Episode 3: First Impressions

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. I am Jonathan Robinson, and we are back with Sweet Home Santa Barbara. I’m with my friend and realtor, Scott Williams. How are you doing, Scott? 

Scott Williams: Good afternoon, Jonathan. It’s wonderful to be with you.  

Jonathan: Well, I’m excited today for our first official podcast other than Episode 0 where we talked about what the podcast covers. In this podcast, we’re going to talk about some of the most important and easiest ways to increase the value of your house. That is a little bit about curb appeal and especially about the front door. What can you tell us about the importance of curb appeal and the front door, Scott? 

Scott: Well, curb appeal is more than kneeling at the curb, appealing for people to buy your home. We’re going to get into the some of the concretes of what to do with the front of your house. We will say many times in this session that it’s what’s up front that counts. That’s entirely true about real estate. 

Jonathan: One of the first things people see when they go to a house is the front door, of course. I don’t normally think that the front door is going to make a huge difference in whether I like a house, but evidently, I don’t know what I’m talking about. I know that you’ve talked about this. There’s statistics that show that putting attention on things like the front door color, the condition, and all these small things can make a huge difference. Is that right? 

Scott: Well, I’ve observed thousands of people as they arrived at the front door in the house to go and inspect the home. What I have noticed is that something happens at the front door when you first arrive on your first look at the house. That is really worth remarking about and doing something about. What I have observed is that people have a meter in their mind of how much they liked that house. The meter sets about one step inside the front door. 

Jonathan Wow. What kind of return on investment do you think people typically make when they deal with the stuff around the front door and the actual front door? 

Scott: Well because that meter setting tells a person how much they like the house… It’s not something they do consciously. Most people don’t. But because that is the moment where they’re deciding I like it, I don’t like it, I like it a lot, that’s really important that you’re in fluency at that moment. 

Jonathan: It’s almost hard to put a dollar value because it might be that makes the whole difference between whether they make an offer or not.  

Scott: That’s true. My experience with this is that it takes about an hour with that property before that meter moves from where it was set the first time. There’s a lot of money riding on how they like the house in that first moment.  

Jonathan: What are the things that people can do that might influence that first minute? 

Scott: Well, the place where it starts, we’re going to back up from the front door. We’re going to back up across the front yard to the car, where the buyer and their realtor have gotten out of the car and they’re walking up to the front door. The front door is the target that you were aiming at, but there is the passage through the front yard that’s also important. 

Jonathan: You want to work on landscaping. We’ll probably talk about that in another episode. As they approach the front door, what are some of the things that people can do right in that space right there? 

Scott: Well, you want to basically clear a path to the front door. Oftentimes, people will have their trees, bushes, shrubs that’s concealing the home from the street because they want privacy. A lot of times, that’s a good idea. However, I will modify that idea to set your home as up for sale. It’s no longer your castle. You want to have it ways that are going to appeal to the buyer. To be able to park the car in front of the house and look out and see the home or most of the home from the street is important to a lot of people.  

Jonathan: Having some good gardener, landscaper, or yourself really make sure that it’s picture-perfect when people drive up. And then, they walk up to the front door. There are things like the welcome mat. There’s the color of the door. There are other things. What can you comment about that? 

Scott: Well, we do put a lot of emphasis on the color of the door. We know from the studies from Zillow, they studied about 100,000 house sales and they eliminated all the factors except the color of the front door. There’s a lot of statistical ways to do that. They found that color of the front door, if it was painted black, would influence the price upward for the home sales price by more than 1%. That is the most remarkable of all the colors. We also do use reds and yellows, which are a little bit more of a standout color, but black is the color that has the statistics to say best color to paint your house’s front door.  

Jonathan: One percent on a million-dollar house is I think it’s $10,000.  

Scott: That’s right. It’s $50,000 on a five-million-dollar house, which we have here in Santa Barbara. This can be an important item. 

Jonathan: Wow. It’s amazing that small things like that can make such a difference. Any research on a nice mat or welcome mat? Is that something that makes difference at all? 

Scott: it does make a difference. What’s important about that is it doesn’t say, “Welcome.” It doesn’t say, “I’d rather be boating,” or what other choices that you might have. I saw one recently that the front door that says, “Our neighbors have better stuff.” That’s what it said on the mat. I thought, “Let’s not use that mat when we have a house up for sale.” 

Jonathan: What do you suggest for people? 

Scott: Well, a nice matte. Twenty dollars, $30, maybe more, depending on the value of a house, but not the least expensive mat that Home Depot has to offer. Let’s go in for… If you are a Scotsman, you can take the mat with you if you really want to. Let’s get a nice one.  

Jonathan: Yes, having something new, of course. Anything you want to say about a doorbell? 

Scott: Doorbells are one of those things where we commonly take the old doorbell that’s been there for 20, 30, 40 years or how long it has been there, and we buy a new one. It’s often a 20 or 25-dollar doorbell as opposed to a four-dollar doorbell. We’re thinking in terms of a five-million-dollar house. What would a five-million-dollar home have as its doorbell? Let’s buy one of those even if your house is worth less than that because that’s where we want the buyer’s mind to go. 

Jonathan: Yes, great suggestions. They can, for a little bit of time or a little bit of money, make a real difference in what people get for their houses. Well, you give a lot of practical information. That’s really what this podcast is about. We’re going to talk about things like mailboxes, walkways, and all kinds of staging things in the house in future episodes. If people have questions, how can they best contact you, Scott? 

Scott: The best way to reach me is through my email. My name is Scott Williams. The email is scott@scottwilliams.com. 

Jonathan: Great. Well, hope you tune in for the next episode. Thanks for listening and have a beautiful day in Santa Barbara. 

Scott Williams: 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.