Home Buying and Home Selling Tips During a Hot Market - #14

In many parts of the nation, homes are flying off the market, with bidding wars. It's insane! Because of the competition, you might be at risk when buying in a seller's market. What can you do to protect yourself and to help find the right house? If you're selling in this market, we'll also share some tips on what to easily fix up in order to get top dollar. For more info about my guest, real estate agent Seth Haskins, contact him via email or 703-675-7660, or on Instagram.

HELP MY SISTER

My 46-year-old sister, Lynda, was diagnosed with a rare eye cancer that caused her to have her eye removed. She is a nurse who contracted COVID shortly after her cancer diagnosis. While recovering from COVID and preparing for surgery, her nursing home job fired her because she'd taken "too much" time off and they would no longer hold her position. She is about to start radiation for 6 weeks with no income coming in after short-term disability just ended. Every dollar helps and will be used to cover her rent, food, living expenses, medical expenses, and recovery time needed after radiation until she can find another nursing position and is able to learn to work again with one eye. We are grateful for your help!

• Donate via GoFundMe
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SHOW NOTES

Projects and Podcasts Referenced

• How to Paint Your Shower
• How to Get Started with Power Tools
• 30 Questions You MUST Ask Before Buying a House
• Termites, Bedbugs and Carpet Beetles, Oh My! - Episode #9

Products Mentioned (contains affiliate links)

• BathWorks Shower and Tub Epoxy
• Binoculars to do roof inspections
• Moisture meter

Transcript

Hey, what's up. It's Serena Appiah from ThriftDiving.Com, which is a podcast, a blog and a YouTube channel that helps you decorate and improve your home, with paint, power tools and thrift stores. And here Thrift Diving, we don't sacrifice our budget, the environment or style. Welcome to episode 14 of the Thrift Diving Podcast.

Today, we are talking about home buying and home selling. That's right. If you have been in the market for a home, or maybe you're just trying to sell your home, what are the things that you need to know. And we are speaking to Seth Haskins. He is a friend of mine and my husband's actually, but he's a real estate agent here in the Washington DC area, has been an agent for about 12 years or so.

So we're going to talk about what are those little things that you can do that have the most impact for being able to sell your home at top dollar, without spending a lot of money. So we're going to talk about that, but also this has been kind of a crazy time here in the DMV. If you're not from this area, just know DMV is District, Maryland, and Virginia.

We just call it one big area: DMV. But even if you live in other areas right now, this is a complete seller's market. Sellers are getting tons of money for their home. Things are flying off of the market so quickly that you may not have to do all these updates, but if you want top dollar, there are some things that you can do to improve your home without spending a lot of money.

And we're going to talk about that, but also, because things are so crazy in this market, what if you can't get an inspection. What do you do if you need to get in there and make a decision really quickly, how do you know you're not buying a lemon? So we're going to talk about some things to look for when you're going to look at homes if you're buying a home. 

And again, if you're selling, what are the things you can do to get top dollar for your home so that you can get what you deserve. So we're going to talk about that in today's episode. 

But before we do that, I want to ask you for your help. Now this isn't something that I typically do here at Thrift Diving, but this is an extreme circumstance, and I'm hoping that you would be able to help. If you've been following me on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, you would know that I recently started a GoFundMe for my sister.

She's a couple of years old. Well, she's three years older than me. I'm 43. She's 46. But just in November, she was diagnosed with a rare form of eye cancer. It's called adenoid cystic carcinoma. Yes. ACC. And this has been a whirlwind these last number of months. And this is one reason why, if you have been following me, you would know that I'd been just not motivated to work, to do anything from the time of her diagnosis through the beginning of the year. 

It just crushed my motivation, because I was just dealing with that, trying to help her and support her emotionally. Well, in this time she has been fired from her nursing job. She worked in a nursing home. And during that same time that she got her diagnosis and was about to start treatment, she got COVID from her nursing home where she worked. Not only was she dealing with COVID recovery, but she was also about to start a treatment for her cancer, which was having her eye removed and getting radiation. 

Well, unfortunately her job fired her. They said she'd been gone for too long. We can't hold your position. We have to let you go. And with that, she ended up having to pay for COBRA in order to continue going to her appointments. She needed something to fill that gap. So. Right now we're trying to navigate all of those things. She was just denied long-term disability coverage.

She did have short term, but now that's ending. So she literally has nothing coming in and it’s been a nightmare for her to be honest. And I decided to do something different this time and see if I could do a go-fund me to get the support that she's going to need in order to get through these next six weeks of radiation with no income coming in.

And then even afterwards, we're really not sure when she'll be able to get back to work, because how do you retrain yourself to navigate the world with one eye? There's got to be some sort of downtime for her to do that. So if you could donate anything, we would greatly appreciate it. And for those of you who've already donated a big, thank you to you.

I'm not a crier, but yesterday when I saw the donations coming in and the words of support and love, it just filled me in a way you have no idea. And I just started crying. And that says a lot for me, because I'm not generally that emotional kind of a person.

So thank you so, so much. You can find that link down below for her GoFundMe, all the funds are going to be used for, paying her rent, food, any sort of medical expenses that she's incurred during this time, and just helping her stay on her feet so that she can get back to work after radiation.

So if you want to hear more about that, find the link down below, and also if you don't want to pay the fees, I do have a Cash App and you'll find that down below and everything is getting donated directly to her. So thank you. 

 Without further ado, let's jump into episode 14 with Seth Haskins. And we're going to talk about buying and selling your home.

Today we are talking to Seth Haskins. He is a friend of mine, a personal friend of mine and my husband's.  He is also a real estate agent here in the DMV, the, District, Maryland Virginia area. And today on Episode, I believe this is 14. We are talking about everything related to your home regarding buying a home, selling a home.

And what are those things that you have to do to make your home more desirable for people? And what are those things that you can do to just boost the curb appeal of your home? What are those essential things that people should really focus in on? So welcome, Seth, to the Thrift Diving podcast. So, yeah, so it's good to really talk to you.

I have been wanting to talk to you for a while. We've been trying to coordinate this for a while. And I'm glad that we were able to sit down because Thrift Diving, we've got a lot of people, like I was telling you before, we've got a lot of people who are buying a home, they're selling a home and if they're not buying or selling, they're trying to decorate their home or maintain it.

So that's what we do here at Thrift Diving. And so when, Kwasi, my husband had said, Hey, Seth, I saw him today. We're talking about, having him on your podcast. It was a no brainer. Yes, I got to get you on because in this market right now, it's I know it's a seller’s market.

And so homes are flying off the shelf, flying off the lawn. And I know a lot of times people are not, maybe they're not, you can tell me if this is true, a lot of times, because of this market, people may not be doing a lot of things to their home, but there are some things that people could be and should be doing to their home so that it's more desirable for people.

So from your experience, let me ask you, how long have you been doing real estate, in this area?

Seth: [00:06:57] Thank you for having me, first of all, (inaudible) Thrift Diving. I wish I was more frugal. Maybe you can teach-- 

Serena: [00:07:06] If you talk to me for a while, you will be. 

Seth: [00:07:08] Exactly. So there you go. I was a title agent starting in 2004 and I got my real estate license in 2009.

So I'm licensed in DC, Maryland, and Virginia. I've been an agent for about 12, 13 years. 

Serena: [00:07:24] Wow. Yeah. I remember when you were doing titles. It doesn't seem like you've been an agent for that long, but time is going so fast that-- it exactly. So right now we're in a seller’s market, right?

What does that really mean? What's a seller's market really mean? 

in this case, I think the seller’s market mostly means that there's a scarcity of homes available. You know, the low inventory. So the demand is super high, which means that it's like bees to honey and prices go up when that happens because there's competition.

It's very cutthroat out there right now. You got to have strategy and you have to be willing to pay more than a property is worth, the days of trying to get a good deal on a house right now, that's out the window. It's you just need to get a house.

Oh man. So are you finding that's the case more so in this area or is that the case all over the U S. Because Thrift Diving, we have listeners here in this area. We have listeners, California, Texas, everywhere. So is that the general theme that's going throughout the entire US? Like it's a seller’s market everywhere?

 Seth: [00:08:30] It's such a seller's market and such a hustle here right now, that I have not been a good agent and checked up on the other states. But I would say that any popular areas right now any big cities I know it's like that in San Francisco.

because I was recently just out there. But I'd say, this area definitely has got to be, as far as the competition and scarcity of homes, it's, I would say, around the DMV is, this is higher than most places. 

Serena: [00:08:57] Yeah. I was looking for an investment property.

In fact, I was talking to you about this several months ago. Remember I came to you and I was like, Hey, I'm looking for an investment property. And we actually sat down talked about what I was looking for. And I didn't really pursue it because things were so competitive that the minute, I would even see something that looked halfway decent, I mean, it was gone.  Was just in a matter of days. And now it's probably a matter of hours I imagine. But I think that could actually get people in trouble if you think about it, because there’s so little homes available and you're saying people are paying more for it and they're jumping on it.

 That can get people in trouble because then they're jumping into something that maybe they haven't thoroughly evaluated. Are people even still getting inspections? Like you should get an inspection, but are people forgoing that right now? 

 In general, what I've been seeing, and I've been out there is the people winning deals are not getting inspections. They're not doing financing contingencies, meaning if they're getting a loan basically, they're saying it doesn't matter, to the seller, it should be just as good as cash because you know, they'd be in default if they don't close. So they're throwing out their financing contingencies, which, are typically around inspection contingencies, even first-time home buyers, buying a home without getting an inspection, but there's certain things you can do. Like you could have an inspection for informational purposes, just so that you know what you're dealing with.

And then, to tell you the truth, for places with associations, it's always a built-in contingency that the buyer gets to read the resale package. Like when you guys sold you guys gave the buyer a resale package from the association, from the management company.

And the buyer actually has, I think, for a condo it's seven days for a townhouse or another, or a house it's in, there's an association, it's five days. And you can actually get out of the transaction based off that without even giving a reason. So people are doing all kinds of stuff now with strategizing and

learning how to, win a deal and making one thing seem one way. Trying to leave it out if something happens because yes, buyers are taking extreme risks right now.  The last thing I want to say is the difference, hopefully, between now and what happened back, like when Countrywide was around is hopefully the appraisers are still, you know, they're doing what they're supposed to do, and properties are valuable right now.

But as long as they don't overvalue properties, I think people will be okay, because if they're getting financing, any of that extra money that the house doesn't appraise for, they're bringing in cash. 

So what about the things that could hurt people?  Let's think of a scenario where you've got a person who wants this house, right?

There's not a lot of inventory. They see this house, they want this house, they may forgo an inspection. Are there things that people can do themselves and look for themselves in order to mitigate their risk? So like for example, if they walk in the house, what are those things that people should look for?

Or if you find this, you should avoid this house, regardless of whether it's a hot market. These are like big warning signs. I guess it's a two-part question. What are the big warning signs of looking at a home that people should stay away from? And then I guess the second part of that question is what are some of the things that people could do themselves when they go into a house to say, okay, I may not be able to get an inspection here because the competition's so fierce, but here's what Seth told me to look for.

And I'm going to do my own inspection. So that's a two-fold question. 

Seth: [00:12:18] Great question. and very prevalent right now. I think okay. I think any agent will tell you the main killer to all real estate is water. So I think, the foundation and water, you know, which are the most important things I feel like that you need to look out for, like when you go down in a basement, obviously a lot of basements it's not sealed in a lot of places. There could be mold down there. Water breaks everything down. A lot of times you can smell it.

You can look for it. you want to look for it, check out the walls, check out when you go down to the basement, you want to check out the concrete, if it's concrete smell for anything that smells funny, like maybe mold or mildew, but not too much, cause it's not healthy for you.

Serena: [00:13:02] And can I just say, can I say for the next episode, next week's episode, I actually did talk to a guy named Michael Rubino. He is the author of a book called The Mold Medic.  It's a whole episode about mold. So I'm glad that we're mentioning this because it flows very nicely into the next week's episode 

Seth: [00:13:19] And it works out great for me.

But yeah, he'll make it yet. So I don't know if you're talking about the mold because you got that coming up, but yeah, mold's a big problem. Water, mildew, all that stuff, it breaks down your, breaks down everything. I think that water's one of the main things. The check around the windows too, windows can leak and that leads me into my next, important parts.

I don't know what order you can put these in, you want to find out about the roof. Roofs can be expensive and obviously roofs are super important because of what I first talked about water, water gets in your house, you're in big trouble. and same thing with windows. Windows are important.

You'd want to know the age of the windows. If a buyer, especially the first-time home buyer that you know is just getting out there has to replace stuff like this, it can be pretty detrimental  

Serena: [00:14:02] I couldn't tell you when we moved into this house, that's one of the things that I did not look at.

I did not look at the windows. I was more concerned about the aesthetics. How does it look? What are the size of the rooms? Seth, when we moved into this house, it was, Oh, this is how the window thing came about. We moved in, it was during the wintertime, right? So remember everything's asleep in the winter.  The leaves are asleep.

The bugs are asleep. Everything's asleep. that was December. By April. let's say March, April, when things started to warm up, we had what are those little bugs? The stinkbugs. We had them everywhere in the house. And for those, yeah. Remember, I feel like we don't have very much of a problem with them anymore just in this area.

I don't see them as much as I used to. I don't know why. Maybe they have a natural predator. I hope so. But when we moved in, there were so many just in one day we would catch and kill like maybe 30, 35. And we realized that what they try to do as they get into the house during the winter. no.

Yeah, during the winter, when it starts to get cold in the fall, they come in and then when it gets warm, they try to get back out. That's when you start seeing them on the walls and things. And I know we don't have them just in this area. I realized the way that they were getting in is because of the windows and we decided, you know what?

These windows are pretty old. Let's replace. Do you know how much it costs to replace 22 windows? 

I don't even want to think about it. 

It was $14,000, 14,000. More than that. I know. It's funny. My carpentry teacher, when I told him, he's like, well, that's actually not too bad. I'm like yeah, 

Seth: [00:15:34] You got to deal.

you're Thrift. So I got a deal. 

 You're a thrift diver. Of course you're going to get a deal. 

okay. So technically it was a deal, but when you're just moving into a new house, when you're moving from a two-bedroom condo to a four-bedroom house, coming out of your pocket with 14,000 is that's not a small expense. 

Did you have two kids at this point, 

Serena: [00:15:54] We had two. And three months after we moved in surprise Kojo came along. So now you add on top of that, the fact that you're going to have, this life changing event. so I would say what I'm saying is I would second that definitely look at the windows and I'll tell you another tip too.

And I didn't realize this at the time when we moved in. We did smell mildew. We didn't smell it when we first came to do the walkthrough. In fact, the house smelled like something, I don't know if it was something that they were cooking, but it smelled bad or whatever it is that they were doing. It masked the smell of like mildew in the house.

So when we first moved in back in December of 2010, we're just looking around okay, where's the smell coming from? Like we knew that there was a little bit of a water leak. I call it the Wizard of Oz door. You know, those basement doors that open up. Well, we knew when we bought the house, it was an "as is" purchase.

And they did disclose that there was water coming in there. And the inspector's Oh, that's just $800 to fix. No, it was actually $2,800. That was another expense. but we didn't actually tackle that problem until years later when I realized, okay, we're still having water coming in, it's been several years.

This is not healthy. Seth, I actually took out about 12 inches of dry wall, all along this wall in my basement. And I ended up having to take out the bottom plate while I cut out part of it replaced that I replaced the door and did some sealing. And it's still, if we get really heavy rains, you will start seeing a little bit of water coming into that, Wizard of Oz, stairwell.

but there's some patching that I have to do, but here's a tip for people that I didn't know until I started removing this dry wall. I actually discovered that whoever lived here before had replaced that dry wall before. 12 inches, which told me that there had been a flood in here. So what I would tell people is when you go to the basement of whatever house you're looking at, go along the wall, Maybe 12 inches, 24 inches. And see if you can see a difference, maybe even just feel your hand along the wall to see if some of that drywall had been previously replaced because it was not until, and I can tell you, it's been two years, we've been here 10 years. So eight years in is when I realized holy crap, there must've been a ton of water down here.

And I looked not even just in the section that I replaced, but I looked on the other walls and I could see that telltale sign of okay, there, you see a difference in drywall here. So yes. And so I 

Seth: [00:18:21] did not get, you guys did not get an inspection, right? 

We had an inspection, we had an inspection, but I honestly feel that the agent... Now, here and-- now let me ask you a question.

This actually brings up a question that I didn't think about before. Do you recommend that home buyers get their own inspection agent, or should they go with whoever is recommended by the real estate agent? And the reason why I ask is because when we bought our home, I feel like, she already had a working relationship with him.

So I feel like he may have just told us things just to satisfy that inspection because they had a relationship. Can you speak on that or should people get their own inspector? 

Okay. So that's a great question. And there's a couple of different ways to answer it. Typically with good agents who produce and close deals and have happy clients and good reviews, they're going to use an inspector that they know that they can rely on. A good agent does not want their buyer buying a place that has some flaws that maybe they wouldn't find out about.

That's a telltale sign that agent, who's going to go down. So typically you can, you'd want to rely on the realtors inspector because they use them all the time and they've done this consistently and done a good job consistently, or they wouldn't be using them. Now from what you and I spoke about it,

just so the people know you, you have an agent that may, maybe you've been with for a while showing a bunch of houses too. It's a tough market. I just got a client under contract that I've been with for 14 months. I met him at one of my listings. It doesn't matter.

I'm still not going to compromise him getting under contract, by setting up something with an inspector and saying maybe what you're insinuating, Hey, look, I've been showing her around for a year and a half, two years. Look, it’s not that big of a deal.  We got to close on this house, that’s an agent that you want to stay away from.

 I think me and, my colleagues and people at my broker and other brokerages I've been at, typically, I see agents is solid, especially around here because you won't last, but yeah, you got to watch out for that.

 You can go online and do research on inspectors, and you can do inspectors call the agents inspector, and then you do your research in someone that looks good. You call them, see which one you like better. sometimes people can get a good feel about somebody, but maybe it's something to watch out for, but typically good agent inspectors are good. And they're not going to pull a wool.

They're not going to hide stuff. Most of them want to show that they're doing great work and they put nitpicky stuff on there. That's what you want. 

Serena: [00:20:50] Yeah. So going back to the things that a potential home buyer should look for. you had mentioned the roof. Is there anything in particular they should look for with the roof?

Cause the first thing that comes to my mind would be seeing if there's any ceiling discoloration. In fact, that is something that the mold guy mentioned in the next episode. So be sure to listen to that one, but that's what comes to mind because of what he said, looking for those coffee-colored stains on the ceilings.

But is there anything else, even from the outside that someone should look at to tell them the quality, the condition of the roof? 

Seth: [00:21:23] Inspectors have a tool, it's a little gun looking thing and they put it up against wall and it will detect any moisture.

Buyers can get that too, especially in a market like this, where you're not doing inspections. I don't know how much the tool cost, so I think it would cost, probably under a hundred bucks and then you got binoculars. You can stand outside, take a good look at the roof. You're going to see the shingles.

You're going to see how worn they are. And then exactly what you said, being inside the house, checking for stains, looking at the ceilings, especially by the roof, especially by maybe an attic. but those are, yeah, those are good ways you know, ask the age of the roof. Binoculars help.

and then going inside, maybe sticking your head in the attic, those are all good ways to protect yourself. 

Serena: [00:22:06] I've also heard too that if you notice that there's been any recent work done, and I think this one can be kind of iffy because of course, when people sell their home, they want their home to look good.

So they're going to do some painting and things like that. But from what I've heard, you should be particularly careful when you see that there's been some recent renovations Have you noticed that like certain things that, that might give you some indication that people are trying to cover something up?

You tipped on one of them. Sometimes I'll notice people will put smell goods in the house, strong scents, maybe candles or those plugin things. And you just smell it everywhere. Sometimes that raises red flags. and then in the basement, a lot of times along the concrete, you'll see different shades of concrete, which means there were cracks and leaks.

Seth: [00:22:51] And maybe it's safe just to ask about that. and then same thing that you said on the drywall, you can kind of tell the drywall has been worked on and you can see discolorations, you can see things that people may have tried to cover up. Hopefully though the listing agent will ask them about that. And hopefully disclose anything that the, that they're told they're supposed to. But like I said, there's a lot of "as is" sales out there and almost, no, no winning buyers are really having contingencies right now. So that's a great topic, that you're focusing on how to protect yourself: roof, windows, basement, moisture, mold, these are the real estate killers.

Serena: [00:23:25] Yeah. another thing that comes to mind too, and this was a big one that we didn't pay attention to when we moved in is the condition and the location of the trees. This was huge because remember we moved in December 2010. All the trees were gone. So of course they were just kind invisible.

the leaves were there, but the trees themselves, we didn't pay much attention to until again, April, when things, March, April, when things started coming back, suddenly we had trees that were blocking the sunlight. So when we moved in, we thought Oh, this is a light-filled home. It suddenly became a cave and to get a tree removed, of course, it depends on where you live.

It was about 1200 to $1,800 per tree to get removed. And over the years, I believe we've removed, I want to say three or four trees. One of them was just last summer, which was a huge maple that I said, this tree has to go. it just sucks up all the light. And it was $1,800 to remove. Now I know people who love trees, and they know that they can cool the home down and all of that, but sometimes trees can wreak havoc on your foundation.

If a tree is too close to the home, you could have foundational problems. And remember I was telling you about that Wizard of Oz door that was leaking well a couple of years ago, I noticed, or maybe it was last year. I noticed that when I was doing some of that repair work in there, there were tree roots coming through that concrete.

And that's why I decided to cut the tree down. In addition to the fact that there was no sunlight. So that's something to pay attention to just from my own personal experience. Where are the trees? Could it fall on your house? Are there any trees that look like they're dead because they're not cheap to remove at all. They're not cheap 

Seth: [00:25:08] For 1800, that's a pretty good deal, I feel like. When I first got out of school, I worked at a tree company in Beltsville. Oh really? Adirondack Tree Experts. They're still around. I still talk to the guy, the owner. He's actually got all kinds of good contracts. He's pretty big time now, but these are a killer.

So yeah, that's a pretty good deal. You got to leave that clogged your gutters. which what then brings the moisture into the house messes up your roof. yeah, if it's not, if there's not a sturdy tree and it's close to your house, you better get rid of it. Or your homeowner's insurance company is not going to be happy because they're going to be paying for a new roof and maybe more and yeah, the roots, screw up your patios, screw up your deck.

so yeah, you’d want to ask somebody who knows about it, Hey, is this tree okay? Especially with little trees, you don't really have to worry about, but big trees. Yeah. they need to be a safe distance from your house. You know that they're going to, with the leaves and all that.

That's good that you have these trees cut because they could cause damage. You got to keep your trees maintained. Definitely. 

Serena: [00:26:13] Yes. And see, that's the part that I think a lot of people don't realize is that the maintenance of a home is so expensive.

And with the trees, even if you have, I'm using air quotes here for those who can't see me, a limb fall, those lumps are heavy. And just having one, in fact, I can tell you that, because of, well, this was the neighbor's tree that was leaning down over my home because of all the ice and things like that.

We actually had one of the gutters pull away from our home because of damage from a tree and ice and all of that. So it's just, it's things to look out for. There's another thing that I will mention too. And this is an interview that I did with someone from Bug Boys. This was episode nine.

He is a I say exterminator, but he doesn't use that word, but he has a company where they treat for bedbugs. They treat for termites and he actually gave some tips on what to look for with termites. That's a huge one, Seth. I didn't realize that he said it's not a matter of if you get termites, it's a matter of when.

So I would highly recommend people go back and listen to that episode, I believe episode nine. And have that be part of your home buying inspection when you're just going around. If you're not getting a real inspection because of the competitive nature, go around and do a little bit of digging and see if you see any of those mud tubes.

And if you do see that there's termites, I wouldn't say it's a deal breaker but just know that you're going to have to spend, I think for our home to be treated, it was about $1,200. So that will last you for maybe a couple years or so. is it maybe it's four years, five years, but anyway, that's another expense.

So there's a lot of expenses that come up that if you don't have extra money in the bank, after you buy the house, you're going to be S.O.L., without having to say it, you're going to be S.O.L without a paddle. 

All right. so let's flip the conversation and let's talk about people who are selling their homes.

People are coming in and wanting to buy whatever, they may not care what's there, but are there some things that people can do to make their home look great that they don't have to spend a lot of money, but maybe it just means they'll attract more buyers or maybe they'll get top dollar.

what are those critical things people should be focusing on improving if they're selling their house? 

That's a great question, Serena. I think. people have all different mindsets people. A lot of people may think, Hey, I don't really need to do this and I don't need to do that.

And I can still get a bidding war on my house and,  then there's other people, maybe not spend too much money, but get the thing, looking really nice. Curb appeal look nice and fresh inside, And then there's other people who, I have a client in Chevy chase DC where, he has a five bedroom, three full bath place right off Connecticut Avenue by the Metro.

And he could put in, six figures, 150, really do it up and make an extra four or 500,000, stuff like that. but yes, since we're on the Thrift Diving, yes. I think there's a lot of stuff that people can do for relatively low cost. It makes a big difference. The way that their house is

toured and looked at and if you're in this market, why not try to get as much as you can. And if doing a couple of extra things does that, and yeah, I think sellers should definitely pay attention to that and get some things done. I think curb appeal you and I talked about this earlier. Curb appeal.

do your landscaping, have the grass freshly cut, make sure everything is edged. You got beds, put mulch in them. This is all stuff you can easily do by yourself that's relatively inexpensive plan

Put some flowers in and then can I also 

mention too, like the mailbox? I that's a project that I did a number of years ago that I thought looked amazing and it didn't take anything, but me just spray painting my mailbox, putting in. the post I think was okay, I'd replaced the post couple of years ago, but it was a pretty plain mailbox, but even just putting some flowers there, painting your mailbox, or spray paint the numbers. Just something that, that catches people's eyes when they drive up and makes this look like, wow, okay. I could see myself living here. 

Seth: [00:30:11] That's a great point.  I never talk about mailboxes. And now that you see a nice-looking mailbox yet, it's the first thing that you're going to see, 

Serena: [00:30:19] The first thing that you're going to see. Yup. And of course mine was turquoise and pink. Who's going to miss that driving past the home.

My first all was turquoise and pink. What team is that? 

Mine out of the sports gutter right now. but yeah. Okay. so doing some things outside. I have another idea. Just even pressure washing. That's something that every single year I have to do my driveway, no matter how consistent I am with it, it just looks the same after a few months and I have to redo it and redo it.

But there are ways that you could if you don't have a pressure washer, there are some cleaners. I don't really like to use the cleaners. I tried that last year. there was one called like 30 Second cleaner where you just spray it on and hose it off and it did look good. Yeah. Yeah. Like I did my sidewalk, and I did my driveway because not everybody has a pressure washer, but I think just getting things nice and clean so that it looks presentable is something that's going to draw people in 

Seth: [00:31:15] Siding, too. Pressure wash that siding as well.

Yeah. 

Serena: [00:31:18] Yes. The siding is something that people don't. Yeah. Another thing too, though, with pressure washing, I did learn this. I had pressure wash my siding before and I later learned that pressure washing siding is not good because it can force that water up in there between the siding. So there are products that you can just spray on.

I think you can connect into your hose, spray it on, let it sit for however long it says on the bottle and then just wash it off. And I think that would make a huge difference and protect your siding. Yes, I after I sprayed it, someone's like, you know, you shouldn't do that. I'm like, Oh shoot. I hope I didn't destroy the, the what do you call it?

Can't think of the word, but the OSB I'm thinking of the technical term, but it's what you put on your house that's underneath of the siding. 

Seth: [00:32:01] I, and I don't remember what it's called either. 

Serena: [00:32:04] I'm having a brain fart, but I know it's OSB. Although most people don't know it by OSB.

okay. so on the inside, what are some things that people can do? Because the first thing that I mentioned to you earlier today, I was like I heard someone talk about this in the real estate investing field. She said, no matter what you do to the bathroom, always get beautiful fixtures, spend you spend your money on the fixtures, because those are the things that I'm going to stereotype here, that women, mainly women will come into the bathroom and say, oh my gosh, look at this shower, faucet, head, or look at these, look at these faucets.

They just look so beautiful. So those are great for a bathroom and a kitchen, but are there some other things like in the bathroom and kitchens that people generally like? 

yeah, I think the important things are, right off the bat, when you come in is the wall, the paint, it makes sure that you have fresh paint.

Seth: [00:32:50] I think nowadays, cool colors are in like light, light, gray, you know, cream colors like that.  You can do that yourself. I think, in the bathroom, like what you were talking about. they got really nice little vanities that you can get for 200 bucks Replace a vanity make sure that you have, good.

paint in the bathroom. I got a good toilet for my townhouse for, it was a good thing. 99 bucks. It's a great toilet. That's not bad, stuff like that. it makes sure your lighting's are good. Your fixtures are relatively inexpensive. You can go to Home Depot, pick out nice fixtures that go with the room, whether it's a bathroom or, the dining room.

Serena: [00:33:23] You know, there was something that I did to my own bathroom and I did it to a neighbor. Is I actually painted my shower

Seth: [00:33:29] You painted your shower? 

Serena: [00:33:30] Yes. Now, when I say painted, it was like an epoxy paint. And I was redoing my bathroom, my master bathroom.

And I had actually had somebody come in to give me a quote on, Hey, how much would it be to do like beautiful tile? Let me tell you, I've got a shower stall. So it's three by three. It's not a large shower area. But I said, I would love to get like a glass door and maybe some tile here up to the ceiling.

How much would that be? He said $6,000. I was like, oh no, no, no, no, we're not doing that. And ironically, there was a company that reached out to me, literally that same month that I was working on my bathroom and they said, Hey, we make this epoxy paint for painting your shower. We'll send it to you

if you want to use it. As a blogger, as a YouTuber, I get a lot of companies reaching out, just offering me quote, unquote free stuff. It's not free because I'm actually working on it, takes time to put video and blog post together. But let me tell you, Seth, it has been, I want to say it was 2017.

 It's been almost four years since I painted quote unquote, painted that shower. And it still looks just as good as when I did it the first time. The only thing there's a couple small chips that I believe I did. This was a couple of years ago because of the little metal drain thing that goes in there that I think I scraped it up, but the shower still looks good, and I put it on my YouTube channel and.

I think the kit only costs maybe a hundred dollars. So I think for $200, they sent two kits. I was able to paint the shower and I think that's a great option for people who want to spruce up their bathroom, whether or not you're moving or not. but you just have to follow all the rules, right? Like you can't take any shortcuts.

You have to make sure you follow all the prep and it'll last, it'll last. I think I'll tell you the name of it. They're not a current sponsor, but it's called Bath Works. So I will leave a link down below for some of the things that we talked about in this podcast. But I think that's a great way

if you are one of the unfortunate people who have one of these 1970s, avocado green or pink or gold, some people actually like that, but I just, I don't like it. I don't think it looks good. You can paint it epoxy it and it'll last for years to come. And I think that’s. A great way to add some value to your bathroom, but not spend a lot of money.

What about like other parts of the rooms, like bedrooms? are there any features that people tend to really like? 

 I think the main important parts of the listing and what people are looking for is, the kitchen of course, and the master bedroom and bathroom, I think are extremely important.

maybe the most important so you want to have nice countertops, you have old countertops and listing the buyer knows that they're going to have to change them. So you're looking to get the most, you can get nicer countertops.  I've been seeing investors who are doing really nice renovations and selling for top dollar in the neighborhood using quartz.

Seth: [00:36:20] Quartz is a lot better than laminate. the pricing is good. it looks great. Bigger sinks, the sinks are relatively inexpensive. People want big sinks now. You got a smaller sink; you may want to think about changing that with a bigger sink. I'm sure you guys appreciate it, and all the cooking you have to do and all you have to do Those are important.

yeah, I think like what you said, the fixtures. The fixtures in the kitchen. you've got to have a nice fixture in the kitchen. instead of changing out your cabinets, paint them, like you said, you probably have to use some special sort of paint for certain types of cabinets, but you do it right,

it totally changes the look of your kitchen. I have some Brown cabinets in here that I've been talking to a couple of my contracting buddies about painting. like a weathered white, something like that look way fresher, something like that. Yeah. And then, the same thing in the master bath, just like what we talked about in the bathroom a couple of minutes ago, have a nice vanity, hopefully, maybe two vanities, because you may have, probably going to have a husband and a wife, showers that same epoxy that you were just talking about.

I don't know if you remember from social media. My Silver spring on West View Drive was a complete renovation flip and and that's what my owner did. The contractor guys did that epoxy instead of changing out all the tiles, it saved us several thousand dollars. You're right. it looked great.

We, we got, almost got list price for it. and we went high, we listed it very high. that's good. And then, yeah, you want to have a nice-looking shower curtain if you don't have a glass shower, that's relatively inexpensive. and then yeah, a nice sink fixtures are important. There's a lot of stuff that you can do what you're talking about for relatively inexpensive that really make a big deal on how a listing looks. 

Serena: [00:37:51] Yeah. You know, one of the things that I had done here in the basement was put some new flooring. And I think a lot of times when people think about flooring, they think that they have to rip out all the old flooring and that it's this difficult thing.

But the flooring that I used, I don't remember the brand. I'll have to leave the link down below, but I just got it from Home Depot. And it's a vinyl flooring that literally just clicks together and it's water resistant. So if you put it down in a lower level, if you do have a flood or something down there, you might just have to replace a section.

And it's something that you can do yourself. You don't need any big tools. Really all you need is like just a utility knife. Pretty much to cut it and there's tutorials on how to do that. And if you're thinking about the flooring, definitely go with something. that's just like a click.

And here's the thing. A lot of times, if your flooring is in good condition, you can go over the existing flooring. You don't have to rip out the old flooring. So like in the basement here, we had these old linoleum tiles, which I think they're ugly. Some people like them, but they're very industrial looking, which I don't like.

I wanted this area to have a homier feel and now it does. And it's, it's held up pretty good. I did a pretty good job. So for people who are looking to update the flooring in their bathroom, their kitchen, look into some of this vinyl click flooring that yes, that's what it is like the luxury vinyl planks, they're the planks.

Seth: [00:39:15] More durable than wood. 

Serena: [00:39:17] It's more durable. And in fact, I'm thinking about using this in my kitchen, because right now we've got that old laminate peel and stick stuff, and it's just, it's ugly. It's ugly. It's time to change it.

And I wanted to do well. I wanted to do   ceramic tile, but then I'm like we got three kids. If they drop something, I don't want it to shatter all over the floor. I'd much rather it just be like the luxury vinyl. So that's something that people can do. I'm trying to think if there's any other things that I've done that I would recommend. With painting the cabinets I have done,

in fact, I believe it was episode 12, where I talked about how to get started with painting your first piece of furniture. But everything that I covered in that is still applicable for kitchen cabinets.  A lot of times people think you have to strip cabinets.

But now there's so many good furniture paints on the market that all you have to do is literally just paint right over it. And of course, since it's a kitchen cabinet, you're going to have a little bit more wear and tear because you're going to be grabbing at them. So I would say, do extra coats and then do a topcoat.

You know, usually brands of paint, they have their own topcoat, but I would definitely recommend that. In fact, even in my kitchen, when we moved in, Seth, in 2010, that was an expense I didn't realize we were going to have. So let me tell you, this is so funny. So they were old brown cabinets. Countertop was ugly.

And in my mind, and my DIY mind, I'm thinking, oh this would look great painted. Well, guess, what? When I opened up them things, they smelled so bad, and I tried to scrub them. I really did. I got in there and I sprayed some stuff and I'm scrubbing, and it just made the smell worse. So I said to Kwasi, I was like, we got to get new kitchen cabinets and we may as well get a new countertop.

And so that, that was a good deal. That was like $10,000. So you figure there, we got 14 for the windows, 10,000 for the kitchen. Yeah. I was not expecting that. but it's been 10 years now and they look dated they're dark.  But now that I know how to use tools, I think I'm going to build some new faces, just cabinet faces, leave the boxes and just do cabinet faces and then paint everything maybe white or, gray, so popular, but do some other kinds of color to just brighten everything up in there.

Seth: [00:41:27] I know that you had to spend all that money on the windows and, but I guarantee you that you have saved a lot of money, all the other stuff that you do on your own. 

Serena: [00:41:36] Oh, yes, I have. You have made such a great point. Yes. I've put up crown molding and I don't know if I don't really know how popular crown molding is, but I know that molding on the wall is very popular.

So some people do like a board and batten. That's actually pretty easy to, and all you need is just like an 18-gauge nailer. I mean, it's not that hard to do, especially if you're going to do a small area. That could really transform a space without having to spend a lot of money. And I would recommend that if you're doing like a board and batten, I would do a PVC, board. Don't do like an MDF because it's in a water.

a wet space and that stuff will just blow up. Ask me how I know. but I only did a couple of boards and then someone pointed out like, Hey, you shouldn't use MDF. And then I switched to, the PVC boards and everything has been fine. but those are just some things that people can do.

And I really think that if you get creative and just get comfortable with paint, buy a couple of tools. I did a session or a podcast episode. I think it was the last one. How to get started with power tools, even if you just buy a jigsaw so that if you need to cut something really quick, like you are doing some flooring and you just want to make a quick cut, you can easily do it and be able to save money because you won't have to have someone come in, you can do your own cuts.

So are there any other things that people like, things that you would just really want people to know when they're buying or selling a home? Like any last-minute things that we didn't cover that are important? 

I feel like we covered a lot. As far as, not so much the physical aspects of a home, we could do a whole ‘nother show on bidding in this market against other offers, but that's not what really what we're getting into.

But yeah, you touched on so many of the important things, regarding, the foundation, water, mold issues, looking at the roof knowing how old the appliances are that maybe that's something we didn't talk about. You want to know the age of the appliances. the thing about the appliances is so a lot of agents and a lot of buyers and homeowners they think differently about what's known as a home warranty.

I know you've probably heard of a home warranty, sometimes that can offset the age of an older, basically the idea of a home warranty is own warranty company, if something breaks down, we'll come out, look at it. Repair it if it can be repaired or replace it for free, if it needs to be replaced, then maybe you got to pay him a come-out fee of a hundred bucks or 150.

But I find them to be complicated. Sometimes there probably are some good companies out there, like maybe HMS, AHS, if you have an old appliance, you have a 20-year-old water heater, expect it to go down soon. Yes. I'm thinking it was serviced last, 

Yeah. I'm glad that you mentioned the home warranty because I think that is something, me personally,

I think that is something that could help to mitigate some of the risk of when you're buying. Especially if you're just buying and you're just like, I just need to get this house. I'm not going to get an inspection. I don't even care about the appliances. I just need this house. And with my experience with a home warranty it hasn't really been that expensive. For us, it's $75 to have them come out. And then of course you have your monthly fee. And when I was looking at it the other day because I was preparing for taxes, we've got a rental property and I was adding up all the costs and I'm like, wow. Okay. So I've spent was it $700?

About $700 for the year. And I thought, I don't think I called them this year. That's $700 that I could have pocketed, put it into another account in case something happens. So I do understand that there is a benefit to possibly not having one, but I think honestly, I think if you are a first-time home buyer, if you are someone who likes being able to just call someone and have someone come out and it's not going to cost you a ton of money, get the home warranty.

And that will hopefully help to mitigate some of that risk of buying a home that may have old appliances. But I think if you're someone who's, let's say, maybe you've got some money in the bank. You don't necessarily need to pay someone, every month, like American home shield, that's who we use to, to be there for you because I got this.

we can pay to get a 600, $700hot water heater if necessary. And here's the thing that with those home warranties, this is one thing I don't like about them is that they'll cover certain parts of the installation, but you got to take care of certain connections and things that aren't.

So even though they might cover the hot water heater, Oh, there's $400 that you got to pay because those connections are not covered. That actually happened to us. And I think it was, it might've been the HVAC and I was like, wait a minute. So I'm still paying all this money out of pocket. 

Seth: [00:46:12] Yeah. Hey, they're like insurance, they're going to like insurance. 

Serena: [00:46:17] But I really do think that if you're someone who is operating on a budget and you don't have a lot of money to weather an unexpected $2,000, replacement, or I say 2000. Hot water heaters can be, let's say the same, maybe a thousand dollars.

I'm just saying, and HVAC. When we had to get ours replaced, I think it would have been about five, $6,000. So yes. Get the home warranty to mitigate any risk, if you don't have the money to cover a cost a breakdown or yeah, for one of your appliances.

So tell people where they can find you. If they're looking, if they're in the DMV area, they're looking to buy a house. So looking to sell a house, how can they contact Seth Haskins? Where can they find you, 

Seth: [00:46:58] You if you can find me anywhere and everywhere BayardRealEstate on social media you can call me on my cell phone. It's (703) 675-7660. I don't live in Virginia. I just have a Virginia number because I used to, and just for business, I never changed it.

I've had it for 15 years or email, which you'll give him too. And I will respond quickly, whether you just want to talk about real estate or anything else, I'm here. 

Serena: [00:47:27] And maybe we'll have you come back. Maybe we'll have you come back because I think the topic that you brought up is actually pretty good.

How do you go about a bitty, more like how do you get a foot in the door so that you have an option or an opportunity to get this home when things are so tight. Now let me ask you this. do you see an end in sight with this seller's market and is it all brought on because of the pandemic?

  What's fueling this, frenzy 

Seth: [00:47:51] right now. No, I don't know if it was the pandemic actually caused a pretty big scare, I think with a lot of Realtors, and, March, April, May, for me, I was very slow. I was worried in those three months. And then I guess maybe towards the middle end of May, things just started going haywire.

People were getting back out, it was after what, 90 days or something. And then it just went crazy. And I think that's when it started, maybe it would have started sooner if not for the pandemic. I don't, I, but I can't say that the pandemic caused it. I'm sure that there's a bunch of different opinions on this, but I hope we keeps up.

It's hard to get people a house. A lot of builders out there are building a neighborhoods and new homes are being fixed up, but materials are slow to come because of COVID. That takes longer, but I hope that everything falls into place and there's new homes and new building and renovated homes being done so that these buyers who were trying to buy can find homes for them and their families.

Serena: [00:48:49] And can I tell you the materials shortage is a real thing. I'm building a closet right now, a closet organizer, and I went to two Home Depots looking for wood. I was looking for half-inch plywood, I'm building some drawers for this organizer. I couldn't find it.  The shelves were like empty.

You couldn't find any, even three-quarter inch plywood, if you just wanted to make something, it's just not there. So I can imagine the builders might be struggling right now, too, because just being able to get a shipment of things as quickly as they did before, it's just, it's not happening. So everything-- yeah. It's the trickle down of COVID, I believe that's affecting everything. 

Okay, Seth. this was amazing talking to you, and we will have all your information down below, all the topics, the links, anything that we have talked about, there will be a link down below, including some of the things that I had mentioned too, about different content that I had posted, painting your shower.

All of that will be down below but thank you so much for joining me and we will definitely have you come back again soon. 

Seth: [00:49:52] You were amazing as well. Have a great weekend, Serena. 

Serena: [00:49:55] Now I want to hear from you. Are you someone who is buying a house? Are you selling a house? Is there something that you heard in this podcast that made you realize, oh my gosh, there's some things I need to do or things that I can do in order to buy the right house, but also to get top dollar for my home. I would love to hear your feedback.

You can always hit me up on email. I do respond personally to everyone who emails me. You can find me Serena@thriftdiving.Com. Also, if you want to hit me up on social media, use the #thriftdivingpodcast, and you can find me on Twitter. You can use it on Instagram, all of those places. I'd love to hear your feedback and know if this is actually helping you with your home buying and home selling.

Also, you have to come back for Episode 15 because we're talking to Michael Rubino, who is the author of The Mold Medic. He also owns a company. I think it's called American Restoration where we're talking about mold. A lot of times there's appliances in our home. There's old leaks and water. Damage that's causing us illness.

We don't even realize our homes are making us sick. So we're talking about mold in the next episode. So it flows nicely from this episode into the next, especially if you're buying a house, you have to be able to know what you're buying. And if you already have your house, you got to know it's not making you sick.

Also again, I want to thank everybody who has contributed to my sister's GoFundMe. If you'd like to contribute, it's not too late. We appreciate every single dollar. We thank you so much. You can find that GoFundMe link down below and also the PayPal link and the cash app. All of those funds go directly to my sister.

Of course GoFundMe take some fees. But aside from that, she's getting all of that money, every single dollar to help her get through this cancer treatment. So thank you for thinking of our family and we appreciate it. So we will see you next episode.