Real Estate Blog

We had to share our latest client testimonial written by a very happy client that allowed us to work with him to sell the very home that we also helped him buy a few years ago.

"Eddie is the guy in Black Mountain, period. If you're buying or selling a home and don't use him you're crazy."

Bottom line: We netted over $30K more selling our house than if we had used another realtor. Here are the details:

We bought a house in Cheshire in 2013 for $581K. Eddie was our buyers agent then, and did a great job. But when our plans changed and we decided to sell the house 4 years later, we talked to 3 well-respected realtors (including Eddie). Our guess was that it would make sense to list the house for $650K, then if we got lucky we'd end up with an offer near that, and after paying realtor commissions and a few minor repairs (that are always needed after buyer inspection), we'd probably break even on the house, or maybe make a little. We didn't suggest the selling price to any of the realtors- we wanted to see what THEY suggested.

The first two realtors suggested exactly what we thought made sense--list the house for $650K, and see what happens. When we asked if we should "freshen" the house with new carpet and interior paint (both probably about ten years old), both advised against spending money on that, saying the buyers would want to choose their own colors, etc. That seemed to make sense to us, too. Then Eddie came over.

He said, "Do you want to know what I really think?" Obviously, we did. He said that we had a gorgeous house, but it really didn't come off that way. The paint and carpet were old and probably dated. We had furnished the house with our older furniture from our main house in Ohio, and added some Ikea things. Eddie said we should hire a staging company to select modern paint and carpet colors, and we should have them "stage" the home with nice furniture, artwork, etc. He said if we did that, he was confident in pricing the house at $700K. I thought that price was high, but it hadn't made sense to me that the other realtors didn't want us to paint the house and do carpet- it just looked "worn-out." Who wants to buy an expensive house that looks "worn-out"?

So, we went with Eddie. Hired the staging company he recommended, who chose paint and carpet, and redecorated the home with some our furnishings, and some new furniture and artwork added. Then we held our breath. It's not unusual for high-end vacation homes in Black Mountain to take a year or more to sell--there's just not a lot of buyers at those prices. We were confident we had made the right decision, the house looked GORGEOUS, but knew it might still take a long time to sell. Eddie also did great marketing, including great photos, a nice color brochure, even an online walk-through. And of course, he did open houses for both realtors and potential buyers. Several people looked at the house, some more than once. But no nibbles.

And then, after only a couple months, we had not only an offer, but a FULL PRICE offer. And, yes, it was a real buyer. After the inspection, there were a few minor repairs needed to make the buyer happy, and we gladly paid for those (since we don't live in the area, Eddie actually arranged and managed the repairs for us). Then we closed. The buyer is very happy, and so are we! We sold the house for $50,000 more than the other two realtors would have listed it for. After deducting the cost of the paint and carpet (which I bet we would have ended up doing anyway if we had gone with another realtor) and the staging fee, we netted about $30,000 more by using Eddie. Not because he simply wanted to try to sell our home for a higher price, but because he had a detailed, logical plan to make the house more desirable.