Boom, another listing! Return to the office with your new property to sell; hang it around your neck like a gold rope chain! Now, you need to capture a buyer. Whether you’re listing the property on the MLS or it’s off-market, get that first weapon in place. In this chapter we’ll see what happens when we combine these weapons with others in our arsenal.

A Killer Description

Arm the listed property with a killer description. Those buzzwords make this property appeal to any buyer, yet they are crafted to target an audience you know the home will speak to. This is “listing language.”

You have to take on a few roles here: you’re part journalist to report on the actual facts of the property, part salesman to hook the buyer, and – dare I say it – part poet (or lyricist). I’m not saying you need to be Maya Angelou or Bob Dylan, but . . . well, it would help. To be honest, I think the words of living rap legend Jay-Z embody what we agents do best: “I sell ice in the winter, I sell fire in hell, I’m a hustler, baby, I’ll sell water to a well.”

The Altman Brothers have someone in the office dedicated to writing listings. If you don’t, I recommend enticing potential buyers with a little word-flow of your own by . . . uh, okay, borrowing it. Check the magazines, architectural descriptions, and other real-estate listings. Learn how the pros describe homes. Focus on the feature elements that attract.

Play it up, but not too much. Don’t be stiff and boring, but don’t over-do it with flowery language. It’ll sound corny.

Beyond reporting that the house has five bedrooms and six baths, open with a list of desired amenities like a chef’s eat-in kitchen, a three-car garage, and a state-of-the-art security system.

Then insert the “poetry” that will allow buyers to visualize what a life lived there might look like: “This house has floor-to-ceiling glass doors opening onto the infinity pool with views across the city, a classic example of the highly prized indoor-outdoor living of Southern California.” Show, don’t tell. Make the buyer feel like they’re in the picture.

The Altman Brothers recently won a listing in the Hollywood Hills for an unbelievable estate. You’d think you were on an oil tycoon’s ranch in Montana. We needed to describe the main house, Moroccan-style guesthouse, and the grounds and stables with words that would jump off the page and kiss you. It ended up a little something like this:

“Listed for $68 million: Once you pass through massive red gates, the owner has created 14-acres of pure tranquil magic, all in the preserved heart of Los Angeles.”

Our listing language presented “the quiet gardens that wind through the estate’s buildings, creating a luscious island of peace inside the bustling LA metropolis. This is the house for a buyer who is beyond helicoptering to their country home. This house is for the buyer so successful they bring the country compound inside the city.” I don’t know about you, but I can feel the eyes of superstar Nashville country stars just lighting up.

Our words, carefully chosen, and the images we post, also carefully chosen, speak to certain clients we know will like the style of the house and grounds. Listing language matters. Language matters, period. Yes, you sink a lot of resources into photography and the internet, but your words must work too as an open. Your passion for homes and instincts about why a house is baller – without using the word “baller” – should be reflected in the listing language. Or, hell, maybe “baller” works depending upon the clients you’re targeting. It attracts me. I’m baller.

Verbal thinkers respond with an “I hear you” and visual thinkers “see what you mean.” Capture both types and you will attract buyers. Get the most cutting-edge images of the property you can and open hard in your listing language. Tailor it to the property, refine as you go, proofread everything, and above all, don’t use brand names. You will get sued. That said, listing language is a huge weapon. It works. Your words will lead to showings and showings lead to sales. Close ’em.

Killer Design

Interior design is hot right now. It’s on fire. With popular TV shows and magazines devoted to selling homes, the interior design industry has blown up! Americans are smarter than ever about how to create the world they want, whether it it’s layered, moody, aspirational, clean, or reimagined. These are interior design words. Learn them. Know them. Use them, for real.

We’ve never had more slick, artistic buyers and sellers than right now. Classic to retro, natural to cutting-edge modern, Interior design sells. Interior design is art, and this art is killing it.

From 2018 to 2022, interior design industry projections jump from just over $2 billion a year to almost $4 billion, with the major centers being the two coasts, and states such as Texas, Illinois, and Colorado coming in a spicy third. Realtors should know interior design and, more importantly, interior designers working in their market.

Most towns have “celebrity” designers. Find them. Meet them. See their work. Not only are they a great source for insider referrals, as you are for them, but they also make you smarter about home design trends that you need to know as you show your listings. Keep an eye on interior trends. Read the magazines. Watch the TV programs. Learn the language. Take a class. Study. Research.

Know the “wish” list of your client and the public. Their money is your money. Their investment is your investment. If you’re on your game with interior design, you can make the suggestions you need to stage a house properly (more on that to come), please your client, and close a deal.

This trend is so crazy now. It’s a way of life. People engage with the process intensely; they consume media about house design so obsessively that it can drive you nuts.

Do you know the difference between Brazilian cherry and an ebonized hardwood? Get on it! Understand how to make lighting, an underutilized but critical aspect of interior design, change the dynamic of a space. Learn about floating vanities, quartz countertops, and large format tiles in the bathroom.

Closing big number deals is really my thing, but I could talk all day about the small details of design that make a house great. It’s my business. It’s yours, too. Kill it. Close. Make money.

Staging for Battle

Staging is short-term interior design. Like an artist or architect, stagers play on emotions and the world around them to make a statement. Take a staged master suite, for instance, all cashmere throws and overstuffed pillows to counterbalance a bathroom with steam shower and Stone Forrest tub. The contrasting textures and luxurious amenities make a potential buyer want to call a loved one, break out some champagne, lay down, and end the search right there. A great stager gets this and plays into that vibe.

Staging creates a turnkey look that makes a buyer think of moving in on spot. More than once I’ve heard a buyer say jokingly “Forget the other showings. We’ll take the furniture, too. We’re staying!” Well, that’s based more on wishful thinking than humor. In this town, turnkey is often a buyer’s fantasy come to life. What’s more convenient than stepping across a doorway and into a whole new life better than the one before? It’s “Hollywood”!

Tons of data (realtor.com) tell us that staging brings up the price and perhaps more importantly moves the house off the market faster – 88% faster with a 20% increase in price, to be exact. Not only do I need to make the deal with the staging company, negotiating price and scheduling, the staging must be precise, on-point, to open the right buyer, in person and/or photographs.

In major markets, staging can run $15,000 to $100,000. This investment is no joke, but we’re dealing with multimillion-dollar mansions here. Give to get. It’s worth it. On the other hand, revitalizing an interior can be done creatively for far less “green” in a less high-powered market and still bring in high return. I’ll get to that in a bit.

In LA, we typically spread the business among the two or three best staging companies in the industry. I often negotiate with the stagers, opening and closing small deals along the way for discounts on jobs. Offer credits in advertisements and signage at broker-only events. Help stagers get more business and they’ll hook you up on pricing. I refer business to my stagers all the time and they to me.

Find a stager with the right chemistry for you as an agent and work with them with the close in mind. Stagers not only know the little details, such as the rule of odd numbers (cluster objects in threes), but they also look at the big picture, like the effects of color and light, and how the exterior and foyer have a huge impact on your ability to close a sale.

I’ve had buyers close to committing, but kind of on the fence, and I’ve gone back in with the stager before the second tour. In a Bel-Air listing we rearranged a media room for family play, complete with a Wii console and remotes, games downloaded and ready to play. The people went crazy for it. For one listing in Malibu, we lit lanterns all over the back deck, turned on the gas fire, set the table, arranged outdoor pillows and throws and left. We didn’t stay but just left champagne on the table and let the buyers pretend it was home. We sold both houses.

That’s what I mean about killer ideas. Through design, a stager puts an image into the buyer’s head of how they want to live. And with the stager, we sell a dream the buyer never considered.

Even better, the stager assists the close by diverting the eye from the flaws of the house. The more imaginative, the better: To enhance a dark corner one stager I hired set-up a nineteenth-century Japanese screen, arranged a furniture grouping in front of it, and lit it from below, Boom! Buyers responded. The Altman Brothers closed!

Make sure your stager knows the science behind it all. How color in itself can raise the price of a house and speed up the close. In recent years, Zillow undertook a massive analysis of 32,000 photographs to see if color impacted the final sale. The test set controls for square footage, location, age of house, and date of transaction.

Need to amp up those areas for first impressions, the curb appeal? The front door, painted shades of navy blue, or a dark gray or charcoal, raised the final price by $1,514, on average. Exteriors painted “greige,” a combination of gray and beige, sold for an average of $1,526 more. Yellow added about $1,300 to the value of kitchens. In 2018, yellow is out and blue is in, with the average price increase rising to $1,809. Oatmeal or taupe-colored living rooms added $1,800 and the new price-enhancing color for bedrooms is a calming cerulean or cadet blue, which adds $1,856 to the price.

It’s crazy, right? Starting out in this business, I knew different colors were hot at different times in attracting up-to-date buyers, but upping prices like that? It caught me off-guard. But if you’re anything like me – “Hollywood,” and by this chapter you should be – then your heart rate must be pumping at these price increases, and you’ll start to study up like I did. Just know, the colors that fatten your pocket change by the season, year to year, so stay on your staging game.

This Zillow data is proof of the power of staging. If you want to make money, this data matters. So if you have a listing that’s struggling, paint the damn door! What’s a can of paint? Designer brands can be had for less than $30 a gallon. You don’t want to do it? Call your Dream Team or your assistant. Any fool can put up self-adhesive kitchen backsplash tiles. Big-box home stores sell them for under $50. Work with a stager to introduce the blues into the house and reshoot the photographs. Retile a backsplash with up-to-date color. Make the upgrades that attract. Keep up with trends.

So find your favorite stager. Get them on your team. Open and close a deal with them. Negotiate. Offer a lower price if they’ll do your next three houses. Get what you need out of it. And what is that? A sale. A deal. A close. More money for your client. More money for you.

Make stagers part of your Dream Team. You’ll kill it, especially in the high-end market. You’ll see the spike in the buyers’ eyes as well as in their offers. Someone will bite and you’ll close.

I have stagers completely immersed in the visual language of international and modern as well as stagers gifted at more traditional, Tudor and Craftsman-style homes.

Just make sure the staging you do for your photos or video stays in place for your real-life showing, or your client will call you out. An agent will call you out. Hell, one agent I know undid the staging but left the videos online. I snagged the listing. He should have read this book.