Bonus Episode Interview #387 with Dalas from Sundae Realty | San Diego, CA

Dalas Dodd, Head of Interior Design

Dalas Dodd is an interior design expert and content producer. She specializes in redesigning and restoring dated and damaged houses, with an emphasis on preserving the original character and charm of each home. Dalas is a producer and on-camera host, and is actively developing a slate of Sundae-branded content franchises.

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Dalas Dodd the Interior Design Team Lead

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Hey, Green Future Growers. Welcome to Season 3. I’m your host Jackie Murray buyJackieMarie Beye. If you’re new to the show, I hope you’ll subscribe on iTunes for free or follow on your favorite podcast app and let’s get growing. Hey, this is JackieMarie Beyer your host here to help inspire you on your journey to create, grow, and enjoy a green, organic oasis. So let’s get growing. Welcome to the green organic garden podcast. It is Friday, April 9th. It is a beautiful sunny day here in Montana although it was pretty chilly this morning.

51s

JackieMarie

I have a guest on the line who I think is down in warm sunny, San Diego. So we’re going to talk about some things you can do for your home from a real estate perspective, because that is a hot topic, I know all across our country today. So here from Sundae is Dalas Dod. So welcome to the show, Dalas, how exciting.

1m 20s

Dalas

Yeah. Thank you so much for having me on. I’m really excited to be here. Am I right about that? Are you in San Diego? We’re kind of all over the place. We have properties down in San Diego, but I, myself am actually based in LA.

1m 35s

JackieMarie

Okay, well go ahead and tell us a little bit about Sundae and the advantages of selling a home off market and how Sundae ensures customers get the highest price for their home now off market. That’s not what we’re seeing in Montana right now, right? Like this market is, is that a buyer’s market? Because here we are the sellers market. I mean, most houses are not listed for like two days and you have cash in hand unless you are like pricing your place out of, you know, I mean, just the prices are insane from our perspective, my husband and I, he was showing me this place.

2m 22s

JackieMarie

He’s like that can’t possibly be right. Can it, but probably people are leaving California and coming here.

2m 30s

Dalas

Hmm, no, the, the market right now is absolutely insane. And what Sundae is able to offer is we’re a marketplace that connects homeowners of distressed homes with hundreds of local investors, so that homeowners can really get the best price possible. So Sundae will come in, take care of everything. And if you’re a homeowner that’s looking to sell as is, we’ll meet with you on your schedule, put together a complete package to present to our investors, and then they bid and compete to give you the best offer for your home. You don’t have to deal with showings.

3m 10s

Dalas

People tramping through your home. There are absolutely no fees to sell through Sundae, and we can even give homeowners a $10,000 cash advance upfront to help with any immediate needs, such as moving, relocating. As you said, a lot of people are moving out of state to Montana. So that’s something that we can offer. And on average, our homeowners, when they sell on our marketplace, they get 10 to 12 offers, which is incredible. And they’re really getting, getting the best price for their home without having to sell the traditional route.

3m 46s

JackieMarie

Well, I’m just going to back up a tiny bit. So one of the things that actually got me to say yes to this interview was I went on your Instagram and one thing like I’ve been getting tons of like, can we be a guest? And can we be guests like emails this spring? And one of the reasons I said yes was because I loved your Instagram feed and the people who work for you seemed so authentic. And just, it seemed like a real company. Like if I go to a website and somebody asked to be on my show, and there’s not a picture of a human anywhere, that’s like an automatic no right there. And so I really was able to relate to some of the things that I saw, some of the flips that I saw, some of the groundwork that, you know, the yard work that was being done.

4m 36s

JackieMarie

I love that fact that you don’t have to have people coming in and out of your home and like being set up to sell all the time that you guys took care of all that, that you mentioned. So I just wanted listeners to kind of know a little bit about how, how we got here. I think this is an important topic for people right now. One thing people are always surprised about where I live in Montana. And a question I get a lot is about the high speed internet, which we do have super reliable, super fast high-speed internet here, where I live. I know other parts of Montana are not so great.

5m 17s

JackieMarie

I know also like if people are interested in cell service, my side of the highway just happens to have, I tell people, call me on my home phone because it can cut out a lot and cell phone service, but like just on the other side of the highway, there’s no cell phone service at all. So there’s all sorts of things to look at when you’re selling your home. But let’s talk more about the advantages of Sundae, what your role at Sundae is maybe some of the advantages of making a home greener and more sustainable.

5m 52s

Dalas

Yeah. Yeah. I’m going to actually like back up and introduce myself a little bit more. Yeah. So like we said before, my name’s Dalas Dodd and currently I’m the Interior Design Team Lead at Sundae. And I have over six years of experiencing experience designing and remodeling distressed homes where we’ve always placed a focus, not only on the design, but the sustainability as well. I mentioned the marketplace earlier, but we also at Sundae have a property investment arm where sometimes we buy the houses in the marketplace so that we can renovate and restore the house ourselves.

6m 38s

Dalas

When we do this, we always really place a focus on the highest level of quality for these flips and then adding value towards the community, by restoring these homes and honoring their local architecture, as well as making sure that the remodel is sustainable for future homeowners. And I mean, there are so many ways that you can make your home more sustainable. And trust me, there’s many ways that aren’t that complex or expensive, but of course the biggest advantage to making your house more sustainable is the environment, the environmental impact. And then the second of course, is the impact on your wallet or your monthly bills.

7m 20s

Dalas

Should we talk about some ways that we can, that you can make your home in?

7m 23s

JackieMarie

I would love that because as a side note, we switched from direct dish network to Direct TV and I finally have access to HGTV and I am like hooked on Farmer Fixer Upper. And like, I couldn’t believe it. I’m like where’s Fixer Upper? Like I, one of the reasons I wanted it was Chip and Joanna and I don’t get them, but there are all these other shows that I’m like, wow, I’ve just like, I love watching those shows. So yeah, let’s hear some awesome sustainable tips.

7m 54s

Dalas

Oh my gosh, we hope to have a show someday. That’s definitely vision down the road for us, but one of the most common ways to make your home more sustainable actually has to do with your plumbing. So installing low flow plumbing fixtures is one of the best things that you can do. We do this all the time for our sustainable remodels, even in markets that aren’t as heavily regulated as we are here in California. So I’m not sure what the regulations are in Montana, but installing low flow fixtures, they’re specifically designed to limit water waste, which is what we’re all striving to do.

8m 36s

Dalas

The average low-flow fixture actually releases around half the gallons per minute than a standard fixture. So over time that’s a massive impact, not only on the planet, but on our water bills.

8m 48s

JackieMarie

And water is so important. I just watched this documentary yesterday called Tomorrow that just talked about water. And who else was it was talking about, you know, reusing gray water. Like, do we really need to flush our toilet with like, why can’t we reuse the shower water or something to like, there were like all these options for like saving water, but low flow would be like, what did you just want? Like quickly, like explain what is a low flow plumbing. What’s an example of that. Is that using a toilet that uses less water or something, or like a shower that like has a smaller amount of water coming out when you brush your teeth?

9m 34s

JackieMarie

Or I don’t even know what a low water fixture is actually.

9m 39s

Dalas

No. Yeah. So a low-flow fixture just essentially has like slightly less water pressure, but still is acting as effectively as a typical faucet or fixture would. And then for a toilet, a lot of times you’ll see, like the flush just goes on end, whereas a love flow toilet uses less gallons per flush and in order to achieve the same goal. So you’re definitely not compromising on the effectiveness of the fixtures, but you are conserving water at the same time.

10m 23s

JackieMarie

And it’s true. It’s so important how much water we save and we use because clean water is going to be the next, like, you know, that’s where we’re struggling on our planet. You know, we’re polluting our waters and it gets into the ocean and then it gets picked up into the rain and the clouds, and then just cycles back if you know the water cycle. And so anywhere we can save clean water. And I liked the way that you talked about like, thinking about your home in the future and not just the now that it’s an investment in your home value. Okay. What’s the next one?

11m 4s

Dalas

Yeah. Yeah. The other one is installing energy star appliances, as well as smart thermostats. By installing the energy star appliances those use a lot less energy, which allows homeowners to actually get yearly rebates for these more efficient appliances. And then using smart thermostats, you can hook them up to your cell phone and allow you to control the temp or turn off those systems from wherever you might be. So if you forget to turn off the AC, when you leave the house, you can really quickly just pull up your cell phone and turn it off. And that really helps with the energy savings.

11m 48s

JackieMarie

And on the flip side, it can probably turn it on. So when you get home, your house is cool for you.

11m 54s

Dalas

Yeah. Exactly it goes both ways.

11m 58s

JackieMarie

And then same with heating. If you’re where I am, maybe I don’t know. Yeah.

12m 6s

Dalas

Yeah. And investing in these things now will only increase your property value when you decide to go sell, if you do.

12m 15s

JackieMarie

And it’s also like that commercial where the husband, the doctor’s going to the night shift and he like makes sure that the lights are on for his wife when she comes home. So she’s entering a safe home and like, it’s not just air conditioning. It’s like any kind of electrical appliance, right? Yeah. And just like

12m 36s

Dalas

Any, yeah. There’s so many smart electrical appliances nowadays. Yeah. Not just, not just thermostats that we can tap into our, homes.

12m 51s

JackieMarie

And I think it’s important what you said at the beginning about getting 10 to 12 offers on people’s homes so that they have a shot too. Because if you are moving to Montana, you are going to want to get the best price for your home because, and I know what did I listen to the other day that they were saying actually the most people are moving to like Michigan, Vermont. And there were some other state, like the most people are not actually moving to Montana, which is surprising, but not, there’s not a lot of jobs here. If you don’t have a job, this is not the place. Like, I’m always like surprised. There’s show many women. I meet here who here who hate it. And they’re like, oh, I came because of my husband, yada, yada, yada.

13m 32s

JackieMarie

And then they’re like, if they ended up, you know, getting a divorce, or their kids are grown up and they’re still here or whatever. I’m like, why are you here in this place? You hate the cold. This is the hardest place to make a living of like anywhere I’ve ever been. Like, there’s so many, if you don’t love camping and being outdoors. And like, I feel like our quality of life, like the picture view, you get to see like doubles your income at any job that you get here. Because even if you do find a job, it’s probably going to, you know, the wages are gonna be super low. Like even I taught it on a reservation where we had the second highest wages for a teacher in the state, and we still had the going joke.

14m 21s

JackieMarie

“We have to shop at Walmart because we can’t afford to shop at Target.” Like just still like low wages. Like this is a very hard state to, it’s definitely changing. And, you know, you can see already competition for the summer as the state opens. Anyway, we’re here to talk about Sundae. So, and I do want to just tell everybody it’s S U N D A E kind of like an ice cream sundae and okay. What was the next thing? I love that you’re the interior design lead. What other things should we talk about to reduce our footprint and make our home more valuable from a sustainable point of view?

15m 5s

Dalas

Yeah, of course. The last thing that I’ll add just says since given the times where, and we’re spending so much time at home, I think it’s especially critical for us to turn off any electrical products that aren’t currently in use. I mean, we, like, we no longer have the excuse. Oh, I was running out the door on my way to work and forgot to unplug the toaster. And since so many of us are working from home and inevitably using more energy, it’s really important to turn off anything that we aren’t using to offset those costs.

15m 40s

JackieMarie

Surprise. What did I see? Was it in that thing, like how much your phone uses, like being plugged in, which I am super guilty about because I, my big thing is I want my phone to have a hundred percent charge. I don’t know if it’s like my battery’s dying or like during the winter, the charger died, I want, I like when I’m home, it’s pretty much sitting on the charger because if I go for a walk, I wanted to have a hundred percent charged, so it doesn’t die on me on my walk. I want to make sure my podcast is going to play that my, you know, Runkeeper app still going to work.

16m 22s

JackieMarie

So like, my mom’s always complaining. She’s like, I can’t believe I have to charge my phone every night. And I’m like, man, my phone just sits on the charger, but I was really surprised to see how much juice. It said appliances use when you’re not using them.

16m 39s

Dalas

Yeah. I mean, the phone, the phone is, the phone is essential. I’ll give you that one, but you can definitely unplug your coffee maker when you’re not using it or, or just other small appliances like that, that are just sucking energy without being of any use in the moment

17m 1s

JackieMarie

They, you know, and part of it probably is cause we’re home because of the two that we have is like, we find we’re constantly turning our coffee makers back on because they have that automatic two hour shut off and our coffee pots keep getting cold cause we’re home. And then the other one I used to always like charge my phone in my car. Like I never hardly ever had to put it on the thing at home, but because I’m not driving anywhere anymore cause I’ve been home this whole year. That is the one shift for me that I’m seeing. But interesting to know, turn off, turn off those other electrical appliances. I don’t know what to do with the coffee on the flip side, I couldn’t even drink a whole pot of coffee anymore.

17m 44s

JackieMarie

Like I used to drink a pot of coffee before I went to work. And for some reason I keep finding half of my pot of coffee sitting in there. I finally just got to that peak of coffee or if it’s my age or what’s going on. But my husband drinks coffee from six in the morning till eight at night. So his coffee makers not getting shut off. We’re always cruising that two hour thing because, but you know, we save in other ways, like we are definitely the water conservers at my house and we have other things that we save on, but my listeners don’t want to hear from me. They want to hear from you. So what else do you have for us Dalas? We’ve talked about what can do, how about some curb appeal?

18m 26s

JackieMarie

If people want to sell cause to me, landscaping shoes and like I actually always wanted to start this podcast called Awesome Montana Investment Properties. I was a Realtor for several years when I first got my teaching license and saw how hard it was to get a teaching job. I got my real estate license and like my husband and I being home owners and we had an investment. This is where I’m going with this. We bought an invest. One of my teaching jobs was on the other side of the mountains. And so I had to have a place to live over there and what we were able to make, we bought the house for $22,000 and sold it for 32,000 a year later. And a lot of that was like my husband painting it really nice, putting nice shutters on, but also like he put a, you know, a white fence and he planted some trees and we put a free tree and he put a sidewalk up to the front lawn – arock walkway, like a lot of the curb appeal I think is what gave us that great ROI.

19m 29s

JackieMarie

So how about some current pieces?

19m 33s

Dalas

Yeah. Curb appeal is one of my favorite topics because when you go to sell your house, curb appeal is arguably one of the most important things to address because it’s the first impression buyers are going to get. When they pull up to your home, you can do so much, so much with curb appeal. So I’m going to just focus on three things for today. The first is buyers want the house that they buy to feel new. It might not necessarily be new, but you want to address any dead giveaways that make your home seem older, such as dilapidated side gates, or like you were saying a fence that’s kind of falling down or dry rot, anything that would cause concern.

20m 17s

Dalas

Like it’s not super expensive to replace the side gate or fix up your fence. So that’s definitely the first thing, the first and most important thing that I would address. My second tip would be to give your home a fresh coat of paint. You want to consider the current color and whether or not you want to switch it up. I definitely advise keeping it neutral if you do paint that way, you appeal to the most buyers.

20m 47s

Dalas

And then a tip on sustainability is that if you’re in a warm climate, you want to head towards light colors that will provide the cooling effect for your home. Versus if you’re in a colder climate, you might want to opt for something and like a medium tone, medium to darker tone. And then if you can’t afford to paint the whole house, because that is an expense, at least at minimum spruce up the trim or adding a fresh coat of paint to the front door will really make the home home feel fresh.

21m 21s

Dalas

And then now to dive into the lot, the landscaping. Landscaping is so important for curb appeal and not only in the front yard, but in the backyard as well. Kind of, as we were talking about earlier, given the times that we’re living in right now, we’re spending so much time at home that the outdoors is really our oasis. So having a turnkey backyard where buyers can envision outdoor living or having a barbecue is, is a huge selling point.

21m 51s

Dalas

And of course you don’t want to forget about the sustainability part. So for the curb appeal, I recommend selecting more drought tolerant plants that require less water and maintenance. And then in the backyard, finding ways to add outdoor living spaces actually helps you save on water, because if you consider taking away part of your lawn to either add a patio or a gravel fire pit, it’s a pretty inexpensive way to add outdoor living space and cut back on your water bill because there’s less square footage that requires watering. And those are my tips.

22m 30s

JackieMarie

Dalas these have been awesome tips for listeners today, and you probably don’t know this, but my husband, I wrote a book called The Organic Oasis Guidebook and one of the things I talk about right away is like, you know, you, you can go, there’s lots of podcasts that will teach you how to grow a bigger, better tomato and vegetables. But I really like to focus on the oasis part, the part about sitting and enjoying your garden, that like my husband, grows the mini farm, which is focused on vegetable production, but I like to focus on the garden part where we can sit in the shade and enjoy company and have outdoor meals.

23m 14s

JackieMarie

And yes, we do like to teach people how to grow better food. But one thing I always like to mention is the more plants you have and you hit on that, the native plants it’ll also help your neighbors gardens grow more. And so I love that you talked about that, you know, putting in an outdoor living space will save water because that is so key. And an outdoor fire pit right now is huge. My husband built an outdoor fire pit cause we are, we haven’t had anybody in our house. And so we’ve not let people in yet, but we’re just about to start, but we spend a lot of time outdoors.

23m 60s

JackieMarie

And so I think those are great tips. Like, do you have any tips about what makes a good fire pit like things to look for at all? If you don’t, that’s fine, but just be curious, do you?

24m 14s

Dalas

No. Yeah, I think, I mean, it all depends. So there’s like two ways to go about the fire pit. You can pull a gas line and have one that’s like built-in and permanent, or you can just buy a fire pit where you add your own firewood and start your own fire just from your local Home Depot. I mean, or you can even just make one yourself with a couple of bricks and you put them in a circle. There’s definitely lots of ways to go about creating a fire pit. And I think it’s definitely a great feature for homeowners to do now and will be a great selling point once they’re looking to sell down the road. So definitely, definitely recommend maximizing your outdoor spaces and creating more living opportunities.

25m 2s

JackieMarie

Yeah. Yeah. And my brother’s had a fire, but that’s been a huge feature in his home and he lives on Long Island. And my mom even thought about getting a fire pit at her home at the beginning of the pandemic. And certainly we had spent tons of time when I was growing up, you know, barbecuing in the backyard. Like I just think these are fantastic tips. I love what you said about the color that you paint your house right now, depending on your climate. So tell people how to get ahold of you, if they have more questions that they want to know more. Now, are you based in California? You’re a California brokerage.

25m 43s

JackieMarie

I mean, certainly the majority of my listeners are in California. I don’t know if that’s because more people garden in California or there’s just more people living in California than any other state or, you know, but for sure, that’s where the majority of my listeners are.

26m 3s

Dalas

Yeah. So we’re based in California. And if you want to learn more about Sundae’s marketplace or read some sustainability and design related blog posts, you can head on over to sundae.com. That’s S U N D A E.com or feel free to DMS. Our Instagram is SundaeHQ on the gram.

26m 31s

JackieMarie

Well thanks Dalas you have a wonderful day and we appreciate you sharing these great tips with us today.

26m 36s

Dalas

Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. It was a great, great time talking to you. Cool.

26m 41s

JackieMarie

Just one last question. Are you a rockstar millennial between 1980 and 1995?

26m 49s

Dalas

I am.

26m 50s

JackieMarie

Cool. I am writing a book about the kids and I was just like, so one of the jobs I’ve had at home is these HR guys who do the human resources podcasts. And it’s funny because one of them hates millennials and he’s always complaining about millennials and he’s like, you’re never going to hear he just even today on this morning’s podcast, you’re never going to hear me say anything good about millennials. And they talk about like these companies, I don’t know what they do for a living, but they’re always talking always inspires me more to get my book done. There’s my phone. You have a great day. I will send you a link when this is up.

27m 32s

Dalas

Okay. Great. Thanks. Bye. Bye.

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Josh Stech Co-Founder & CEO started Sundae to help homeowners get a better outcome when selling off-market. With a career at the intersection of technology and residential real estate, he’s seen first hand the opportunity to create a new type of business that wins by doing the right thing for the seller.

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Dalas Dodd the Interior Design Team Lead

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Hey, Green Future Growers. Welcome to Season 3. I’m your host Jackie Murray buyJackieMarie Beye. If you’re new to the show, I hope you’ll subscribe on iTunes for free or follow on your favorite podcast app and let’s get growing. Hey, this is JackieMarie Beyer your host here to help inspire you on your journey to create, grow, and enjoy a green, organic oasis. So let’s get growing. Welcome to the green organic garden podcast. It is Friday, April 9th. It is a beautiful sunny day here in Montana although it was pretty chilly this morning.

51s

JackieMarie

I have a guest on the line who I think is down in warm sunny, San Diego. So we’re going to talk about some things you can do for your home from a real estate perspective, because that is a hot topic, I know all across our country today. So here from Sundae is Dalas Dod. So welcome to the show, Dalas, how exciting.

1m 20s

Dalas

Yeah. Thank you so much for having me on. I’m really excited to be here. Am I right about that? Are you in San Diego? We’re kind of all over the place. We have properties down in San Diego, but I, myself am actually based in LA.

1m 35s

JackieMarie

Okay, well go ahead and tell us a little bit about Sundae and the advantages of selling a home off market and how Sundae ensures customers get the highest price for their home now off market. That’s not what we’re seeing in Montana right now, right? Like this market is, is that a buyer’s market? Because here we are the sellers market. I mean, most houses are not listed for like two days and you have cash in hand unless you are like pricing your place out of, you know, I mean, just the prices are insane from our perspective, my husband and I, he was showing me this place.

2m 22s

JackieMarie

He’s like that can’t possibly be right. Can it, but probably people are leaving California and coming here.

2m 30s

Dalas

Hmm, no, the, the market right now is absolutely insane. And what Sundae is able to offer is we’re a marketplace that connects homeowners of distressed homes with hundreds of local investors, so that homeowners can really get the best price possible. So Sundae will come in, take care of everything. And if you’re a homeowner that’s looking to sell as is, we’ll meet with you on your schedule, put together a complete package to present to our investors, and then they bid and compete to give you the best offer for your home. You don’t have to deal with showings.

3m 10s

Dalas

People tramping through your home. There are absolutely no fees to sell through Sundae, and we can even give homeowners a $10,000 cash advance upfront to help with any immediate needs, such as moving, relocating. As you said, a lot of people are moving out of state to Montana. So that’s something that we can offer. And on average, our homeowners, when they sell on our marketplace, they get 10 to 12 offers, which is incredible. And they’re really getting, getting the best price for their home without having to sell the traditional route.

3m 46s

JackieMarie

Well, I’m just going to back up a tiny bit. So one of the things that actually got me to say yes to this interview was I went on your Instagram and one thing like I’ve been getting tons of like, can we be a guest? And can we be guests like emails this spring? And one of the reasons I said yes was because I loved your Instagram feed and the people who work for you seemed so authentic. And just, it seemed like a real company. Like if I go to a website and somebody asked to be on my show, and there’s not a picture of a human anywhere, that’s like an automatic no right there. And so I really was able to relate to some of the things that I saw, some of the flips that I saw, some of the groundwork that, you know, the yard work that was being done.

4m 36s

JackieMarie

I love that fact that you don’t have to have people coming in and out of your home and like being set up to sell all the time that you guys took care of all that, that you mentioned. So I just wanted listeners to kind of know a little bit about how, how we got here. I think this is an important topic for people right now. One thing people are always surprised about where I live in Montana. And a question I get a lot is about the high speed internet, which we do have super reliable, super fast high-speed internet here, where I live. I know other parts of Montana are not so great.

5m 17s

JackieMarie

I know also like if people are interested in cell service, my side of the highway just happens to have, I tell people, call me on my home phone because it can cut out a lot and cell phone service, but like just on the other side of the highway, there’s no cell phone service at all. So there’s all sorts of things to look at when you’re selling your home. But let’s talk more about the advantages of Sundae, what your role at Sundae is maybe some of the advantages of making a home greener and more sustainable.

5m 52s

Dalas

Yeah. Yeah. I’m going to actually like back up and introduce myself a little bit more. Yeah. So like we said before, my name’s Dalas Dodd and currently I’m the Interior Design Team Lead at Sundae. And I have over six years of experiencing experience designing and remodeling distressed homes where we’ve always placed a focus, not only on the design, but the sustainability as well. I mentioned the marketplace earlier, but we also at Sundae have a property investment arm where sometimes we buy the houses in the marketplace so that we can renovate and restore the house ourselves.

6m 38s

Dalas

When we do this, we always really place a focus on the highest level of quality for these flips and then adding value towards the community, by restoring these homes and honoring their local architecture, as well as making sure that the remodel is sustainable for future homeowners. And I mean, there are so many ways that you can make your home more sustainable. And trust me, there’s many ways that aren’t that complex or expensive, but of course the biggest advantage to making your house more sustainable is the environment, the environmental impact. And then the second of course, is the impact on your wallet or your monthly bills.

7m 20s

Dalas

Should we talk about some ways that we can, that you can make your home in?

7m 23s

JackieMarie

I would love that because as a side note, we switched from direct dish network to Direct TV and I finally have access to HGTV and I am like hooked on Farmer Fixer Upper. And like, I couldn’t believe it. I’m like where’s Fixer Upper? Like I, one of the reasons I wanted it was Chip and Joanna and I don’t get them, but there are all these other shows that I’m like, wow, I’ve just like, I love watching those shows. So yeah, let’s hear some awesome sustainable tips.

7m 54s

Dalas

Oh my gosh, we hope to have a show someday. That’s definitely vision down the road for us, but one of the most common ways to make your home more sustainable actually has to do with your plumbing. So installing low flow plumbing fixtures is one of the best things that you can do. We do this all the time for our sustainable remodels, even in markets that aren’t as heavily regulated as we are here in California. So I’m not sure what the regulations are in Montana, but installing low flow fixtures, they’re specifically designed to limit water waste, which is what we’re all striving to do.

8m 36s

Dalas

The average low-flow fixture actually releases around half the gallons per minute than a standard fixture. So over time that’s a massive impact, not only on the planet, but on our water bills.

8m 48s

JackieMarie

And water is so important. I just watched this documentary yesterday called Tomorrow that just talked about water. And who else was it was talking about, you know, reusing gray water. Like, do we really need to flush our toilet with like, why can’t we reuse the shower water or something to like, there were like all these options for like saving water, but low flow would be like, what did you just want? Like quickly, like explain what is a low flow plumbing. What’s an example of that. Is that using a toilet that uses less water or something, or like a shower that like has a smaller amount of water coming out when you brush your teeth?

9m 34s

JackieMarie

Or I don’t even know what a low water fixture is actually.

9m 39s

Dalas

No. Yeah. So a low-flow fixture just essentially has like slightly less water pressure, but still is acting as effectively as a typical faucet or fixture would. And then for a toilet, a lot of times you’ll see, like the flush just goes on end, whereas a love flow toilet uses less gallons per flush and in order to achieve the same goal. So you’re definitely not compromising on the effectiveness of the fixtures, but you are conserving water at the same time.

10m 23s

JackieMarie

And it’s true. It’s so important how much water we save and we use because clean water is going to be the next, like, you know, that’s where we’re struggling on our planet. You know, we’re polluting our waters and it gets into the ocean and then it gets picked up into the rain and the clouds, and then just cycles back if you know the water cycle. And so anywhere we can save clean water. And I liked the way that you talked about like, thinking about your home in the future and not just the now that it’s an investment in your home value. Okay. What’s the next one?

11m 4s

Dalas

Yeah. Yeah. The other one is installing energy star appliances, as well as smart thermostats. By installing the energy star appliances those use a lot less energy, which allows homeowners to actually get yearly rebates for these more efficient appliances. And then using smart thermostats, you can hook them up to your cell phone and allow you to control the temp or turn off those systems from wherever you might be. So if you forget to turn off the AC, when you leave the house, you can really quickly just pull up your cell phone and turn it off. And that really helps with the energy savings.

11m 48s

JackieMarie

And on the flip side, it can probably turn it on. So when you get home, your house is cool for you.

11m 54s

Dalas

Yeah. Exactly it goes both ways.

11m 58s

JackieMarie

And then same with heating. If you’re where I am, maybe I don’t know. Yeah.

12m 6s

Dalas

Yeah. And investing in these things now will only increase your property value when you decide to go sell, if you do.

12m 15s

JackieMarie

And it’s also like that commercial where the husband, the doctor’s going to the night shift and he like makes sure that the lights are on for his wife when she comes home. So she’s entering a safe home and like, it’s not just air conditioning. It’s like any kind of electrical appliance, right? Yeah. And just like

12m 36s

Dalas

Any, yeah. There’s so many smart electrical appliances nowadays. Yeah. Not just, not just thermostats that we can tap into our, homes.

12m 51s

JackieMarie

And I think it’s important what you said at the beginning about getting 10 to 12 offers on people’s homes so that they have a shot too. Because if you are moving to Montana, you are going to want to get the best price for your home because, and I know what did I listen to the other day that they were saying actually the most people are moving to like Michigan, Vermont. And there were some other state, like the most people are not actually moving to Montana, which is surprising, but not, there’s not a lot of jobs here. If you don’t have a job, this is not the place. Like, I’m always like surprised. There’s show many women. I meet here who here who hate it. And they’re like, oh, I came because of my husband, yada, yada, yada.

13m 32s

JackieMarie

And then they’re like, if they ended up, you know, getting a divorce, or their kids are grown up and they’re still here or whatever. I’m like, why are you here in this place? You hate the cold. This is the hardest place to make a living of like anywhere I’ve ever been. Like, there’s so many, if you don’t love camping and being outdoors. And like, I feel like our quality of life, like the picture view, you get to see like doubles your income at any job that you get here. Because even if you do find a job, it’s probably going to, you know, the wages are gonna be super low. Like even I taught it on a reservation where we had the second highest wages for a teacher in the state, and we still had the going joke.

14m 21s

JackieMarie

“We have to shop at Walmart because we can’t afford to shop at Target.” Like just still like low wages. Like this is a very hard state to, it’s definitely changing. And, you know, you can see already competition for the summer as the state opens. Anyway, we’re here to talk about Sundae. So, and I do want to just tell everybody it’s S U N D A E kind of like an ice cream sundae and okay. What was the next thing? I love that you’re the interior design lead. What other things should we talk about to reduce our footprint and make our home more valuable from a sustainable point of view?

15m 5s

Dalas

Yeah, of course. The last thing that I’ll add just says since given the times where, and we’re spending so much time at home, I think it’s especially critical for us to turn off any electrical products that aren’t currently in use. I mean, we, like, we no longer have the excuse. Oh, I was running out the door on my way to work and forgot to unplug the toaster. And since so many of us are working from home and inevitably using more energy, it’s really important to turn off anything that we aren’t using to offset those costs.

15m 40s

JackieMarie

Surprise. What did I see? Was it in that thing, like how much your phone uses, like being plugged in, which I am super guilty about because I, my big thing is I want my phone to have a hundred percent charge. I don’t know if it’s like my battery’s dying or like during the winter, the charger died, I want, I like when I’m home, it’s pretty much sitting on the charger because if I go for a walk, I wanted to have a hundred percent charged, so it doesn’t die on me on my walk. I want to make sure my podcast is going to play that my, you know, Runkeeper app still going to work.

16m 22s

JackieMarie

So like, my mom’s always complaining. She’s like, I can’t believe I have to charge my phone every night. And I’m like, man, my phone just sits on the charger, but I was really surprised to see how much juice. It said appliances use when you’re not using them.

16m 39s

Dalas

Yeah. I mean, the phone, the phone is, the phone is essential. I’ll give you that one, but you can definitely unplug your coffee maker when you’re not using it or, or just other small appliances like that, that are just sucking energy without being of any use in the moment

17m 1s

JackieMarie

They, you know, and part of it probably is cause we’re home because of the two that we have is like, we find we’re constantly turning our coffee makers back on because they have that automatic two hour shut off and our coffee pots keep getting cold cause we’re home. And then the other one I used to always like charge my phone in my car. Like I never hardly ever had to put it on the thing at home, but because I’m not driving anywhere anymore cause I’ve been home this whole year. That is the one shift for me that I’m seeing. But interesting to know, turn off, turn off those other electrical appliances. I don’t know what to do with the coffee on the flip side, I couldn’t even drink a whole pot of coffee anymore.

17m 44s

JackieMarie

Like I used to drink a pot of coffee before I went to work. And for some reason I keep finding half of my pot of coffee sitting in there. I finally just got to that peak of coffee or if it’s my age or what’s going on. But my husband drinks coffee from six in the morning till eight at night. So his coffee makers not getting shut off. We’re always cruising that two hour thing because, but you know, we save in other ways, like we are definitely the water conservers at my house and we have other things that we save on, but my listeners don’t want to hear from me. They want to hear from you. So what else do you have for us Dalas? We’ve talked about what can do, how about some curb appeal?

18m 26s

JackieMarie

If people want to sell cause to me, landscaping shoes and like I actually always wanted to start this podcast called Awesome Montana Investment Properties. I was a Realtor for several years when I first got my teaching license and saw how hard it was to get a teaching job. I got my real estate license and like my husband and I being home owners and we had an investment. This is where I’m going with this. We bought an invest. One of my teaching jobs was on the other side of the mountains. And so I had to have a place to live over there and what we were able to make, we bought the house for $22,000 and sold it for 32,000 a year later. And a lot of that was like my husband painting it really nice, putting nice shutters on, but also like he put a, you know, a white fence and he planted some trees and we put a free tree and he put a sidewalk up to the front lawn – arock walkway, like a lot of the curb appeal I think is what gave us that great ROI.

19m 29s

JackieMarie

So how about some current pieces?

19m 33s

Dalas

Yeah. Curb appeal is one of my favorite topics because when you go to sell your house, curb appeal is arguably one of the most important things to address because it’s the first impression buyers are going to get. When they pull up to your home, you can do so much, so much with curb appeal. So I’m going to just focus on three things for today. The first is buyers want the house that they buy to feel new. It might not necessarily be new, but you want to address any dead giveaways that make your home seem older, such as dilapidated side gates, or like you were saying a fence that’s kind of falling down or dry rot, anything that would cause concern.

20m 17s

Dalas

Like it’s not super expensive to replace the side gate or fix up your fence. So that’s definitely the first thing, the first and most important thing that I would address. My second tip would be to give your home a fresh coat of paint. You want to consider the current color and whether or not you want to switch it up. I definitely advise keeping it neutral if you do paint that way, you appeal to the most buyers.

20m 47s

Dalas

And then a tip on sustainability is that if you’re in a warm climate, you want to head towards light colors that will provide the cooling effect for your home. Versus if you’re in a colder climate, you might want to opt for something and like a medium tone, medium to darker tone. And then if you can’t afford to paint the whole house, because that is an expense, at least at minimum spruce up the trim or adding a fresh coat of paint to the front door will really make the home home feel fresh.

21m 21s

Dalas

And then now to dive into the lot, the landscaping. Landscaping is so important for curb appeal and not only in the front yard, but in the backyard as well. Kind of, as we were talking about earlier, given the times that we’re living in right now, we’re spending so much time at home that the outdoors is really our oasis. So having a turnkey backyard where buyers can envision outdoor living or having a barbecue is, is a huge selling point.

21m 51s

Dalas

And of course you don’t want to forget about the sustainability part. So for the curb appeal, I recommend selecting more drought tolerant plants that require less water and maintenance. And then in the backyard, finding ways to add outdoor living spaces actually helps you save on water, because if you consider taking away part of your lawn to either add a patio or a gravel fire pit, it’s a pretty inexpensive way to add outdoor living space and cut back on your water bill because there’s less square footage that requires watering. And those are my tips.

22m 30s

JackieMarie

Dalas these have been awesome tips for listeners today, and you probably don’t know this, but my husband, I wrote a book called The Organic Oasis Guidebook and one of the things I talk about right away is like, you know, you, you can go, there’s lots of podcasts that will teach you how to grow a bigger, better tomato and vegetables. But I really like to focus on the oasis part, the part about sitting and enjoying your garden, that like my husband, grows the mini farm, which is focused on vegetable production, but I like to focus on the garden part where we can sit in the shade and enjoy company and have outdoor meals.

23m 14s

JackieMarie

And yes, we do like to teach people how to grow better food. But one thing I always like to mention is the more plants you have and you hit on that, the native plants it’ll also help your neighbors gardens grow more. And so I love that you talked about that, you know, putting in an outdoor living space will save water because that is so key. And an outdoor fire pit right now is huge. My husband built an outdoor fire pit cause we are, we haven’t had anybody in our house. And so we’ve not let people in yet, but we’re just about to start, but we spend a lot of time outdoors.

23m 60s

JackieMarie

And so I think those are great tips. Like, do you have any tips about what makes a good fire pit like things to look for at all? If you don’t, that’s fine, but just be curious, do you?

24m 14s

Dalas

No. Yeah, I think, I mean, it all depends. So there’s like two ways to go about the fire pit. You can pull a gas line and have one that’s like built-in and permanent, or you can just buy a fire pit where you add your own firewood and start your own fire just from your local Home Depot. I mean, or you can even just make one yourself with a couple of bricks and you put them in a circle. There’s definitely lots of ways to go about creating a fire pit. And I think it’s definitely a great feature for homeowners to do now and will be a great selling point once they’re looking to sell down the road. So definitely, definitely recommend maximizing your outdoor spaces and creating more living opportunities.

25m 2s

JackieMarie

Yeah. Yeah. And my brother’s had a fire, but that’s been a huge feature in his home and he lives on Long Island. And my mom even thought about getting a fire pit at her home at the beginning of the pandemic. And certainly we had spent tons of time when I was growing up, you know, barbecuing in the backyard. Like I just think these are fantastic tips. I love what you said about the color that you paint your house right now, depending on your climate. So tell people how to get ahold of you, if they have more questions that they want to know more. Now, are you based in California? You’re a California brokerage.

25m 43s

JackieMarie

I mean, certainly the majority of my listeners are in California. I don’t know if that’s because more people garden in California or there’s just more people living in California than any other state or, you know, but for sure, that’s where the majority of my listeners are.

26m 3s

Dalas

Yeah. So we’re based in California. And if you want to learn more about Sundae’s marketplace or read some sustainability and design related blog posts, you can head on over to sundae.com. That’s S U N D A E.com or feel free to DMS. Our Instagram is SundaeHQ on the gram.

26m 31s

JackieMarie

Well thanks Dalas you have a wonderful day and we appreciate you sharing these great tips with us today.

26m 36s

Dalas

Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. It was a great, great time talking to you. Cool.

26m 41s

JackieMarie

Just one last question. Are you a rockstar millennial between 1980 and 1995?

26m 49s

Dalas

I am.

26m 50s

JackieMarie

Cool. I am writing a book about the kids and I was just like, so one of the jobs I’ve had at home is these HR guys who do the human resources podcasts. And it’s funny because one of them hates millennials and he’s always complaining about millennials and he’s like, you’re never going to hear he just even today on this morning’s podcast, you’re never going to hear me say anything good about millennials. And they talk about like these companies, I don’t know what they do for a living, but they’re always talking always inspires me more to get my book done. There’s my phone. You have a great day. I will send you a link when this is up.

27m 32s

Dalas

Okay. Great. Thanks. Bye. Bye.

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About the author, Jackie Marie

I'm an artist and educator. I live at the "Organic Oasis" with my husband Mike where we practice earth friendly techniques in our garden nestled in the mountains of Montana.