This is the ongoing saga of our experiences building a beautiful Modern Chateau in Atherton. Live the process vicariously with us as we do this together in real-time…

Part 9: Shouting From the Rooftops!

December 20, 2022

We’ve got a nearly completed house. But everything until now has been cost: how do we actually transform a mostly finished construction site into profit? In past blog posts we’ve detailed acquiring the land, design, foundation, framing, guts, walls, materials, and finishing. But now we bridge a bit from the developer role to the realtor one; how do you actually get the word out about this thing we’ve been building, present it in its best light, and say goodbye to our baby? Read on, dear friend. Our saga is nearing the end!

Completing Construction

There was a lot of blowtorch and metal sparks action near the end

The end of building a house is a hectic time. Landscaping (everything between the house walls and the property line) always comes in fast and furious at the end. The most breakable stuff, like shower glass and lighting fixtures, are installed inside the house. A whole range of issues appear:

· Unexpected problems appear (“the sewer lateral is not where the old plans said it would be; we need a new one!”)

· Small mistakes need correction (“we forgot to put little grooves for water draining from this part of the lightwell to that part”)

· Design changes occur on the fly (“the railings won’t fit in like we expected them to; we need a new design”)

· Supply chain issues (“we only have 7 of the 8 AC condensers”)

· Vendor availability issues (“That fireplace surround design is too hard; I know I said I would do it but I just won’t”)

Some problems can be fixed by money, while others are fun blend of design compromise, technical feasibility, and cost-control.

We triaged the “punch list” (all the remaining things that should be done) into 3 categories: those that needed to be done for photography (ie – “we really need the countertop on the outdoor kitchen”), those necessary for Final Approval (“procure that missing AC condenser somehow!”), and those which are cosmetic, but reach the quality bar we want (“paint the baseboard in the pantry one more time please”).

Permits and Finalling

You can sell an un-finalled house, but it would be nicer for everyone’s sanity if the house were fully and completely done per anyone who has a say in the matter. To any developer’s distress, the list of people who have a veto on this is distressingly long.

There are tons of things you need approval from someone to do. Want to tear up the street to connect your plumbing to the City? You need a permit for that. There are Town and County groups who want things to be inspected, signed, notartized, and recorded. Fees need to be paid. Sometimes the paperwork changes or gets snarled up in some bureaucratic limbo (though the Town of Atherton is actually amazingly good compared to anywhere else in the area!). There are over 100 inspections that need to be scheduled and passed. Sometimes these get rescheduled. Sometimes they have concerns that need addressing.

Working this system is hard, unappreciated, and frustrating. But it is essential. When everything else happens, the Town will “final” your property. An angel descends from heaven, waves a magic wand, and the house is bathed in a heavenly warm glow for ever after. We cancel the construction insurance.

Hooray, we are a residence and not a construction site!

Marketing Plan

We generated a marketing plan that detailed all documentation needed to sell the property, when out various media assets would be created, and how we were going to get the word out.

When it is a construction site, our amazing general contractor Greg would be like the conductor of the orchestra, deciding (and incentivizing and cajoling and begging and threatening) who did what job on site when. But now we come in as realtors and start to insist on our own activities. Our vendors are often more booked up that the important subcontractors… but the house is not fully done. So there is a lot of give and take about “who gets the home”, and team communication becomes critical.

Staging

Once the workers are (mostly) out, we can deep clean the new house and stage it. This is tasteful rented furniture that gives prospective buyers a sense of how a space will look when being lived in. Staging design is very deliberate and calculated to convey a “blank canvas” where busy people can imprint their lives. A staged house is more sparse, clean, and trendy than the way most people live. Stagng well is an art; we’ve seen houses that are unstaged (or staged with the owner’s furniture) languish, but then get staged and sell quickly.

Staging almost 10,000 square feet of house is expensive, but worth it; a staged house typically sells for 10% more than an unstaged one. Why? As it turns out, most people are not so great at imagining whether a queen bed would fit in a bedroom, or how much space would be left over once a couch goes into a living room. And emotionally, a staged house suggests “home” and “lifestyle”, while an unstaged home is too much of a blank canvas for most.

Marketing Execution

We are always proud when we get to put up the beautiful blue Sotheby’s International Realty sign!

In an intricate dance, the following happens: shoot photography, shoot videography, shoot 3D tour, draw floorplans, write text, make QR codes, edit video, secure a domain name, build a website, design and print brochures, design online ads, create custom riders for the signpost, create a poster for the office foot traffic, design and distribute postcards, design magazine and newspaper ads, create a MLS listing, put up a signpost, launch the website, and finally launch the listing.

Then, once the property is launched, we: distribute videos, syndicate the property globally, get on the weekly tour sheet, host a broker tour, host a neighbor party, host a realtor party, host a friends/clients/vendors party, ensure neighbors are happy about all these parties, manage the online ad campaign, push to gain additional exposure within Sotehby’s International Realty.

The Sotheby’s brand has helped us tremendously; as 60 Shearer is being used in several brokerage ads in Silicon Valley, being in rotation on homepage of the global www.sothebysrealty.com site (46,000,000 views/year), and being honored as Extraordinary Property of the Day, and entered into the prestigious “Collection” program, which markets to high-end auction house clients.

Oh, and we also need to manage a house, including cleaning, gardening, garbage, insurance, utilities, and any leftover worker visits or inspections.

Phew!

Perhaps most importantly, we started showing the property by private appointment. Each showing is 20 minutes of “opening” the house (turning on lights, opening doors, uncovering the pool, turning on TVs and fireplaces, picking up leaves and dirt and vacuuming as needed), 30-60 minutes of guided tour customized to the needs and wants of that buyer, and then shutting down again. And then we contact with the other realtor about what the buyer really thought, what else they are looking at, and any intel we can gain.

Our goal is to have perfect omniscience about how our property relates to all the interested buyers and all of the plausible competition, so that we can be well-informed about whether the eventual offer is attractive, or who else is out there who would want to compete once the first offer comes in.