Episode 1: Introduction

Scott Williams: Sweet Home Santa Barbara. Where the skies are so blue. Sweet Home Santa Barbara. What’s work for me can work for you.

Jonathan Robinson: Welcome friends to Sweet Home Santa Barbara. I’m Jonathan Robinson and I’m with my friend and realtor, Scott Williams. Hi Scott.

Scott: Welcome home! Jonathan.

Jonathan: It’s good to do this podcast with you. I want to give our listeners a sense of what Sweet Home Santa Barbara will be about. And this is like episode zero where we talk about what we’ll be talking about in future episodes and why it’s worth listening to.

You’ve been a friend of mine and a realtor for about 30 years. So, I have personal experience of your gifts and your abilities, and they made a huge difference in my life. I owe most of my riches to you, so I’ll talk about that a little bit. But on this podcast, what do you see as what you’re trying to do for your listeners?

Scott: Well, everybody’s home when it goes up for sale turns from being your castle, which is exactly what it should be, into a product that people react to when they come to see it. And so, we’re going to be talking about the transformation from your castle into something that’s for sale.

Jonathan: Yeah, and it can make a huge difference. I know when I had my home for sale, you did a lot of staging, actually, called in your construction people, and did this all while I was in a different town. The price that we ended up selling for my house for was, I think I made a 300% increase in price in 10 years partly through your help, which was pretty good stuff for me. That made a difference in my life. What is the type of stuff that you do for people when staging or getting their house ready for sale?

Scott: Well, staging’s a wonderful word. It’s gone from 20 years ago when we talked about the whole process of getting ready for selling a home. And these days, it’s a little bit more concentrated on just the furnishings of the home because there are state jurors who do that. We’re going to definitely explore that. That’s an area that produces about a 500% increase from the cost of the staging to what’s netted by the owner of the property. So, we will be covering staging.

Jonathan: Well, let me just mention something there. Five hundred percent, that means if somebody puts in like $100 or no, a $1000 into that particular area. Within like a couple of months, they’re getting a 500% return on their investment. That’s mind-blowing. And when you do that with a lot of different things, it’s almost like printing money.

Scott: Well, that’s the outcome that we’re looking for. In Santa Barbara, it’s closer to spending $5000 on a 2500 square-foot home that could easily produce a $25000 return. However, we have some parts of town, we’ll be talking about Montecito. That’s a very expensive part of Santa Barbara where staging can produce a $100,000 increase in the price of the house for just that one aspect of the home. So, we’re going to be talking about things that produce a very high return and are well worth looking into.

Jonathan: In a short period of time, too. We’re not talking years. We’re talking about weeks, maybe months at the most and it’s relatively easy to do. One of the things I appreciate about you as a realtor is that you coordinated all that. I was basically just, “Yeah, sure. Let’s do that.” And the return was incredibly impressive. So, by listening to this podcast, what tips will people be getting?

Scott: Well, we’ll take a look at something that everybody can really make money from and that’s the color of your front door. Studies have shown that the color of your front door can increase the price of your house by over 1%. If you have a million-dollar home, that’s $10,000 for picking the right color.

Jonathan: That’s amazing and there’s a lot of these little things. It’s really kind of almost like a science and the fact that you’ve been in the business for 30 or 40 years?

Scott: More than 40 years.

Jonathan: Wow, and it’s always changing, too. It’s not like, what worked 20 years ago works today, necessarily. Is that right?

Scott: Oh, there’s definitely an evolution. We are subject to the whole world of fashion. Things come and go. Darker colors. Lighter colors. We’ll discuss the ins and outs of that and how to stay up to speed on how those things change.

Jonathan: What other types of topics do you think that we’ll be covering in this podcast? I think we’re going to limit it to 10 minutes or less each time.

Scott: That’s right. Well, they all fall into the area of how someone reacts to your home. A lot of the reactions of your home happen right up front. It’s what’s up front that counts at home. And we’ll be covering all the things that take place between the front door of your house and out on the street. Where people park as they’re coming up to the home, there are a lot of things that we’ll put into that area of the home. We say, as people get to the backyard, they’ve already bought it. So, we front-load a lot of the way we approach a house.

Jonathan: Yeah, and something that I think is important when talking about real estate is really the relationship. How to develop a good relationship with your realtor and how to stay sane in that whole process because it can be a pretty stressful time in a person’s life. I know that you are very supportive of me and made it as easy as possible. And there are some things that sellers can do that make it difficult to sell and some things that sellers do that make it really easy for both the realtor and the buyers. Is that right?

Scott: Jonathan, you were really easy to work with. Because you took these things as they were useful, and you made really good money from them. There are a lot of television programs out there, a lot of information about preparing homes. And people are at least prepared for the conversation.

You will learn things during our podcast that whichever realtor you use will increase your conversation, and your connection with them and cover things that really should be covered in the process of preparing your home for sale. It was great working with you, and this will give information to anybody that they can use with their own realtor.

Jonathan: That sounds great. Any last words before we say how people can contact you or get more information?

Scott: Well, I hope that everybody enjoys the podcast as much as I’m sure we’re going to do putting this together for people. So, welcome home!

Jonathan: To Santa Barbara. If you’re lucky enough to live or buy a home in Santa Barbara, it’s nice to know how to profit from it. And how to sometimes get returns on your time and investment that are truly astronomical and life changing. If people want to contact you, I know they can go to your email, which is scott@scottwilliams.com. And you have a website too, right?

Scott: scottwilliams.com will also get you to me.

Jonathan: I liked how your website had a lot of useful information on it. It’s not just selling. It’s really going into some of these subjects, as well. And when dealing with perhaps the largest financial situation in a person’s life, the more information you have, the more comfortable you are, and the better it tends to go.

So, Scott and I look forward to presenting these every so often so you can benefit. Feel free to pass it on to your friends and family if they’re thinking of buying or selling a home. We look forward to being part of your movement into real estate or out of a real estate and into a more comfortable situation in Santa Barbara. Thanks for listening.

Scott: Thank you, Jonathan! We’ll do this together. This is great.

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 2 free E-booklets “Is my House Saleable Now” and “How Not to Buy a Money Pit”. Thank you for listening.