Reality Real Estate

Reed: [0:06] Hello, hello, and welcome to the Awesome in Seattle podcast. I am Reed Watson of the Awesome Nossum Group at Wilson Realty Exchange, Inc, and I am your host today. Woo-hoo. As you can tell, things are a little bit different because I'm not Christian. Um, that's because we're talking about something that I and Melanie are experts in, and that is reality TV when it comes to real estate, and how generally it's not that close to reality. We wanna share our experience and how things are a little bit different as a real estate agent in Seattle from what you generally see on TV. So with me today I have my co-host, Melanie Ghadamy.

Melanie: [0:44] Hello.

Reed: [0:45] And we're just gonna get right into it. So I think we're gonna start off with Selling Sunset. Is that right, Melanie?

Melanie: [0:51] Yes, that is correct. The infamous Selling Sunset. I'm s- sure most of you have watched it, and if you haven't, you should. Um, I know a lot of people out there who have been watching this show. The one thing that stands out- To me, that is not our reality, is the clothing and the shoes. So in the show you see the girls wearing, I mean, they're like pretty nice outfits, I'm not gonna lie, and six inch- Very

Reed: [1:21] nice outfits.

Melanie: [1:22] Yeah, very nice outfits. Six inch stilettos, whatever, the Christian Louis Vuittons, whatever, you name it, they're probably wearing designer clothing. However, in Washington, Seattle, Washington, we do not wear six-inch stilettos.

Reed: [1:38] Have you ever worn e- worn even like a stiletto that's shorter to a, to show-

Melanie: [1:43] A w- like a kitten heel.

Reed: [1:45] Yeah.

Melanie: [1:45] Like it's an inch. That's

Reed: [1:46] as far as I would probably go.

Melanie: [1:47] Yeah. Yeah, and it's probably better off, 'cause, you know, that would not be a pretty sight. Um, so one agent also at, on the show, had a wedding at her seller's house.

Reed: [2:01] Yeah, she had her own wedding there, right?

Melanie: [2:04] Yeah, it was her own.

Reed: [2:04] Yeah.

Melanie: [2:05] Mm-hmm. That was wild. Exactly. Which is not accurate, at least I've never heard of it. We don't typically hold events or weddings at our sellers' listings. No. I mean, do we?

Reed: [2:17] No.

Melanie: [2:18] Okay, yeah.

Reed: [2:19] We hold open houses at our sellers' lists.

Melanie: [2:21] Yes. Yeah. Uh, we don't throw parties, et cetera. So that's just like a misconception. They are just, you know, trying to do the most to make the show entertaining.

Reed: [2:35] Definitely. And I think a, some of that, some of those differences are that, you know, we're just in a different climate here in Seattle. Doesn't make sense to be walking through backyards in stilettos when it's rainy and sort of soggy outside.

Melanie: [2:47] Mm-hmm.

Reed: [2:48] Um, some of it might be the price point as well. You know- True Selling Sunset is at an extremely high price point.

Melanie: [2:54] Yeah.

Reed: [2:54] And so, you know, things like hosting more, what do you wanna call? Sort of bougie events might be a little bit more common in that m- many, many millions of dollars- Multimillion … um, you know, price point. But here in Seattle there aren't a ton of properties like that as there are in LA, and so we keep things just a little bit calmer. And honestly, it, the expectation amongst most clients in Seattle is just sort of a Seattle, um, Seattle version of dressing up. Just like you see out at restaurants, people don't dress to the nines typically unless they're going to a black tie event up here. That's just kind of not how we are in the Pacific Northwest. So I think our next, uh, show that we're gonna go on to just sort of chat a little bit about is House Hunters, probably the most famous, uh, real estate related and HGTV show out there.

Melanie: [3:48] Mm-hmm.

Reed: [3:49] House Hunters. Uh, House Hunters is definitely pretty different from real life, although it definitely feels like you're right in it, yelling at the couple to pick the right house- or something like that. Um, obviously we don't surprise the clients with the houses that we are looking at. It sort of seems like on House Hunters, the agent picks three homes and it's just like, "Surprise, these are the three homes I have for you." Um, our clients often send us properties they wanna look at, or if we send them something that we think that they would like, you know, they, they know what they're gonna look at before we show up at the house. Um, and obviously they look at three and pick one on House Hunters, and sometimes clients can look at way, way more before choosing one. You know, we obviously don't limit people- Yeah, there's no cutoff … to just three homes.

Melanie: [4:37] Mm-hmm.

Reed: [4:37] Um, I have had one experience where we literally looked at three homes, and they just found one they loved and happened to get their offer accepted, but that's not the norm by any means. Um, that's just the way that the show is structured. That's not gonna be the norm anywhere in the country. And sometimes I've noticed they do show buyers' homes above their price range on House Hunters, um, to kind of either show them what they're missing out on or h- Mm-hmm … you know, that they could get more space if they upped their budget. We don't do this unless we really think that we could get the seller to come down, or kind of if there's a different extenuating circumstance. But some ag- it's true that some agents will try and push the buyer's price range a little bit, and h- here on our team at the Awesome Nossum Group, that's not something we do. We have you set a budget up front, and then we stick to it, because we don't want you to end up being house poor at the end of the day.

Melanie: [5:35] Right. Right. Yeah, so another thing also that is totally different in House Hunters is that they don't mention inspection or negotiation about the inspection contingency, contingency. So they give this perception that everything is great and there's nothing wrong with the home. Um, in reality, that's not always the case. There is things wrong with every home. I mean, maybe not anything major, but you'll usually see a, a couple things come up on an inspection. It's normal. So I think it's, um, important that buyers come in with that expectation, because otherwise you might get concerned when something does come up, 'cause you're thinking that- It shouldn't. And also, if you are waiting for the perfect home, meaning there's nothing wrong with the home, it ha- checks every single box that you're looking for, you might be waiting forever. Yeah. 'Cause, I mean, I'm not saying it doesn't exist, but it will be hard to come by.

Reed: [6:36] Mm-hmm. Especially, you know, in, within the city of Seattle, where we have slightly older homes-

Melanie: [6:40] Right

Reed: [6:41] you're gonna have a checklist of things that need to be addressed, um, if you're gonna purchase a home that's not new construction.

Melanie: [6:47] Yeah. So another thing that you will see on House Hunters is that they don't negotiate the price. It's pretty firm. However, on our end, we do negotiate the price, especially in this market, um, where there's a lot of room to negotiate, whether it be price or concessions, et cetera. The way I think the w- the show is designed is that the buyer probably has already purchased the home. Yeah. And they create this narrative that they haven't, but in reality, they have. And so they're just touring other properties to just create, you know, a fun, in- enticing, entertaining show.

Reed: [7:25] Yeah. Not to ruin the show for you- Sorry but it's true. Usually, those are friends' houses or, you know, just kind of random homes they were able to get in and film in, but-

Melanie: [7:35] Yeah … Speaker: the one they chose is, they usually already- Bought it … bought.

Reed: [7:40] Another type of show that's out there, I've seen a few different iterations of it on HGTV over the years, is the kind of first time home buyer, uh, you know, young home buyer show, where an agent's really guiding, uh, a young person or couple through this process for the first time.

Melanie: [7:58] Mm-hmm.

Reed: [7:59] So I heard a story from another agent on our team wh- he was watching an episode of a first time home buyer, you know, reality real estate show, and the buyer looked at a house, and the agent knew that there were issues with the home and didn't tell the client prior. And they loved the house when they saw it, but they were really devastated to find out during the inspection that things were wrong with the house. And then the agent showed them a house outside of their price range without a lot of issues, and they felt like they had no choice, so they bought the more expensive one, thinking that that was the only way to get a home without underlying issues. So we obviously wouldn't do this in real life. I think that in this situation, the agent was kind of trying to show them why you don't go for a certain type of house because it has problems. But if we know that a home has problems b- before we show it to a client, we'll tell the client that upfront and maybe not even show them the house. If they still wanna see it, we can of course, but we don't hide issues that we know are present in a home from clients. You know, we often do talk clients out of purchasing homes because we just don't want them to have any regret. That's not good for them. It's not good for our business. Um, and we've already kind of mentioned this, but we don't show clients homes outside of their budget unless, you know, the client desperately wants to see it and says, "You know, I have this extra cash, I can afford it." Um, or if we think, again, that the seller could go down on price.

Melanie: [9:37] Perfect. So I hope you guys enjoyed hearing, hearing us talk about reality TV versus real life. We enjoy these TV shows, too. They're just plain entertainment. They're fun to watch.

Reed: [9:49] Absolutely. If you're ready to start your real estate journey of buying or selling a house, please reach out to us. Uh, we're available for one-on-one consultations to discuss your exact situation, and if you wanna do that, you can make an appointment on AwesomeNossumGroup.com/schedule. Or if you wanna find out a little bit more about what the reality of buying a home is in Seattle, we also teach new home buyer classes once a month every month except for December. And to check those out, you can go to beersandhomebuying.com (opens in a new tab). And in the meantime, don't forget to follow this podcast, and check us out on Instagram @awesomeandnossumgroup. We'll see you soon. Bye.