Selling in Austin or Lake Houston

I've been selling houses in Austin for fourteen years, and these days I live in Kingwood, so I work both ends of the corridor. Whichever one you're on, the first conversation goes the same way: I ask where you're headed and when you'd like to be there. The house is how we get you there, so that's where we start.

A few things worth thinking about first

You don't need answers yet. These just make our first talk more useful.

Why now? Not the polite version, the real one. It shapes the plan more than anything else.

Where are you going, and when? If you've got a date, everything else lines up behind it. If you don't have one yet, that's fine too.

What made you fall for this house when you bought it? Sellers stop noticing it after a while. It's usually what sells it again.

If you were staying another five years, what would you fix? Chances are that's the same list a buyer makes in the first ten minutes. Some of it is worth doing before we list. Some of it we just price for.

And what do you need to walk away with? That number matters more to me than what you owe. It's the difference between a price that's possible and a plan that actually works.

What our first meeting is like

I'll come by, walk through with you, and mostly listen. I'm looking at what a buyer will notice first and what might get between you and your date. Then we sit down and look at what's selling, what's competing with you right now, and what's sitting and why. You'll see everything I'm looking at.

From there, one of three things happens. You hire me, you go another way, or we figure out together that the timing or the number doesn't work yet. Either way, I'm honest with you about expectations and what I think is realistic, even when that's not what you were hoping to hear.

About the number

Where you start matters more than anything I do after, and I'll be straight with you about it. I'll show you the range I'd list in and how I got there. If we see it differently, let's argue about the evidence rather than who's feeling more optimistic.

One thing I won't do is give you a big number to win the job and then talk you down over the next couple of months. It happens a lot in this business, and it costs sellers more than any commission ever has.

I'll also ask you two questions you might not love. If it hasn't sold by your date, what's plan B? And if you get a good offer in the first couple of weeks, faster than you expected, are you going to be okay with that? Because that's usually what a well-priced house does here, and the first instinct is always "we priced it too low." Usually you didn't.

How it goes from there

Once you're ready, prep usually takes a week or two, sometimes longer depending on what the house needs. Then we run what I call a premarket campaign, four to seven days of building interest before the listing goes fully public. By the time it's live, there's already attention on it.

Every listing gets about thirty photos, a floor plan, a listing video, and a Matterport virtual tour. Not an upsell, just standard. The listing description is written by a person, because buyers can tell, and it's the copy that ends up everywhere the listing syndicates.

I typically reach out to the agents who've shown similar houses recently, before we launch, so people who are already looking know yours is coming. Showing feedback gets passed along to you as it is, even when it's "priced high." You'll get a weekly update on where things stand.

On prep, I won't hand you a list of what to skip. I've seen agents do that and then the house doesn't sell the way the seller wanted, and now it's the agent's list that gets blamed. I'd rather walk you through what good practice looks like and let you decide. The one thing I do push on is a pre-listing inspection, because it means you find out what a buyer's inspector will find before it becomes a negotiation instead of a surprise.

And before you sign anything, we walk through the real cost estimates together, commission, closing costs, the whole picture, so nothing at closing catches you off guard. The exact numbers firm up as closing gets close, but you'll never be guessing at the shape of them.

One honest thing about each market

Austin. When you sell, the buyer's property taxes reset off your capped value, so if you've been there a while their payment will be noticeably higher than yours. That's not your cost, but it's what their lender is looking at, and it shows up in how they negotiate. The whole mechanism is in the Austin property tax guide.

Lake Houston. Every buyer here asks two things: has it flooded, and what are the taxes. I answer both before they ask, because buyers who don't get a straight answer walk. If the house has a history, honest disclosure and the right framing get it sold. If you're in a MUD or another district, the real monthly number goes in front of buyers early instead of becoming an objection late. The flood guide and the MUD taxes guide are there so buyers have somewhere honest to look, and your listing benefits from the same thing.

Tell me where you're going

The address, where you're headed, and roughly when. I'll look at your house against what's actually selling and get back to you with a real range, the reasoning, and an honest read on your timeline. No automated estimate, no obligation.

I read every one of these, and you'll hear back from me directly.