Jon Sump:
Hey everybody, welcome again to the home brokerage show, Jon Sump with the home brokerage. And today we're continuing our series on interviewing the experts. And today we have the great pleasure of interviewing staging experts here in the San Joaquin County area. Patrick Keehnel. Patrick, how are you today?
Patrick Keehnel:
Doing good, Jon. How are you?
Jon Sump:
Thanks so much. Thanks so much for coming, I really appreciate it. To me this is kind of a big deal because I've been looking for a stager for quite a while and the only ones I could find were in the Bay area and I just happened to come across Patrick here a few weeks ago and I already have him getting ready on some projects for us and so I thought it'd be a great thing to do, get him in here and get some advice from the experts in staging homes today in our area. So Patrick, if you don't mind, I have a couple questions to ask you.
Patrick Keehnel:
Sure, fire away.
Jon Sump:
Awesome. So tell me a little bit, just so everybody understands a little bit more about your background-
Patrick Keehnel:
Sure.
Jon Sump:
And kind of what got you towards this arena, so to speak?
Patrick Keehnel:
Okay. Yeah, I was educated, had a bachelor's degree in interior architecture from university of, Academy of Art University in San Francisco where I also had a practice for many years doing mostly commercial design work and architecture. Moved to Lodi to be closer to family and kind of getting towards that semi-retirement thing. Got my real estate license and started seeing the need for staging in the San Joaquin area and beyond. So I decided to make that my focus. That's kind of where I'm at now.
Jon Sump:
Fantastic. So real quick Pat, how did you get into staging actually homes for sale?
Patrick Keehnel:
Well, when I decided that there was a need in Lodi and Stockton and San Joaquin area to offer this service, I knew that I could do it and I knew that I could produce a really good job with all my years of experience in the design trade. I have that natural ability, but I also have that really good training and many years of experience doing this. And Jon, I think that's what sets me apart from a lot of the other competition or whatever. We all have our markets, but I feel like I produce a product that is truly geared in the way of an interior design project. I consider my projects very high quality. My merchandise and accessories and artwork are all hand chosen by me and I love putting it together and I treat each project with the utmost of detail.
Jon Sump:
I've seen some of the pictures of some of your work and it is, it does look phenomenal. I mean you think your house is staged good now, you have a stager come in and it really changes things. So let me ask you this. What tips would you give a viewer right now that, they can't afford to hire a stager today, but they have all their own furniture. What was your number one tip be to them to make their house the most showable when it comes to selling the house?
Patrick Keehnel:
That's a great question, Jon. That would be under the category of what we call in the staging world an owner occupied staging. I can go in and use whatever they have, and it's a process of taking what they have and going through the same design process that you would normally, just using their stuff. That's a lot of times it's rearranging furniture. It's saying this stays and that goes. And along with that, getting it ready for market in other ways, like suggesting types of deep cleaning or decluttering, which is, I know you do that any way, but to have the actual list and, and have me kind of overseeing that. We get really good results that way. But using your own furniture, you're not spending a lot of money and you're still getting really good bang for your buck and your house is going to look much better. I do this all the time.
Jon Sump:
Fantastic. And so what about like say a vacant home, what do you think is the bare minimum that should be done in your average size, vacant home to make it feel more lived in?
Patrick Keehnel:
I would suggest that the way you decide that is to remember that you have 15 seconds to make a first, a really good first impression on people. They're going to decide in that 15 seconds whether they want to look at the rest of the house or if they like it or they don't like it. If you make a great first impression, they're going to want to stay. They want to see more. They are starting to connect with it and identify with it.
Jon Sump:
Yeah. The longer people are in a home, the more they attached to it.
Patrick Keehnel:
Right. In fact, I think a very small percentage of people stay in a home that's unstaged. I think it's four to six minutes. In a staged home, people tend to stay on an average 40 minutes.
Jon Sump:
Wow, that much difference.
Patrick Keehnel:
So that is, yes. So that gives people a chance. They're meandering about and analyzing and looking at the furniture and envisioning themselves and that's what you want. That's why it's a marketing tool. Staging is the realtor's best marketing tool, in my opinion. I really do think though.
Jon Sump:
I agree with you.
Patrick Keehnel:
I believe that.
Jon Sump:
I think it's very important. So let's say somebody who's, real tight budget, average size home, what room, if you're going to do one room, what room would you recommend be done in a home?
Patrick Keehnel:
I would say I would never recommend just one. I think from your previous question, the rooms were, and I got carried away, but that that entry area when they first walk in.
Jon Sump:
Okay.
Patrick Keehnel:
The living room or great room, the kitchen and the master suite, that's I think the minimum-
Jon Sump:
The minimum.
Patrick Keehnel:
That's going to give a person enough information visually to be able to grasp what's going on in that space or how those main spaces are being used by how they've been delineated with the furnishings.
Jon Sump:
Yeah, that makes total sense. I mean, I know it's like I jokingly tell my clients, when it comes to selling a home, you know the person that buys it is actually the, usually the wife of the group buys it, but you know the husband goes along with it most of the time and usually they pick it up because they like the way it looks outside, the master suite, and kitchen, are usually the two most important parts according to statistics. And folks I've dealt with over the years. So, Patrick, let me ask you this, how much do you think staging helps to sell a home as far as time on the market?
Patrick Keehnel:
Well, it's said through, I think it was national association of realtors said that it can, a home that staged spends 90% less time on the market than a home that is not staged.
Jon Sump:
Wow.
Patrick Keehnel:
So that's pretty impressive. And that's coming from the national association of realtors.
Jon Sump:
Right, right.
Patrick Keehnel:
And I believe it.
Jon Sump:
Sure, sure. Yeah. I don't doubt it all. I mean, I firmly believe in staging. And what about pricing? When it comes to the prices of homes that have sold that were staged versus the price of homes are sold that weren't staged?
Patrick Keehnel:
well, I think that the percentage of the prices that were staged were six to 25% higher than the homes that were not staged.
Jon Sump:
Wow.
Patrick Keehnel:
Correct me if I'm wrong. [crosstalk 00:08:12]
Jon Sump:
Yeah, I believe that is the number. Yeah. So yeah, like 89% of the homes that were staged, was six to 25% higher in sales price people.
Patrick Keehnel:
There you go.
Jon Sump:
Higher in sales price just by being staged. What part of higher end sales prices do you not like? So anyways.
Patrick Keehnel:
Well, on that note, Jon, I always like to tell people that it's far more cost effective to invest in staging before you list it than it is to take that first price drop. So how much is a price drop? Usually five or $10,000?
Jon Sump:
Yup, mm-hmm (affirmative).
Patrick Keehnel:
Well, staging can pay for itself a couple of times over if you don't get it that way.
Jon Sump:
Exactly.
Patrick Keehnel:
Plus it makes you look like a superstar. It looks like the home seller looks like a superstar.
Jon Sump:
Right.
Patrick Keehnel:
You're getting all those wonderful pictures online. So people kind of stop scrolling through the endless listings of empty rooms, empty rooms, empty rooms, and they see that beautiful room and it captures their attention and suddenly it goes to the top of their list of wanting, what they want to see.
Jon Sump:
Absolutely. Well, and here's the other thing, I know for a fact that empty rooms look smaller than what the rooms that are furnished. I mean there's no depth perception.
Patrick Keehnel:
That's very true. Yeah.
Jon Sump:
So I know that from many years of doing the job. So what do you, what would you say is your overall personal philosophy about the staging process for you?
Patrick Keehnel:
Well, I think that I like to look at staging from a professional design standpoint and putting it into the context that I think is most relatable to the real estate market, which is, first of all, it is a marketing tool. It's meant to sell the house. I'm not trying to show off my designs, I'm trying to enhance what's there, so people are interested in the house. Yet I want it to be very beautiful and very stylish and lush and I try to treat each project as if it were my own client's interior design project.
Jon Sump:
Right. Fantastic. Well, I know from experience that, think about this, when you go to the new home subdivisions, the houses are always staged.
Patrick Keehnel:
Yes.
Jon Sump:
I mean down to the T. There's a reason for that and it's because of what we've been talking about here today. So if you're thinking about selling your home soon, give us a call. I'll get it sold and he will get it staged. Anyways, I hope it's been helpful to you. Again, Patrick, thanks so much for taking the time to come do this with us.
Patrick Keehnel:
Thank you.
Jon Sump:
And you guys make it a great day.
Hey, everybody. Jon Sump here again at The Home Brokerage, bringing you our continued series on the home-buying process, and today's video is on the fact that now you've got your home in escrow, now what?
Well, now a lot of stuff starts. Especially because you're on the buying side, you have a lot of timeframes that you have to adhere to. You got to really get to work on finishing up that pre-approval, you got to get to work on getting the appraisal ordered; whatever inspections you're going to be ordering, whether it be termite, roof, home inspection, pool, whatever that's going to be, typically you have 17 days or less to get that work done, the inspection done, and the reports back and all of that.
So, you really want to get to work on that right away. Make your decisions on what inspections you're going to get, and so you can get that back, so then you have time to do what's called a buyer's request for repairs, if you're going to do that. That'll be up to you and your realtor. Me, typically, I recommend we mainly focus on the health and safety issues, and not the little, little chip of paint on the wall, and stuff like that. You don't really need to worry about that unless you're buying a brand new home.
If you're not buying a brand new home, don't worry about it. Those are simple little things, that you don't want to ruin a deal over minor items. If it's health and safety, you definitely do.
And so, you have those things that are going to be happening. You're going to be going and looking at the house, you're going to be excited as heck, and so, just make sure you kind of keep your excitement down just a little bit, to make sure you make the right decisions when it comes to all these inspections and everything.
Your lender's going to be probably asking for information from you to finalize the approval. Make sure you get it to him ASAP! This is not a time you want to dilly-dally, because there's so many timeframes in the contract, and you can actually have a deal canceled if you don't meet those timeframes. Most people don't understand that, but you can have it canceled.
Hopefully this has been helpful, and if it has, please like and share, subscribe, check out our YouTube channel, all that fun stuff. And as always, make it a great...
Jon sump, as you know, with The Home Brokerage. For a long time, we've been doing these videos about just educating you and things like that, but I'd just given it a lot of thought and we're going to be starting doing these rants on a regular basis because I believe you deserve to know the truth about all the things that go on behind the scenes so that you can choose who you work with a little bit better. Okay?
In this particular episode we're going to do here is choosing the right lender. Making sure you ... you know, you got to be careful about choosing them. They're not all created equal. What do I mean by that? Well, for example, I have a transaction going right now that is just a pain in the butt because the buyer chose number one, a part-time agent that has a day job during the day. We can't get ahold of him at all during the day because he still has a day job. When I do finally get him to call me back in the evening, we discuss what the problems were, but now he can't do anything about it because everybody's closed. He's got to wait till the following evening to hopefully get ahold of someone. So now we're another whole day and a half away from when the problems are starting. It just compounds the problem.
That's number one. But now that agent that's part-time that doesn't understand this chose to send his buyers to an out of town lender all the way down in LA. Well should that matter? Well, theoretically, no. I've done business with out of town lenders that are great, with a gal in a San Diego. Perfect transaction, went super smooth, but she was professional. You don't know [inaudible 00:01:59] professional if you just talked to on the phone or on the internet.
So this lender in the middle of the transaction, there's timeframes for everything. He chose to pause the appraisal process because of a loan on a property here in the area from the county that he wasn't familiar with. Instead of calling me or having the realtor call me, they paused the process without telling anyone. So what does that, what's the big deal? Well, the big deal is my client is in the process of moving out of the house. Yeah. Getting all her stuff packed up, ready to go. Meanwhile, these guys over here are just dilly-dallying literally. I had to contact them to find out what the holdup was and then come to find out it was something stupid that they could have solved with a phone call to me.
Long story short, we're supposed to close escrow on it tomorrow, but we can't because of all this hangups that's going on with this appraisal.
So how do we go from not ordering appraisal on the first week to now here we are in the fourth week, literally. 31, 30-day escrow, 30th day is tomorrow, we still don't have the appraisal done. So now the escrow's going to have to be extended, which is going to cause my client more money for the next month's payment in the home. I mean, this all adds up and so my client is ready to cancel the deal, has told me that it's up to me to cancel it or not. Meanwhile, we've got all this other stuff going on.
Please. When you're looking to hire a realtor and a lender, make sure they're, number one, not part-time. Number two, if they're in the area, that's even better because guys like me, they're on it and then they're going to hustle for you. I'll go to their office if I have to to get things done and hold their hand and make sure they do their job.
So you've got to make sure you choose the right people. It matters. The part-time guy that's working all day can't service you. The people that are out of the area that don't understand the loans and everything that's in our area can't service you as well as like, my lender. We started an escrow after we put this, the one we're talking about, I started another escrow after this one was put together that we're already ready to close before this one is. My lender can close deals in 21 days. That's a complete transaction. I don't care if it's a house or duplex, triplex, what? He can close them in 21 days. This isn't a commercial for my lender, it's a commercial for you to understand you need to know who you're getting with.
If this has been helpful for you or your friends or you know somebody that needs to hear it, please like and share it. Check out our YouTube channel and make it a great day. Bye bye.
Hey everybody, Jon Sump here with The Home Brokerage bringing you another market update. This one for the market, I have the market updates through October 19th, all the numbers up until that point. It's what we're going to be talking about.
So you're going to see right here in this slide that the solds were up just about 2% from last year and only about half a percent higher than last month for the number of homes sold. And this is as always the Stockton and Lodi area. The inventory though a little bit lower by about 22% versus last year. Okay? So our inventory is even less than what it has been, which is the biggest issue in our market right now, which is keeping it a seller's market because the inventory is so low. The number of properties that went under contract, it was increased though by 11%, so less inventory, more sells, same amount of sells, but actual pendings went up, sells, barely went up, inventory dropped. So that's why we're still in a seller's market. \.
You'll notice in this next slide right here that the average sold price per square foot is basically neutral, but it dropped from like $210 a foot to $206 from last month to this month through October.
In this slide here, you're going to see that with the days on the market, a little bit of a downward trend for the last three months. We've dropped down to about 30 days, 31 days on the market is what we're averaging right now on the homes that do sell. With that said, it depends on your realtor and it depends on your home. The homes in the higher price ranges, they're taking a little bit longer to sell. There's not that many people that can afford them, number one. Number two, I just put a home into contract myself this week in the $500s. It took us about 45-ish days, I don't have the number in front of me, but the 45-ish days to sell it. However, a home I just put on the market on Friday at $309, we got two offers in two days, and we sold it on the third day. So put it into contract. So it depends on the price range, where you're at and how you market the home, but the average is 31 days right now.
If you check out this next slide, we're doing right here, you'll see that the average sales price is about neutral compared with the October of this year and even October of last year. It's about neutral. It only went up about 1% of the houses the for sale. The sold price was up about 2% from the previous month and down though about 5% from last year. The median sold price is appreciating. It's about 7.7% up is what the sold price is doing.
The actual months of inventory. It tells us how, whether we are a seller's market or a buyer's market or a neutral market. And just so you remember, a buyer's market's around five or six months or more of inventory. A neutral market is about three to four months of inventory, and a seller's market is one to three months of inventory. Right now we're at 1.9 as of mid-November months of inventory, which is really low, which is why we're selling everything and in the market there's only 1.9 months of inventory available. Super low inventory.
So hopefully this has been helpful for you. If it has been helpful for you or you know somebody that needs this information, please share it with them. As always, like, share. If this is YouTube, subscribe and if it's not YouTube, check out our YouTube channel up here. There's a lot of information to develop you. As always, make it a great day. Bye bye.
Hey, everybody, Jon Sump here with The Home Brokerage bringing you our Thought of the Week for Thursdays, which right now is our home selling process and tips that we have for you regarding that process. So you've had your house, you've gone through all the steps, you met with the realtor, you've established the price on your home, you've got your home ready to sell, you've got the home actually on the market and accessible to the market, and now you're getting offers on the property. What should you do? Just take the first one? Take the highest one? What should you do?
Well, it all depends on your situation, but what I recommend you do is, if you're getting offers right away, give yourself a little bit of time. Don't just jump on the first offer if you don't have to. If you can give yourself a week or so to get multiple offers, is even better, but if not, when you're not in the market that's going to support multiple offers, and what you really want to look at when you get an offer are more than just the price, but the terms. The terms are really important here. Price, because a lot of times there's strategies people use where they'll just come in and write a really high offer price, getting you to accept it, and then after they do their inspections and things like that, they come back and try to beat you up on the price to get it down lower.
So you want to look at a couple issues. One, does your agent know the other agent that's presenting the offer? If they do, ask them their opinion on how that agent does business. I keep an extensive log of everybody that I do business with and how they usually operate so that the next time I'm dealing with them I kind of have an idea for that. The other part of it is, what lender are they using? Are they using a local reputable lender or the lender that's going to be a little bit more difficult to deal with? Are they going to be actually able to close the deal? So there's a lot of things like that you want to look at. Are the asking for a lot of stuff up front? Are they asking for credits? So look at all of it and weigh the pros and cons of all of it because sometimes a done deal is better than the highest price.
If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out to me. As always, check out our YouTube channel and if you liked this, please share it and like it. Make it a great day. Thanks. Bye-bye.
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