Episode 2: Front Door

Scott Williams: Sweet Home Santa Barbara, where the skies are so blue. Sweet Home Santa Barbara, what’s worked for me can work for you.

Jonathan Robinson: Welcome back, friends, to Sweet Home Santa Barbara. I’m Jonathan Robinson, your host. I’m with my friend, realtor, and all-around good guy, Scott Williams. How are you doing, Scott?

Scott Williams: Hey, Jonathan. I’m doing great today.

Jonathan: What’s the topic for today?

Scott: The topic for today, we’re going to go take a walk out the front door of the house. We’re going to stand across the street, stand on the sidewalk if there’s a sidewalk over there. We’re going to look back at your house. We’re going to start right there.

Jonathan: First impressions from the street to the door.

Scott: From the street to the door, we’ve talked a little bit about this. We’ve given some good tips in this area, but there’s a few things still to cover in this very important area.

Jonathan: What’s the number one tip that you’d like to talk about in terms of first impressions?

Scott: Well, the way that you live in your home or be in your castle, and the way you sell your home being different. We’re going to look at this through the eyes of a buyer rather than the owner. If you’re the buyer of this home and you’re arriving in the front, you would like to see the home. That might be different than what the seller has in mind.

Jonathan: Yes. You might want to trim plants or bushes so that there’s actually less privacy, but it creates a better first impression.

Scott: That’s entirely true, Jonathan. That is the essence of what we need to deal with here. We want to be able to see an open pathway or walkway up to the front door if possible.

Jonathan: Yes, that makes sense. What else does people walk from the street to the door?

Scott: Well, we want the walkway or the pathway that goes up to the front door to be clear. Any plants that might be overhanging the surface of the walkway need to be trimmed back and probably push back further than you might want to do for yourself. But for the showing purposes, we want that pathway quite clear.

Jonathan: We’ve already talked about colors and such like that, but people might have painted their house two, three, or four years ago. Is that good enough? How fresh does the paint have to be?

Scott: That’s a good question, and people bring that up pretty regularly. I just painted my house. Paint is really fresh for one year. It’s completely used up by the time you’ve got to five years. If you want to have the house glowing, we need to have paint fresh within less than one year, and better, a couple of weeks.

Jonathan: Wow. In a certain way, you might think your house is totally look remodeled, but other people might look at it as a fixer upper.

Scott: That’s true. The whole process of what is a fixer-upper and what’s fixed up is a great deal of what we’re dealing with here. In Santa Barbara, we have different rules for different parts of town. These are mostly along the lines of how expensive the home is.

Jonathan: Tell me a little bit more. How old or new is a house before it’s a fixer-upper?

Scott: Well, let’s start with Montecito, our most expensive area of town or Hope Ranch. In these areas, people often hire designers and contractors. Their kitchen gets to be about 12 years old, and they know that there’s newer and better materials, better appliances, better design features. By the 12th year, it’s very common in these neighborhoods to redo the kitchen. A kitchen that is 15 years old in these areas is definitely viewed as a fixer-upper that needs to be replaced.

Jonathan: Wow. My 40-year-old kitchen probably will not pass the test as a new kitchen.

Scott: Fixer-upper, that is. [laughter] Even if it’s a very nice 40-year-old kitchen, it’s a fixer-upper in the minds of the buyers.

Jonathan: Right. Is that different for houses say in Santa Barbara – Goleta?

Scott: Yes. In Santa Barbara, that 12-year rule from Montecito turns into about a 20-year rule. In Goleta, it’s probably between 25 and 30, which brings up I call it the 20 to 50-year-old rule. This means that a home that has a 20-year-old kitchen, in the minds of buyers, is the same as a house that has a 50-year-old kitchen. In both cases, the buyer, as they acquire the home, are thinking to themselves, on their nickel, they will be putting in a new kitchen.

Jonathan: Is it worth… It cost a lot to put in a new kitchen. Is it worth it for a seller to put in a new kitchen or is that something that you don’t get a good return on investment?

Scott: Well, it takes a lot of time, and it takes a lot of money. It’s one of the more expensive items that you can plan to do. It takes a lot of time, very disruptive. Those other factors in or into just the style of life of the seller, a kitchen generally does return, but a very large percentage of sellers say, “How can we make this kitchen be as attractive as possible?” And then we carry on from there. We take a look at the cabinets. If they’re wood cabinets, we think about maybe refinishing them. If they’re not in very good condition, we’re very likely to recommend painting them.

Jonathan: I know you did that with my old house. It didn’t cost very much money. I wish I had done it before because it went from looking like a kitchen from the stone age to one that looked pretty nice. It was basically just a paint job.

Scott: Just a paint job will get a kitchen through probably four or five years before the people say, “Oh gosh. We got to replace it.” That’s a really good stopping spot or cutting spot in the what-to-do — to paint it as you pass it along to the next people. A lot of people decide to do that.

Jonathan: Yes. Any last hints or tips regarding first impressions from the street to the door?

Scott: Well, let me talk about trees, trees for just a second. If you think about a tree as a woman’s skirt and the bottom of the skirt is her hem line, in order to see through into a house, we often times skirt the tree. We raise the hemline. In other words, we cut the tree back till it’s, maybe eight or 10 feet in the air, clear, so that you can see through to the house. That’s a good thing to do. Why don’t we leave it with that for the front of the house for today?

Jonathan: Okay. I know when I worked with you, that you took care of all these things. You knew the people. You knew the contractor. You knew the landscapers. I was in a different city at the time. That’s one of the services you offer, right?

Scott: That’s true. We organized this whole process. In fact, let’s talk about this in our next podcast.

Jonathan: Sounds good. how do people get a hold of you?

Scott: At scott@scottwilliams.com.

Jonathan: Sounds good. Thanks for listening to us. We’ll catch you in the next episode.

Voiceover – Scott: Thank you for listening. Please subscribe to our podcast on your favorite app. If you know someone preparing to sell their home, please tell them about the podcast. Visit scottwilliams.com to contact me and download the two free E-Booklets — “Is My House Saleable Now” and “How Not to Buy a Money Pit”. Thank you for listening.