Selling Your Home: Hitting the Easy Button

In 2003, the office supply store Staples launched an ad campaign intended to illustrate how easy they were to work with. The basic message was when you need to make a change, just let them know, and Staples would handle it. It was that easy. To illustrate the point, the ad firm had their prop makers create a big red button with the word “EASY” in bold white print on it. When you pressed the button, an audio file played out of a small speaker in the bottom of the button, “That was easy.”

The button was intended to only appear in the ad, but people began coming into the store wanting to buy the Easy Button. Staples had them mass produced and folks bought their own personal Easy Button by the thousands. By the mid 2000’s you began to see the Easy Button as a common desk accessory across America.

The message could not be clearer. When faced with a daunting task, people loved the idea that they could push this magical button and make everything easy.

That’s what a great real estate agent does, they are the human embodiment of the Easy Button. They break down the entire selling process into bite sized, easy steps.

From a broad perspective the big steps to selling a property are:

1. The Listing Contact
2. Preparing the home to list
3. Listing and responding to the market
4. Accepting An Offer
5. Closing the deal

There are obviously sub steps to each of these categories, but none of the individual steps is all that difficult. If looked at as a giant mountain of tasks that you have little experience or expertise in, the process can definitely become overwhelming. As the old cliche goes, “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.”

Let’s start by taking a look at the listing contract. 

This is exactly the point where most people’s eyes glaze over and they just say, “Where do I sign?”

That’s not how we like to do things. When you list a home, it’s very rare that EVERYTHING goes smoothly and according to plan. That’s why we take a moment to go over the contract. It lays out all your obligations and protections. We want to make sure you have a working understanding of what you are signing and how it works. It’s important to know who pays for what, and what happens if something goes sideways during the deal.

The only time you have a sense of urgency about a contract is when something didn’t go right and you are upset and strongly worded emails begin to fly. Our job on the listing side is to craft a listing agreement that protects you as much as possible.

Whether you use Ron & Don or not, a red flag should go up if there’s a push to have you sign a contract without going over what it says.

Next, let’s take a look at some of the things that commonly come up to get your home ready to sell. We call it getting your place “Front Line Ready.”

Ron Upshaw is a Licensed Agent at
Windermere Real Estate Midtown
1920 North 34th Street
Seattle, WA 98103