Study Hall: How to Make Your Home More Valuable

I want to give some tips to people. So you're a realtor, So the first thing is like when you're showing people properties and things that nature, right, we always say about like good neighborhoods, bad neighborhoods. Like what makes a neighborhood quote unquote a good neighborhood? Like for people that's looking to buy a home, they always say the school system, but like what else?

Well, I'm looking at the numbers. So I'm a numbers person. So if you're interested in a certain area, I'm going to run the market stats. I'm looking into curved Atlanta. I'm looking at the developments that take place. So I have like a little spreadsheet. I start developing on zip codes and keeping up. So if the appreciation values are going up year over year, that's a good thing. If they're going down you over year, that's something I want

And then you have other people.

I want to walk nature trails, you know, I want to be in those types of areas. So it's not general, it's clients specific, but generally speaking, everybody should be worried about appreciation values and school systems because both of those go hand in hand when it's time for you to sell your property. Because every property is a profit that you should look at your house as a bank.

You're trying to make money when you sell this house.

So we say Curve Atlanta, Curved Atlanta, and so it's a basically it's an online magazine that you can use to look at different developments in different neighborhoods and what's up and coming.

So I was just looking up a project for in College Park. My clients are looking to get a property in College Park and they have this big six point five billion dollar project that's coming down there where they're making a mixed use space down in that area. And the reason for that, even though it's part of Fullton County, that area has been economically challenged for so long.

Now they're going to bring.

In because the average income that a person was making down here is like twenty nine thousand years. But the regular people up here in Atlanta on the north.

Side of Fulton County and sixty five thousand.

So they have an initiative to make that better than they're calling an airport city because it's literally by the airport.

I just saw that ya. Y'all got a G League team coming to come.

Oh yeah, exactly, So you got to keep up what's going on in our city. That's what I can tell you that if you were looking to invest, maybe you want to look over here because now the presses are low, but they won't stay low when the project comes up.

Did that That website also shows the appreciation values?

No, No, that's that's on the back end. That's what you gotta do some work for that. That's that's the agent thing. You know, you're gonna have to log into your your mols and you're gonna have to run.

Some Statskay, A regular person.

Can see that, no gotcha.

Is any way a regular person can see if appreciation values you can.

See something because you know what, a lot of our stats now, even though they're a little skew.

I hate, I hate, I hate.

Zelo, let me say, I hate.

My house is eight hundred thousand, right, you know, even though his.

House was less than the house the own house, it's worth. But you can use site like sites like that to get a general idea of what's going on in the market because it'll if you scroll down, it'll talk about values and recent souls. So that'll give you help if you don't you not necessarily want to jump out the window with the relator, you can at least see what's going on there.

So when you're showing a house, right, staging a house, what's that process?

Like?

Are you or are your company putting the items of furniture, everything decord into the house? Like how's that earth?

Well, Well, okay, I have what's called the friendly little a friendly little staging. So I have like a couple of items like keeping the storage room. You know, you ain't really got the budget, or if we just need a smooth a few things like a pillow or something like that a plant.

You know, I go over there, I put that in.

You know, it's nothing because I'm you know, when house sales, it makes it better. Other than that, if it's like a full staging project, it depends.

We have so many ways we can do.

We got virtual staging, got a company you can just basically virtually stage the whole house. I mean, person is gonna be empty, but those pictures you're gonna show up, you know. Then you also have companies that you can hire to come in and stage the properties for you, which.

Is what I do for people.

That's like, listen, you need to stage this property to sell it.

So as far as like school system, because that's a big one. How do you know? It was like the schools like four stars. It's like ratings, like what like what do you look at like.

To see the first You can see it everywhere.

But I like to go to Great Schools dot org for school. I like to site because it tells you a lot about the neighborhood in the area. Because you know, do to Fair House and we can't say certain things to our clients. But when you go to Great Schools dot org, not only does it tell you the star of the school. But it also tells you the demographics of the students, and it tells you each category. So science they're growing, you know, they're low, and maths so

Of the parents and then parents correct reviews and everything about the school.

District reviews about the school, so it helps. I tell people to use great Schools dot org to find out about this.

Once upon a time there was a review written about me upon a time. Okay, yeah, you are a teacher, I am.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, so you know about that.

I do.

Yeah, he's definitely a teacher and more ways than one. So how important it comps? That's like the most important thing.

Absolutely, you gotta have comps and you have to search for comps. So I was, I'm so obsessed with comps. I took an appraisal class at the beginning this year, maybe it was the end of last year.

I know, other thing's running together.

I really I really wanted to know, like, how are use appraisals coming up with these numbers? Because you're dispute and me if I'm on the sell in side, like wait a minute, I know this house is worth this, like how you guys are coming up with this. So comps are important because appraisals have to happen for people to get the houses financed and if it comes in below.

A value to issue.

I had a very very unfortunate situation when it came to appraisals where I didn't even know if there was a class. So where can somebody take the class? And are you noticing there's more people that look like us taking these classes, because that is the part of the the home buying process that can make or break things.

The class I was in, it was just me and one it was three of us. It was on three of us. It was eight o'clock in the morning. You had to drive like an hour and a half outside the city to get there. It was only three of us there. But I took the class. And it's a few things I learned about these appraisals. First of all, they just they can get their license the same way rule to get their license.

It's low barriers to entry.

They're human too, and so sometimes you got to walk them, you know, if they're not really an experience appraiser. I learned from my listings. Go ahead and put my comps on the kitchen table. I'm trying to meet them at the house. I'm trying to explain to them at the moment what how I came up with my comps and why they should use mine because by the time they write on the report is even though you can dispute it, they.

Never get Yeah. Cause that's that's important because what he's referring to is I'm not sure if you're familiar, but the Bookings Agency Institute did a report last year and they said that black homes were undervalued by one hundred and fifty six billion dollars. You know about that, yeah, so, and we did it. We did a whole on the podcast about it and Troy. Actually it happened to Troy. His house got like devalued, like sixty thousand dollars.

It happens a.

Lot, yes, one hundred thousands.

Compared to his neighbors with like the same type of houses.

It's crazy.

It's called redlining. You know, It's not like it doesn't happen. But I'm honestly speaking, I tell my clients to take all those personal pictures out the house. You don't know you're my class are ambiguous. When you walk in there, you don't know who owns this house, what they look like. I do it on purpose. I tell him take them out, like, don't even hide them in the closet, take them out the house, put them in somebody else house, put them in the trunk.

You don't because people are.

Nature game. Even if it's subtle, it's it's like they could still have a hidden Yeah, you know, it's objective, Yeah, getting objective.

But if there's more people on the side of you know, the people who are actually from our communities, actually doing these appraisals, then we may have a fair chance.

We'll have a fair chance because we know what to fight for, you know, and we know what makes sense. You can fight. You could successfully appraisal. It may delay your closing. But if you you have the comps and you can run down the numbers and you can show you can fight in a praisal, you just need someone to do it for you.

You have them to look at that.

How do you fight? How do you fight the appraisal?

The number one thing is you're going to have Like I've done a few titles, like a few appraisal fighting one. You need to make sure that you're comparing apples to oranges. So you got to break down the comps when it comes to the upgrading house. That stuff counts. Looking at the square footage that counts, and sometimes they'll leave off a good chunk of your square footage. So maybe you want to hire your own company to come in and measure the square footage of your house. That's the number

Of course, that's exactly what happened. They said that. And you know for sure, like the lower level of my house they didn't count exactly.

They do that often at all.

Like and we have like a gym down there, a whole another like almost apartment, yeah, a window bathroom.

You know how you as.

Long as you got a window door, extra door, it's counted as a finished space. See they're still counting it as an unfinished because the tax records had it is unfinished, probably before you finished out that bottom. And so this a lot of times, like I said, you gotta fight that, like, no, this is my square footage. This is how I had a company come out and measure, and I'm going to pass this up, so you had.

You can dis view that.

Thank you, thank you, and can you like complain about an appraiser, like is it.

Like a absolutely, because they all appraises works for it work for a company. So if you look at the very bottom where they sign off, there's a company name there. Get get in touch with the person that's the chart in charge.

I still have his name written down.

You can't just go by the person that comes out in the praise like they're working for a major company, but the company that they work for, then you need to send them your grievances and your evidence and go from there.

It happened at DL hugely. Yeah, that was crazy, and it was like he got his house to pray and it was so low that the bank actually called him and thought that he had like damage done to it exactly. And so it was just such an egregious situation. And I I wouldly he's famous, so that helped probably too. The bank actually reversed it and they apologize, but they was like he was like it was it was so low compared to his neighbors. They thought it was like damaged, but.

That it still happens, and that's why I think that we have to be very careful when you're working with people and you know, know your stuff.

If you're a homeowner, you need to know.

You need to have documentation of upgrades you've done in your house, keep up with that. You need to have documentation of your square footage, anything that you've done in your property. You need to keep up with that and keep it. We're so lacks to day's call until we need it. Then when you're in a position where you want to sell and you come in under value, you can't even keep finding the documents to prove it.

One time I fought a lot.

Appraisal by actually having every single receipt that my client used to upgrade their kitchen. I put all that in a big package. I wrote it out, I wrote out what this would be, how these comparison comparing properties. So with these upgraded kitchens, then we got the house up ten thousand dollars and they would try to bring us down, like we still didn't hit the number I wanted, but we still got ten thousand back credit.

So you can fight this stuff. You just gotta know.

So what makes a house more desirable? Because they always say, like the kitchen is like something that's like a big item, like what, yeah, you as a real to what would you suggest people that are looking to sell their home or even buy a home, Like what what's the desirable things that people can do to add value to their homes.

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Well, I think general maintenance.

I find a lot of times when people are ready to sell their house, they got in the house, house ain't been pressure washed Washington's six. You know any pressure washing, you can tell those the Ferd maintenance on the property. So you need to get that stuff done. If you

I'm gonna need you to get agreeable.

Grade here a satan.

If your fridge is white, refrigerator is steal white, but.

Your stove is black because you're placed the stove with a broke with refrigerator steal kicking.

These certain things you're gonna need to do.

So you need to be prepared to just general maintenance unless you trying to sell it below value. If you want to sell a top dollar you need to present a product like that.

The kitchen counts.

The general maintenance of the property is what is really important to a lot of people.

Yeah, one thing that they looked at and they took into account was the roof. Roof is important too. Oh yeah yeah.

I mean, if you're a homeowner, you need to be calling your home You need to call your little insurance company.

Anyway, was there some hell here? Better watch the news.

But but but it's kind of tricky because it's like, if you're trying to sew a home, at what point do you do too much renovation and it's like not really worth it.

Oh, that's when you start looking at the comps. So I tell people all the time there is a certain cat.

In your neighborhood.

So don't go put in marble floors and it's two hundred thousand dollars house. You're not gonna get your money back. You know, you have to be very careful about that. So when you're looking at comps, look at the photos of what recently sold too. Look at and then get a good idea of your area and your demographic. If you got a half a million dollar house, don't use that sticker backslash that you can get from home depot.

I go get some real tie back.

But if you're selling one hundred and sixty thousand dollars house, you can throw the.

Sticker up there. You gotta know.

We spoke about that or on an episode with Matt when we were talking about fifty cent he put this multi million dollar home renovations in it in the neighborhood that the average house is like three hundred thousand.

It makes no sense.

White elephant white, and you're never going to First of all, the prayers are going to be able. They're not going to be able to compact, like what why would you like? No, you got to stay in line with the neighborhood.

So you want to stay alne.

You want to stay alive.

You can do a little bit too much, but don't expect to get your money out of it if you take it too far.

Don't. That's that's import people because a lot of times people want to just do crazy things. And with the Jauzi and with the grotto.

The.

Whole movie, it might have cost you all this money, but you ain't getting it bad stroll.

Lights and he did pull fifty man.

So it's so so when when when somebody's selling a house, what are some of the fees? Right? Like, I think people don't really understand that, what are some of the fees that come along with selling a house?

When you're selling your property, you're paying to sell your property, so there's a lot of fees that can come along with that. So you have the of course general maintenance getting the house ready to go on market, but you pay the agent, You pay us who who you think pays the buyers.

You pay for them.

You paid a buyer's agent and the selling agent. So you have those expenses and then the only other expense that you have is like your pro rated taxes, and if you have a homeowner's association, you're going to have to get the clear HOA letter. So your your fees are minimum, but the biggest fee you pay is your realtor.

But is that the closing clothes as well, because I see it's like tricky. Sometimes a buyer has it, sometimes a seller does it.

Well, this is this is the thing the buyer can negotiate closing costs. You look at the market, you look at the area you need to when you're pricing the property, you need to look at also, I personally, I look at what's being going on in the area, the recent sales,

They don't have to contribute.

If you're getting like an FAHA loan, they can contribute up to six percent.

They can do three percent on the conventional loan.

But they don't have to contribute anything because that's their profit. So if you get enough demand for the property, which is you know, my thing is getting multiple offers create the bidding war and like, hey, somebody not gonna need the money, or you need a thousand dollars boom, I'm taking that offer before I take somebody need ten thousand.

How do you negotiate? Like, okay, you can negotiate closing costs, but like, what's the lower the lower you can go on that zero.

I have sold houses where my sellers have sold have contributed no dollars to the closing costs.

Find your own money?

Really, yes, I tell buyers that all the time, Like, you're not entitled to the profit from the seller.

The seller has their own expenses.

They're paying these relatives fees sometimes seven percent relative fees that they have to pay just to even get their property sold. They don't necessarily have to. It depends on the area, the demand that you create by staging the property, getting the property prepared for marketing, pricing it correctly, and having an agent like me.

You know.

You may not have to even so, has anybody tried to negotio? Do you negotiate your fees?

No?

Not negotiable.

I tell people the number that is the number.

My favorite, My favorite line is if you want me to negotiate my fees, can I negotiate my service.

As long as long as you want me. As long as I can negotiate my service, we can do this.

I like that.

So so that's the seller's fees down the commissions fee. Is there a standard commissions fee for realtors.

Yeah, and it's it's subjective seven percent, six percent, seven percent, And so that's about the fee of the whole the total price of the property time seven percent.

Yeah, because that's like these million y'all listening that you watched that show. Oh that's because yeah, I think that's like what people really like a track want.

Yeah, you want, I mean, and you still split the money.

You know, you got to sell and sign the buyer side wait for you to really come in, so you like, I list the property, so I get my six per commission if I bring a buyer and I'm representing the seller, because then I've stayed. We can do dual agency both, but if you bring the buyer, then I got to give you half of that. So I get my three, you.

Get three, so you can it's not a conflict of interest to represent both depends.

It can be a conflict of interest. So one person becomes a client, the other person is a customer. It's the only way you're able to do it. It. Really you have to walk a fine line because really generally speak and then you're just there as to consult and write paperwork. You really can't negotiate for either party. I've done a couple of dual agencies with like investors or people that really know what they want. It's real hard to do dual agency with the first time buyer.

I'm gonna tell you that now.

As a matter of fact, if I get a first time buyer, I'd rather refer them to like a person with my team before I before I try to negotiate, because I'm gonna I'm fighting hard for myself to keep their money. You a buyer, you fighting hard to get money. How we're going to make this work? You know, especially a first time buyer and not an investor.

They're different. They know what they want.

They're good, you know.

So you deal with luxury homes right, and over the course of maybe a couple of years, you've seen the median home go from two hundred and seventy five thousand. Said yeah, so now three twenty five in Atlanta. What are some of the factors that have led to that. And what have you noticed with the buyers, what demographic is doing the buying.

Well, predominantly my client's are all African Americans. So it's us. We are making some moves here. And what's the driving forces? Atlanta is growing now. People that say what they want about Mayer Cassine read and when he tore down all them churches and built that don't historical churches. But at the end of the day, when he made that move and they built the Mercedes, Mercedes ben zoned and they kind of created State Farm Arena and they redid that,

Champions, champions, championship, champions, all these things.

So we start with sports and then we just now let's go out.

Now.

You got people like Tyler Perry telling people to come down here and build their own tables in Atlanta. You have the Rock that just bought a nine million dollar house here. You got Cardi beat It just bought her house here. What is happening here is people are saying that there is wealth here and the good thing is that's the driving That's how prices go up. We're creating our own black Mecca. We're becoming the Black Hollywood that they said we were going to be when I first

Six speaking of Atlanta, speaking of the belt line. And I saw a little baby on the breakfast club talking about I guess he's from the West side of Atlanta. Oh yeah, and he was saying that his neighborhood, the prices is going up because of the belt line. Can you talk about that?

No, no, no, it's a big project.

So the belt line is just basically a belt line connecting the entire city of Atlanta. People only think about the belt line being at the bottom, but it actually goes all the way around. And so what it does is really to help us one with traffic, so you can get on and off the trolleys. But then on top of that you have like parks and all these things that are connected. So we're really trying to build our own commuit unities within the community. So they do

Be more like New York.

You know, love what you guys have, So we're trying to create that. And there's restaurants and it's like live work spaces. So you're really trying to create that environment because now everybody is you know, no longer has the aspiration to get the big house in the suburbs.

People now want to be close to the city.

They're sacrificing space for that, and they want to enjoy them their lives. That's the millennials. They want it right now. They want to walk outside right now. They want to go on the trolley and get to where they need to go right now. So that's the big part of the belt line.

So Atlanta specifically, since we're in Atlanta, like, what's the hot area that because it's the west side, that's like when Stiti has been steadings on the west side right, Yes, that's like the highest area in Atlanta right now for real estate, it's a lot.

Of hot areas.

If I had to choose one, like they had the most appreciation value this based on the numbers I was running the other day they up twenty one percent. Is the city of the Decay, Yeah, the city of Decatur is up twenty one percent on appreciation value. The last time I checked. On the west side, they're only up.

What we in East Atlanta right now? Yes, you are okay.

Atlanta three.

Or three one six. This area is growing. If I can tell anybody about zip code three or three one six, three zero zero three two that's the city of Decatur. And then three zero three one eight that's a hot area on the west side.

So these areas are hot. When is the best is there best time? A more ideal time to get in into a deal.

I tell people, if you're looking to buying, you on a really good deal. Shopping and winter month?

Winter why because.

If a person is stilling their houses around Christmas, they want to sell, they're desperate.

You get a better deal. I got.

I literally I on board of so many clients around Christmas. That's why I didn't realize what year was, but we all got crazy.

They got crazy deals.

The builders are throwing money at you because they don't want to start the year in the red. So you buying a property, buy it in the winter months. By the time you get to spring, two things happen.

That's what I always heard, spring sale and buy.

In spring because because they want to her but do this before they get out of school transition. You have a lot of competition. Everybody's shopping in the spring. Prices are up in the spring. So from a buyer standpoint, you don't want to be out here when it's like ten to fifteen people to one house, multiple office situations.

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