Why Selling Feels Like Parenthood

SPEAKER_01 0:10

The human tool of selling a house. Today we're going to look at it from a different perspective. Hello, Megan. Hello. So people sell a house, they get the house ready, and then you do the open homes, and it's all happy days. Someone sees the house, puts an offer, da-da-da.

SPEAKER_00 0:27

Sounds so easy.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

Sounds so easy. But I had this random idea of let's actually talk. You know how when you have a baby and no one ever tells you about how hard it is to have a baby, everyone's like, oh yeah, the babies, you know, they're so cute. Nobody tells you that they may have colic, they may have asthma, eczema, they may not latch on properly, and you have to formula feed them and like all those other things that people never tell you anything before you have the baby because they don't want to put you off having a baby. But you want to have a baby, you need you know, you need to have a baby. So it's sort of the same as the house sale. You know you need to sell the house, but sometimes people just don't prepare you for how bad, you know, it can be sometimes the sleepless nights, the messy house, etc. So let's dive into that a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

Okay, cool. Yeah, so I'm just thinking about babies now. It is sort of like a baby though. Like the process of selling, you know, you start with the idea, don't you? Same as having a baby. You you have this brilliant idea. I would like to move, or I'm gonna relocate,

Paperwork Shock And Legal Prep

SPEAKER_00 1:29

or whatever the motivation is, is it starts with the idea and then you meet the agent and we're like, yeah, we can sell your house. And then you suddenly get hit with all this paperwork. So the first part is the agency agreement. There's, you know, we tend to take an hour to sign an agency agreement because we don't just sign things up on the bonnet of a car anymore. Like it's there's a lot of paperwork compliance. We have to do anti-money laundering stuff where we take pictures of people's ID and talk. Well, a good agent would talk them through properly rather than going, sign here, sign here, sign here. You want to make sure that the person understands what they're signing. And then suddenly we say, Have you got a lawyer? And people look at us so blank, usually, like, What?

SPEAKER_01 2:13

You need a lawyer already?

SPEAKER_00 2:15

Like, we're just signing the listing agreement, and we have to give them an opportunity to get it run past their lawyer at all stages when we're providing them with paperwork to sign or to acknowledge, or yeah, we go through disclosures on the house, like what's broken, what are you fixing, what are you not fixing, what will we tell the buyers? There's so much, and that's probably the first moment that people kind of get real about oh my goodness, I'm selling this house, and there's so much work to do.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

Yeah, and I think that's a big one, right? Because as you said, like nobody realizes you need to put an hour aside to sign the paperwork. And I remember when we were selling a house and I had to run in and I was like, oh, can we just quickly do that? No, you have to initial every page, you have to understand what you're agreeing to. Um, it's not just about, oh, yeah, you know, we see your house appraised at this, and this is what we're gonna try to sell for. No, there's a lot more to that. So you don't want to be rushing.

SPEAKER_00 3:09

We also have a duty of care to the people that we're working with. We can't rush somebody. We have to check in with our older clients. We ask if they'd like a support person there. We ask if they've got a family member that's assisting them or a friend who would like to come in and ask questions. We sometimes say, Would you like to go over all this paperwork? And we'll come back tomorrow to sign it. And then if we have some doubt about it, we ask them, Do you have a power of attorney? Do you have a lawyer? You know, to to involve other people if required. So we can't rush that paperwork. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

I love that. I absolutely loved it. And again, you know, people really need to be

Photo Day Reality Check

SPEAKER_01 3:44

mindful of that step. Now, the next bit is usually the open homes.

SPEAKER_00 3:49

Well, we we do photographs first. Oh, wait, okay. Yeah, so the photos. So normally when people have us over, they've done some decluttering and they kind of think that they're ready, but then the photographer turns up and they're like, Oh my goodness, you want to photograph that part of my room as well? I was just gonna hide all of that stuff behind my chair. And luckily, when I come, I'm I'm able to help them. Um I always wear flat shoes and clothes that I can get dusty if needed. Um and we we move stuff around and we say, Is it okay to put your chair this position because of the light? Or can we move your coffee table over here and just clear the surface of it? Do you know people have tissue boxes in nearly every room sometimes? We just take the tissue boxes away for the photos. So there's the photos, uh well, it depends on the size of the house and how decluttered it is, but I'll usually come over an hour, maybe two hours before the photographer arrives to get the house ready with the homeowner. And I mean, this is all with permission, of course. I know you don't just turn up. Just turn up and go, okay, I've got to move your stuff around. But can you turn up to mine? Yeah. Well, I was laughing with them. Like we have Lego and Barbies and stuff on our floor. At the moment, the kids are building stuff out of cardboard boxes, so we've got a lot of stuff on our floor, but we're not selling. And when you get those photos back, it's worth it. Because the photos, they need to glow, they need to showcase your home as beautiful, attractive, and you want the buyers to look at them and go, Oh, yeah, I need to see that urgently.

SPEAKER_01 5:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:23

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 5:24

And then that brings us on to the

Open Home Schedules And Stress

SPEAKER_00 5:25

open homes and all the pain that goes with that.

SPEAKER_01 5:28

Yes. So open homes, let's talk about that. You normally would set a certain time. Yes. So the owners know, okay, every Sunday at 12 o'clock, they need to be out.

SPEAKER_00 5:37

Yeah, that's right. Recently we started doing the first open home for an hour because the market is picking up and there's quite a lot of buyers out there. And then after that, the open homes are half an hour. And it's just back to back for us on Sundays. It's not about us, but you know, that's the timing of the open homes is very important. We need to leave enough time so that if there is a last minute person turning up at the end of the open home, we can get them through and lock up and turn the lights off, which is what we're number one criticized about. Like you missed one light in a bedroom on a lamp or something. We need to make sure that they're all off. Sometimes the home is empty and it you can't just leave that light on all week. So locking up properly and everything, and then jumping in the car driving to the next one. So we tend to leave about half an hour between each open home.

SPEAKER_01 6:29

That's risky.

SPEAKER_00 6:30

No, no, that's good. 15 minutes is risky.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:34

Yeah. We're in carpet each. I'm like, even half an hour in my head. We are super, super fast. Yeah, we are we are super fast. Trust us, it's okay. Okay. 15 minutes between each is scary, but it's doable sometimes, depending on the location. Yeah, but before the open

Private Viewings And Pet Planning

SPEAKER_00 6:52

homes, even, once our team's been through, we could have private viewings as well. So when we go through on a Monday, the entire team, and then they are all working with buyers, we're working with buyers, we send it out to their our databases, and suddenly the buyers are going, can I get through before the open home? Because they know that's their best time to get in without as much competition. On a Sunday, it's packed and the time might not suit. They might have other things they want to see. And so then suddenly the homeowner in that first week might have like quite a few requests for an open home. One of our agents has actually just announced a midweek open home because she's getting so many requests from our team to bring buyers through. The homeowner's like, When are we gonna eat dinner? So that we we adjust and change as we get feedback from the market.

SPEAKER_01 7:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

Yeah. So you might go to work on a Tuesday after having all of our team through on a Monday and leave your pyjamas on the floor. And then suddenly you're getting calls going, Can I have a private viewing? And you want to make sure your agent is the agent who will tuck your pyjamas under your pillow and not leave them on the floor when the buyers are there, you know, like anything that we see that's out of place in a house, we try and tuck away if we can. Yeah. But you might have a dog at home. So you might say to your agents, Okay, I can do private viewings on these three days when the dog can be walked by my friend or my mum or somebody else, or when I'm working from home. But on these days, the dog has anxiety or bark the whole time. Try and not line up any like private viewings for these days. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:31

Yeah, because you want them to be having an enjoyable experience looking at your house. You don't want them to remember that, oh, I couldn't look here or there because the dog was following around. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 8:42

We've talked a lot about pets actually, just thinking back over previous episodes and we do try and work around them as much as we can. Yeah. Because it's better for the buyers, it's better for the pets, and it's better for the homeowners, knowing that peace of mind, my dog's not going to be upset about this or my cat's not going to be running for

Labour Starts During A Viewing

SPEAKER_00 8:58

its life.

SPEAKER_01 8:59

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's funny, uh, as this topic came up, it gave me flashbacks of the first house we were selling in Palmerston North. We were moving to Carpeti, and at that time, I think we already bought a house. That's right, we already bought a house in Paraparumu off the avenue. And we were selling our house in Palmerston North, and I was heavily, heavily pregnant with my child number two.

SPEAKER_00 9:25

Oh hard.

SPEAKER_01 9:26

And I remember I would because it was very stressful, right? I'm pregnant, we're moving towns, I didn't want a giant mortgage because I knew I would be off work for at least three, four months. So thinking about everything, how we're gonna afford it, it was very important for us to sell the house in Palmerston. So when the agent said to me, I've got a midweek viewing, yeah, are you okay with that? I said, Yeah, absolutely. Little did I know I'll go into labor that day.

SPEAKER_00 9:54

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

And what happened was we ended up outside and uh she was gonna show them the house, and I suddenly got into labor and I realized I don't have my bag with me because you know your hospital bag. The hospital bag.

SPEAKER_00 10:08

Oh my gosh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:09

I was about I was I was gonna say, what what do you call that? The hospital bag. And it was hilarious because I was messaging the agent going, How long are you guys gonna be there? Yeah, because I need to pop in and get my hospital bag, and I needed to leave my mum with my eldest son because he was only two and a half at that time. Oh my goodness, and I didn't want to drag them to the hospital with me. So I'm like in between my contractions, trying to message the agent and find out how long she's gonna be in that house so we can pop back in, leave mum with the child number one, so I could go to the hospital and have child number two. Oh my goodness, and those people were taking forever because and I think he they ended up buying that house as well, but they just took forever trying to look thoroughly because they've already been to one open home and now they were doing the follow-up, they were thinking about making an offer, maybe. Yeah, you know, and I was just like, oh my god, I don't know how much longer can I take this. So it was very touch and go. And that, you know, when I think of people when they're pregnant and they have to sell the house or move the house, because then we managed to, you know, pop in, leave mom there with the baby and grab the hospital bag as she was leaving. So she was like, Oh, oh, oh, oh my god. You know, she didn't realize this.

SPEAKER_00 11:20

Yeah, you're like now how serious it was.

SPEAKER_01 11:22

Yeah, I was like, right now, please. But then it gave me the flashbacks for the child number

When Keeping It Perfect Breaks You

SPEAKER_01 11:27

three. So when I was pregnant with child number three, we decided that we were gonna sell our house. What? Again, again. I don't know what this kid's do to me, and I don't even remember why we were selling, but nesting. It was probably nesting. I have no idea, but I think the market was interesting space. And I put a oh, because that's right. We built a house, yeah, and there was a section around the corner, and I loved that section. I was like, oh, we can build again because I love building. I'm a sucker for punishment, obviously. And um, and I bought that section and we started building, and I found out I was pregnant with child number three.

SPEAKER_00 12:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:00

So suddenly I was freaking out, going, Oh my god, what are we gonna do? Because we can't afford to have, you know, two houses at the same time, and I'm gonna be off work, and now we have three kids, like this is getting ridiculous. So let's try to sell our house and see if we can uh move into the smaller house that we've just gonna finish building. Yeah, and then we're gonna build a gin.

SPEAKER_00 12:21

So that was are you gonna have another baby with that? Yeah, think about it.

SPEAKER_01 12:27

Yeah, exactly. So, and what I've realized is that because it was a brand new house that we were trying to sell, because we've just built it, it was brand new still. But living in with that with the kids, because at that stage my eldest was almost five, and my second child was two and a half. Keeping the house clean was an absolute nightmare. Yeah. Because I had to scrub down all the showers and baths.

SPEAKER_00 12:50

Under the dining table every time they have a meal.

SPEAKER_01 12:53

Under the dining table, you know, like uh walls. Yeah, I was big on clean walls, especially for a brand new house. Like people expect a certain you know, if it was an older house, maybe you can overlook certain things, but because it was a brand new house within within a year, I needed to make sure that it was immaculate. Yeah, and because my ex was working on weekends, it all of it was left to me. So I was running around like a mad woman, yeah, cleaning and tidying and doing all of that and couldn't afford a cleaner, you know. So it was just absolute nightmare. And I remember that was the that was a catalyst for me. One day I was on all fours trying to clean the shower. It was a giant belly, and I realized I just can't do this anymore. I do not have another open home in me for this. So that's where I had to call the agent and say, look, we we need to take it off the market. I just can't do this anymore because every weekend I had to run around like a crazy woman, clean and look after the kids at the same time, because we have no family around here, right? And I didn't really have many friends I could call upon because they all had little kids as well. So I just I just realize I can't. And I just feel again for a lot of my clients that have to sell a house when they're heavily pregnant or they have to prepare the house for a certain, you know, event. And it just gives me this PTSD moment of I don't want to sell a house.

SPEAKER_00 14:18

So hard. And being photo ready and that level of tidy isn't the same as open home ready. Like with open homes, if you do have some stuff on your bench, it's not as big of a deal as on a photo day, but yeah, you still kind of need to have it clean and tidy. So yeah, it's it's exhausting.

SPEAKER_01 14:37

Oh, it was absolutely exhausting. So we ended up pulling that house off of the market, and then we ended up selling the other house that we've just built. Oh wow, sure. Well, we managed to do a bit of a swap season. A swamp sea, and we sold the other the other house. But yeah, child number four, I was building a third house. So this is the house we're sitting in right now. Yeah. This was built with child number four in the tow. And yeah, I don't know, maybe there's a trend, you know. Every time I get a kid, I get a house. Lucky we've stopped having children. But you know, again, it was the same, like moving into this house and then getting trying to sell this house. Because when I'm separated from my husband, we were gonna sell this house and we've just built it, we've just moved in, I've just unpacked all the boxes, and I had to pack it all back again. Oh no, and that was a bit of a nightmare because we had to declutter and because this house was brand new at the time, you know, we really had to present it in a high level.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:34

And that was an absolute mission. So what I ended up doing is actually ended up taking kids on the two months holiday while we were having open homes here. Oh, and I mean I could afford it at the time.

Smells That Help Or Hurt A Sale

SPEAKER_01 15:45

Yeah, I couldn't, but I did. Because to me, again, it was an absolute logistical nightmare. Yes. Trying to keep the house clean every weekend or midweek with four kids now.

SPEAKER_00 15:57

Four kids and a dog and a dog and a cat. And a cat.

SPEAKER_01 16:00

Yeah. I was like, no, I I just can't handle that. So there's a lot. I ended up leaving.

SPEAKER_00 16:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:05

Yeah. The the idea was I was gonna go and rent somewhere and we could keep this house as Airbnb because keeping it clean as Airbnb is nicer. Yeah, but then again, you know, it limits the open homes and things like that. So yeah, I mean, I can relate. I've tried to sell the houses so many times in so many different states of my body.

SPEAKER_00 16:23

Oh gosh. I've only sold the one house with two kids, and that was painful. So I can imagine a tiny bit of what you've been through. That's a lot.

SPEAKER_01 16:35

Yeah, no, it's yeah, that's why I thought this episode is really relevant, you know, for people to understand that um it's not just about open home 12 o'clock, you know, clean the kitchen counter. Yeah. Hey, listen, someone said to me one time that you gotta bake something before the open home. So when people walk in, they can smell the fresh baking.

SPEAKER_00 16:54

Like the bread and the bread, yeah. Is that a thing? We've had one client, I think she was also your client, and she had a bread maker on the bench, and she did actually do that. It was so good. My stomach was growling by the end of the open home. But she's been the only person who's done that that I can remember. Other people do really nice like room sprays or those little sticks that you put in the oils. And that's really nice as well. It smells a bit better than that plug-in stuff.

SPEAKER_01 17:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:22

But especially if the house is empty or has young children, it is quite nice to put a nice smell in the house. But yeah, that bread maker was a great tip. Okay. Because you can I think you can like cook it really slow so it's not. We were always like, Do we have to turn this off? Like, no battle or house fire. Yeah. So I love it. She she just popped in in the morning and and like put it on. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:44

Timed it. Timed it really well. Amazing. That's nice. Because I was just thinking this morning, like we had omelet for breakfast, right? And then as I was in and out of the house, I suddenly could smell the eggs, and I was like, ooh, that smells terrible. Yeah. And I realized that, yeah, like if it's a weekend and you're cooking big breakfast before you all leave the house, like the house will retain some sort of smell. So you want to be careful.

SPEAKER_00 18:04

Yeah, like steak the night before. Yeah. Like I'm a vegetarian, I'm not a judgmental one, but I can smell steak that's been cooked in the house, and it is a strong smell. And some people like it and would walk in and go, Oh, delicious. This smells great. Other people like less came.

SPEAKER_01 18:21

Yeah. So bread is a really good way to go. Very neutral.

SPEAKER_00 18:24

Well, for for the celiacs, maybe, but yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's probably a safe bet.

SPEAKER_01 18:29

I love it. I love it. Awesome. Megan, thank you so much. I was saying this has been a very entertaining uh podcast

Perfectionism Versus Momentum

SPEAKER_01 18:35

for people to understand.

SPEAKER_00 18:36

Eye opening.

SPEAKER_01 18:38

But also like the lawns, you know, you've got to be on top of them and the house wash.

SPEAKER_00 18:43

If there's a storm, doing the windows again to let the light in. Yeah. Light is very important for buyers.

SPEAKER_01 18:50

Yeah. I had a client and he decided that he will sell the house privately because he just didn't trust agents. I mean, he was a bit of an odd one. And uh and he really needed to sell the house. Like he was in a position where he needed to. Should have used an agent. He should have used an agent, yeah. But he wouldn't listen and he wouldn't declutter, and then he would refuse to do open homes on because you know the weather wasn't good or because he didn't tidy up the outside. He was so meticulous about th his things. And the f the finance company was getting quite annoyed with him because they were tracking him how often he's putting the house to be sold because he was you know having arrangement. I sort of inherited him, I didn't put him in that position. Yeah, I promise.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

That's a good disclaimer.

SPEAKER_01 19:29

Yeah, that's a full disclaimer here. But um, I had to work through with him to to get him to that mindset of hey, you need to let go.

SPEAKER_00 19:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

And you need to, you know, get it, get the agent involved because you're not gonna be able to sell the house like that.

SPEAKER_00 19:43

And the perfectionism is something we see a lot. Like if the lawn has a bit of clover in it, it's okay. We can still sell the house, it's not gonna put your buyers off. So yeah, just do your best, but don't stop the sale process. Stopping the sale or stopping the campaign midway through is like the worst thing you can do. Like, if you I mean, we we sit at the end of driveways, if there's any reason that an open home has to be cancelled, um, George and I sit there so that we can grab the details of the people who do turn up if they don't see it in time that it's been cancelled and we get their details and we still send them the property documents um because you don't want to lose that momentum.

SPEAKER_01 20:21

No, I suddenly imagined you sitting there in your uh raincoats and black glasses in the car exact.

SPEAKER_00 20:28

Usually it's in the car. But you know, like we're not like in the car on our phones, we're like watching, you know, for people and saying, I'm so sorry there's been an unexpected something's happened. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:37

I love it. Yeah. Megan, thank you so much for your time today. And I look forward to seeing George next time. Sounds good. Nothing against you. We share the love.