Selling De Grassi
A Behind the Scenes Look at the Journey to Listing
Ever wonder what goes on behind the scenes before we list a property? There’s a lot that happens — especially if you want to get top dollar. Here’s an exclusive look at everything we did to get our 208 De Grassi St listing ready for MLS.
Spoiler Alert: We Sold For $500,000+ Over Asking!
Step 1: House visit
We begin by touring the house to asses the scope of work and come up with a game plan. Whether you’re looking to list a.s.a.p or even six months from now, it’s helpful to know what needs to be done so that we can work together to make it happen. In this case, the sellers had lived in the home for 20+ years so the house was showing some age and needed a refresh.
Step 2: DeclutterING
Before we could start refreshing the home the sellers needed to declutter. This involved selling items, giving pieces to local charities and moving the excess into storage.
Step 3: PaintING WALLS & WINDOW TRIM
The home had a mix of yellow, black and red walls. We decided to paint the entire home in Oxford White by Benjamin Moore which is one of my partner designer Joel Bray’s go-to wall colours. Covering the drab tones with white immediately freshens things up and highlights the home’s selling features: 10' ceilings, an original fireplace and exposed brick. Painting the exterior windows black also upped the curb appeal in a major way.
Step 4: PAINTING AIR RETURNS & HOUSE NUMBERS
The devil is in the details and that includes air returns and exterior house numbers. One of our little tricks is spraying old air returns black to give them a more modern, updated feel. We also sprayed 208 De Grassi’s house numbers.
Step 5: Window Washing
It’s amazing how much brighter a home feels once the windows have been cleaned. I recommend hiring a professional — especially if you have second storey windows that require a ladder to clean. This is one of the last steps before we photograph a listing and it’s an important one.
Step 6: Photography Round 1
Our initial plan was to list the house empty so buyers could see what a great blank canvas it was. However, after photographing the house empty we decided that the house was too close to perfection and that it deserved furniture. We hit pause on the listing and got to work staging.
Step 7: Staging & Photography Round 2
Staging a full home is a ton of work but Joel and his team were up for the task. After bringing an entire house worth of furniture and accessories in you can really appreciate the difference staging makes. Here are some of the staged listing photos. Much better right?
Step 8: LISTING & SELLING
I listed 208 De Grassi for $989,900. We had a whopping 129 showings, 14 offers and received over $500,000 above asking price! I would like to thank HAUS Painting, Lukas our killer photographer and Joel Bray Design for bringing the house to life. It’s a team effort and I couldn’t have done it without you!