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Albert and his wife Tina had talked to me over two years ago in the early spring about selling their 1920’s house as they were thinking about moving to Olympia where they had family, and we discussed things that they could do to make their house more marketable.
The house had been totally remodeled in the inside and was lovely with some high-quality finishes, including gorgeous Tigerwood hardwood floors throughout.
However, the exterior was awful with two tones of beige stucco and piecemeal parts of siding, where the stucco had been removed.
Moreover, a lovely feature of the house was a covered wrap-around porch, but it had never been painted, and the walls and floor of it were plywood. Also, lots of the new exterior windows had never been properly framed in.
It really looked rough, and I knew it would deter a lot of buyers from even entering the property and would certainly de-value it by quite a bit.
I suggested getting the unfinished porch walls sided in T1-11 siding, the windows framed in, some porch posts realigned, plus lots of other finishing touches and the whole house painted in one color with a contrasting trim. This was a project they could work on over the summer, so they would be ready when the time came to sell.
Fast forward to the fall of 2019 and Albert and Tina, who had been looking in Olympia, but not seriously, came upon a house that they fell in love with, bought and moved into, unbeknownst to me.
So when we met again in October, like so many folks with young kids, they had not done anything we talked about doing!
Now we were heading into the bad weather and a lot had to happen quickly as I really did not want them to sell the house AS IS as I knew they would be leaving a lot of money on the table.
Luckily, the stars aligned as Albert and I both knew a really great local contractor who was in between jobs and we were able to get him to help do a lot of the prep work, including fixing the porch columns, replacing rotten plywood, framing in the windows and numerous other jobs.
We also lucked out with a siding contractor and painter. We were racing against the weather and had to stall a couple of times due to heavy rains. I was really cracking the whip, as I did not want us to list the house during the holidays since I knew we would lose buyers.
There were all sorts of other little finishing bits and pieces that needed to be done and my local handyman and I split up some tasks to make it all happen. It was amazing how everything came together, and it was certainly a team effort. I was able I was able to get the house listed in early November.
The outcome was fantastic! We got three offers during an otherwise slow month, and all over list price, with the best offer waiving all contingencies.
The moral of the story? Investing even a small amount of money to make the house look as good on the outside as it does on the inside really paid off.
Fortunately, Albert allowed me to make most of the decisions as he was working full time, plus he lived in Olympia. He was wonderful to work with and I really appreciated his trust in me.
“My wife and I have had great experiences with previous agents but we’re in forever awe of Serena Heslop!” he said. “Last fall, we had to move away from Seattle suddenly and unexpectedly and found ourselves needing to sell our house quickly.
We (and our house) were not at all prepared for the sudden move and winter approaching. After talking to a number of agents, we had anxiety about what to do, until we met with Serena. Not only is she a friendly/easy person but it was easy to see her expertise with the current market, our neighborhood and assessment of our property (strengths, weaknesses).
Without hesitation, she defined a practical plan that accomplished a very tall order: Sell a not-so-ready house quickly, before the full rainy winter, and with remote owners who could not be hands-on.
Serena jumped in as our general contractor (as well as rolling up her own sleeves on occasion) to help orchestrate multiple contractors and services who converged to ready our house within weeks and budget.
We’ve never seen anything like it.
All the changes were just-right strategically and our house transformed before our eyes (Note: This isn’t our first house or sale so I can’t stress the true value-add magic that happened and without over the top expenses).
In a tough market with extremely tough constraints, Serena single-handedly brought our house up to par, drove incredible traffic though her smart use of marketing (approximately 10,000 views), and sold our house with multiple offers above-ask after just one week on the market.
We felt like we were in Million Dollar Listing! Please do yourself a favor and call her!”
