p>So, there\u2019s a house in my neighborhood\u2014I remember this because I actually got on my stomach to try to figure out what angle they shot this room from. It looked like an actual bedroom. Eight-foot ceilings, 10&#215;10 or whatever. It was actually a four-foot nook under the stairs that they had shot with such a crazy angle that it looked like an actual bedroom and I was walking around the house and I\u2019m like, oh, it had a very distinct paint job on the sides. Like, where\u2019s that one room? And I see it under the stairs and I\u2019m like, are you kidding me? This is not a bedroom. This is like, you can\u2019t even put a bookshelf in here.<\/p>\n<p>So don\u2019t take great pictures with funky angles and fancy whatever. Take excellent pictures of your house as it is. If there\u2019s warts on it, show the warts because those are going to show up when people walk through the house.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>There you go.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>What about lighting?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Yeah, I was going to ask the same thing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>I\u2019ve noticed that when I take pictures that are really brilliantly lit, they just happen to look a little better. Is that something that you\u2019ve found as well?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Yes, so actually, in the book on how to sell your home, I give you DIY photography tips. My husband takes pictures of every house I list because he\u2019s a really great photographer. He takes them with like some random camera. He doesn\u2019t have a lot of fancy equipment. But he takes his time. He stages the property. He looks through the camera and takes a bunch of different angles, turns on different lights in different place and yeah, lighting is really important. You have to have pretty much all the lights on.<\/p>\n<p>And some rooms are actually going to photograph better at night versus during the day. So he\u2019ll go back multiple times during the day and take a bunch of pictures. I don\u2019t think it looks weird to have the living room with a picture\u2014I can\u2019t even talk\u2014I don\u2019t think it looks weird to have a living room with a picture taken at night versus the kitchen taken during the day. You want to showcase the house in the best light that you can. The real house in the best light that you can.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>When I bought my first property, it had snowed the day before and the yard was terrible and I didn\u2019t even get to see that because the snow was on top of it. So maybe that helps as well. If you\u2019re trying to cover that up.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Yeah, wait until it snows. I would not recommend that as a seller, you wait until it snows. As a buyer, I saw a property when it snowed, the snow covered up the roof problems so then when I went to sell\u2014like, what do you mean it needs a new roof? Let me go back to my inspection. I would have never bought a house that needed a new roof. Nope, it needs a new roof. The inspector even noted, oh, I can\u2019t view this due to snow. I\u2019ll come back. So he came back, he went up on the top and he\u2019s like, yep, needs a new roof. Great.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Awesome.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Sorry for that detour.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>That\u2019s all right. I like it. Number five. What do you got?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Number five is a two-parter. Be available.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Like, romantically?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Be available. Yes. You can\u2019t sell a house if you\u2019re married. Ugh. Scott!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>You can sell a house tax-free if you\u2019re married, I thought.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>That\u2019s the whole point of what we were doing earlier. Getting married to avoid the capital gains.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Okay, be available. Part one of that is be available for any questions. If your real estate agent cannot get in touch with you to ask a question that the buyer has, the buyer may get really frustrated with you and move onto the next house. If your real estate agent can\u2019t get in touch with you for any other reason, you\u2019re going to just harm your sale by not being available for questions. So, share all the information you can with the real estate agent but the buyer is going to have some question that you forgot to share with your agent.<\/p>\n<p>The second part of that is be available for showings at almost any time. Your buyers want to see the house on their schedule. They don\u2019t want to see the house on your schedule and if they\u2019re driving past and they see the outside of your house and it looks amazing because you\u2019ve already fixed it up and they call you to say, hey, can I see the house? \u201cOh, sorry, it\u2019s not ready\u201d is not a good answer. They\u2019re not going to come back likely. So be available to having showings. That means keeping the house in showing condition at every moment. Even if you have young kids. Even if you have pets. It\u2019s one thing when they\u2019re driving past and they\u2019re like, oh, can we just come in and see the house? Oh, let me just take the dog to the backyard. That\u2019s very different then, hey, we\u2019ve got a schedule, we\u2019re going to show your house tomorrow at noon. Oh, sorry, that doesn\u2019t work for me. You want to sell your house so make yourself as available, and make your house as available as it possibly can be.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>I love it. And maybe you don\u2019t cover this one but what about if you have tenants? How do you get them to maintain a clean house for when you\u2019re trying to sell it?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Good luck with that. I think you should incentivize your tenant. What I see a lot of times in the BiggerPockets forums, BiggerPockets.com\/forums, is people will say, oh, I\u2019m going to sell my property. I don\u2019t know if I should tell my tenant or not. Yes, you should tell your tenant. You don\u2019t want to surprise them even if they\u2019re the reason you\u2019re selling. This is still where they live. You don\u2019t want to surprise them by having people\u2014by the way, we\u2019re going to have somebody come look at your house tomorrow.<\/p>\n<p>You actually can\u2019t do that, can you? That\u2019s illegal to just walk into somebody\u2019s house. You have to give them notice before you can walk in. But it\u2019s a courtesy to tell them you\u2019re selling the house. You want them to present the house in its best light so you\u2019re going to have to incentivize them to have the house looking nice. Maybe you pay for the cleaner to come in. Maybe you offer them a rent credit if they don\u2019t cancel showings. But it\u2019s definitely more difficult to sell a property that has a tenant in it. I was actually showing clients a house with tenants in it and I walk in and I\u2019m like, oh gross!<\/p>\n<p>Of course, they don\u2019t know what a vacuum or they don\u2019t know what a broom is, but there\u2019s like dirty dishes in the sink and food on the counter. The whole thing smelled like smoke and my client was like, I don\u2019t want to buy this house. This is disgusting. I think you should definitely view the tenant\u2019s house beforehand. And honestly, if they\u2019re gross, you may just want to wait until after their tenancy has ended before you sell the house.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>Or maybe you hire a cleaner or something, right? And you say, hey guys, free house cleaning for you guys. Valued at $300. They\u2019re going to be in there for eight hours this Saturday just scrubbing away. It\u2019s going to be great. You\u2019re going to love it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Yeah, and if you have a hot market, you can arrange it so you have the cleaner come in and then you have like an open house where the tenants are out of the property where you\u2019re selling, or while you\u2019re showing it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>I think you\u2019re right on the try not to sell a house with a tenant in it. If you can avoid that, that makes life a lot easier not to have that. One time, I actually offered a tenant, I think it was $1000 if they kept their house clean and somebody bought their house. They ended up actually moving out before somebody made an offer but yeah that was my plan, I\u2019ll just give them $1000. But it was contingent on them being able to help sell the house. So that was my theory at the time.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>If you do have to sell it with a tenant in place, I recommend working with the tenant, asking them when is your ideal time to show houses? When is a time that just doesn\u2019t work for you? If they\u2019re working with you, maybe even give their phone number to the scheduling agency so that they can make the appointments themselves. I would caution that if they start cancelling a lot of appointments or denying a lot of appointments, maybe you take that privilege away from them. But it\u2019s their house, what do you care when the showing is?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Cool. All right. We are on number\u2014that was number five. So what are we on? Number six.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>Number six.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>All right, what do you got?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Be informative. If you\u2019ve updated anything in the property, share that information. Let\u2019s say you have a whole new kitchen. When did you do the kitchen. Who performed the work? What work was done? It\u2019s all new pipes or it\u2019s just brand new electric or it\u2019s just cabinets. Tell them what you\u2019ve done. This is especially helpful in a flip situation where you bought the house at X, you put in so much work, and now you\u2019re selling it for significantly more, or trying to sell it for significantly more.<\/p>\n<p>Every buyer who has an agent has an agent who can look up when the house last sold\u2014oh, it sold five months ago for $100,000 less. Why? You want to just share with them all the things you\u2019ve done and on the other side, you want to share what needs work. It needs a new roof. And I\u2019m not going to put it in there. Don\u2019t try to hide that. Share everything up front because again, the goal is to get the most targeted buyers through the door. There\u2019s no prize for having a ton of buyers with no offers. Maybe Scott will give you a prize.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>I agree.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>I\u2019ll give you a copy of my book if you have 500 showings with no offer!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>Nope, you get nothing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>I think that\u2019s good. I think also, have you ever heard the phrase, people buy with emotion\u2014or they\u2019re sold with emotion? They buy with emotion but they justify it with logic. Right? So like, they want the house. They like the house. But when they see, hey, it\u2019s got a new roof on it, we don\u2019t have to put a roof on for 30 years, then that\u2019s the logic they need to justify it to make an offer, to justify to themselves or their spouse, their significant other or whoever.<\/p>\n<p>Hey, look at all the work that\u2019s been done. This is why it\u2019s a good deal. But in reality, nobody buys a house because it\u2019s a good deal. Investors do. But most homeowners, especially, they buy a house because they want to buy that house. It\u2019s cute and they like it. But they don\u2019t want to say that in their heads so they have to justify it with, look at all the work that has been done lately. And that\u2019s another reason why it\u2019s good to list what you\u2019ve done.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>It\u2019s smart.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Yes, absolutely. And don\u2019t hide issues because they\u2019re going to come out anyways and then you look like a skeez.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>That is true. Is that a word you just made up or is that a word I don\u2019t know? Skeez?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Brandon, we used that\u2014well, I used skeezy a couple of episodes ago.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>I like skeezy. That\u2019s a pretty good word. All right, number seven.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Know your competition. So your house is not going to be the only house on the market. While you hopefully have priced your property correctly, which is a tip down the road\u2014hopefully, you\u2019ve priced your property correctly, you don\u2019t know if that\u2019s actually the right price until you see what other houses are going for in the general area. You want your agent to send you a list of comparable properties.<\/p>\n<p>Like, you\u2019ve got a three bedroom, two bathroom house that you\u2019re listing at $200,000. You want to see all the three bedroom, two bath houses. You want to get a listing of all the 3\/2s from $150K-$250K or $175K-$225K so you can see what other people are offering at that price. If everybody else is offering granite countertops and stainless steel appliances and hardwood floors and you\u2019ve got crappy old carpeting and laminate countertops and white appliances, your house is not going to sell for the same price those other ones are.<\/p>\n<p>So you definitely have to know your competition. You want to get competitive listings and if you\u2019re having a hard time coming up with the price for your property, ask your agent to take you into the actual properties that are being listed at the prices that you\u2019re considering. Let\u2019s say your agent is saying you should list it at $175,000 and you think you should go to $200,000. Have your agent show you something at $175,000 and show you something at $200,000 so you can see what\u2019s actually currently on the market and where buyers are going after they\u2019ve left your house.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>There you go.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>I think that\u2019s a fantastic tip. Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>That\u2019s good. All right, well I\u2019m moving on. Scott\u2019s speechless.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>Number nine. Or, number eight.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Eight, don\u2019t skip number eight. Come on, Scott.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Scott does not know how to do his numbers. He hasn\u2019t learned numbers yet.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>Number blue.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Number eight? Number blue is use an agent.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Why, Mindy? I don\u2019t want to use an agent. I don\u2019t want to give him 6%.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>I\u2019m sorry, I\u2019m going off on a tangent in my head. Okay. Number eight is use an agent. I have sold FSBO before, before I was an agent.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>What is FSBO? What does that mean?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Oh, what a great question, Brandon. Thanks.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Thank you.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>FSBO stands for For Sale By Owner, meaning you are selling your home by yourself without a real estate agent. And this sounds like a really awesome idea. Oh, I\u2019m going to save all this money because while it is a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Laws to say there is a set rate of a commission, commissions hover between 5-6%. So that\u2019s 5-6% of the entire sales price you\u2019re paying to somebody else to sell your house. And this sounds like a huge chunk, and it is.<\/p>\n<p>But, studies show that houses sell on average for like 15% less than when they\u2019re sold For Sale By Owner than they do when they\u2019re sold with an agent, even accounting for commissions and things like that. It takes more time to sell, For Sale By Owner, and I have to say, I am a licensed agent but it\u2019s a lot easier to sell when you use an agent. So if you\u2019re looking to make the most money for your house, statistics don\u2019t lie.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>What about if I\u2019m attempting to sell my place and I decide to get my license? Maybe somebody is thinking that. Maybe their place is worth a lot of money, like $500,000-$600,000 more and they\u2019re like, hmm 3% of this is going to be $15,000 or even more. Should I consider getting my license to sell my own home so I can avoid missing those advantages?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Good question.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>So, that is a good question. If you are getting ready to sell your house and you have a timeline, a deadline to get your house sold, I don\u2019t think learning your market and becoming a real estate agent and going through the coursework and getting the background check and all of that is a good choice for you at this time. I mean if you already have an agent licensed than sure, you can go ahead and try to sell it. But if you don\u2019t know your market completely, you don\u2019t have a lot of time to sell your house. Getting your license is\u2014I don\u2019t want to call it silly, but it\u2019s a silly endeavor.<\/p>\n<p>And one of the main reasons that you use an agent is because they know the market presumably. I mean, I\u2019m not recommending that you get an agent that doesn\u2019t know the market. You want to sell your house for the most money, you use an agent that\u2019s got connections who can help you sell your house in the timeframe that you need to sell it in.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>I love it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>One thing I\u2019ll throw in there is that just because you\u2019re using an agent doesn\u2019t mean that it\u2019s still your responsibility to make sure that your house is ready to sell, right? All these tips that you\u2019ve been giving\u2014people will hire agents and not leave their house smelly or leave it messy and not\u2014<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>I know. I go into those houses.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>It\u2019s not like you hire an agent and they\u2019re going to take care of everything for you. You hire an agent as you plan on doing all of the work necessary to get this property ready to sell and get it in good condition so that you can\u2014this is perhaps the second biggest financial transaction of your life to this point, right? Buying the property in the first place being the first. So I think that is something that\u2014a point of this is hey, use an agent but don\u2019t rely on that agent to do the things that are necessary to basically present your home in the best possible light. And be informed going in.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>That\u2019s a really good point and yes, you should absolutely use an agent but the agent is not going to come clean your house. The agent is not going to make sure it doesn\u2019t smell. The agent is not going to be able to answer all the questions that somebody may have about your house if you haven\u2019t given them the information and the agent is not going to have a pre-listing inspection performed. They\u2019re not going to come clean your house. They\u2019re not going to take great pictures of your house. Almost exclusively, if your agent takes pictures of your house, they\u2019re not going to look great.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>And I don\u2019t mean to talk smack about agents but they\u2019re not photographers. My husband is just multi-talented.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>A follow-up question is, how do we find a good agent who will do some of those things or who will encourage you to do some of those things?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Just pick a name out of a hat. It\u2019ll be fine. So, my friend who knows me, knows my job, knows that I love real estate, she decided that she didn\u2019t want to live in her house anymore. It was her first property. She wanted to sell it and buy something new. She\u2019s driving down the road and literally sees a sign in the yard, like she\u2019s kind of impulsive. As soon as she decided she wanted to sell her house, it was like, bam! There\u2019s an agent sign. I\u2019m going to call this person up.<\/p>\n<p>She calls this woman, says I want you to help me sell my house and buy another one. Of course, the agent\u2019s like, woohoo. Dollars! Lists the house too high, does not communicate with this friend at all. She doesn\u2019t give her any sort of advice. There was a problem with the buyer. They missed closing. And my friend was like, wait, wasn\u2019t I supposed to close today? No communication for the longest time. Finally, it closed I think two months after it was supposed to.<\/p>\n<p>She finds a new property to buy. She doesn\u2019t understand how a home inspection works. She thought that when she has the home inspection, the inspector will just give her a list of things that are wrong and you turn that over to the buyer and the buyer fixes everything. But she didn\u2019t fill out an inspection objection form. She didn\u2019t ask for anything to be fixed so then the objection deadline passes because her agent didn\u2019t give her any advice and now she\u2019s stuck.<\/p>\n<p>There wasn\u2019t a lot, luckily\u2014there wasn\u2019t a lot that needed to be fixed but there was a lock missing from the sliding glass door that she had to put in herself and just a couple of things that were very reasonable requests if she would have made them on time.<\/p>\n<p>So how do you find an agent? Drive by a sign and just pick a name out of a hat. No, you want to ask your friends. If you are selling an investment property, ask some of your investor friends. Who has sold your properties in the past? Who would you recommend? And just as importantly is, who would you not work with again?<\/p>\n<p>Maybe you come across this woman who was a terrible investor\u2014a terrible agent for my sister. I would absolutely not recommend to work with this woman again. I would not ever recommend anybody work with this woman. I don\u2019t know who she\u2019d be good for. She\u2019s definitely not good for first-time sellers. So if you are not selling an investment property, ask your friends. Who helped you buy your house or who helped you sell your house last time and get some recommendations from them and then interview them.<\/p>\n<p>Ask them\u2014if you buy, <em>How to Sell Your Home<\/em>, you will get a copy of a real estate agent questionnaire form. Ask the agents questions. You don\u2019t have to call up one agent and say, oh, I guess I\u2019m stuck with you. You can interview a lot of different agents and you want somebody who communicates the way you want to communicate, who is informed of the neighborhood, who really knows the area well and who can help you sell the house in the timeframe you need to sell it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>I love it. I think that this is such an important point because you know, too many people I think are just helpless. They go to the agent and they wait for them to bring them a deal and they\u2019re like, oh, that sounds pretty good. Great, or whatever. They\u2019re unable to spot competence and fire incompetence and you\u2019ve got to give yourself the toolset necessary to be able to do that at minimum.<\/p>\n<p>And you can do it in a couple of hours by reading this book, for example, and knowing what kind of questions to ask your potential agents so that you can set yourself\u2014you can hire someone who is competent and capable enough to set yourself up for success with again, what is a huge financial decision in almost everyone\u2019s life.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Yes, this is an enormous financial decision. I really like what you just said. Fire incompetence. People are hesitant to fire incompetence. If your agent is not working out for you despite asking questions and interviewing a bunch of people, make sure you realize that you can get rid of that. You can fire that agent. That might be in your best interest to fire that agent.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>There you go.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>I also talk about that in<em> How to Sell Your Home<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Speaking of that book, let\u2019s jump in here real quick. We are just done with Tip #8. We\u2019ve got 16 total so we have the other half coming up on the second half, which is a little bit shorter than the first half. So if you\u2019re listening, we\u2019re not going for another 50 minutes. But I do want to talk about the book here for a minute. So Mindy, first of all, <em>How to Sell Your House<\/em>. What\u2019s the whole goal of writing the book?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>The goal is, there\u2019s this guy named Morgan Howsell. He writes for the MotleyFool.com. He is brilliant and knows everything there is to know about finance. And he wrote an article a couple of years ago\u2014I guess it\u2019s a couple of years ago now, that said, <em>Here\u2019s Everything I Didn\u2019t Know About Buying a House When I Bought My First House Six Months Ago<\/em>. And I\u2019m like, wait a second. You don\u2019t know something that I know? That\u2019s amazing because he is so smart. He knows everything. So for him to not know this, I\u2019m like, you know what? If he doesn\u2019t know it, I bet there\u2019s a lot of other people that don\u2019t know it either.<\/p>\n<p>And he was buying a house. And we wrote the <em>How to Sell Your House<\/em> book first because we do work for BiggerPockets.com and there are a lot of investors on the site who may have been buying as the market is increasing and now people are asking, is it time to sell? Yes, but if you\u2019ve never sold a house before, you have no idea what you don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n<p>So I took all the information that I have from years of investing and buying and selling and I put it into a book so that people won\u2019t have to ask questions. This was further cemented when I was on the forums a few weeks ago and somebody said, hey, I didn\u2019t know I needed title insurance. Oh, that\u2019s a big thing. So I covered the things like you don\u2019t know that you need title insurance if nobody tells you, you need title insurance. So that\u2019s why I wrote the book. So people can have a firm grasp on how to sell a house or a home.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>And of course, your agent should be telling you that you need title insurance and that kind of stuff but the idea, the other part of it is that there\u2019s a lot of agents out there that may not be so competent. And again, having that self-education, bothering to learn about this stuff before you go through it can save you tens, maybe even thousands of dollars.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Yes, absolutely and you know, if you\u2019ve done something a hundred times in a row, do you remember what the step one is? Do you remember to tell people what step 37 is? You might not. You might skip a step because you just know to do it. So anyway, that\u2019s why I wrote the book.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>That\u2019s awesome. So where can people get it at, BiggerPockets.com\/SellYourHome. Right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>BiggerPockets.com\/SellYourHome.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Perfect. As we do with book launching\u2014we just had a book launch like a month ago with David Greene\u2019s book, <em>The Long Distance Investing <\/em>and we like to overwhelm people with value when you buy it right away and so during the launch which I believe is during the first two weeks\u2014we\u2019re going to call it the first two weeks. It comes out on January 11th, which is today if you\u2019re listening to this show when it comes out. So, until January 25<sup>th<\/sup>, if you buy it by then, you\u2019re going to get a whole ton of cool bonuses including some interviews. You\u2019ve got a book on, what is it, Mindy? Tell me about the book. I can\u2019t remember the title of it. I got it written here somewhere.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong><em>How to Sell Your Home<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>No, the bonus book that comes with it. The bonus book.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>The e-book is called <em>Sell Your Investment Property<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Ah, there we go.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>There is a video with my absolute number one top tip for selling your home. There are video interviews with experts in the real estate field for selling your house. I\u2019ve got a video about painting tips. Some DIY fixing up your house painting tips. And if you purchase before January 25<sup>th<\/sup>, you will get access to the webinar that Dave Myer and I are hosting called <em>The Ins and Outs of Selling Rental Properties<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Perfect. I love it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>It is a live webinar.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>I love those things because they\u2019re good for Q&amp;A. We just did one with David Greene\u2019s launch just a week ago and it was amazing. We went like an hour and forty-five minutes of just questions with David about like buying out of state, long distance. It was fantastic. So I\u2019m looking forward to this one as well.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s the cool thing about this book is like, anybody who is ever going to sell a house ever, if there is one tip, which there are a million tips in this book, but if there is one tip that helps you just improve the sales price by .01%, it pays for itself ten times over. That\u2019s why I love books like this because like, books that are how-to, a bunch of tips, yeah we know a lot of these things. We\u2019re smart. We\u2019ve sold houses, some of us. Some of us feel like we\u2019re smart. At the same time, if there\u2019s like one or two things that can help you, man, it is totally worth reading and again, I think there are hundreds of cool things in this book. So pick it up at BiggerPockets.com\/SellYourHome. And also, you can get it on Amazon and Barnes &amp; Noble, right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Yes. Wherever books are sold.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Wherever books are sold. So moving on, let\u2019s go to number nine, Mindy. Number nine. What do you got?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Ask your agent for selling advice. You\u2019ve already chosen a good agent and now you want to pick their brain. Part of having them be your agent is using their experiences, which is market-specific. I can sit here and tell you all about how to sell your house but I can\u2019t tell you how to sell a house in Cleveland, Ohio because I\u2019ve never sold a house in Cleveland, Ohio. If you\u2019re trying to sell your house in Cleveland, Ohio, you want a Cleveland, Ohio agent and you want to pick their brain. What do I need to do to get this house sold?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>Awesome, I love it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Yep, perfect.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>Number nine?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>That was nine.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>Oh, that was number nine. I can\u2019t count today. Good grief.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Number yellow. Number ten.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Number ten is price your house right. You may be tempted to price it at slightly or even significantly higher than what it\u2019s actually worth but that\u2019s a bad choice and the reason is, your buyers are seeing everything else that\u2019s on the market at a regular or reasonable prices and they\u2019re going to pass your house over as your house sits on the market without an offer, without selling, it gathers days on market, or DOM time, which makes the house look like there\u2019s something wrong with it. Especially in a really hot market.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s a house around the corner from me that\u2019s been on the market for like 700 days. Everything else in my market is selling instantly for over asking price, all cash offers, no contingencies, yada yada yada because we\u2019re in a such a hot market. But this house sits and sits and sits. It\u2019s about $50,000 priced too high. And at that price point, that\u2019s not a significant amount of money but it\u2019s a significant enough amount of money that nobody is buying the house. So it just sits there and now it looks like something is wrong with the house because it\u2019s a stale listing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>There was a property I flipped back in, I don\u2019t know, it was probably six years ago now. And I listed it at $170,000 because I thought that was like top of the market but I thought this is the best house ever so I can get top of the market in this neighborhood. It sat on the market for I think it was ten months before we got an offer. It took a year, beginning to end, on the market to sell the thing. And I ended up selling it for $120,000. We dropped the price that much, from $170,000 down to $120,000 just to sell it. Ended up losing money on that flip. The one flip I ever lost money on because I got greedy.<\/p>\n<p>Had I just listed it at the $150,000 where it probably should have been, $155,000, I probably would have gotten an offer right away. But the longer it sat on the market before I started dropping the price, it just got longer and longer and longer days on the market. Now granted, this was in the pit of real estate hell back in like 2012, I think it was, when I listed this thing. But still, I shouldn\u2019t have been greedy. I should have just taken the money. I just look at dollar signs and I\u2019m like I can make so much money. I can get a lot of money. No, no. Stupid. Even if I could, it probably wouldn\u2019t have gotten the appraisal to justify it so I would have probably had to drop the price anyways.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Yeah, exactly.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>How do I know if my agent is listing it too high or perhaps too low? How can they present the price that they want to list it at to me in such a way that I can have confidence they know what they\u2019re doing?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>That\u2019s a great question. You should ask them why they are recommending this price point. Ask them to justify this price. They should use words like \u201ccomps\u201d or \u201ccomparable properties\u201d and a comp is not a house that is currently on the market. A comp is a property that has sold recently in your area that is comparable to your house. Like, you don\u2019t want to comp, when you\u2019re trying to sell your 3\/2, you don\u2019t want a comp of a 6\/4.<\/p>\n<p>You want a comp of 3\/2s that are selling around the same time that yours is. One or two months, three months in a hot market, and six months or maybe even 12 months in a slow market. But you definitely want to see what other houses are selling for because that\u2019s what makes a house worth what it\u2019s worth. It isn\u2019t how much money you put into the house. It isn\u2019t how pretty you painted the walls. It is what other houses are selling for in the area at the time of sale.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Can I say one more thing with this? This is something that occurred to me the last few years. I used to look at like the sales price and thought, well, let\u2019s just say I drop the sales price on my property by $20,000 but it took me four months longer to sell it, we\u2019ll say, right? Like, when I looked at that, that\u2019s like $5,000 a month. I mean, my mortgage payment is only $1000 so I might as well just keep the property on the market at the higher price because it was worth it.<\/p>\n<p>However, what I discovered is like the opportunity cost is what I\u2019m really losing. I\u2019m not just losing on the expenses of holding a property for three or four or five months longer. I\u2019m losing it on the fact that I\u2019m not buying more real estate for the next three, four, or five months because all of my money is tied up in a deal.<\/p>\n<p>So just to those investors out there that are listening, thinking they\u2019re trying to get top dollar, or they\u2019re really trying to get the top amount, ask yourself how much are you losing by not dropping your price? How much are you slowing down on your ambitions? What are you holding yourself back from by not lowering your price? So, some tip for ya\u2019ll.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>That\u2019s a good point. Another tactic that some people use is to price the house really, really low in the hopes that they\u2019re going to instigate a bidding war. I don\u2019t like this tactic personally. I find it disingenuous to list a house that\u2019s $200,000 at $150,000. I think if you list the property at that price, you should be willing to accept that price. Maybe somebody thinks they found a really great deal and they\u2019re really disappointed they didn\u2019t get this house at $150,000 when it\u2019s really not ever going to be in their price range anyway. But that said, if it\u2019s a $200,000 price, that\u2019s a real psychological stop. So people will put their price range in basically $25,000 increments of $50,000 increments. If I\u2019m looking for a house for $185,000, I\u2019m going to look for $175,000-$200,000 because maybe the guy at $200,000 will come down. Maybe he didn\u2019t pay any attention to me and listed it way too high and now has to come down because nobody is buying this house.<\/p>\n<p>But listing it at\u2014if it\u2019s a $200,000, listing it at $195,000 may have people come in and say, oh, this is a good deal. I\u2019m going to make an offer at $195,000 or I\u2019m going to go over asking so I can definitely get this house. They\u2019ll go up a little bit. They might even instigate a bidding war but it\u2019s not a disingenuous bidding war. Instead of $195,000, you get $197,500 or something. So you\u2019re still getting about what you need but you don\u2019t have to drop the price because maybe you\u2019re a little bit overpriced and you\u2019re not hitting that psychological barrier of $200,000.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>That makes sense to me.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>Awesome. I think it\u2019s a great tip. I think we\u2019re\u2014let me try this. Let me see if I can get this right this time. Number eleven.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Oh, good job. Scott figured out numbers!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>No, we\u2019re on number purple. Sorry, Scott.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Number purple. List in peak market time. The whole point of this podcast is 16 Ways to Make More Money When You Sell Your Property. Selling it in the dead of winter is not the peak market time for you to get the most money. Buyers are looking in the spring. The weather\u2019s not so crappy. Kids are finishing up the current school year and moving on to the next school year. There\u2019s a big space in the middle for summer where you can move and have a nice time, move smoothly. So spring is when everybody is out looking for houses and if you want the most money for your house, you want to be where the buyers are and that\u2019s listing it in the spring.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Can\u2019t argue with that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>You can\u2019t argue with that because it\u2019s true.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>I will add one tip on there. If you are a landlord thinking about selling your investment properties and you want it vacant, you don\u2019t have to do, unless your state law is different, you don\u2019t have to do one-year leases. There have been times when I know I\u2019m going to sell a property so I will deliberately do a six-month lease or an 18-month lease just so that it ends at the peak selling time, which is usually late spring for me because nobody buys a house in the middle of winter. At least in my area.<\/p>\n<p>So there\u2019s a little tip for you. If you plan ahead and schedule your leases accordingly. I do that as well for just renewal leases on any rental property I have. I never want a lease renewal anytime between November, December, January, February, March, April. I\u2019ll just deliberately make sure it does not renew then.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>Twelve months straight of winter back in Washington up there.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>It\u2019s like ten months of rain and then two months of the most gorgeous weather you\u2019ll ever experience. So, all right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>We live in Colorado. We\u2019ve got the most gorgeous weather you\u2019ll ever experience. Okay, question orange.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>And nosebleeds. All right, question orange.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>Number twelve.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>This one is for after the property has been listed, double check your listing information. Every property that goes on the MLS, there\u2019s forms to fill out to put it on the MLS. How many bedrooms does it have? How many bathrooms does it have? What\u2019s the square footage, garage space, etc.? You want, after your agent has filled all of that information out and hits \u201cGo Live\u201d, you want to go into that listing and double check that all of your information is correct.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>That\u2019s a good tip.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>I have seen houses that say they\u2019re six bedrooms and they\u2019re really two bedrooms or houses that two and three are right next to each other\u2014you think you\u2019re getting a three-bedroom house. You walk in and you\u2019re like, where\u2019 s the third bedroom? Well, it\u2019s only a two-bedroom house. Well, it says three on the listing sheet.<\/p>\n<p>Again, you don\u2019t want extra people in your house. It\u2019s a hassle to show your house. It\u2019s not a ton of a hassle but you know, it\u2019s a hassle to leave the house, especially if you have young kids. You don\u2019t want people coming into your house looking for a three-bedroom house if it\u2019s only got two bedrooms. So make sure all the information in your listing is correct.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>Yeah, and I\u2019m going to chime in here because, first of all, sometimes it\u2019s not the agent that\u2019s entering this information. Sometimes, it is their intern or their office admin or something like that and they\u2019ll get it wrong. They\u2019re doing this all day long, every day. They\u2019re going to make a certain number of mistakes when you\u2019re typing in hundreds of thousands of pieces of data into the MLS.<\/p>\n<p>And the second thing is, this happens a ridiculous amount of time here in Denver. The properties, people will be selling like a house\u2014they\u2019ll list it as a house and it\u2019s really a duplex or a triplex and it\u2019ll be listed at like $600,000 and it\u2019ll be completely wrong. The description will be correct but the actual listing information will be completely wrong.<\/p>\n<p>So as a buyer, I have to go in and look at all these properties that are four, five, six, eight-bedroom homes and just go through them one by one to make sure that I\u2019m not missing any of the duplexes, triplexes, or quads that are in the market. And it\u2019s amazing the percentage of these things that are listed completely incorrectly. And those are real dollars coming out of the sellers\u2019 pocket and into my pocket as the buyer, the only one that\u2019s actually recognizing this as the correct type of deal.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Yeah, and we\u2019ll use that tip in reverse when we publish <em>How to Buy Your House<\/em>. But when we\u2019re talking about sellers, we\u2019re the ones in charge of the listing right now. We want to make sure all that information is correct. It\u2019s really easy to go in and make the change but if your agent doesn\u2019t know there\u2019s a problem, they\u2019re not going to go in and make the change. So you want to make sure that, ultimately, this is your house. The agent made a mistake. It\u2019s not a huge deal but you want to get it fixed.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Perfect, love it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>Great tip.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>All right, number thirteen.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Number thirteen is stage those weird areas that don\u2019t have an obvious use. Have you ever walked through an open house that\u2019s vacant and you\u2019re like, what on earth would they ever do with that space? Your buyers are seeing that weird space and they don\u2019t know, they\u2019re going to just keep on walking.<\/p>\n<p>I went to a house, they had this basement space and it was this really odd, L-shaped, wiggly, whatever basement but they had staged it in such a way that it was a reading nook. And that makes perfect sense in this particular space but I would not have thought of that. And I\u2019d like to think I\u2019m pretty creative when it comes to houses. I would not have thought to make that a reading nook. I would have just looked at that space and be like, what on earth am I going to put there? I guess just boxes. That\u2019ll be more spaces for boxes.<\/p>\n<p>So if you\u2019ve got a weird, weird, weird space but you have a creative use for it, stage it. Even if nothing else in the house is staged. Showing what they can do with that weird space, I mean what\u2019s a bedroom? Oh wow, you can put a bed in here. If you do or don\u2019t have a bed in there, people are going to know it\u2019s a bedroom.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>The thing with the book nook is that seems to be a go-to because I\u2019ve seen a lot of places that will just have like these really strange\u2014I saw a place that had a four-foot, maybe three-foot high by four-foot deep box underneath the stairs. So they painted it blue and they put in like a little pillow, a little carpet on there, and it looked like a book nook for the kids. I\u2019m not going to go sit in that little crawl space under the stairs but maybe some kid might. I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>What do I look like, Harry Potter?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>I thought you were describing my house because I actually do have that. And my father-in-law\u2019s an electrician and we had him put a light in there and the girls go in there, I made a little curtain and it\u2019s like their little hidey hole and they love it. I\u2019ll show you the next time you\u2019re over, Scott.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>I flipped a house once that had a bedroom\u2014it had three bedrooms but one of the bedrooms was only six feet wide by like twelve feet. It was the weirdest long, narrow bedroom. So what I did, I just went and bought the cheapest desk I could find at IKEA. It was like two little saw horses with basically a little platform on top. It was like $30. I put it in there, put some curtains up in there, put a little desk pencil holders and like a piece of paper on the desk and it became a really nice office. And the house sold really, really fast. Nobody ever brought up the fact that this bedroom was six feet wide which is an awkward size for a bedroom.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>That\u2019s because it\u2019s an office, not a bedroom.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Yep, but legally it was a bedroom but we just called it\u2014we just let people envision what they want. Cool. All right, moving on. Number fourteen.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Okay. Number fourteen is leave during your showings and make sure you take your pets with you. So, people are allergic to animals. People don\u2019t like certain types of animals. Take your pets out of the house if at all possible. And don\u2019t ever be in the house during a showing. Your buyers do not want you there. They don\u2019t care for your opinion of what the house is and they don\u2019t want to see that cool little thing that you did. They want to talk about your house freely and if you\u2019re in the house, they won\u2019t feel comfortable. They will come through, see you there, glance around and leave and you will have lost a sale that you may have not lost if you just weren\u2019t there.<\/p>\n<p>So get yourself out of the house for showings and leave a few minutes early. Leave before the showings are even scheduled to start. Because if somebody is running late or running early, they\u2019ll be able to come by and just walk in. You\u2019re not there. They can go ahead and start the showing. If you\u2019re there and you\u2019re like, oh, I just need five more minutes, they\u2019re going to go someplace else and they might not make it back to your house. And don\u2019t come back until after they\u2019re gone.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>All right. I like it. Number fifteen\u2014actually on that note, let\u2019s talk about investors real quick because obviously, it would more apply towards homeowners selling their house but what about investors\u2014we talked about tenants earlier. Do you think you should encourage your tenants to leave, tell them to leave, or do you think it\u2019s okay to have the tenants stay there?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Same applies to the tenants, too. You don\u2019t want your tenants there. You want to encourage them to leave and in fact, you don\u2019t want to accept showings if your tenants are going to be there. I\u2019ve been in properties where there\u2019s been tenants just sitting around watching TV and you\u2019re like, wow. It\u2019s the same thing. I feel uncomfortable because regardless of who owns the property, the tenant lives there. I don\u2019t want to see you, the person who lives in this home, when I\u2019m looking at the house. I want to be able to talk about the house freely with whoever I am with.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>What about someone like me? I like to meet the tenants. What about for that type of person? Should there be another opportunity for them, the investor, to meet the tenants?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Do you want to meet the tenants if you\u2019re not going to buy the property? You don\u2019t care.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>That is correct, yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>So after the house is under contract then you absolutely should meet the tenants. You absolutely should go over there when they\u2019re there and say hi, I\u2019m going to buy the property, I\u2019m going to be the new landlord. Here\u2019s a little sheet. I\u2019ll give you a call at closing to let you know that it\u2019s official. But yeah, you do want to see them after you\u2019re under contract. But this is while you\u2019re just looking at your house. And this is from the Southside, Scott.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Yeah, on the buyer\u2019s side, I love it when the tenant is there when I\u2019m looking at a property, and this is why a seller should not want a tenant there. Because when I go to buy a property, the tenant\u2019s like, this place is a pile of crap. Look at this wall over here. They love to brag about how crappy their property is and they show me everything.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>That\u2019s true, actually. Because when I was buying the last place, the tenants were a firehose of negative intervention about the property which was fantastic. And that was very helpful. So fair enough.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>That\u2019s fantastic as a buyer. But as a seller, you don\u2019t want anything to do with that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>Good, yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>All right, number fifteen.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Number fifteen is be prepared to walk away from an offer.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>What do you mean?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>The whole point of putting your house on the market is to get an offer but not all offers are the same. So, let\u2019s say you have a buyer who is just nickel and diming you. They have a home inspection and they\u2019re like, oh, the light switch is dirty. I need $10 for that and I need $100 because the rug is crumpled. They just keep nickel and diming everything. That\u2019s going to be a pain in the butt buyer. That\u2019s going to be somebody who is just going to keep asking and they might postpone the sale. They could decide at the very last minute to walk away, maybe they don\u2019t even have funding available.<\/p>\n<p>If you have a buyer who is nickel and diming you and you\u2019re just not comfortable with it, every day that you\u2019re under contract is a day that you\u2019re on the market. And if the contract falls through, you now have 30, 50, 100 days on market and then you have to start over. So you want to be prepared to walk away from an offer if it isn\u2019t working out. And you can\u2019t just say, forget it, I\u2019m leaving. You have to go through and offer to let them out of the contract. But don\u2019t be afraid to offer to let them out of the contract.<\/p>\n<p>Another fun tip is in our market of the Denver area, prices are skyrocketing. Everything goes under contract instantly. There\u2019s no contingencies, yada yada yada. So what some buyers have started doing, and I don\u2019t agree with this but you should be aware as a seller that this could happen\u2014they will give you an outlier offer. Again, let\u2019s say your house is listed at $200,000. They\u2019ll offer you $250,000 and everybody else is around $205,000 or $210,000. You\u2019re like, oh my goodness, I\u2019m going to sell this house for so much more. This is awesome. But then it doesn\u2019t appraise at $250,000. Now, you have to come back down to the $205,000 or the $210,000 or whatever it appraised at or risk losing the sale. And again, you risk losing the sale after a property falls out of contract, it starts to look like there\u2019s something wrong with the house.<\/p>\n<p>So you\u2019re kind of stuck with this buyer. Again, you should be prepared to walk away but if you\u2019re stuck with this buyer, then you\u2019re stuck with their price, too. So a way to combat that is, okay, you\u2019ve offered me $250,000. I will accept your offer of $250,000 but it only has to appraise at $200,000, which is the price that I offered at. If it appraises for less than $250,000, you have to bring the remainder to closing.<\/p>\n<p>And that can get them to kind of back off their $250,000 price. Maybe you have an offer of $215,000 and it appraised at $215,000, those people are long gone if you\u2019re dealing with the $250,000 guy. Make sure that your appraisal inspection is only at what you have offered the property at, which goes back to pricing it right and using your agent for selling advice and you know all of that. These kind of all build on each other.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>All right. Well, cool.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Last tip.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>I think we have one last tip then we have the Fire Round.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>Sixteen. And this is purple.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>This is number purple.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Didn\u2019t we do number purple already? I think this is number pink. Sorry, Scott.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>Oh, yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Number pink.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Number pink. Tell everyone you know that your house is for sale. Yes, you\u2019ve got an agent. Yes, you\u2019ve got it on the market but you\u2019re not done selling your house until the house has closed and you have money in your pocket. So tell everybody you know that your house is for sale. The lady down the street did that. Her house is for sale. She told all of her friends, I\u2019m going to list the house tomorrow. She had a friend make an offer on the house and win the house, simply because she told them that it was on the market. They had wanted to move, they had always admired her house, and then all of a sudden, it\u2019s available. Well, I\u2019m going to get in there. What price do you need? I\u2019m going to make that offer.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>I like it. I\u2019ve actually sold a number of houses to people who just saw it on Facebook. Like, I shared it and then somebody else shared it and yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Facebook, Twitter, ask all of your friends to share it, if you\u2019re on Instagram. Whatever your social media is, e-mail all of your friends. Tell everybody you know that your house is for sale because the whole goal of putting your house on the market is to get it sold. There\u2019s sometimes this mentality of, oh, that\u2019s the agent\u2019s job. Well, it\u2019s not the agent\u2019s house. It\u2019s your house. If you want to sell it, let everybody know. Nobody is going to call you up and be like, hey, is your house for sale?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>There you go. All right. That was good. Sixteen good tips to sell your house for more money. And I would also add that to sell faster, a lot of those tips can apply both to speed and to money. So I appreciate that, Mindy. I think I learned a lot. I always do every time I talk to you, Mindy. You\u2019re a smart gal.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Aw, thanks, Brandon. I learn something from you every once in a while, too.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Well, good. Well people should pick up the book. Go to BiggerPockets.com\/SellYourHome to get a copy of how to sell your home, the essential guide to a fast and stress-free and profitable sale. Or go to Amazon. Go to Audible. Is it on Audible? Did you record an audio version of this?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>I did record it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Wow, cool.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>I recorded an audio version of this, too. It\u2019ll be available on January 11<sup>th<\/sup>, which is today.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Perfect. And then, of course, you can get all that stuff and if you buy from BiggerPockets, you get all the cool bonus stuff so go to BiggerPockets.com\/SellYourHome. I would recommend getting it there. Now, before we get out of here, let\u2019s get to today\u2019s Fire Round.<\/p>\n<p><em>It\u2019s time for the Fire Round.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>If you\u2019re a real estate investor or property manager, agent, landlord, flipper, whatever, looking for a faster, easier way to deal with your paperwork but you\u2019re lost and stuck in this spreadsheet land tracking your time, creating invoices, expenses, consider this: The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over and over and expecting a different result. The good news is that our friends over at FreshBooks make ridiculously easy-to-use cloud accounting software that\u2019s going to give you a different result, one that will put an end to your paperwork nightmares.<\/p>\n<p>You see, with FreshBooks, you can link your FreshBooks account to your credit card or debit card so next time you expense that business lunch or that tank of gas, it\u2019s going to show up automatically in your FreshBooks account. You can even take pictures of your receipts on your phone and put it right up into the cloud with your mobile apps. Also, they have amazing customer service. Super helpful and you actually get a real-life person, usually within three rings or less. So, to claim your 30 day, unrestricted, free trial, no credit card required, go to FreshBooks.com\/BiggerPockets and then do us a favor and enter \u201cBiggerPockets\u201d in the \u2018How did you hear about us\u2019 section. Again, FreshBooks.com\/BiggerPockets.<\/p>\n<p>All right, today\u2019s Fire Round. Let\u2019s get to these questions, coming directly out of the BiggerPockets forums, which Mindy is the queen of the forums. Number one, after taking initiative landing a deal and successfully completing renovations, how can you be sure that your property is going to sell?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>You can\u2019t. Next. No, you can\u2019t be sure that your house is going to sell. You have to\u2014there are things you can do to encourage it to sell. Have a pre-listing inspection. Clean up your home. Make it smell nice. Take good pictures of your house. And price it right. I mean really, if you have a good property that is presented well, that is priced within the market constraints, it\u2019s going to sell. If you\u2019re having a problem selling your house, nine times out of nine, it\u2019s price.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>Awesome. Well, question number two here is straight from the forums as well. I\u2019m considering selling my rental property to two of the tenants that I know and trust who currently live there. I\u2019ve mentioned I would offer them the discount of 5% based on agent fees. I don\u2019t have the slightest idea of how to actually sell the house. Are there any fees or people I should consider getting involved to complete the necessary paperwork, etc.? As I mentioned, I trust the tenants. I don\u2019t expect to have any funny business but is selling the home as simple as having them secure a loan and heading to an escrow company?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>No. I think that\u2014I recommend you using an agent as I mentioned in my 16 tips, but if you don\u2019t have to find a buyer, you can absolutely skip the agent. I would absolutely recommend getting a real estate attorney involved because the contract to buy and sell real estate in Colorado is 16 pages long, currently. And actually, it\u2019s now 2018. I\u2019m sure it\u2019s longer. I haven\u2019t seen the new contract yet. I probably should have done that before I recorded this. Anyway, it\u2019s a really long document. Words that mean one thing in the English language will mean something entirely different in legalese.<\/p>\n<p>So you need somebody to help you sell the property to the person who is buying it. You don\u2019t need somebody to match you up but you need to make sure that you\u2019re conveying the property to them in its entirety as you own it. If you convey a different property, you can screw up the whole public records and you need an attorney to help you out. You need a title company to help you out. Title company, in Colorado, handles pretty much the entire closing documents. So if you\u2019ve got a buyer already, talk to a title company, talk to a real estate attorney, and that will help your whole transaction go smoothly.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Very cool. All right, number three. I\u2019m looking to buy a house and I\u2019ll be looking to sell my current home. How do people work the timing of selling and buying a home? I\u2019d rather have a home I\u2019m looking to buy at least in contract with a good idea of the closing date before I commit to selling my current home. Are there issues with this?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Yes. Well, it depends on your market. In the Colorado market, it is extremely hot. I\u2019ve said this before and I\u2019ll continue to say it because it just keeps going crazy. It is not uncommon in our current market to see post-closing occupancy agreements where I will sell my house to you. You will buy it from me. And then I will rent it back from you until I can find another property to buy because nobody in this market is going to accept a contingency for a home sale, meaning when you write an offer for a property, you say this offer is contingent on me being able to sell my house. Nobody is going to accept that because they\u2019ve got nine other offers that are not contingent on the home sale. And you never know how long it\u2019s going to take to sell a home. Maybe they have some weird geodesic dome house that\u2019s never going to sell, even in this hot market.<\/p>\n<p>So depending on your market, in a slower market, you absolutely want to sell your house before you start looking for another house. In this current hot market we have, you want to start your home buying process even before you start selling your house because your house will sell instantly but your home\u2014you might go through six or eight contracts before you get a house under contract that actually closes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>Quick, just one question here. So if I\u2019m trying to\u2014I assume that this person\u2019s problem in terms of buying the next home is, they don\u2019t have any money with which to buy the next home until after they\u2019ve sold their first home. Right? So how do you get around that problem? Do you just use a home equity line of credit or something like that to bridge the gap? What\u2019s your advice there?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>So you don\u2019t want to be stuck with two house payments. I don\u2019t care what the market is like. You don\u2019t want to be stuck with two house payments unless you can afford them both. What happens if some fluke, and your house doesn\u2019t sell but now you\u2019ve got this other house to buy? I would recommend looking into the Bridge Loan, which is a loan that bridges the gap between the home purchase and the home sale.<\/p>\n<p>But I would also look at short-term rentals where you sell your house, you get it completely done, you\u2019re on the way to buying a new house, and you move out of your current house into a rental for a couple of weeks or a couple of months until you find a new property. Or doing the post-closing occupancy agreement where you work it into the contract at the time that it\u2019s being signed. That you will be renting the house back. This happened with the last house I sold in the area. The buyers knew that this was happening. They offered it before we even asked.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>That\u2019s great.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>All right. Question number four?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>Question number four, I have rehabbed my first property. The problem is that I had my GC hire a foundation company which is not reputable and did not do the foundation work with an engineering evaluation. The house is rehabbed really nice. The buyers have no issues with the rehab, however, most of the interested buyers are asking about this engineering evaluation report which I cannot produce. Any advice would be appreciated. I\u2019m having difficulty selling the property.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Go get another engineering report. Go and I mean, I can understand, especially in Colorado, we have shifting soils and like a whole lot of whoppiness. You want to get a licensed engineer out there to inspect the property and then you can present that report to people. So if the original guy wasn\u2019t licensed, just go get somebody who is.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>That\u2019s funny, I remember earlier, I told the same story. Almost the exact same thing happened to mine. It wasn\u2019t the report necessarily but it was the non-reputable contractor didn\u2019t have a thing so I just had to go get another contractor to go in there and verify the work was done correct and that satisfied what the lender and the buyer wanted. So, very cool.<\/p>\n<p>All right well that was the end of the Fire Round. I don\u2019t think we need to do Famous Four today since we\u2019ve obviously done this. But maybe we should. Mindy, other than your own\u2014we\u2019ll do it anyway\u2014it\u2019s time for the <em>Famous Four<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>All right, Mindy, what is your famous real estate related book besides your own? Come on.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Besides my own?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Everyone\u2019s got a book. You get a book, you get a book, you get a book.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>I can\u2019t say the book on rental property investing? That\u2019s a really great book.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>You took me over, Scott. That\u2019s amazing. Hey Scott, eat that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>So dejected.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>No, <em>The Millionaire Real Estate Investor<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>All right. Whatever, don\u2019t say mine. I don\u2019t care. Don\u2019t say mine.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>I don\u2019t like your book.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Whatever, I don\u2019t care.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>I love your book.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Number two\u2014your turn, Scott. You ask it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>What is your favorite business related book?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Okay, so I don\u2019t know if I said this. I can\u2019t remember what my answers were on Show 129, but my favorite business book lately is <em>The Richest Man in Babylon<\/em>. It was written in the \u201820s by George S. Clayson and it just tells this story\u2014it was written in Shakespearean English, which I love, and it tells a story about this kid, like oh how do I become rich? And he was like, be frugal, invest with people you trust, don\u2019t be so quick to spend money that you don\u2019t have, and it\u2019s just all these basic concepts that ring true today and it\u2019s just, I\u2019m a sucker for Shakespearean language.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>Awesome.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Alrighty, well.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>What do you do for fun? What are your hobbies?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>I have two girls so I do a lot of stuff with the color pink. No. I like to ride my bike. I like to do long distance cycling. I like to snowboard. I love to snowboard.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Wow, I did not know you were a snowboarder. That\u2019s cool.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>I am a snowboarder. I am an amazing snowboarder. Almost made the Olympic team.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Are you lying?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Yes, I\u2019m totally lying.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>All right, number four.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>I almost made the Olympic team\u2014it was amazing!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>Mindy actually comes in and some days just starts her day off with a standing backflip. Just to kind of get ready for the slopes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>That\u2019s not a lie at all.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>All right, number four. What do you think sets apart successful investors, especially when it comes to selling properties, from those who struggle, give up, fail, never get started?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Education.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Hmm, they learn.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>If you are going to be\u2014this is a successful investor. If you are going to be a successful investor, you have to know what you\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>I love it. Very succinctly put. All right, well\u2014<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>We don\u2019t ever comment on that enough though, the successful part of that. Anybody can become an investor. You just have enough cash. You buy a property, it could be a bad property, and you get started, right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>I\u2019m an investor, look at me.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>But yeah, in order to be successful in the long run, you\u2019ve got to know what you\u2019re doing and have the resources to do it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>All right, well. I like it. Good deal, Mindy. Scott, you want to close us out? Last question of the day?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>Last question. Where can people find out more about you, Mindy?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>They can give me a call at\u2014I am all over BiggerPockets.com. I am in the forums. I am in the podcast, the BiggerPockets podcast, the BiggerPockets Money podcast. You can reach me at <a href=\"mailto:Mindy@BiggerPockets.com\" target=\"_blank\">Mindy@BiggerPockets.com<\/a> or you can send me a private message. I am probably your colleague on BiggerPockets because I am the first colleague for anybody who has signed up after I think like February of 2016. I have 400,000 colleagues.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>So she knows you on a very personal level already.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>We\u2019re all best friends.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>Alrighty.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>All right, so the newest book from BiggerPockets is out right now by Mindy Jensen. It\u2019s called <em>How to Sell Your Home<\/em>. Go pick it up at BiggerPockets.com\/SellYourHome. And with that, let\u2019s get out of here, guys. Because we don\u2019t need to do a long outro because you know, we just did a long show. So Mindy, thank you so much for writing that book. It\u2019s going to help a ton of people be able to sell their properties for more money and thank you, Scott, for hanging out with us today.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mindy: <\/strong>Thank you very much for having me. This was a lot of fun. I like being on this side of the microphone sometimes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brandon: <\/strong>Well, good. All right, guys. Thanks so much. Take it easy. For BiggerPockets.com, this is Mindy, Scott, and Brandon, signing off.<\/p>\n<p><em>Y<\/em><em>ou\u2019re listening to BiggerPockets Radio, simplifying real estate for investors, large and small. If you\u2019re here looking to learn about real estate investing without all the hype, you\u2019re in the right place. <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from BiggerPockets.com, your home for real estate investing online.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h2>Watch the Podcast Here<\/h2>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"16 Tips for Selling Properties Faster and for More Money with Mindy Jensen | BP Podcast 261\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/P4nVbzJFu04?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2>Help Us Out!<\/h2>\n<p>Help us reach new listeners on iTunes by leaving us a rating and review! It takes just 30 seconds and instructions can be found <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/forums\/25\/topics\/161423-do-you-listen-to-the-bp-podcast\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a>. Thanks! We really appreciate it!<\/p>\n<h2>This Show Sponsored By<\/h2>\n<p>We just wa<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-66280 no-display appear\" src=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/RealtyShares.png\" alt=\"RealtyShares\" width=\"283\" height=\"60\" title=\"\">nted to give a shout out to our podcast sponsor\u00a0on today\u2019s show:<strong> RealtyShares<\/strong>. RealtyShares is a crowdfunding platform that allows you to invest in professionally managed properties without leaving your living room!<\/p>\n<p>Learn more by visiting\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.realtyshares.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">RealtyShares.com\/biggerpockets<\/a>!<\/p>\n<h2>Fire Round\u00a0Sponsor<\/h2>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-74647 size-gallery-block\" src=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/freshlogo-214x140.png\" alt=\"freshlogo\" width=\"214\" height=\"140\" title=\"\">A huge thanks as well to our\u00a0sponsor <strong>FreshBooks<\/strong>.<br \/>\nFreshBooks customers spend less time on paperwork, freeing up <span class=\"tooltips\">2 days per month<\/span> to focus on the work they love. What would you do with that extra time?<\/p>\n<p>Learn more by visiting\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.freshbooks.com\/pages\/biggerpockets?ref=11568&amp;utm_source=bigger-pockets&amp;utm_medium=podcast&amp;utm_campaign=2015\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">FreshBooks<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2>In This Episode We Cover:<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Mindy&#8217;s story<\/li>\n<li>How to pay zero dollars in capital gain taxes<\/li>\n<li>The tax exemptions involved with getting married<\/li>\n<li>What exactly a live-in flip is<\/li>\n<li><strong>16 ways to sell your property:<\/strong>\n<ol>\n<li>Have a pre-listing home inspection<\/li>\n<li>Clean up your home<\/li>\n<li>Doesn&#8217;t pass the sniff test<\/li>\n<li>Great Pictures of your house<\/li>\n<li>Be available<\/li>\n<li>Be informative<\/li>\n<li>Know your competition<\/li>\n<li>Use an agent<\/li>\n<li>Ask your agent<\/li>\n<li>Price it right<\/li>\n<li>List in Peak market time<\/li>\n<li>Double check your listing information<\/li>\n<li>Stage those weird areas that don&#8217;t have an obvious use<\/li>\n<li>Leave during your showing<\/li>\n<li>Be prepared to walk away from an offer<\/li>\n<li>Tell everyone you know that your house is for sale<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n<li>Why Mindy wrote the book<\/li>\n<li><em>Bonuses!<\/em><\/li>\n<li><strong>And SO much more!<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Links from the Show<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/forums\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">BiggerPockets Forums<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/moneyshow\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">BiggerPockets Money Podcast<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"mailto:support@biggerpockets.com\" target=\"_blank\">Email Support<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"\/renewsblog\/biggerpockets-podcast-247-buy-or-next-property-year-the-90-day-challenge\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">How to Buy Your First (or Next) Property by the End of the Year [The 90-Day Challenge!]<\/a> (podcast)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fool.com\/investing\/2016\/06\/16\/what-i-learned-buying-a-house.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">What I learned buying a house<\/a> (blog)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Books Mentioned in this Show<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/get.biggerpockets.com\/sellyourhome\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>How to Sell Your Home<\/em><\/a> by Mindy Jensen<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/richdadpoordad\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>Rich Dad Poor Dad<\/em><\/a> by Robert Kiyosaki<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/get.biggerpockets.com\/longdistancebook\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>Long Distance Investing<\/em><\/a> by David Greene<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/setforlife\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>Set for Life<\/em><\/a> by Scott Trench<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/rentalbook\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>The\u00a0Book on Rental Property Investing<\/em><\/a> by Brandon Turner<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/2Fmt9iN\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Millionaire Real Estate Investor<\/a> by Gary Keller<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/2CWwUOi\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>The Richest Man in Babylon<\/em><\/a> by George S. Clason<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Fire Round Questions<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/forums\/311\/topics\/500212-selling-your-1rst-property\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">After taking initiative, landing the deal, and successfully completing renovations, how can you be sure your property is going to sell?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/forums\/311\/topics\/323810-selling-home-to-current-tenants-with-no-agents\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Selling home with no agents<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/forums\/311\/topics\/125239-timing-of-selling-home\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">How do people work on the timing of selling and buying a home?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/forums\/311\/topics\/342049-selling-challange\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Selling challenge<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Tweetable Topics:<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;Try not to sell a house with a tenant in it.&#8221; (<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/home?status=%22Try%20not%20to%20sell%20a%20house%20with%20a%20tenant%20in%20it.%22%20BP%20Podcast%20261%20biggerpockets.com\/show261%20%40biggerpockets\" target=\"_blank\">Tweet This!<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>\u201cHome inspection is totally worth the dollars.\u201d (<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/home?status=%E2%80%9CHome%20inspection%20is%20totally%20worth%20the%20dollars.%E2%80%9D%20BP%20Podcast%20261%20biggerpockets.com\/show261%20%40biggerpockets\" target=\"_blank\">Tweet This!<\/a>)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Connect with Mindy<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/users\/MindyJensen\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mindy&#8217;s BiggerPockets Profile<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><em>How to Sell Your Home<\/em> Now Available!<\/h3>\n<p><em>Selling your home can be overwhelming. There is so much you need to do, know, and all those dreaded forms you have to fill out. In her new book <\/em>How to Sell Your Home<em>, agent and investor Mindy Jensen takes you step by step through the process, from preparing your house to sell and choosing an agent that\u2019s right for you, all the way through the closing procedures and beyond.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Slated for release January 11, 2018, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/How-Sell-Your-Home-Stress-Free\/dp\/0997584734\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">this book can be pre-ordered now!<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/How-Sell-Your-Home-Stress-Free\/dp\/0997584734\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-94997\" src=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/How_To_Sell_Your_Home_ad_v2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"700\" height=\"144\" title=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/How_To_Sell_Your_Home_ad_v2.jpg 700w, https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/How_To_Sell_Your_Home_ad_v2-300x62.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We spend a lot of time talking about buying properties\u2014but what about needing to sell them? How does someone get top dollar and get their home sold quickly?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17340,"featured_media":117960,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4565],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-biggerpockets-podcast"],"acf":[],"comment_count":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17340"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95637\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}