How Listing Prep Helps Real Estate Agents Sell Homes Faster | Adam Rosen

Adam Rosen (00:00)
Our ideal situation is a home that’s been lived in for, 20, 30 years. It’s been well loved, but it’s dated. it might have yellow paint, it might have worn carpet, it might have, high polished brass fixtures. these are things that homeowners can live with.

But buyers are going to walk in and especially in this market, they’re going to see that and say, this is not the house for me. And they’re going to move on. We want to eliminate those catch points. We want to neutralize the paint. it’s the same reason why when you walk into a department store, you don’t see heads with faces on the mannequins. It’s because they want the shoppers to envision themselves wearing those clothes. It’s the exact same thing in real estate.

Quentin Edmonds (01:15)
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros Podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds, and I am excited to be here today. I am excited about my guest. I have another fantastic guest. And what he wants to do, he wants to help investors.

I love his mindset because he really just wants to make things easier for people. And I think once he starts to get into his business model, you’re gonna see exactly that’s what it will do, will make things easier for people. And so I’m excited to have him here. I’m excited that we get to peek through his experience. So I want to introduce you all to Mr. Adam Rosen. Mr. Adam, how are you doing today, sir?

Adam Rosen (01:54)
I’m good, Q. How are you?

Quentin Edmonds (01:56)
Sir,

doing good, man. Thank you for being here. you’ll probably hear me say this again. I thank you for your time. I think time is our most precious commodity. So thank you, man, for giving us some of your time. I value it. And Adam, I am a type sir. I love to dive right in. So I would love for you to tell the people what’s your main focus these days. If you don’t mind, give us a little origin story, kind of how you got into the space that you’re in, and then tell them where you’re calling from, where you are in the world.

Adam Rosen (02:24)
So we are a single point of contact for home prep services, things like home clear outs, painting, flooring and carpeting, landscaping, cleaning and handyman work. We orchestrate everything for you and for your sellers. we also offer a pay-it-close option. The reason I got into HOMEstretch entrepreneurship has always appealed to me. I come from

the healthcare tech world. I did the startup thing for a number of years. didn’t really appeal to me after a while. separately, I like to say we’re serial movers. we’ve bought and sold three times in five years for no particular reason other than we’re just ready for the next thing. So we are no stranger to getting a house prepped and ready for market. We’re also no stranger to the stress that comes with that.

And we know how much time goes into coordinating bids, getting the work done, getting our lives organized so that we’re not going to be disrupted when, the flooring installers are going to be here at 8 a.m. And we just wish we had someone to tell us what to do, what to expect. So when I decided I wanted to go out on my own, I came across HOMEstretch. It checked all the boxes for me.

I love the model. No one’s really doing what we’re doing. And it’s something that I had experience in. We are a franchise. the company started in Cincinnati. And for the past year, we’ve been helping the agents here in Denver make their listing prep as quick and easy as possible. And we are really looking forward to a year of growth in 2027

Quentin Edmonds (04:00)
Love it, Adam man. Thank you, sir. Thank you for giving me a glimpse of the journey, kind of how you went through some transitions to kind of get to where you are now and where you landed. And I love that. I want to stay in that mode talking about the transition, the journey. So, Adam, I often say destiny has no wasted moments, right? We are learning from every leg of the journey, the loss, the failure. We’re learning from the transitions, the pivots. So, Adam, I would love to know, sir, what has the journey revealed to you?

About yourself? Has it made you more humble, more disciplined? Has it increased innovation? what has the journey revealed to Adam about Adam?

Adam Rosen (04:36)
The journey to me has revealed how much work this takes, how much work goes into getting something off the ground. And it’s really made me I don’t know what the word is, self aware. I guess it’s revealed to me what are my blind spots? what am I good at? What am I not so good at? Where do I need to improve?

for instance, business development is not something that comes naturally to me. we build our business a lot on making cold calls to real estate agents. that’s something that I underestimated the difficulty of. I’ve spent a lot of time this year trying to hone my pitch, hone my approach so that when I’m calling someone, I’m able to present the value to them. I want to share to the agent.

what’s in it for them so that they know right away I’m not just a telemarketer. I’m calling with a service of value. I’m calling to build partnership and I’m calling to save them time and make things easier for them.

Quentin Edmonds (06:12)
Adam, thank you, man. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for your honesty. And I always talk about the difference between being self-aware and self-confident. And I love how you bring out self-aware because when you’re self-aware, you’re aware of yourself to the compliment of everybody else and everything that has to do with the business. So you know your strength, you know your weaknesses, and you’re willing to work with people to help kind of fill those gaps, right? To make sure that the business flows the way it’s supposed to.

A self-confident person, they are aware of themselves the same way, but it’s to the detriment of everybody else. A self-confident person is like, I know my weaknesses, but I’m still gonna act like I’m strong in that area. I’m gonna bull through and not ask for help.

Adam Rosen (06:54)
Exactly.

I like to say I’m a lot better at updating houses than I am at talking on the phone. So, at least I got that going for me.

Quentin Edmonds (07:02)
We all got our strengths. and I love when we know our strengths and can collaborate with other people to actually support me in the areas where I’m not as strong. And I’ve mentioned the word community. We probably talk about community more, but I always feel like that there is the community will heal itself. If we have a healthy community, we’ll help each other. And so I love that, man. so Adam, entrepreneurial mindset.

One of the big things is having systems and operations in place. So I would love to know what are some operational things, or maybe one operational thing that you’ve put in place, let’s say within the year that you’ll find that has really kind of helped you be successful.

Adam Rosen (07:42)
I know it’s sort of controversial. I would say, we’ve layered chat GPT and AI into how we operate our business a lot. It’s become a really valuable asset to us. it’s one of the ways that we can help make sure we are pricing our services fairly. we’re never going to be the cheapest.

We don’t want to be the most expensive, but the value that we bring to agents and to sellers is we’re taking care of everything. we’re project managing, we’re bringing in our own vendors, we’re getting things done quickly. yes, you may be able to go out and find a painter who’s going to do the job for $600 less, but what are you really gaining or what are you saving with that $600? is it really worth it to

need to take on the time and stress to save that, to make that savings. That’s what we’re doing. And we’ve layered this in to help us make sure we’re pricing things fairly, to make sure that the improvements that we are recommending are going to move the needle as far as the market goes. one thing I always want sellers and real estate agents to a lesser extent to keep in mind, we’re not doing bespoke home remote.

we are updating homes so that they sell and sell quickly and we want to maximize value for the buyers. So,

our ideal situation is a home that’s been lived in for, 20, 30 years. It’s been well loved, but it’s dated. it might have yellow paint, it might have worn carpet, it might have, high polished brass fixtures. these are things that homeowners can live with.

But buyers are going to walk in and especially in this market, they’re going to see that and say, this is not the house for me. And they’re going to move on. We want to eliminate those catch points. We want to neutralize the paint. it’s the same reason why when you walk into a department store, you don’t see heads with faces on the mannequins. It’s because they want the shoppers to envision themselves wearing those clothes. It’s the exact same thing in real estate.

We want a buyer to walk into a house, see a neutral space.

and begin making the connection. I can put this painting here. I can put this sofa here. And they’re going to begin envisioning themselves and taking ownership of that space. That’s what we want to do. And we bring that consultative approach. And that’s how we help people.

Quentin Edmonds (10:35)
Love it, man. Thank you. I think you just laid that out just so perfectly and so eloquently. And thank you for sharing. I would love to know what’s next, man. Adam, what’s the next real goal? What are you looking to solve with scale next, man?

Adam Rosen (10:48)
so this year was our first year in operation here in Denver. We have built a great business. We’ve helped about 30 real estate agents over the past 12 months get homes prepped and ready to sell. We want to double that this year. We wanna be working with 60 agents by the end of 2027. We want to double our revenue. We want to make HOMEstretch ubiquitous with making things easy,

I like to say, to real estate agents when they have a project that needs a lot of work and they’re worrying about how they’re going to get it done, I wanna say to them, don’t sweat it, HOMEstretch it. We wanna make HOMEstretch a verb. And we wanna be the first thought that real estate agents and investors have when they see a project and they’re not sure where to start because we do.

Quentin Edmonds (11:32)
love that. Don’t sweat it HOMEstretch it. Man, I love that. So, Adam, everyone that comes on, I love to get their unique perspective on the word relationship. We all have our unique perspective. Relationships may have served us well, or we may have a different spin or different lens on it. So I want to get your unique perspective.

On the word relationship. what are some relationships that have, helped you within this business? Maybe what’s some relationships you’ve helped? What’s your theory on building healthy relationships? Talk to me a little bit, Adam, about relationship building, sir.

Adam Rosen (12:08)
Absolutely. Well, the relationships that have helped me a lot in building this business, we are a family business through and through. So my spouse and I run it. my parents have been helpful in helping us get this started. we’re part of a franchise network. We’re very collaborative. We believe we are one HOMEstretch brand. The other HOMEstretch franchisees here in Denver.

We all work together. We’re very collaborative. We want to make the process as easy as possible for everyone here. We’ve been able to lean on the experts, the founders in Cincinnati for guidance, for mentorship. And, truly, that is what makes HOMEstretch HOMEstretch. yes, I could have seen this idea, tried to copy it, tried to make, Adam’s home prep company.

But what we have is institutional knowledge. We have collective expertise. We have franchisees across the country who’ve seen everything, who’ve dealt with everything, and we’re all helping each other figure it out so that we’re all getting better from one person’s experience. When one of us wins, we all win.

Quentin Edmonds (13:08)
So well said, sir. I love that. I’ve asked you a lot of questions. I kind of want to make sure we cover all our bases. So, is there anything on your heart, on your mind that you kind of wanted to make sure you landed that maybe we didn’t talk about? if you came in with a certain message, like I want to make sure people know this about HOMEstretch I want to make sure people know this about me.

Or I just want to educate people, motivate people in this area. If there’s anything like that that has not yet been said, I kind of want to open the floor so you can land that point.

Adam Rosen (13:38)
the biggest thing I want people to know about not just me, but HOMEstretch anywhere. we are one hundred percent built to work with the real estate market. That’s what makes us different from other home remodelers out there. we bring a consultative approach to getting houses prepped and ready for the market. We are also partnership based. we not only want to help you with your listing, we want to build a relationship with you.

with investors, with real estate agents, we wanna be the first thing you think of, the first group you think of when you see a project and when you need help. we wanna know what’s going well, what’s not going well. Because when we’re helping you, we wanna be in it with you. And, that’s exactly what this is. I feel whenever

one of their listings goes under contract. that’s not just us. that’s the seller doing their part. That’s the real estate agent doing their part. That’s us doing our part. It is 100% a collaborative effort. And we wanna be the collaborator. We wanna be the group who’s helping you win, helping you make your sales, helping you deliver value to buyers.

Quentin Edmonds (14:42)
Again, so well said, Adam. Sir, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, how can they get in contact with you, sir?

Adam Rosen (14:53)
They can get in contact with us by going to home-stretch.com The dash is important because homestretch.com is a different website. So it’s home-stretch.com. I am the franchisee in West Denver. When agents go to the website, they put in the zip code where they’re based, they will see who the appropriate location is to reach out to. That is going to be the closest team to them who can serve them and make sure that they’re well taken care of.

Quentin Edmonds (15:23)
Sir, I appreciate you coming on today. I want to say three things to you sincerely. First, again, thank you for your time. Time is our most precious commodity. So I value the fact that you gave us some of your time. So thank you.

Secondly, man, thank you for what I call the gift of your integrity, the gift of your authenticity, even the gift of your vulnerability. I believe when we talk about our stories, we throw seed out there. And people can take that seed and plant it at any given time and actually reap a harvest. So I think you gave enough nuggets, cast enough seed, but somebody can take it and plant it in their experience. So I really appreciate you knowing that. And lastly, sir, thank you for your mindset.

Thank you for the way you think and bringing that mindset to this platform. I appreciate you coming on today, sir.

Adam Rosen (16:10)
Of course. Thank you, Q. Happy to be here.

Quentin Edmonds (16:12)
So listen, y’all heard my friend Adam. His information is in the show notes. Please go click the link. Get in contact with him. But definitely make sure you are subscribed here. Cause I promise you we’re going to continue to bring up amazing people, just like Adam Rosen. So sir, I say thank you again. And everyone else, listen, y’all have a fantastic day.