Foreign.
Speaker BWelcome to around the House with Eric G.
Speaker BYour go to source for everything home improvement.
Speaker BWhether you're a DIY enthusiast or just looking to make your space shine, Eric G.
Speaker BIs here to guide you through the latest tips, tricks and trends coming up.
Speaker BIn this week's second hour of the show, Eric G.
Speaker BExplores the things you should be thinking about if you are going to be selling your home in 2025.
Speaker BIt could be the new rules for realtors to paying attention to what buyers are looking for so you can get the most out of your home.
Speaker AThere are a lot of new rules right now.
Speaker ALet's talk about the new rules for real estate agents out there because there was a big lawsuit here that happened and got settled last year.
Speaker AAnd so what happened is, you know you would have your realtor that you were selling the house through.
Speaker BSo grab your toolbox, put on your thinking cap and let's get to work right here on around the House with.
Speaker AEric G.
Speaker AWelcome to the Round the House show, the next generation of home improvement.
Speaker AI'm Eric G.
Speaker AThanks for joining me today.
Speaker AThis hour is brought to you by my friends at Monument Grills.
Speaker AIf you're looking for that brand new barbecue with Father's Day right around the corner, check them out@monument grills.com and that new Omni Pro M Essence series is a killer barbecue.
Speaker AYou got to check it out there@monument grills.com if you're looking for that present coming up for dear old dad, this is going to be a game changer for you and your next barbecue game.
Speaker ACheck them out@montymcgrills.com today.
Speaker ALet's talk about things to consider when selling your home in 2025.
Speaker ANow as everybody's been if you've been listening to the podcast version, I've been talking about a little bit in the midweek special but I'm putting my house up for sale this year, but out looking for the next project.
Speaker AHopefully get my house up for sale this year here in Lake Oswego, Oregon in the next couple months trying to get those projects wrapped up, everything from 80% to 100% to get my best foot forward.
Speaker ABut I tell you what this kind of subject brought up.
Speaker AI was out looking at homes this last week and I tell you what, Rarely in my 35 years have I walked into a home that was a head scratcher on how to fix it.
Speaker AAnd nothing wrong with this, but I do love ones that make me think outside of the box.
Speaker AAnd unfortunately when I see a house like this that I walk Into I go, wow, okay, how do you fix this and make this relevant and a good business decision, let alone a place to live.
Speaker ASo let me set the stage on this story for you before we get into the whole stuff because this does relate into what we're talking about.
Speaker ASo this is a house over here in outside of Portland.
Speaker AI'm not going to give it a location because I'm not here to bash on someone's home.
Speaker ABut this was absolutely crazy.
Speaker ASo this home, built in the 70s view piece of property.
Speaker ASo you really have a great view.
Speaker AThere's a pool with it.
Speaker AReally a cool place.
Speaker AHowever, it is about six different levels, 1970s masterpiece.
Speaker AAnd from the outside it looks funky.
Speaker AIt looks like a party house in a way.
Speaker ALooks like maybe it was designed a little bit like what I would say, oh, Hugh Hefner's 1970 estate, northern Portland, a little bit with some 70s vibe.
Speaker ABut here's where it got weird.
Speaker AAnd there's all these different levels, which I get.
Speaker AIt's on a hill.
Speaker AIt looks like it's three stories from the street, but it's about six levels.
Speaker ANow where it got weird is there's this big living room.
Speaker AAnd on top of this is where it got strange when you sit there and walk into the living room.
Speaker AThere's a loft above with the master bedroom suite.
Speaker AAnd yes, I call it master.
Speaker AIt's not the primary, it's the master bedroom from where I come from.
Speaker AAnd you walk into it, it's open to the living room below.
Speaker AJust a wood railing.
Speaker AOkay.
Speaker ANot a lot of privacy.
Speaker ABut this is where it got strange.
Speaker ANow when you walk into this place that the.
Speaker AThere's an eight foot run or so of cabinetry in the master bedroom.
Speaker AIt's the vanity.
Speaker ASo it's like an old hotel room where you got the vanity in the room.
Speaker AThat's not the weird part.
Speaker ASo if you are laying down in bed from that perspective, you've got a fireplace ahead of you to the right you got this beautiful view of Mount Hood and the Cascade mountains into the valley.
Speaker ALooks beautiful.
Speaker AAnd then to your left is that vanity.
Speaker AYou walk into the toilet room which is in the left far corner to paint that picture for you.
Speaker AThere's a little tile circular staircase that goes up 90 degrees to the left about 6ft up.
Speaker AThat's where the master shower is.
Speaker AAnd there's a shower door that is floating in the middle of this wall about 8ft up to the bottom of the shower door that you could open the shower door up and look at the View, look down into the master bedroom and look down into the living room.
Speaker AWhat's left of that.
Speaker ABecause of the loft and the view of the neighborhood and the mountains.
Speaker AI get it.
Speaker ABut talk about, how do you fix that?
Speaker AI don't want to walk out of my shower in the morning while I'm half awake, or even worse, walking up into it and have to walk up tile stairs.
Speaker AThat to me with a wet floor is a disaster.
Speaker ABut it really brings me to things to talk about now.
Speaker AWhen I first walked into the home, you could tell that that some basics weren't done, like basic cleanliness.
Speaker AAnd I get, you've got elderly homeowners, this family has a lot going on.
Speaker AYou've got elderly homeowners, you've got all this different stuff.
Speaker ABut the perspective when you walk up, there were water bottles with cigarettes in them on the tables where somebody had been smoking out on the front porch.
Speaker AThere was nothing clean nor good smelling about it.
Speaker ASome of the things that you see on these kind of projects.
Speaker AI walked into this thing going, wow, for $580,000 on a double lot, you have got so much to do.
Speaker AThat house would have to go down to the studs.
Speaker AYou would have to reframe up that bedroom to either create more space or figure out a way to put in the master bathroom back into its own place, not in the middle of the bedroom.
Speaker ASo there's a lot of weird things like that.
Speaker AThis was almost a Winchester house feel, if you've ever been to the Winchester house down in California.
Speaker AAlmost a Winchester house feel.
Speaker AWalking through it.
Speaker AIt was absolutely fascinating.
Speaker AThere were some cool things.
Speaker AThere were some broken up things.
Speaker AYou walk in the front door and there are all these weird staircases going off at angles just because of how it lined up.
Speaker AAnd what's weird is you walked into the foyer from the front of the house.
Speaker AThere was this big arch that led to nowhere, to a storage room, little tiny bathroom.
Speaker AIt was just a really wild thing.
Speaker ABedrooms were small, like 10 by 11, that kind of thing.
Speaker ABut there's a 20 by 20 living room that's the size of a double car garage.
Speaker ABut then you see what the master or what they call the primary bedroom is.
Speaker AThere was a lot to work with on this.
Speaker AAnd I tell you what, lots of decks, lots of cool things, but who lots of stories as well.
Speaker ASo it was one of those homes that didn't make financial sense.
Speaker ABecause I looked at it and went, okay, by the time you finish this house up, let's say you bought it for 500,000.
Speaker AAnd they took 80,000 off of it by the time you went in there, got it taken care of, got it cleaned up, got it down to the studs, fixed.
Speaker ASome of the inherent issues with the location in the neighborhood it's in, even with the view property, there is no way this property makes sense.
Speaker ABut they also built this in a hillside.
Speaker ASo if you were going to tear it down and take what was the two tax lots for the price of that, you're going to have an exorbitant amount of money of cleanup in building what would be expensive homes in a neighborhood.
Speaker ANow, if I was selling this house, I would have gone through and fixed some of those things, cleaned it up.
Speaker AThe deck you would have spent to have a composite deck built on this because there's a pool, there's all this other stuff.
Speaker AIt's a 250 to $350,000 custom composite deck to do this because there's all these different levels of deck.
Speaker ASo you can see sometimes the math doesn't work out.
Speaker ASo really, this $580,000 house to make financial sense for somebody is going to be a $400,000 house to get even close.
Speaker AAnd it's going to be a labor of love, not a business decision.
Speaker ASo you can see where these things start to get tough is you as a seller.
Speaker ASo when we come back here, we're going to talk about some of these situations so you can keep yourself out of this so you can make great decisions moving forward.
Speaker AWe'll do that just as soon as around the House returns.
Speaker ADon't go anywhere.
Speaker BTo find out more information, head to aroundthehouse online.com don't change that.
Speaker BDial around the House.
Speaker BWe'll be right back after these important messages.
Speaker AWhat it's like to play an instrument.
Speaker AWhat's up?
Speaker AThis is Sticks it in you and Satchel from Steel Panther and you are listening to around the House with Eric G.
Speaker AYeah, we love Eric G.
Speaker AAnd you should, too.
Speaker AWelcome back to the around the House show, the next generation of home improvement.
Speaker AI'm Eric G.
Speaker AThanks for joining me today.
Speaker AThis hour is brought to you by our friends at Monument Grills.
Speaker ACheck them out@monumentgrills.com and if you are a business out there looking to advertise, looking to show your latest products out there and especially if you're made in usa, I would love to talk to you here.
Speaker AHead over to aroundthehouse online.com and we can help you out with your business and making sure that you get out to the smartest audience in the world today.
Speaker AWe've been talking about things to consider when selling your home in 2025.
Speaker AIn the last segment here, if you're joining us on the radio on the Talk Media network all across the United States, thanks for joining us on the radio.
Speaker AWe've been talking about, you know, this crazy house that I went and looked at last week that I ended up passing on.
Speaker ABut it was just a reminder of the mistakes that can happen when listing a home.
Speaker AAnd some of the things that I wanted to talk about today are things that you can prevent from happening before you even go buy it.
Speaker ANow, there are a lot of new rules right now.
Speaker ALet's talk about the new rules for real estate agents out there, because there was a big lawsuit here that happened and got settled last year.
Speaker AAnd so what happened is, you know, you would have your realtor that you were selling the house through, the buyer would roll through with their favorite real estate professional or whoever, and the prices were fixed.
Speaker AYou would see what the buyers, what the seller's price was, what they were going to have for their agent, what the fees were.
Speaker AAnd it was that way where you would see that that's all changed.
Speaker ASo if the seller listed their home with an agent and the buyer toured homes with their own agent, when the sale closed, they pretty much shared a commission of, let's say, 5 to 6%, for the sake of argument, paid by the seller.
Speaker ASo for the medium price, Tom, that was 21, $24,000 on average across the U.S.
Speaker Athat was shared.
Speaker ASo what they've done is they've changed that now.
Speaker ASo this settlement made two big changes to this.
Speaker ASellers are no longer allowed to make promises of compensation to buyer's agents on the database of homes, which is the mls, which is the multiple listing service.
Speaker ABuyers using an agent must also have a representation agreement in place detailing compensation before they tour homes.
Speaker ASo you have to sign paperwork with an agent saying, hey, this is my rep before you go look at homes.
Speaker AThat makes sense to me.
Speaker AThat way, everybody's on the same page before you go do that.
Speaker ASo those changes were designed to make agents fees more transparent and negotiable.
Speaker ASo under the old system, what you would see was the sellers would typically share the commission they're willing to pay a buyer's agent in their MLS listings, sparking concern that the agents would steer their clients away from listings that offered lower rates.
Speaker A5, 6% has been the average here in the US forever.
Speaker AGlobally, it could be 1 to 3%.
Speaker ASo it tells you where things are.
Speaker ABut I will say that there's a lot of things that agents do here as well.
Speaker AAnd that value is there, in my opinion.
Speaker ANow there are things that happen outside of the mls, but really those commissions are always negotiable.
Speaker AI'll be honest.
Speaker AI think if you're expecting a level of service, you go in and have that conversation with them.
Speaker ABut I tell you what, if you look at the time, and this is a great example, and this is happening here in my area in Portland, Oregon, it might be happening in your area.
Speaker AThere is a shortage of homes around the median housing price here.
Speaker AAnd so I know of someone out there, they're at their 10th home putting offers in.
Speaker AAnd the problem is, because there's a housing shortage in that price point, I think she's at number 10 on the homes.
Speaker AAnd some of these homes have been 75, $80,000 over asking price.
Speaker AAnd she was probably number eight, nine or ten in the process of offers in.
Speaker ASo the problem that we see with that situation is it's really favoring the cash buyer because if you're coming in at $80,000 over asking price, you might not get an appraisal that will go in your favor.
Speaker ASo you might end up having to pay extra out of pocket to cover that.
Speaker ASo you're not going to go in with your 20% and get the full loan.
Speaker AYou might have to come in at 25 or 30%.
Speaker ASo that is something that is not great for first time homebuyers or people that you got to have some cash to play in the game because the loan is only going to cover so much.
Speaker AThe bank is not going to be willing to go upside down for you.
Speaker ASo that's a big one right there.
Speaker ASo I tell you what, it's getting interesting out there.
Speaker AThis really didn't change much other than made a few little changes here for the real estate agents out there for those realtors.
Speaker ANow what's also interesting is depending on which state you're in, transactions are handled differently.
Speaker ALike in my area in the Pacific Northwest, generally speaking, you go out, the process goes.
Speaker AYou go out there and you go take a look at the house you put your offer in, if you want it, your agent, after you've signed with them, looked at houses, puts the offer in.
Speaker AYou go through that process.
Speaker AThere's an inspection period.
Speaker AMany times you have so many days to have your own inspections, including the one for the bank, you might have to.
Speaker AIf you've got cracks in the foundation or you've got mold, you can have those experts come in and then you have a right of refusal in there that you can offer in to say, hey, I want X, Y and Z fixed before we do this transaction.
Speaker AWhere it gets different is when you get into this sometimes, like in my area here, you have to have a radon test done.
Speaker AYou have to have a sewer scope done.
Speaker AThese are requirements that are part of the transaction.
Speaker ANow when you go to close, all the paperwork's done through your agent and their paperwork.
Speaker AAnd then you go to the.
Speaker ABasically you go into the escrow company, you're working with them, and basically you have a independent person that is closing that deal for you.
Speaker ASo you go into the title company, they will go through, get all the paperwork, get you your keys.
Speaker AThat transaction is usually done there.
Speaker ANow, in other states, especially on the east coast, you don't do that as much.
Speaker AIt's handled by a real estate attorney, which to me is really foreign.
Speaker ABut there's lots of different ways for this stuff to transpire, depending where you're located.
Speaker ASo it's something to think about with that.
Speaker AAnd of course, you've got all those different things that can go sideways within that project of buying a house.
Speaker ABanks, you've got all these different hidden things that could be happening.
Speaker AThere's disclosures.
Speaker ASo there's a lot of different things that go on through that process.
Speaker ANow.
Speaker AWhere are house values at?
Speaker AThey're growing or shrinking depending on where you're at in the US Ours and my neighborhood are slowly growing.
Speaker AI can go up in areas of Seattle where I just saw that some places are down 15 or 20% in some cities.
Speaker ASo it's really depending on what's going on in your neighborhood.
Speaker AHow is crime?
Speaker ACrime can be a big one because families are moving out.
Speaker AIf crime is high and the city isn't managing their crime issues.
Speaker AHomelessness, that can run people out depending on if they were a huge culture of people that traveled into the area to be working remotely, and all of a sudden those remote jobs have dried up and people are back in the office.
Speaker ASo those are big things.
Speaker AThose are big things to consider, and that could be a good opportunity for you to buy a house there.
Speaker AWe'll dive more into things to consider.
Speaker AWe're selling your home in 2025, just as soon as we return.
Speaker ADon't change that dial.
Speaker BTo find out more information, head to aroundthehouse online dot com.
Speaker BDon't change that dial around the house.
Speaker BWe'll be right back after these important messages.
Speaker AHey, this is Ron Keel, the metal cowboy from Keel, the Ron Keel Band and Stealer we are rocking around the House with Eric G.
Speaker ARaise your fist.
Speaker AWelcome back to THE around the HOUSE show, the next generation of home improvement.
Speaker AI'm Eric G.
Speaker AThanks for joining me today.
Speaker AIf you want to find out more about us here at the show, head over to aroundthe house online.com and you can find out more information here.
Speaker AAnd while you're over there, make sure you sign up for all of our social media and of course, all of our different YouTube channels and things like that.
Speaker AWe've got so many videos up for you to take a look at, including my television show, around the House Northwest lots going on over there.
Speaker AWe've got 650 plus videos, lots of great stuff, lots of great homes and little places for you to find those crazy little things you're trying to find for your home.
Speaker AThis hour is brought to you by our friends at Money McGrills.
Speaker ACheck them out at moneymcgrills.com so when it comes to the housing market in the US we talked about this a few weeks ago, but we're not going to see any kind of a crash out there now.
Speaker AIt seems that our inflation is slowing.
Speaker ANow the one thing is when we start to see what housing numbers are and where housing prices go, that takes months to show up in the government reports.
Speaker ASo the stuff that came out this last week showed that there wasn't a huge a hike in that.
Speaker AThe problem that I see is that interest rates seem to be high for right now compared to where we've been.
Speaker AWould I like to see them lower?
Speaker AYes, because housing's gonna take off.
Speaker ABut they use the interest rates, of course, to control how much inflation is going.
Speaker ASo we raise the interest rates to cool the economy so we can get things slowed down so we don't have any kind of a crash like in the 1929.
Speaker ASo we didn't have that big crash.
Speaker AI get it.
Speaker ABut right now it's really put a crimp on housing.
Speaker AAnd building materials are dumb expensive out there.
Speaker ASheetrock, osb, insulation, all those things way higher.
Speaker AI went to go buy a bundle of insulation for this shed project I'm working on right now, 120 bucks, that should have been 60 a few years ago.
Speaker ASo things have really gone up out there.
Speaker AAnd unfortunately, when I see that that elevates housing prices.
Speaker ASo building material costs, regulation, labor costs all rise to houses getting more expensive.
Speaker AWell, when housing is more expensive on the new stuff, the used stuff out there, the remodel homes, those rise as well.
Speaker ASo that's where we see those double Digit price increases in neighborhoods that people want to move to.
Speaker ASo that's going to be interesting to see how this plays out, because that does really kind of raise the water for all housing.
Speaker AWhen a brand new house is at number X, number Y, which or letter Y, which is the housing prices of the existing inventory out there, that automatically raises because there's more of a demand for that.
Speaker ASo that's what we see.
Speaker ANow, the other thing is, I want to talk about the things in your home that you might want to fix up if you're thinking about putting your house on the market.
Speaker ANow, the obvious thing that I'm going to tell you first to do, and we talked about a little bit in the first segment here of this hour, clean it up.
Speaker AGet your house smelling and looking clean.
Speaker AWhen someone walks in, you want it to be fresh.
Speaker AAnd I'm not talking about covering things up with horrible smelling, basically air fresheners that could hurt you because someone comes in and goes, oh, what are you trying to hide?
Speaker AYou want your house to smell fresh and clean.
Speaker AIf there were smokers in there, you need to dial that in and get it cleaned up and fixed.
Speaker AIf you had a mold issue or you've got pets, eliminate those smells.
Speaker AIf you've got to go move into an apartment and get your pets out of there so they don't smell like pets, or you have to have a house cleaner come in every three or four days, you do it because people coming in will smell that.
Speaker AI came in and it had 1970s carpet in that house.
Speaker AYou could see all the stains.
Speaker AYou could just tell the unhealthy air in this place, which leads me to believe that there's going to be many more problems.
Speaker ASo if you walk in, everything's well painted, everything smells spic and span.
Speaker AIt's clean, there's no clutter.
Speaker AThis is going to be the easiest and most important thing you do to your home.
Speaker ANow, if you have inherent issues on maintenance, you got to get those knocked out.
Speaker AIf you need to have a new electrical panel put in, have it done.
Speaker AIf your H Vac is broken, knock it out.
Speaker AIf you've got a roof system that's failing, fix her up.
Speaker AYou see where I'm going?
Speaker AGet those things dialed in.
Speaker ABut the big stuff here that you need to think about is what can I do to help?
Speaker AAnd a lot of times that's going to be curb appeal.
Speaker ACurb appeal is one of the easiest things you can do to get that house dialed in and looking amazing.
Speaker AMaybe it's re landscaping up front Maybe it's that new garage door that doesn't look like the wood one from 1974.
Speaker AMaybe it's getting rid of that old beat up front door system with the bad screen door.
Speaker AYou want people when they pull up out front with their real estate professional to look and go, wow, that's cool.
Speaker ALet's go take a look.
Speaker AVersus them.
Speaker APulling up, seeing a sagging garage door, trash in the front yard, a checked nasty looking front door, and people go, this looks like too much of a project for me.
Speaker ANext.
Speaker AHaving that dialed in from the curb is your first impression.
Speaker AFor those people out there that are potentially looking at it now, this is for all the real estate professionals out there.
Speaker AAs someone that has been looking at it so many times, you'll see the pictures up on the MLS listing service.
Speaker AYou'll see the pictures out there of this beautiful first picture.
Speaker AAnd the second picture sucks.
Speaker AIt's some weird baby blue bathroom that's tiny.
Speaker AI don't care, I'll see it when I get there.
Speaker ABut show me the best foot forward.
Speaker AIf you've got a picture of the front, show me a picture in the back, show me the kitchen.
Speaker AIf it's new, plan those pictures out to go up on the website or the MLS so you can see what's happening.
Speaker AI see a lot of homes.
Speaker AI see a brand new home on the market each and every week for my television show.
Speaker ASo I see a lot of homes.
Speaker AAnd the secret is making it look good, depersonalizing it and making it smell good when you get inside.
Speaker AAnd cleaning is a big one like we talked about, but making it look like it's not a project unless you're trying to sell it as a project.
Speaker AThat's a key right there.
Speaker ANow, any of those things like that come up as issues can kill a sale.
Speaker AI see foundation issues, cracks, leaky basements.
Speaker AI see roofs that need to be put on.
Speaker AI see asbestos in the building, bad electrical, bad H vac or even worse, lack of maintenance for 20 years, people that didn't take care of.
Speaker AAnd this happens a lot with like elderly fixed income people, their house was dialed in.
Speaker AThe kids weren't helping out much, or family members or they didn't have the money to really invest and keeping it up to date.
Speaker AOr even worse, hoarders.
Speaker AIf you want to bring down the value of a house in a neighborhood, have a hoarding house there or someone technically with a hoarding disorder because it is a mental health issue.
Speaker AIf you've got that or you're working on one to get it.
Speaker AThat has to be dialed in.
Speaker AAnd I've seen so many homes up on that they've tried to clean up, but you can tell that they, oh, my gosh, it probably looks 10 times better than when they started.
Speaker ABut you don't see that when you roll up.
Speaker AYou just see weird boxes of stuff.
Speaker AAnd you can tell that something bad has happened in that house because you can smell the dirt.
Speaker ASo again, stuff you got to consider when you get in there.
Speaker ASo make sure that all those little issues you have, that could be something that kills the sale.
Speaker AAnd that's why I always recommend if you are putting your house up for sale to get a pre listing inspection.
Speaker ASo pay an inspector to come in and go through the house because someone's gonna probably do that unless you do an as is type sale where you don't try to disclose things.
Speaker AYou need to make sure and get that dialed in.
Speaker ASo get her fixed up.
Speaker AGet those things knocked out.
Speaker ASo you're not surprised because you're gonna pay more to fix it.
Speaker AAnd this is what happens all the time.
Speaker ALet's say your.
Speaker AYour house that you're thinking about right now is going up for sale.
Speaker AYou list it up and you knew that there might be some foundation issues.
Speaker AYou can pay twice as much to get that fixed in a hurry that's coming out of your pocket.
Speaker AYour profits, your sale.
Speaker AWe'll talk about that when we return.
Speaker ADon't change that dial round the house.
Speaker AWe'll be right back for the last segment of this hour.
Speaker AWe'll see in a minute.
Speaker BTo find out more information, head to aroundthehouse online dot com.
Speaker BDon't change that dial around the house.
Speaker BWe'll be right back after these important messages.
Speaker AAll right, the band is drunk.
Speaker AIt's the end of the show.
Speaker ANow drinking down, people.
Speaker BIt's time to go.
Speaker AThat time again, it's last call.
Speaker AWelcome back to the around the house show.
Speaker AThe next generation of home improvement.
Speaker AI'm Eric G.
Speaker AThanks for joining me today.
Speaker AWe've been talking about getting your house ready for sale.
Speaker AAll the different things that you know you can do out there to really get your house ready and get the most out of it.
Speaker AThis hour is brought to you by our friends at Monument Grills.
Speaker ACheck them out@monument grills.com so we've been talking about the different things that affect it, things to think about, some of the houses I've looked at and the mistakes they made when listing it up there.
Speaker ANow one of the ones that I always talk about are what are the Homes that are hard to sell.
Speaker ASometimes those homes that are hard to sell are the ones that are the most expensive for their price point that someone might have a hard time getting a loan on.
Speaker AGreat example.
Speaker AYou got the big house, the biggest house in the neighborhood, or the most unique house in the neighborhood on a smaller lot.
Speaker ASo what happens is, if it's a unique enough house and there's no comps out there, so there's nothing to compare it to for, shall we say?
Speaker AOh, just basically comparing it.
Speaker ASo a appraiser comes in and goes, wow, there's not a lot to compare this to that can hurt you on the sale.
Speaker ANow there's also weird stuff that happens regionally, like in the east Coast.
Speaker AMany places don't count basement livable square footage as part of the primary square footage of the house.
Speaker AWe're out here on the west coast.
Speaker AIf I have a California split level home where I walk up to the house, walk up to the front door a couple steps and I walk into the front door, I can either go down or up.
Speaker AYou're in the middle between the two floors.
Speaker ANow upstairs you'll traditionally have a kitchen, dining room, living room, and maybe three bedrooms.
Speaker ADownstairs you'll have a bedroom or two and a game room or a big family room, a bathroom, laundry room.
Speaker AUsually that's how those were laid out.
Speaker ABut on the west coast, that's all considered part of the square footage.
Speaker AThat same house on the east coast, they might not call that part of the primary square footage.
Speaker AAnd so there's a lot of different rules out there, but you need to keep that into account.
Speaker AIf you're living on the west coast and you move out east, that could be a completely different business decision.
Speaker AIf they're, if they're sitting there saying, hey, this house is 2800 square feet versus 1800 square feet.
Speaker ADifferent comps, different rules, different everything.
Speaker ASo think about that.
Speaker AThe other thing is, if you've got bedrooms in a basement, you better have an egress window, which means that's the space if there was a house fire or an emergency that they could get out a secondary way out of that basement.
Speaker ASo usually that means a window.
Speaker AWell, and a large opening window that a firefighter can pop in or you can escape out of firefighters usually wearing a Scott air pack or one of the air packs.
Speaker ASo there has to be a large window that they can get into to rescue.
Speaker ASo if you've got a bedroom down below grade, you better have that egress window in there to sell it.
Speaker AOtherwise they probably Won't count that.
Speaker ANow having a closet is a big deal.
Speaker AThat's an interesting one.
Speaker ASo making sure you have a closet so you can count it as a bedroom.
Speaker AFunny story over in the Tri Cities in eastern Washington, there's a whole group of homes over there that were built by the US Government and it was under the Hanford contract out there.
Speaker ASo General Electric came in and built all these ranch houses for government workers, military personnel that were living working on the Hanford nuclear reservation.
Speaker AWell, they have all these Alphabet houses where it was a planet, an A house, a B house, a whatever.
Speaker AThese ranch houses were built younger architect is the story I was told.
Speaker AAnd flying back from eastern Washington, what would have been out in the middle of nowhere to the east coast, he realized that the houses they were building, he forgot to put closets in.
Speaker ASo they had these little plywood closets.
Speaker ANow the issue is if you've got one of those original homes, sometimes those inspectors really have a problem when you're in a house and there is literally no closet space.
Speaker ANow people have added closets over the years.
Speaker AThat's what I did when I owned one of these homes.
Speaker ABut many original ones didn't have it.
Speaker ASo sometimes mistakes that happen in history, that can be an issue.
Speaker ASo those houses were built stout.
Speaker AThey just forgot closets that can come up in those things.
Speaker ASo fixing all those things are important to make life a little bit easier.
Speaker AHarms homes that are hard to sell.
Speaker AStyle wise, mid century is always king.
Speaker ASo the more you can embrace that and it's depending on your area as well.
Speaker ASometimes you've got somebody that built the Pablo Escobar 1980s contemporary home with the glass block that you're gonna have a hard time finding someone.
Speaker ABut if you go try to renovate that into a more contemporary home, you could have hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to take that and change it into a different style.
Speaker ANow good news is that 80s style is coming back.
Speaker AThat Miami Vice look that is coming back into style.
Speaker ASo be careful.
Speaker AIf you go spend a hundred grand to take that style away, you could be hurting yourself down the road.
Speaker AIf you're waiting a few years, I think that is really coming back.
Speaker AAre we going to see new houses built that way?
Speaker ANo, but I think you're going to see some of those style points coming back in.
Speaker AIt is the next one.
Speaker AAnd if you watch this, you saw the 50s mid century come back.
Speaker AWent to the 60s mid century.
Speaker ANow we're into the 70s mid century.
Speaker AThe rock and the avocado greens are back all that stuff colors back.
Speaker ASo naturally, I think our 80s stuff will be coming back.
Speaker ASo maybe getting that Ferrari 308, you saw Tom Selleck cruising around in the 80s, that might be your next hot car to match that house.
Speaker ABut this could be a lot of fun with these.
Speaker ASo don't just blow up the style, pay attention.
Speaker AThat could be the next hottest house out there.
Speaker ASo we'll take a look.
Speaker ASo here's the thing to look at as well.
Speaker AAnd this is if you're thinking about selling your house and you want to upgrade your house right now, take a look and see what you can buy to fit your house.
Speaker AIf you're going, hey, I'm going to buy a bigger house.
Speaker AI need two more bedrooms.
Speaker AI don't want a remodel.
Speaker AI don't want to do this.
Speaker AI want to move on the other side of town.
Speaker AI want to move out of state.
Speaker ADo your research before you put it up on the market of where you're going and can you afford it.
Speaker ATaxes, interest rates, all of that can really mess with what things cost.
Speaker AAnd so pay attention to those numbers before you go put it on for sale.
Speaker ABecause I tell you what, I didn't want to sell my house here because I'm at a 3% interest rate or less.
Speaker AI know now I'm going to be in the 6%.
Speaker ASo I'm throwing away a lot of money there when I do it.
Speaker ASo I have to be careful of that.
Speaker AAnd I have to take that into account coming in.
Speaker AAre we gonna see 3% interest rates, 4% interest rates anytime soon?
Speaker AProbably not.
Speaker ATwo years out, we'd have to have a huge crash in the economy to get that low again.
Speaker ANow, will there be things out there that they might do?
Speaker ACould they give us new tax credits?
Speaker AThere's been a lot floating around out there.
Speaker AJust like with people buying new made in America cars, they're talking about giving you a tax credit for that.
Speaker AIf that car is made in the US and you're getting a tax credit for that, could be an awesome deal.
Speaker ASo now people start looking to go, hey, where's that car made?
Speaker AIs enough of it made to get that tax credit?
Speaker ASo there's a lot of promises out there.
Speaker AIt's politics.
Speaker ASo we'll see actually what comes to fruition.
Speaker ABut that could be something cool to help reduce the price of things.
Speaker ANow I'd like to see us get building materials back in line.
Speaker ASo when we're seeing these projects going and government regulation, tired of it costing here in my area, because of bad habits of government spending 50, 60, $70,000 to get the permits to build a house with all the site development fees and all that junk.
Speaker ASo if we can get that stuff under control, if we can let loose on some of these urban growth boundaries that we have in our area out here and let people build a little bit more outside of that so we can get some more inventory up, we'll see some lower house prices out there, but we're gonna have to make some big changes to let that happen.
Speaker ABut for you, selling a house secret here is just a recap.
Speaker AMake sure you get that thing spick and span, clean, perfect.
Speaker AHave somebody come out, come over that you trust, but they smell the things.
Speaker AIf you've got cats, your nose becomes numb.
Speaker AAt some point you want somebody to walk in and go, I don't smell a single pet.
Speaker AI don't smell mold.
Speaker AI don't smell dirt.
Speaker AI don't smell filth.
Speaker AMake sure that those things are taken care of.
Speaker AHave the independent eye because many times you miss that.
Speaker AAnd that way you'll be good to go.
Speaker AAnd that way you can get the most out of your home.
Speaker ASo you can take it to the next house, wherever you're looking at.
Speaker AHey, if you got any questions of me, send them over to aroundthehouse online dot com.
Speaker AHead over there.
Speaker AYou can message me there.
Speaker AI will message you back and get back a hold of you and make sure that question gets answered.
Speaker AI'm Eric g.
Speaker ATo find out more, head to aroundthehousonline.com we'll see you next week.
Speaker AIf you're a podcast listener, we'll catch you on the midweek special.
Speaker AIf not, I'll see you right here at the same channel on the radio or the podcast.
Speaker AThanks for tuning in to around the house.
Speaker AWe'll see you soon.
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