Get Your House Ready for Sale in 2025: Eric G's Top Tips!

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Foreign.

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Welcome to around the House with Eric G.

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Your go to source for everything home improvement.

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Whether you're a DIY enthusiast or just looking to make your space shine, Eric G.

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Is here to guide you through the latest tips, tricks and trends coming up.

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In this week's second hour of the show, Eric G.

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ng to be selling your home in: 2025

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It 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.

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There are a lot of new rules right now.

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Let'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.

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And so what happened is, you know you would have your realtor that you were selling the house through.

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So grab your toolbox, put on your thinking cap and let's get to work right here on around the House with.

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Eric G.

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Welcome to the Round the House show, the next generation of home improvement.

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I'm Eric G.

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Thanks for joining me today.

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This hour is brought to you by my friends at Monument Grills.

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If 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.

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You 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.

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Check them out@montymcgrills.com today.

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der when selling your home in: 2025

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Now 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.

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Hopefully 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.

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But I tell you what this kind of subject brought up.

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I 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.

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And nothing wrong with this, but I do love ones that make me think outside of the box.

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And 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.

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So 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.

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So this is a house over here in outside of Portland.

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I'm not going to give it a location because I'm not here to bash on someone's home.

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But this was absolutely crazy.

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So this home, built in the 70s view piece of property.

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So you really have a great view.

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There's a pool with it.

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Really a cool place.

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s about six different levels,: 1970

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And from the outside it looks funky.

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It looks like a party house in a way.

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would say, oh, Hugh Hefner's: 1970

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But here's where it got weird.

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And there's all these different levels, which I get.

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It's on a hill.

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It looks like it's three stories from the street, but it's about six levels.

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Now where it got weird is there's this big living room.

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And on top of this is where it got strange when you sit there and walk into the living room.

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There's a loft above with the master bedroom suite.

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And yes, I call it master.

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It's not the primary, it's the master bedroom from where I come from.

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And you walk into it, it's open to the living room below.

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Just a wood railing.

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Okay.

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Not a lot of privacy.

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But this is where it got strange.

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Now when you walk into this place that the.

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There's an eight foot run or so of cabinetry in the master bedroom.

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It's the vanity.

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So it's like an old hotel room where you got the vanity in the room.

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That's not the weird part.

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So 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.

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Looks beautiful.

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And then to your left is that vanity.

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You walk into the toilet room which is in the left far corner to paint that picture for you.

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There's a little tile circular staircase that goes up 90 degrees to the left about 6ft up.

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That's where the master shower is.

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And 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.

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What's left of that.

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Because of the loft and the view of the neighborhood and the mountains.

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I get it.

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But talk about, how do you fix that?

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I 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.

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That to me with a wet floor is a disaster.

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But it really brings me to things to talk about now.

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When I first walked into the home, you could tell that that some basics weren't done, like basic cleanliness.

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And I get, you've got elderly homeowners, this family has a lot going on.

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You've got elderly homeowners, you've got all this different stuff.

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But 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.

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There was nothing clean nor good smelling about it.

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Some of the things that you see on these kind of projects.

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I walked into this thing going, wow, for $580,000 on a double lot, you have got so much to do.

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That house would have to go down to the studs.

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You 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.

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So there's a lot of weird things like that.

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This was almost a Winchester house feel, if you've ever been to the Winchester house down in California.

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Almost a Winchester house feel.

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Walking through it.

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It was absolutely fascinating.

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There were some cool things.

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There were some broken up things.

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You walk in the front door and there are all these weird staircases going off at angles just because of how it lined up.

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And what's weird is you walked into the foyer from the front of the house.

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There was this big arch that led to nowhere, to a storage room, little tiny bathroom.

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It was just a really wild thing.

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Bedrooms were small, like 10 by 11, that kind of thing.

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But there's a 20 by 20 living room that's the size of a double car garage.

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But then you see what the master or what they call the primary bedroom is.

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There was a lot to work with on this.

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And I tell you what, lots of decks, lots of cool things, but who lots of stories as well.

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So it was one of those homes that didn't make financial sense.

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Because I looked at it and went, okay, by the time you finish this house up, let's say you bought it for 500,000.

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And 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.

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Some 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.

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But they also built this in a hillside.

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So 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.

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Now, if I was selling this house, I would have gone through and fixed some of those things, cleaned it up.

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The deck you would have spent to have a composite deck built on this because there's a pool, there's all this other stuff.

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It's a 250 to $350,000 custom composite deck to do this because there's all these different levels of deck.

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So you can see sometimes the math doesn't work out.

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So really, this $580,000 house to make financial sense for somebody is going to be a $400,000 house to get even close.

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And it's going to be a labor of love, not a business decision.

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So you can see where these things start to get tough is you as a seller.

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So 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.

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We'll do that just as soon as around the House returns.

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Don't go anywhere.

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To find out more information, head to aroundthehouse online.com don't change that.

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Dial around the House.

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We'll be right back after these important messages.

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What it's like to play an instrument.

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What's up?

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This is Sticks it in you and Satchel from Steel Panther and you are listening to around the House with Eric G.

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Yeah, we love Eric G.

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And you should, too.

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Welcome back to the around the House show, the next generation of home improvement.

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I'm Eric G.

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Thanks for joining me today.

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This hour is brought to you by our friends at Monument Grills.

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Check 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.

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Head 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.

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der when selling your home in: 2025

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In 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.

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We've been talking about, you know, this crazy house that I went and looked at last week that I ended up passing on.

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But it was just a reminder of the mistakes that can happen when listing a home.

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And 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.

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Now, there are a lot of new rules right now.

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Let'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.

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And 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.

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You would see what the buyers, what the seller's price was, what they were going to have for their agent, what the fees were.

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And it was that way where you would see that that's all changed.

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So 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.

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So for the medium price, Tom, that was 21, $24,000 on average across the U.S.

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that was shared.

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So what they've done is they've changed that now.

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So this settlement made two big changes to this.

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Sellers 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.

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Buyers using an agent must also have a representation agreement in place detailing compensation before they tour homes.

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So you have to sign paperwork with an agent saying, hey, this is my rep before you go look at homes.

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That makes sense to me.

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That way, everybody's on the same page before you go do that.

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So those changes were designed to make agents fees more transparent and negotiable.

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So 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.

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5, 6% has been the average here in the US forever.

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Globally, it could be 1 to 3%.

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So it tells you where things are.

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But I will say that there's a lot of things that agents do here as well.

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And that value is there, in my opinion.

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Now there are things that happen outside of the mls, but really those commissions are always negotiable.

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I'll be honest.

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I think if you're expecting a level of service, you go in and have that conversation with them.

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But 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.

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There is a shortage of homes around the median housing price here.

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And so I know of someone out there, they're at their 10th home putting offers in.

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And the problem is, because there's a housing shortage in that price point, I think she's at number 10 on the homes.

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And some of these homes have been 75, $80,000 over asking price.

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And she was probably number eight, nine or ten in the process of offers in.

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So 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.

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So you might end up having to pay extra out of pocket to cover that.

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So you're not going to go in with your 20% and get the full loan.

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You might have to come in at 25 or 30%.

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So 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.

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The bank is not going to be willing to go upside down for you.

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So that's a big one right there.

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So I tell you what, it's getting interesting out there.

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This really didn't change much other than made a few little changes here for the real estate agents out there for those realtors.

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Now what's also interesting is depending on which state you're in, transactions are handled differently.

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Like in my area in the Pacific Northwest, generally speaking, you go out, the process goes.

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You 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.

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You go through that process.

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There's an inspection period.

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Many times you have so many days to have your own inspections, including the one for the bank, you might have to.

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If 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.

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Where it gets different is when you get into this sometimes, like in my area here, you have to have a radon test done.

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You have to have a sewer scope done.

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These are requirements that are part of the transaction.

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Now when you go to close, all the paperwork's done through your agent and their paperwork.

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And then you go to the.

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Basically 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.

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So you go into the title company, they will go through, get all the paperwork, get you your keys.

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That transaction is usually done there.

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Now, in other states, especially on the east coast, you don't do that as much.

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It's handled by a real estate attorney, which to me is really foreign.

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But there's lots of different ways for this stuff to transpire, depending where you're located.

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So it's something to think about with that.

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And of course, you've got all those different things that can go sideways within that project of buying a house.

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Banks, you've got all these different hidden things that could be happening.

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There's disclosures.

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So there's a lot of different things that go on through that process.

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Now.

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Where are house values at?

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They're growing or shrinking depending on where you're at in the US Ours and my neighborhood are slowly growing.

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I can go up in areas of Seattle where I just saw that some places are down 15 or 20% in some cities.

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So it's really depending on what's going on in your neighborhood.

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How is crime?

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Crime can be a big one because families are moving out.

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If crime is high and the city isn't managing their crime issues.

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Homelessness, 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.

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So those are big things.

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Those are big things to consider, and that could be a good opportunity for you to buy a house there.

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We'll dive more into things to consider.

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We're selling your home in: 2025

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Don't change that dial.

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To find out more information, head to aroundthehouse online dot com.

Speaker B: 00:21:26

Don't change that dial around the house.

Speaker B: 00:21:28

We'll be right back after these important messages.

Speaker A: 00:23:09

Hey, 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 A: 00:23:19

Raise your fist.

Speaker A: 00:23:20

Welcome back to THE around the HOUSE show, the next generation of home improvement.

Speaker A: 00:23:24

I'm Eric G.

Speaker A: 00:23:26

Thanks for joining me today.

Speaker A: 00:23:27

If 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 A: 00:23:34

And 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.

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We'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.

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We'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 A: 00:24:02

This hour is brought to you by our friends at Money McGrills.

Speaker A: 00:24:04

Check 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.

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It seems that our inflation is slowing.

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Now 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.

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So the stuff that came out this last week showed that there wasn't a huge a hike in that.

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The problem that I see is that interest rates seem to be high for right now compared to where we've been.

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Would I like to see them lower?

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Yes, because housing's gonna take off.

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But they use the interest rates, of course, to control how much inflation is going.

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y kind of a crash like in the: 1929

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So we didn't have that big crash.

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I get it.

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But right now it's really put a crimp on housing.

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And building materials are dumb expensive out there.

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Sheetrock, osb, insulation, all those things way higher.

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I 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.

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So things have really gone up out there.

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And unfortunately, when I see that that elevates housing prices.

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So building material costs, regulation, labor costs all rise to houses getting more expensive.

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Well, when housing is more expensive on the new stuff, the used stuff out there, the remodel homes, those rise as well.

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So that's where we see those double Digit price increases in neighborhoods that people want to move to.

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So that's going to be interesting to see how this plays out, because that does really kind of raise the water for all housing.

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When 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.

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So that's what we see.

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Now, 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.

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Now, 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.

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Get your house smelling and looking clean.

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When someone walks in, you want it to be fresh.

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And 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?

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You want your house to smell fresh and clean.

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If there were smokers in there, you need to dial that in and get it cleaned up and fixed.

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If you had a mold issue or you've got pets, eliminate those smells.

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If 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.

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I came in and it had: 1970

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You could see all the stains.

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You could just tell the unhealthy air in this place, which leads me to believe that there's going to be many more problems.

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So if you walk in, everything's well painted, everything smells spic and span.

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It's clean, there's no clutter.

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This is going to be the easiest and most important thing you do to your home.

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Now, if you have inherent issues on maintenance, you got to get those knocked out.

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If you need to have a new electrical panel put in, have it done.

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If your H Vac is broken, knock it out.

Speaker A: 00:28:04

If you've got a roof system that's failing, fix her up.

Speaker A: 00:28:08

You see where I'm going?

Speaker A: 00:28:10

Get those things dialed in.

Speaker A: 00:28:11

But the big stuff here that you need to think about is what can I do to help?

Speaker A: 00:28:16

And a lot of times that's going to be curb appeal.

Speaker A: 00:28:20

Curb appeal is one of the easiest things you can do to get that house dialed in and looking amazing.

Speaker A: 00:28:27

t look like the wood one from: 1974

Speaker A: 00:28:34

Maybe it's getting rid of that old beat up front door system with the bad screen door.

Speaker A: 00:28:40

You want people when they pull up out front with their real estate professional to look and go, wow, that's cool.

Speaker A: 00:28:48

Let's go take a look.

Speaker A: 00:28:50

Versus them.

Speaker A: 00:28:51

Pulling 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 A: 00:29:02

Next.

Speaker A: 00:29:04

Having that dialed in from the curb is your first impression.

Speaker A: 00:29:08

For those people out there that are potentially looking at it now, this is for all the real estate professionals out there.

Speaker A: 00:29:14

As someone that has been looking at it so many times, you'll see the pictures up on the MLS listing service.

Speaker A: 00:29:21

You'll see the pictures out there of this beautiful first picture.

Speaker A: 00:29:25

And the second picture sucks.

Speaker A: 00:29:28

It's some weird baby blue bathroom that's tiny.

Speaker A: 00:29:31

I don't care, I'll see it when I get there.

Speaker A: 00:29:35

But show me the best foot forward.

Speaker A: 00:29:37

If you've got a picture of the front, show me a picture in the back, show me the kitchen.

Speaker A: 00:29:41

If it's new, plan those pictures out to go up on the website or the MLS so you can see what's happening.

Speaker A: 00:29:49

I see a lot of homes.

Speaker A: 00:29:51

I see a brand new home on the market each and every week for my television show.

Speaker A: 00:29:55

So I see a lot of homes.

Speaker A: 00:29:58

And the secret is making it look good, depersonalizing it and making it smell good when you get inside.

Speaker A: 00:30:06

And 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 A: 00:30:16

That's a key right there.

Speaker A: 00:30:18

Now, any of those things like that come up as issues can kill a sale.

Speaker A: 00:30:23

I see foundation issues, cracks, leaky basements.

Speaker A: 00:30:27

I see roofs that need to be put on.

Speaker A: 00:30:30

I 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 A: 00:30:40

And this happens a lot with like elderly fixed income people, their house was dialed in.

Speaker A: 00:30:46

The 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 A: 00:30:54

Or even worse, hoarders.

Speaker A: 00:30:57

If 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 A: 00:31:10

If you've got that or you're working on one to get it.

Speaker A: 00:31:14

That has to be dialed in.

Speaker A: 00:31:15

And 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 A: 00:31:24

But you don't see that when you roll up.

Speaker A: 00:31:26

You just see weird boxes of stuff.

Speaker A: 00:31:29

And you can tell that something bad has happened in that house because you can smell the dirt.

Speaker A: 00:31:35

So again, stuff you got to consider when you get in there.

Speaker A: 00:31:37

So make sure that all those little issues you have, that could be something that kills the sale.

Speaker A: 00:31:44

And that's why I always recommend if you are putting your house up for sale to get a pre listing inspection.

Speaker A: 00:31:52

So 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 A: 00:32:03

You need to make sure and get that dialed in.

Speaker A: 00:32:05

So get her fixed up.

Speaker A: 00:32:07

Get those things knocked out.

Speaker A: 00:32:08

So you're not surprised because you're gonna pay more to fix it.

Speaker A: 00:32:12

And this is what happens all the time.

Speaker A: 00:32:14

Let's say your.

Speaker A: 00:32:15

Your house that you're thinking about right now is going up for sale.

Speaker A: 00:32:19

You list it up and you knew that there might be some foundation issues.

Speaker A: 00:32:23

You can pay twice as much to get that fixed in a hurry that's coming out of your pocket.

Speaker A: 00:32:30

Your profits, your sale.

Speaker A: 00:32:32

We'll talk about that when we return.

Speaker A: 00:32:33

Don't change that dial round the house.

Speaker A: 00:32:35

We'll be right back for the last segment of this hour.

Speaker A: 00:32:37

We'll see in a minute.

Speaker B: 00:32:39

To find out more information, head to aroundthehouse online dot com.

Speaker B: 00:32:43

Don't change that dial around the house.

Speaker B: 00:32:45

We'll be right back after these important messages.

Speaker A: 00:33:57

All right, the band is drunk.

Speaker A: 00:34:08

It's the end of the show.

Speaker A: 00:34:09

Now drinking down, people.

Speaker B: 00:34:10

It's time to go.

Speaker A: 00:34:12

That time again, it's last call.

Speaker A: 00:34:15

Welcome back to the around the house show.

Speaker A: 00:34:16

The next generation of home improvement.

Speaker A: 00:34:18

I'm Eric G.

Speaker A: 00:34:19

Thanks for joining me today.

Speaker A: 00:34:20

We've been talking about getting your house ready for sale.

Speaker A: 00:34:23

All 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 A: 00:34:30

This hour is brought to you by our friends at Monument Grills.

Speaker A: 00:34:33

Check 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 A: 00:34:45

Now one of the ones that I always talk about are what are the Homes that are hard to sell.

Speaker A: 00:34:49

Sometimes 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 A: 00:35:00

Great example.

Speaker A: 00:35:01

You got the big house, the biggest house in the neighborhood, or the most unique house in the neighborhood on a smaller lot.

Speaker A: 00:35:11

So 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 A: 00:35:19

Oh, just basically comparing it.

Speaker A: 00:35:21

So a appraiser comes in and goes, wow, there's not a lot to compare this to that can hurt you on the sale.

Speaker A: 00:35:27

Now there's also weird stuff that happens regionally, like in the east Coast.

Speaker A: 00:35:33

Many places don't count basement livable square footage as part of the primary square footage of the house.

Speaker A: 00:35:42

We're out here on the west coast.

Speaker A: 00:35:44

If 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 A: 00:35:57

You're in the middle between the two floors.

Speaker A: 00:36:00

Now upstairs you'll traditionally have a kitchen, dining room, living room, and maybe three bedrooms.

Speaker A: 00:36:09

Downstairs you'll have a bedroom or two and a game room or a big family room, a bathroom, laundry room.

Speaker A: 00:36:16

Usually that's how those were laid out.

Speaker A: 00:36:18

But on the west coast, that's all considered part of the square footage.

Speaker A: 00:36:22

That same house on the east coast, they might not call that part of the primary square footage.

Speaker A: 00:36:28

And so there's a lot of different rules out there, but you need to keep that into account.

Speaker A: 00:36:34

If you're living on the west coast and you move out east, that could be a completely different business decision.

Speaker A: 00:36:40

re saying, hey, this house is: 2800

Speaker A: 00:36:48

Different comps, different rules, different everything.

Speaker A: 00:36:51

So think about that.

Speaker A: 00:36:53

The 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 A: 00:37:06

So usually that means a window.

Speaker A: 00:37:08

Well, 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 A: 00:37:17

So there has to be a large window that they can get into to rescue.

Speaker A: 00:37:21

So if you've got a bedroom down below grade, you better have that egress window in there to sell it.

Speaker A: 00:37:27

Otherwise they probably Won't count that.

Speaker A: 00:37:30

Now having a closet is a big deal.

Speaker A: 00:37:33

That's an interesting one.

Speaker A: 00:37:35

So making sure you have a closet so you can count it as a bedroom.

Speaker A: 00:37:39

Funny 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 A: 00:37:49

So 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 A: 00:37:59

Well, they have all these Alphabet houses where it was a planet, an A house, a B house, a whatever.

Speaker A: 00:38:05

These ranch houses were built younger architect is the story I was told.

Speaker A: 00:38:12

And 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 A: 00:38:25

So they had these little plywood closets.

Speaker A: 00:38:27

Now 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 A: 00:38:39

Now people have added closets over the years.

Speaker A: 00:38:41

That's what I did when I owned one of these homes.

Speaker A: 00:38:44

But many original ones didn't have it.

Speaker A: 00:38:47

So sometimes mistakes that happen in history, that can be an issue.

Speaker A: 00:38:53

So those houses were built stout.

Speaker A: 00:38:55

They just forgot closets that can come up in those things.

Speaker A: 00:38:58

So fixing all those things are important to make life a little bit easier.

Speaker A: 00:39:03

Harms homes that are hard to sell.

Speaker A: 00:39:06

Style wise, mid century is always king.

Speaker A: 00:39:08

So the more you can embrace that and it's depending on your area as well.

Speaker A: 00:39:13

that built the Pablo Escobar: 1980

Speaker A: 00:39:24

But 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 A: 00:39:35

Now good news is that 80s style is coming back.

Speaker A: 00:39:37

That Miami Vice look that is coming back into style.

Speaker A: 00:39:41

So be careful.

Speaker A: 00:39:43

If you go spend a hundred grand to take that style away, you could be hurting yourself down the road.

Speaker A: 00:39:47

If you're waiting a few years, I think that is really coming back.

Speaker A: 00:39:51

Are we going to see new houses built that way?

Speaker A: 00:39:53

No, but I think you're going to see some of those style points coming back in.

Speaker A: 00:39:56

It is the next one.

Speaker A: 00:39:58

And if you watch this, you saw the 50s mid century come back.

Speaker A: 00:40:02

Went to the 60s mid century.

Speaker A: 00:40:06

Now we're into the 70s mid century.

Speaker A: 00:40:10

The rock and the avocado greens are back all that stuff colors back.

Speaker A: 00:40:16

So naturally, I think our 80s stuff will be coming back.

Speaker A: 00:40:21

So 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 A: 00:40:30

But this could be a lot of fun with these.

Speaker A: 00:40:32

So don't just blow up the style, pay attention.

Speaker A: 00:40:36

That could be the next hottest house out there.

Speaker A: 00:40:38

So we'll take a look.

Speaker A: 00:40:40

So here's the thing to look at as well.

Speaker A: 00:40:42

And 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 A: 00:40:52

If you're going, hey, I'm going to buy a bigger house.

Speaker A: 00:40:54

I need two more bedrooms.

Speaker A: 00:40:55

I don't want a remodel.

Speaker A: 00:40:57

I don't want to do this.

Speaker A: 00:40:58

I want to move on the other side of town.

Speaker A: 00:40:59

I want to move out of state.

Speaker A: 00:41:01

Do your research before you put it up on the market of where you're going and can you afford it.

Speaker A: 00:41:07

Taxes, interest rates, all of that can really mess with what things cost.

Speaker A: 00:41:13

And so pay attention to those numbers before you go put it on for sale.

Speaker A: 00:41:18

Because I tell you what, I didn't want to sell my house here because I'm at a 3% interest rate or less.

Speaker A: 00:41:25

I know now I'm going to be in the 6%.

Speaker A: 00:41:28

So I'm throwing away a lot of money there when I do it.

Speaker A: 00:41:31

So I have to be careful of that.

Speaker A: 00:41:33

And I have to take that into account coming in.

Speaker A: 00:41:36

Are we gonna see 3% interest rates, 4% interest rates anytime soon?

Speaker A: 00:41:40

Probably not.

Speaker A: 00:41:41

Two years out, we'd have to have a huge crash in the economy to get that low again.

Speaker A: 00:41:47

Now, will there be things out there that they might do?

Speaker A: 00:41:49

Could they give us new tax credits?

Speaker A: 00:41:52

There's been a lot floating around out there.

Speaker A: 00:41:54

Just like with people buying new made in America cars, they're talking about giving you a tax credit for that.

Speaker A: 00:42:00

If that car is made in the US and you're getting a tax credit for that, could be an awesome deal.

Speaker A: 00:42:05

So now people start looking to go, hey, where's that car made?

Speaker A: 00:42:09

Is enough of it made to get that tax credit?

Speaker A: 00:42:12

So there's a lot of promises out there.

Speaker A: 00:42:14

It's politics.

Speaker A: 00:42:15

So we'll see actually what comes to fruition.

Speaker A: 00:42:18

But that could be something cool to help reduce the price of things.

Speaker A: 00:42:22

Now I'd like to see us get building materials back in line.

Speaker A: 00:42:26

So 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 A: 00:42:44

So 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 A: 00:43:04

But for you, selling a house secret here is just a recap.

Speaker A: 00:43:09

Make sure you get that thing spick and span, clean, perfect.

Speaker A: 00:43:13

Have somebody come out, come over that you trust, but they smell the things.

Speaker A: 00:43:19

If you've got cats, your nose becomes numb.

Speaker A: 00:43:23

At some point you want somebody to walk in and go, I don't smell a single pet.

Speaker A: 00:43:27

I don't smell mold.

Speaker A: 00:43:29

I don't smell dirt.

Speaker A: 00:43:30

I don't smell filth.

Speaker A: 00:43:31

Make sure that those things are taken care of.

Speaker A: 00:43:33

Have the independent eye because many times you miss that.

Speaker A: 00:43:37

And that way you'll be good to go.

Speaker A: 00:43:39

And that way you can get the most out of your home.

Speaker A: 00:43:41

So you can take it to the next house, wherever you're looking at.

Speaker A: 00:43:45

Hey, if you got any questions of me, send them over to aroundthehouse online dot com.

Speaker A: 00:43:49

Head over there.

Speaker A: 00:43:49

You can message me there.

Speaker A: 00:43:50

I will message you back and get back a hold of you and make sure that question gets answered.

Speaker A: 00:43:56

I'm Eric g.

Speaker A: 00:43:57

To find out more, head to aroundthehousonline.com we'll see you next week.

Speaker A: 00:44:01

If you're a podcast listener, we'll catch you on the midweek special.

Speaker A: 00:44:04

If not, I'll see you right here at the same channel on the radio or the podcast.

Speaker A: 00:44:09

Thanks for tuning in to around the house.

Speaker A: 00:44:10

We'll see you soon.

Speaker B: 00:44:12

To find out more information, head to aroundthehouse online.com make sure and subscribe to our social media channels and our YouTube channel for the national radio show and podcast.

Speaker B: 00:44:23

Plus our television show around the house northwest.

Speaker B: 00:44:27

You've been listening to the around the house show.

Speaker A: 00:44:32

Love is a love song let's be.

Speaker B: 00:44:34

Lovers we're all over the radio Take.

Speaker A: 00:44:39

My hands out Nowhere to go all over the radio with you.