Real estate advisor Steve D. Valentine walks through a three-step method called Pause, Identify, Respond to help homeowners decide what to do with their property. Instead of chasing market value, the approach focuses on what the house can actually do for your goals: a quick cash sale, a traditional sale after renovation, or creative financing like seller-carry deals.
It's not what your house is worth. It's what it can do for you in the current market based on the current condition. I'm Steve Valentine and let me break down a methodology that I want to give you which is pause, identify, respond. And it's actually something that I learned through the most unlikely place which was rehab. And this is why you should hire a recovering realtor. So, here we go. The pause is about taking the emotion out of the transaction and applying math to the real estate problem or the real estate that you're wanting to buy or sell. And then being able to add some experiential wisdom. Which experiential wisdom— there's transaction wisdom and experiential wisdom. And in the pause, you're going to understand this. Because experiential wisdom comes from doing the transaction. So, I've owned a lot of real estate. I have guided a lot of people through the mistakes and the successes that I've had because I've done it with and for people. Transactional experience is somebody that has just done the transaction and they've been a realtor their whole life. Which is great and I commend them. There is a different form of experience in both. And the reason is, is that this side on the transactional side is a little bit uneducated in the possibilities of real estate because they only operate in one lane. Experiential wisdom is being able to operate in all lanes based on your situation. The pause is pulling the emotion out because it's usually a Sunday afternoon call and it's a house that somebody wants to buy and everything is on fire right now. And I'm telling you that that is where I've seen the biggest financial mistakes. And it creates the most pressure in our relationship when we get into it with everything on fire and without a plan. So, let's identify what that looks like. The identification is going through with what your goals are, how you want to get there, where your finances are and how is it going to make an impact on you and your family now and in the future. Those are all the things we want to identify in that conversation. We're also identifying your current property value and what's possible with it. Then we are going to respond methodically with a roadmap. And that roadmap is telling you that the house or the assets that you have will allow you to achieve these goals in these ways. 1, selling the home for cash. It's a math problem. Do you have a need or is there potential cost of lost opportunity If you don't sell the home quicker, you might be holding on to it in order to create life or another business opportunity by selling this asset quicker with ease and certainty. No inspections, all the typical stuff. There's also the option of we want to put no money into it, some money into it, or fully renovating it and showing you the options of traditionally putting on the market, the time it's going to take, and the pros and cons of what that's going to look like. And if that time meets your budget and helps you accomplish your goals. The third, it's not offered to everybody but depending on the stage of life you're in is looking at the creative side. So, in this case, right? This is an older home and we might look at the creative side because it's free and clear if you were looking to create some income. So now, let's just walk through that same strategy that we did for this seller here. Here's why this is important. This house really shouldn't be put on the open market. But it should have some options for the seller to consider. And here's Here's what they were. Hey, we can take your house. We can take it to an off-market situation where you can net $600,000. There's no inspections. It's going to get closed on. That person that's buying it may assign it to a partner. That's the way the investor works. The goal is to get you the net number with as least amount of problems possible. That is the goal there. The other goal is does it move you forward faster To where you want to go. Maybe you're ready to move. Maybe you found that great house. Maybe you found your assisted living that you want to go. Maybe you're moving in with family. And you don't want the work time and effort that comes with this or even some of the emotions that come with putting your home on the market. Especially if you've been here for a really long time. You've raised your kids, your grandkids. All the emotions that come with it. And while it's your home, realize the return on investments it's had. Right? Both in your family and in monetary. And now it's making that decision. Now, why I say that is because it— the money part of it may not be as important as the certainty. Then we move on to the other side of putting it on the market. This is going to take a little bit more longer. It may require you putting some investment capital up front in it if it's part of your budget. And we're going to show you both sides of it. And then you can put it on the market and potentially get more money for it if you choose that time, energy, and effort. But we're also going to base that on the market strategy rather than just throwing it out based on feelings of what the house is worth. Because the goal is to sell the house, not to list it for you. And to do it as quickly and easily as possible as we can for you. And the third option is taking a home that might be free and clear. Now, you're probably— if you have a home this old that you've lived in for 30 years, you probably don't want to keep it as a rental. So, we're probably not going to look at that as an option because of its age, because of the Upgrades it's going to need, that's not the stage of life you might be in. It can create income if you decided to do something like a seller carry or a lease purchase where there are just other options that we can potentially look at if that's something you want to do. Here is the best part. You get to choose based on the strategy, the options, and the clarity that we've provided for you. It is your choice which direction you move. You're going to have the Money, the math conversation. You're going to have the timing conversation. And then you're just going to have a choice with that data as to whether or not you decide to hire myself and the RIG, the Real Estate Investment Group, to walk you through your next investment decision. Or you're going to take that data and you're going to go interview a few other people. And either way, that's okay. We want to give you the options with no ties attached and not taking anything personally. We just believe that you deserve to know all the options before you make a decision. And we hope that decision's with the rig.
