The 8% Difference: Why Process Matters in Real Estate

Anyone who knows me knows that I love “process”! I like having a checklist for everything, especially tax time. It helps me move through tasks faster without spending emotional energy trying to remember last year's steps. Instead of reinventing the wheel annually, we use that saved energy to automate something new. (Shout out to my husband, Darren the data nerd!) Process helps us constantly improve our efficiency and the quality of the data that we submit.

Process is a core value both in our house and on our team. We all discuss it constantly, which probably seems strange to others. But we love it! We believe processes and simple automations make life more efficient and leave time for things we'd rather be doing.

We have checklists for everything in our business: neighborhood postcards, buyer contracts, open house supplies, and seller prep. You name it, there's probably a checklist. These checklists help us as a team to keep things running smoothly if one of our team members is out of the office. But you’re probably saying…how does this help your clients? Well, I’m so glad you asked!

These checklists make us more efficient, giving us time and emotional space to execute well and constantly improve our client experience. (Constant improvement is another one of our core values!) They reduce team stress too. No one feels frazzled running late to an open house because there's a checklist in our storage room showing exactly what to grab.

We've always known in our hearts that processes help clients indirectly, but does it get sellers more money? That's the million-dollar question…or the 8% question, as it turns out!

Early in my career, all I had was a hunch that process would give our clients a better experience.  I'd tell them: "I'd have to sell the same house twice in the same market to prove our process works empirically." Staging was always the example I used. I had anecdotal evidence that staging seemed to help a buyer feel comfortable in a home, or helped a buyer understand how best to use that strange space at the top of the stairs: “Oh, a homework nook! Look, this house lives like it has an extra bedroom because of this space!” 

It's absolutely impossible to A/B test staging or professional photos on the same property. But what if we could get close? What if we could sell nearly identical properties down the street from each other with different processes and adjust for market changes? Essentially, what if we could run an experiment where we changed as few of the variables as possible to isolate what the impact of our process is on the final sales price? 

With over 600 transactions as a team, we finally had enough data points under our collective belts. There are two noteworthy transactions that gave us natural experiments to learn from:

Case Study One: Grand Hyde Park Home 

Picture this: a gorgeous grand home in Hyde Park with 4 bedrooms, plus that odd little space at the top of the stairs that was just begging to be staged as a homework corner, and a desk area in the primary bedroom. Could a buyer see these spaces serving the need of two extra bedrooms? Maybe—if we staged it right.

The sellers looked at the red-hot market and thought they could skip our full prep process. When we suggested moving out and staging the home, that additional $3,500 cost plus renting while they searched for their new home felt excessive. I get it—sellers who've owned for a long time typically have mortgages under $800/month, and here we were asking them to spend five months of mortgage payments on staging. That does sound crazy, right?

At the time, we didn’t have enough hard data to support our process, so we compromised. We rushed to market using the seller's friend for photos since they were available sooner rather than our preferred photographer. We used the sellers' existing furniture and skipped all our usual prep of landscaping, power washing, window washing.

We got on the market and it languished…for months.

The home was occupied, so we had limited access for showings. Both sellers worked from home, making it challenging to accommodate buyer visits. Showings were awkward, rushed, and infrequent. As we lingered into the fall months, the sellers decided to enjoy the holiday season without the stress of keeping their home show-ready. When spring arrived, they came to us exhausted and said, "Okay, let's try it your way."

This time we followed our process:

• Vacant - easy, flexible showings any time

• Professional photos - showed the home's true beauty and correct paint colors

• Staged - looked like the average buyer for this home had decorated it straight out of Crate & Barrel and Four Hands

• Pre-inspection - sellers addressed easy wins, buyers could offer with confidence

• Full prep checklist - fresh paint, new light bulbs (goodbye fluorescent!), deep cleaning—buyers felt like they could move right in

But here's the pricing dilemma: where should we list it now that everything was prepped correctly?

The market had moved up 20% in Hyde Park since the fall—this was the COVID real estate market where moves like this were common over six-month periods. So we listed the property 20% higher than the original fall listing, adjusting for market appreciation.

Same listing agent, same sellers, same home. The only variables were the property prep and the market change, which we'd adjusted for.

The result? The sellers sold for 8% higher in just 4 days. 

That "crazy" $3,500 staging investment? It generated tens of thousands more in their pocket, plus months of saved carrying costs and stress.

Case Study Two: The Tale of Two Identical Condos

This one was intriguing because we got to witness a real-time comparison unfold right before our eyes.

We were preparing to list a downtown condo when we noticed an identical unit one floor down had been sitting on the market for months. Fall 2024 was brutal for downtown condos—inventory was sky-high, and it was absolutely no time to experiment with aggressive pricing. Yet there this unit sat, priced way too high for the reality of the market.

We watched this comparable unit with great interest. It wasn't staged, making it feel cold and impersonal. Showings were difficult because it was occupied—you know how awkward it feels touring someone's home while they're living in it. The photos were poor quality, doing nothing to showcase the unit's potential.

Meanwhile, our sellers were absolute dream clients. They followed every single recommendation we made: painted and touched up every scuff mark, allowed us to stage the unit beautifully, and let us use our favorite photographer who knows exactly how to capture natural light in these downtown spaces.

Most importantly, they trusted our pricing strategy. In a market flooded with inventory, we needed to price aggressively enough to get buyers excited. Buyers purchase out of fear of loss. They buy because they're worried if they don't act quickly, someone else will snatch up the opportunity.

We came to market looking absolutely stunning and priced strategically to create urgency. Seven days later, we were under contract.

The identical unit one floor down? Still sitting there, still overpriced, still struggling with showings. It lingered for another month or two before the sellers finally capitulated and dropped their price significantly.

When they finally sold 7 months later, they netted 8.3% less than our clients. And that's before you factor in seven months of property taxes, HOA fees, utilities, and carrying costs, not to mention the emotional toll of being on the market for over half a year.

Our clients walked away with more money in less time, while their neighbors endured months of stress and uncertainty. Same building, same floor plan, same market conditions—the only difference was the approach.

We realize that these are only two data points, but we're constantly looking for natural experiments to educate clients. We feel so strongly about our process that we no longer work with sellers unless we can follow it completely. After all, we're in the business of creating great experiences, not unhappy clients!

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We are delighted to be your guides to Austin and Austin real estate!

Cheers,

Jen & the team

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