Product Description

Michael Corbett appears regularly on national TV and print media and travels the country lecturing to crowds of 25,000 sharing his expertise, having made millions buying and selling houses during his twenty-plus years in the business. With personal tips, cost-effective techniques, and real estate insider secrets, Ready, Set, Sold! will teach readers how to:
• Add $10,000 to the value of their home in a single weekend
• Avoid the twelve costliest and most common mistakes
• Dress and stage their home to make buyers swoon and bid over the asking price
• Pay no taxes on the sale—without breaking the law
• Complete no-cost makeovers that supercharge their selling price
• Take advantage of the home-selling secrets that only real estate agents know
• Save thousands in commissions and closing costs

With before and after photos, checklists, charts, and worksheets, Ready, Set, Sold! is the book that every home seller MUST read before putting their house up for sale!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #480061 in Books
• Published on: 2007-02-27
• Format: Bargain Price
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

From Booklist
Lesson 1 is that it doesn't hurt to be a mediagenic author; name recognition--as in NBC expert and TV host Corbett (and, by the way, author of Find It, Fix It, Flip It! 2006)--counts, as does his life experience in flipping 30 pieces of property. Lesson 2 is that real estate and all its attendant information sells. Think Donald Trump, as one prime example. Lesson 3 is that it's all about business; leave emotions behind when marketing real estate. Much of the advice proffered here is in the professional know-how category. Such as declutter the rooms, inside and out (or, as Corbett says, save it/store it/sell it/check it); paint, repair, and otherwise make sure it's squeaky clean; hire a professional realtor (avoiding the FSBO lure); and never close on a Friday. Lots of tips around Ready, Set, Sold (RSS) sales successes, as well as data-packed sidebars (e.g., a list of 411 real estate Web sites), add an even higher value to Corbett's counsel. Barbara Jacobs
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author
Michael Corbett is the real estate and the lifestyle expert of NBC’s Extra!, with 17.5 million viewers per week and the host of Extra’s Mansions and Millionaires. Michael is a nationally known real estate authority appearing regularly on CNN, ABC, HGTV, and TLC networks. Michael lectures at conventions across the country, including the Learning Annex’s Real Estate Wealth Expos along with Donald Trump, Suze Orman, and Tony Robbins. He is the author of Plume’s bestseller Find It, Fix It, Flip It!

Customer Reviews

I am not sure if I trust this guy
Here is Ready Set Sold! in one sentence: Make your house look like a model home before you put it on the market. That covers chapters 6 through 12, and is heavily emphasized in all of the other chapters as well.

Of course, making your house look like a model home probably means spending thousands. I know it would for me, even for my modest place. Corbett's mantra is that the more you do to make your house a model home, the more money you'll get when you sell it. The amount that you put into fixing the place up, with painting, new furniture if necessary, and a zillion other details large and small, will more than be made up for by the eventual selling price that you can command.

Hmmm...but is this really true? I don't know. It sounds like nonsense to me. I'm in California and everyone I talk to, including realtors, tell me that just about the ONLY thing that will command a higher selling price is a room addition (impossible for my house). Everything else is just wasted money. That doesn't mean you shouldn't clean up clutter and make sure things look nice and spiffy, but spending thousands of dollars on new furniture, cabinetry, and so on is unnecessary and a waste of money that you will never recoup.

I don't think I buy into the gung-ho "It will cost more up front, but it'll all pay off in the end!" mantra that this book feeds you constantly.

Also, almost all of the 5-star reviews here were written on the same date, and say nothing more than "This book is great!" Is the author or publisher artificially trying to pump up the book's ratings? It looks very, very suspicious.

I would like to hear any comments from people (especially in CA) that have actually followed this book to the letter and ended up with verifiable results.

Comprehensive book with great tips
Even though we recently had a Realtor walk through the house and make suggestions on minor improvements, I bought this book in case there were some things she didn't mention. The book is easy to read and nicely organized. It explains how to target your house to the buyers it will likely attract and how to how to look at your house from a buyer's perspective. It also includes a brief section on the selling process.

The book explains that a seller should make minor structural and cosmetic repairs, which any Realtor will tell you. But it has a handy checklist of all parts of the home to go through. It then delves into how to de-clutter and how to "stage" the house for selling. It also includes a checklist of things to do before anyone sees the house. As someone who has recently looked at several houses on the market to buy, I can attest there really is an emotional hook that some of this staging provides. These truly are inexpensive or free things (such as putting a bowl of fruit out, playing soothing music, etc.) that can subliminally attract a buyer. The suggestions are tailored to people with all budgets for fixing up before selling. It does not suggest major upgrades but suggests things like repairing broken bathroom tile as opposed to retiling the entire bathroom. Some of these things are no-brainers, but it was helpful reinforcement from what the Realtor said.

There is a section on how to market the home and explains estimated costs. It also explains what happens when the house is in escrow and what needs to be done in a short timeline. It explains how to keep the buyers motivated and calm while still getting what the seller needs out of the deal.

One of the best things about this book is that it repeatedly encourages the seller to put things into perspective. Yes, the idea is to sell the house as quickly as possible and make the most profit, but this book shows the pitfalls about haggling over $100 and how it can make prospective buyers walk away from a deal.

This book doesn't contain any miracle advice and some of the advice is obvious. However, it's an easy read and an inexpensive book that will probably end up helping sellers make more money at selling time. I would recommend it for anyone who wants to understand the real estate process and maximize profit without spending an inordinate amount of time or money.

Great Handbook for Selling Your Home
This book is great and an easy read! It takes the mystery out of selling your home by explaining what to do and what to expect step by step from the beginning to the end.