We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Andre Doxon a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Andre, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.
The Remote Remodel team, I and my sisters, Alycia and Chantal, had been small time investing in residential real estate for a few years. With my background in carpentry, Chantal’s degree in interior architecture and Alycia’s Masters in Business Administration, we each had different skills that we contributed to acquiring homes in our local area, redesigning, renovating and reselling them as a side hustle. We had plans to eventually grow it to our full time business and then Covid hit. The impact on our local Florida real estate market left us as very small fish in the real estate investing world. We found we just couldn’t compete with the bigger investors and investment groups in the market. We didn’t want to just give up on real estate but in order to continue, we had to figure out how we could be different than the rest. While my sisters and I each had our unique skill sets, we all thrived on creative problem solving. We decided to shift our focus to challenging properties where other investors shied away. We put our efforts into finding creative design / renovation solutions for homes to get past the difficulties for which the larger investors couldn’t see a vision. This got us back into the market, but what started as just a way for us to continue investing in real estate took on a new life during our annual family planning and goal setting meeting. We were discussing existing challenges in residential real estate and brainstorming how we could expand what we were doing with creative design/renovation solutions to help address one of the problems in the market, that being the sellability of the “ugly” house. We realized that many home buyers can’t see past the ugly of an existing home, This was our opportunity to meet a real need in the market. We can provide creative deisgn/renovation solutions to show the vision of what a home can be. This is how Remote Remodel was born.
Andre, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
Remote Remodel is a virtual design company that specializes in creating designs for remodeling spaces to show the vision of what a property be. Our main focus currently is as a sales tool for real estate professionals. To understand where we fit in, you have to understand the options home sellers have to boost the sellability of a property.
One option is staging or virtual staging. This can be helpful since 80% of buyers surveyed say they could visualize a space better once it was staged, and statistics show staging brings a 3-5% higher average price of sale and reduces days on market by approximately 40%. Unfortunately staging doesn’t fix the actual sellability issues of about 30% of the homes on market currently. Issues like being out-dated, compartmentalized, nonfunctional floor plans, being neglected or distressed. You can put all the beautiful furniture and artwork in a property but when they have green carpet in the bathrooms and a 6’x6’ kitchen, it doesn’t help make them more attractive to prospective buyers.
Other options would be to actually have the home remodeled before listing but statistics show if a seller pays for a large remodeling project (e.g. kitchen, bathroom), the seller only recoups 65% of that cost at time of sale. Alternatively, the sales price can be reduced or the property can be sold “As Is”.
This is where Remote Remodel provides a real solution to improve the sellability of a home. Whether it is getting ready for sale or one that has been on the market longer than anticipated, our experience in remodeling and design allow us to create realistic solutions to show the vision of what can be done to make the property meet potential buyer’s dreams. We come out to the specific property, we take applicable measurements of the problem spaces, do a consultation (construction & design) of what makes sense for the home, neighborhood, and potential buyers and then we get to work on the computer to put together a design with beautiful 3D renderings and floor plans of the exact space for that home to show the vision of what “ can be” to potential buyers instead of settling for trying to sell the “currently as is”. This helps realtors to get these more challenging homes sold faster and for higher price.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
We are not natural salespeople, nor did any of us have any experience in selling anything. When we first started trying to sell Remote Remodel design services, we were really struggling. We absolutely believed in what we were offering and that we could make a difference in the market of selling ugly, outdated homes. Unfortunately, we were not getting any external feedback that supported those beliefs.
We tried going to open houses and meeting with realtors one on one for homes that met the “ugly” criteria. I would put my smile on, go in and try to articulate what our company did and how we could help them to sell the home without having to lower the sales price. Time after time, I left frustrated because they clearly were not understanding what it was I was selling. Some thought we must be just a virtual staging company, other’s wouldn’t even talk to me after I told them I was not a buyer. One lady literally stood with the door cracked open and her foot behind the door and would not even let me attempt to explain what I was offering. We also tried presenting at broker meetings but public speaking nerves made me stumble through the slides and our natural introvert tendencies made networking a struggle. To be honest, I considered going back to my remodeling work where the tools did not require me to explain myself and most certainly didn’t ask me any questions. Whether it was our refusal to admit failure, or just our stubborn nature, we went back to the brainstorming table and rehashed all the depressing negative responses. We picked them apart to figure out why no one was singing the praises of our novel approach to selling the vision of what can be for the old ugly home. First and foremost, we realized our challenge was that we were trying to sell something that no one knew existed as an option. They all knew about staging and virtual staging but no one had ever heard of virtual remodeling. Secondly, we figured out we only had about 60 seconds to get the prospective customer interested to hear more and then we had maybe 3-4 minutes to get them to understand how our service was a really viable solution to the sellability challenge. With limited finances, we could not afford to hire a qualified sales person so our trio of non-salespeople iterated and revised our pitch and presentations more times than I would care to count and finally the day came when it clicked. I remember the house, it was a rambler, with an small living room and small closed off kitchen with cabinets that had not been updated since 1980. The realtor was a man in his early 40’s. I rolled off the pitch just as I had practiced and I could see the light bulb go off as he smiled and excitedly said – “How did you come up with that? No one else is doing that!”. That first success was a great feeling!
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
I have always been an idea guy. Lots of ideas on businesses that could be started but I always thought I had to have everything aligned before moving forward. I thought I needed a full business plan written up with market analysis and strategy, competitive analysis, financial projections etc. I needed everything in my personal life to be just right before I could try to start my own business. I used to listen to “other people” who would point out all the hurtles and obstacles I would have to figure out and all the reasons why my idea would not work out. I assumed they all knew more than I did and people that had actually started their own businesses had the whole plan figured out before they even started. In looking back, I realized those “other people” could definitely be classified as “risk averse” and followers of the philosophy: “better safe than sorry”. I am happy to say, I have learned differently. If you have a good idea and you really believe in it, you need to jump in and get moving. The time will never be perfect, the plan will never be complete, just start moving forward and figure it out as you go.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://RemoteRemodel.pro
- Instagram: RemoteRemodel
- Facebook: RemoteRemodel
