The Secret to Real Estate Success

New York’s mayor through the devastating Sept 11 attacks (and later Time Magazine Person of the Year) Rudi Giuliana extols the virtues of “relentless preparation” - and whilst the concept of real estate preparation is a world away from the serious big-picture preparation he was referring to, I completely agree with his core message.

When you invest your time to prepare today, you are better rewarded tomorrow.
The message applies to all aspects of your life.  You wouldn’t go to a job interview with unwashed hair and dishevelled clothes - and nor should you adopt a casual approach to your real estate sale.  Preparation is relatively easy to achieve in our industry, especially when you’ve got a trained eye and a trained, motivated implementation team on the job.    

Whenever I meet prospective vendors, I reiterate to them the importance of investing time (and sometimes money) into the preparation they undertake for the sale.  It’s fair to say that sometimes preparation can be uncomfortable and maybe even a little confronting – but the short term pain is soon forgotten when the euphoria of a signed sale document is experienced. 

What motivates me to take this “preparation, preparation, preparation” approach?  As some may know, I used to work in risk management and so I apply many of the theories learned there to this job – anticipating problems that the vendor may not even see. It might be that the carpet needs replacing in the main entrance way, or the bathroom needs a lick of paint.  While largely unnoticed by the vendors, I know that it will be one of the first things observed by the prospective buyers.  More critically, I know that left ‘as is’, the sales value may be negatively affected. 

Once identified as a priority – and agreed by the vendor, then I run the preparation phase like a military operation.  These days I have excellent assistance in preparing homes for sale. Jacqui Cook, of Helping Hands, is my trouble-shooting project manager and she is great at getting people on board and making the action happen.  Having Jacqui on my team allows me to go about my prep work, undertaking comparative market analysis and deciding on best practice advertising, all the while knowing that the behind-the-scenes requirements are being expertly taken care of.

Preparation and teamwork – that’s the secret to real estate success and that’s the process we adopt when working for you.