Home Selling Guide (Jan 2023)

HOME SELLING GUIDE

A LETTER FROM OUR CEO

When Ken DeLeon and I started this company, our goal was simple: to create an entirely new business model for the purchase and sale of Silicon Valley real estate, one that was radically more client-centric than the approach utilized by traditional brokerages.

To say our model has been a success would be an understatement. Our sellers are often amazed at the ease of their transactions and the amount of exposure we generate for our listings.

We believe that no individual agent or small team can compete with the combined expertise of our inhouse professionals. Plus, our resources and market insights are unparalleled within the industry. Our industry-leading level of service is unmatched, and we will focus all of our efforts into getting the best possible outcome for the sale of your home.

We hope this guide will provide you with valuable information, and all of the advantages you get when you choose the DeLeon Team. Quite simply, we get results.

Thank you for your consideration,

Michael Repka CEO, DeLeon Realty

DELEON LISTING SERVICES AT

NO ADDITIONAL COST

More marketing per listing than any other local brokerage, guaranteed

Marketing to international buyers

In-house interior designer and field coordinator to help prepare your home

Top quality staging of your entire home, inside and out, entirely at our expense

Ad in The DeLeon Insight Real Estate Magazine

Property inspection and pest inspection at our expense

Real estate attorneys to guide you through disclosures and answer tax-related questions

Custom website with 3D virtual tour and narrated video

Custom home brochure

MAXIMIZE YOUR HOME VALUE WITH OUR SERVICES

DeLeon Realty makes your experience as smooth and stress-free as possible while maximizing your home’s sales price.

Our robust team of in-house specialists is ready to assist you every step of the way throughout the home-selling process. No one agent or small team can match our resources and combined expertise.

DISCLOSURES

To ensure the best protection for our clients and their interests, we provide a licensed California real estate attorney to answer all your disclosure or tax-related questions and guide you through the process.

MEET OUR TEAM

Meet with your designer and field coordinator who will work closely with us to prepare your home for sale.

HOME PREPARATION

The DeLeon team will prepare your home to make it stand out from the rest.

brokerage, both in print and virtual, and it starts with our extensive marketing.

PRESENT YOUR HOME

Our open house events often create a buzz around the home and add to the high number of offers that we receive.

Congratulations! You’ve sold your home!

MEET OUR TEAM

We market homes to achieve the highest price possible in the shortest amount of time

Once you choose to list with the DeLeon Team, you will meet both your designer and field coordinator who will work closely with us to prepare your home for sale. Our goal is to exceed your expectations by listening to your needs and shifting much of the work relating to the sale of your home to ourselves, including home preparation, marketing, negotiation, and escrow. Plus, we will make sure any improvements to your home are done beautifully, within budget, and on time.

DELEON LISTING SERVICES:

DESIGN & HOME PREPARATION

• Dedicated interior designer

• Staging (furniture rental, delivery, set up, de-staging) with no additional fees

• Property inspection and pest inspection

• Full 8-hour day of work by our design team

CONTRACT & LEGAL ASSISTANCE

• Strategic contract negotiations, transaction coordination, and escrow management

• Real estate attorney provided to review disclosures and answer tax-related questions

CUSTOM MARKETING

• Custom 12-page home brochure

• Multiple, full-page newspaper ads

• Custom home website with 3D virtual tour and narrated video

• Online and social media marketing campaigns

• Professional architectural photography

• Ad in The DeLeon Insight real estate magazine

• Extensive marketing to international buyers

HOME PREPARATION

Making your home stand out from the rest

With more and more buyers preferring to “shop” for homes online, presenting your home in the best possible light is more important than ever. The right staging can amplify your home’s strengths and make it stand out in a crowded market. DeLeon Realty employs the top staging companies in Silicon Valley to reimagine your home’s interior and take it to new heights.

We also have an extensive collection of outdoor furniture, artwork, rugs, and other staging inventory custom curated for Silicon Valley. DeLeon Realty pays for your home’s staging, which includes furniture rental and fees associated with design, delivery, set up, and de-staging. Plus, we will not be reimbursed at closing for this service.

DELEON REALTY PAYS ALL FEES FOR YOUR HOME’S STAGING.

WE DON’T JUST GET GREAT LISTINGS...

WE MAKE GREAT LISTINGS.

DEDICATED DESIGNER THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE PROCESS

Your designer will manage your home preparation and unleash your home’s potential value. They will coordinate directly with vendors to prepare your home, which includes scheduling start and end dates for the project, overseeing the work, and making sure the work is appropriately performed. Our designers work extensively with the top staging companies in Silicon Valley and will select the one that best fits your home.

ADVANTAGEOUS PRICING FROM PREFERRED VENDORS

Due to our high volume of listings, we are able to negotiate special pricing with many local vendors. These vendors are familiar with the type of work necessary to bring a home to market in the most cost-effective way. There is no markup or other referral fee from any vendor who works with DeLeon Realty - all savings are passed directly to you.

“… [the DeLeon Team] transformed our house so that we fell in love with it all over again, and apparently so did potential buyers!”

- Jackie L.

FULL 8-HOUR DAY OF WORK BY FIELD COORDINATOR

Our field coordinator, who is an experienced handyman, will dedicate a full 8-hour day to your property at no charge. Services include a multi-point, pre-inspection checklist, so simple items can be addressed before the buyers arrive.

COMPLIMENTARY PROPERTY AND PEST INSPECTIONS

DeLeon Realty will pay for your property inspection, natural hazard disclosure report, and pest inspection, and we will not be reimbursed at closing for these services.

EXPERT GUIDANCE AND SOLUTIONS

The DeLeon Team can provide guidance to help simplify both the home preparation process and relocation. Our design coordinators offer solutions to our clients to help them downsize, declutter, move items to storage, and even move into their new home. We have a number of resources, including 1,500 moving crates, that are available for our clients to use at no additional charge to them.

BEFORE

A home listed by DeLeon Realty before our design team made any changes.

AFTER

The same home, refreshed and revitalized by the DeLeon Realty design team.

BEFORE

A home listed by DeLeon Realty before our design team made any changes.

AFTER

The same home, refreshed and revitalized by the DeLeon Realty design team.

DISCLOSURES

For your peace of mind, we provide attorney services at no additional cost to you

In order to ensure the best protection for our clients and their interests, DeLeon Realty provides a licensed California real estate attorney to answer all of your disclosure or tax-related questions and guide you through the process. Legal services are provided through the Law Offices of Michael J. Repka. There is no additional fee for this enhanced level of service and protection.

LEGAL ASSISTANCE & TAX ADVICE

DeLeon Realty is not a law firm, but it is entirely lawyer-owned and employs licensed brokers who are also licensed lawyers, as well as three dedicated attoneys. Our clients are able to receive legal services and tax advice related to their real estate transaction directly through the Law Offices of Michael J. Repka without paying any additional hourly fees.

Michael Repka has two law degrees, including an advanced law degree in taxation (LL.M) from NYU School of Law, the #1 tax program in the nation. Colette R. Thomason, our Corporate Counsel, is an experienced residential real estate attorney and assists sellers with disclosures. Beyond merely achieving the highest possible price with the lowest amount of stress, one of the main roles of a real estate agent is to protect clients from liability. DeLeon Realty has the tools and the legal acumen to do this at the highest level.

COLETTE R. THOMASON

DeLeon Realty Corporate Counsel

MICHAEL REPKA CEO & Managing Broker

EXCEPTIONAL MARKETING

Captivate as many buyers as possible

Our listing team works closely with the best marketing team in real estate, consisting of in-house professionals, to craft a marketing plan that highlights all of the best qualities of your home and neighborhood. Unlike most other Realtors®, we do not outsource this important function to third-party providers who use the same templates for multiple agents and brokerages.

We have devised a strategic marketing plan with key aspects that have proven effective for our clients. We pride ourselves on providing more exposure for our listings than any other brokerage , both in print and virtual, and it starts with our extensive marketing.

Also, because of our high volume, we know which agents have buyers looking for a home like yours, even if they are looking in a different area.

CUSTOM WEBSITE

All of our properties are highlighted with a custom website featuring a professionally produced and narrated video tour, a 3D tour, property information, photo gallery, and property disclosures. The DeLeon Realty website is also a great tool for buyers, allowing them to research Silicon Valley cities and neighborhoods, read published articles about the local real estate market, research tax and legal topics, and conduct detailed, filtered property searches. Furthermore, our active listings are prominently featured on the home page of our company website. Our website is completely customized, locally focused, and written entirely by us, with an eye towards the concerns of local residents. In fact, many buyers visit our site even if they are working with other agents, which results in extra exposure for our listings.

3D TOURS AND FLOORPLANS

To give buyers an immersive experience, we provide a 3D virtual tour that allows buyers to explore the home’s floorplan. This helps potential buyers feel as though they are walking through the home, allowing them to experience its flow and appreciate its design and features. This is in addition to our industry-leading videos.

ONLINE AND SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

In addition to all of the online marketing utilized by most agents, DeLeon Realty pays for Facebook and Google ads to bring even more attention to your property. We also feature our listings on Instagram and WeChat, and post our video tours on YouTube. Our marketing team includes experts in online and social media promotions to ensure your home receives maximum exposure across all platforms.

ARCHITECTURAL PHOTOGRAPHY

All of our homes are photographed by a professional photographer who specializes in architectural imagery. Based on our experience, the quality of our photography has had a profound impact on our marketing, as our brochures and ads leave a lasting impression. This is even more important now, with many buyers seeing homes for the first time online.

BROCHURES

Your home will be presented in a full-color, 12-page brochure that includes multiple photos, engaging text, a comprehensive list of features, and a link to the custom website and video.

PROMINENT NEWSPAPER ADS

We will run a number of ads for your home in the area’s most prominent newspapers, including full-page ads for your home in the Palo Alto Weekly and your local newspaper such as the Los Altos Town Crier, Sunnyvale Sun, The Almanac, etc., the first week that it is on the market; after that, we will advertise the property every week until it sells.

PROFESSIONAL-QUALITY VIDEOS

Narrated videos are remarkably effective in marketing our listings, and they give us the unique opportunity to speak directly to buyers through informative voiceovers. Our professionally produced videos also enable us to point out features of the home that buyers may have missed, as well as inform them of nearby schools, restaurants, trails, and Silicon Valley companies.

Additionally, with so many buyers coming from other parts of the nation and the world, our videos give us a chance to showcase each property to buyers and influencers (like parents or other relatives) who may not be able to see the home in person. In fact, we have sold several homes, solely from our videos without the buyer ever physically viewing the home.

SCAN TO VIEW VIDEO

INTERNATIONAL MARKETING

In response to the international nature of Silicon Valley, the DeLeon Team engages in comprehensive outreach to the international community, both domestically and abroad.

DeLeon Realty is also a well-known name in the Chinese community; in fact, we have a dedicated full-time specialist who markets our listings to the Chinese-speaking community.

OUR INTERNATIONAL MARKETING PLAN FOR YOUR HOME INCLUDES:

• Advertisement on local Chinese radio

• Open house announcements on local Chinese radio talk shows

• Advertisements in local Chinese newspapers

• Dedicated Chinese website for your property

• Property featured on WeChat ® (Chinese multi-purpose messaging, social media, and mobile app with over 1 billion active users), Xiaohongshu, and other third-party sites

• Commercials on Chinese television

• DeLeon Listing Manager Audrey Sun regularly appears on Chinese talk shows focused on Silicon Valley real estate

• Audrey is fluent in Mandarin and Cantonese, which helps present our properties to certain buyers more persuasively

• Marketing to the Indian community through local advertisements, events, and online

• Attendance and hosting booths at overseas highend real estate shows - including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, United Arab Emirates, and India - to showcase our properties to thousands of international buyers

Xiaohongshu Mobile App

The DeLeon Team’s Audrey Sun (right) appears on Chinese TV station KTSF 26.

PRESENT YOUR HOME

Inspire buyers with engaging & memorable home tours

On the first weekend your house is on the market, DeLeon Realty hosts open houses that are regularly well-attended, thanks in large part to promoting the events via e-blasts, online and newspaper ads, and on social media.

Our open house events often create a buzz around the home and add to the high number of offers that we receive. Plus, busy open houses make potential buyers feel like the home is more desirable, and the attendance we generate at these events contributes directly to our strong sales statistics.

”The team addressed everything from staging, maintenance and landscaping. Our home had multiple offers and sold within six days.” - Madeline B.

263 YALE ROAD MENLO PARK

Interior Design and Staging provided by the DeLeon Team at no additional cost to the client

SOLD OVER ASKING

SOLD!

The DeLeon Team will work tirelessly to procure offers on your home, and we will use our years of training, experience, and expertise to help you find the best offer.

CONGRATULATIONS

YOU’VE SOLD YOUR HOME!

3%3

TOTAL COMMISSION

25362 LA LOMA DRIVE LOS ALTOS HILLS

3%

TOTAL COMMISSION

479 FERNE AVENUE PALO ALTO

SOLD FOR $5,000,000

LISTED FOR $3,988,000

SOLD FOR $5,100,000

LISTED FOR $3,788,000

3%3

TOTAL COMMISSION

201 MONROE DRIVE MOUNTAIN VIEW

SOLD FOR $3,550,000

LISTED FOR $2,498,000

THE DELEON ADVANTAGE

ADDITIONAL SAVINGS FOR OUR CLIENTS

3% COMMISSION DELEON LISTING SIDE

DELEON LISTING

0% COMMISSION DELEON BUYING SIDE

3%3%

TOTAL COMMISSION (2.5% SAVINGS FOR SELLER) *

When the buyer of your home is represented by a DeLeon agent, or is without an agent entirely, we will waive 100% of the buyers’ side commission - saving you 2.5%* in commission.

In the best interests of our clients, DeLeon Realty has implemented a company-wide policy to remove double-sided commissions.

Since its inception in 2017, this program has saved our sellers more than $16 million in commission.

For terms and conditions, please visit DeLeonRealty.com

*NOTE: Commissions vary from agent to agent and should be negotiated based on the level of marketing and service provided by the agent.

MORE THAN REAL ESTATE, WE CARE ABOUT PEOPLE

DeLeon Realty owes much of its success over the past 11 years to the immensely talented people who work for us. We attract the best with our competitive compensation, full benefits, and abundant company perks.

At the heart of our company’s core values, DeLeon Realty strives to provide JOYFUL EXPERIENCES for our employees and make MEANINGFUL CONNECTIONS with the community.

A HAPPY TEAM MAKES HAPPY CLIENTS

• Adventurous annual company trips, including week-long cruises and fun ski trips

• Uplifting & festive office activities

• One-of-a-kind cultural events

• Inspiring team building outings

LIFE IS FUN WHEN WORK IS FUN.

“Recently, I had the opportunity to plan an employee ski & snowmobile getaway to Lake Tahoe. Michael and Ken spared no expense to make it a memorable and great experience.” - Jessica Taylor, Office Manager

MAKING A REAL DIFFERENCE

The DeLeon Team enjoys giving back to the community and engaging in a number of local events and humanitarian efforts. Some of these include:

• Annual sponsor of the Palo Alto Weekly Moonlight Run

• Volunteer work with local organizations including Project WeHOPE in East Palo Alto

• Partnerships with the Bill Wilson Center and Toys For Tots to provide holiday gifts to those in need

• Annual donations of supplies to local schools

DELEONREALTY.COM

Brochure designed by the DeLeon Marketing Team

Architectural Photography by the DeLeon Marketing Team

DISCLAIMER

As prominent members of the real estate community, we respect all pre-existing listing agreements. If your home is currently under a listing contract, please do not construe this publication as a solicitation for that listing. On the other hand, if you have not yet selected a Realtor®, we urge you to consider DeLeon Realty’s resources and design acumen, as demonstrated in this proprietary publication, which was created completely in-house by our talented marketing team.

All consultations are at no cost and without obligation. DeLeon Realty reserves the right to cancel any promotions or offerings contained within this material. Please refer to our website for the latest offerings, which will also be clearly detailed in a listing agreement addendum.

Complimentary services are provided at no additional charge to our sellers. Even if a home does not sell and we don’t receive any commission, we are not reimbursed for any of the complimentary services. Naturally, these complimentary services including marketing, home prep, and legal services, are only provided to clients who list their home for sale with DeLeon Realty.

Access to the services described herein begins on the day the listing agreement is signed and ends on the day of closing. In the unlikely event that the house does not sell, the client is not required to reimburse DeLeon Realty for the cost of marketing or other complimentary services listed in this Guide or other marketing materials. However, the client would remain responsible for outside vendor services they approved such as repairs, improvements, moving, storage and cleaning.

Legal services, when needed, are provided through the Law Offices of Michael J. Repka. DeLeon Realty is not a law firm. Likewise, the material in this publication does not constitute a solicitation for legal services nor is it intended to provide legal advice. You should always consult a suitably qualified attorney of your choice regarding any specific legal problem or matter. Nothing in this publication is intended to create an attorney-client relationship.