The Seller's Playbook
Selling your home in DuPage County. The honest way.
Twenty-four years of selling family homes in Naperville, Wheaton, Lisle, and Downers Grove have taught us one thing above all else: preparation beats price every time. The seller who takes six weeks to prep a home properly will net more than the seller who lists tomorrow at a 5% discount. Every single time.
This page is our complete playbook. It's what we walk every new seller through in the first meeting. Some of it is Kathy's — twenty years of interior design and staging have taught her exactly which rooms move a buyer and which rooms don't. Some of it is Mike's — eight years in commercial real estate before residential gave him a feel for offer structure most agents simply don't have. Together, we run a tight, calm, professional listing operation. No drama. No upsell. No surprises.
The Timeline
Six weeks to list. Three to four to close.
Most agents will tell you that you can list in two weeks. You can. We don't. Here's why.
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Week 1
Walk-through with Mike & Kathy
Both of us come to your house — together — for a no-pressure 90-minute walk. Mike looks at the bones: roof, HVAC, foundation, anything an inspector will flag. Kathy walks room-to-room with a notebook for the staging plan: what stays, what stores, what we need to repaint. You'll leave the conversation with a one-page memo of what's actually worth doing and what to skip — no upsell, no panic.
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Week 2
Pricing strategy session
We come back with the comp set: every sale within a mile in the last six months that resembles your home, plus the three currently active competitive listings and what their agents have told us off the record. Mike walks you through three pricing scenarios — the safe number, the aspirational number, and the strategic number — and what each one likely does to your first 14 days on market.
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Week 3
Pre-list prep
This is Kathy's wheelhouse. Twenty years of staging tells us that the cheap wins matter more than the expensive ones. Fresh white paint in two key rooms. Decluttering the kitchen counters to three items. Removing every personal photograph (yes, even the wedding portrait — buyers cannot imagine their lives in your hallway with your faces on the wall). We coordinate the cleaner, the painter, the handyman. You do not lift a finger unless you want to.
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Week 4
Photo day + listing prep
Our photographer shoots morning light — typically Tuesday — with twilight exteriors if your home faces the right direction. We write the listing copy in our office (Mike drafts, Kathy edits, you approve every word). The MLS goes live Thursday evening; weekend showings start Friday afternoon. We are intentional about this calendar.
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Week 5
Open house + private showings
Saturday and Sunday public opens, with private showings booked Monday through Wednesday. We staff every open ourselves — never an unfamiliar agent. Mike fields the investor-buyer questions. Kathy handles the families. By Wednesday night we know exactly which buyers are serious and which are tire-kickers, and we plan offer-review accordingly.
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Week 6
Offer review + negotiation
We never accept the first offer without testing the next two. Mike's commercial background means we read offers for hidden cost — short contingency, unrealistic financing, repair request likelihood — not just headline price. The right $585K offer beats the wrong $605K offer; we'll show you why on a one-page side-by-side.
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Week 7-10
Inspection, appraisal, closing
Inspection response is where most deals fall apart. Mike has personally negotiated 1,100+ inspection responses; he knows what to push back on (cosmetic items, normal wear) and what to concede (anything safety-related). Appraisal contingencies in DuPage County have tightened in the last 18 months — we'll preview the appraiser's likely number before they arrive.
Pre-Listing Investments
What's worth spending on. What isn't.
Twenty-four years of seller advice boils down to a short list of investments that pay back ten times over — and a much longer list of investments that don't. Below is our honest take. We make zero commission on any of these vendors. If you ask, we will tell you exactly which painter, cleaner, and stager we'd hire.
Interior repaint (key rooms)
$1,400 – $2,800
$8K – $15K typical
Professional deep clean
$350 – $600
Improves every photo
Staging (rented furniture, hero rooms)
$1,800 – $3,500
$10K – $25K typical
Landscape + curb appeal refresh
$600 – $1,500
Drives showing requests
Major kitchen reno before sale
$25K+
Rarely pencils — we will tell you
Hardwood refinishing
$2,500 – $4,500
Pays back in negotiation power
A Note From Kathy
"The room buyers fall in love with is rarely the room sellers think it will be."
Sellers think buyers buy kitchens. They don't. They buy the feeling of the kitchen — and that comes from light, surface clarity, and one well-placed bowl of lemons, not granite countertops you replaced two years ago. I have seen $4,000 spent on staging double a buyer's emotional attachment to a $700,000 home. I have seen $40,000 backsplash overhauls do nothing.
If I can convince you of one thing before we list, it's this: put away your photographs. Every one. Your wedding portrait, your kids' graduation, the trip you took to Italy — pack them all into the basement for the duration of the listing. Buyers cannot picture their lives in your hallway when your faces are on the wall.
The second thing: repaint the entry hall. The hall is where every showing begins. A coat of clean off-white (Benjamin Moore's "Simply White" — every time) gives the buyer the right first impression for the entire walkthrough. A bad entry sets a bad tone for the rest of the house. It is $400 of paint and the highest-leverage spend in your entire prep budget.
— Kathy Petersen, working from twenty years of design observation on roughly 1,200 family homes.
Ready to talk about your home?
Coffee with both of us. Ninety minutes at your kitchen table. We'll bring the comparable sales, you bring the questions. No commitment, no pressure, no obligation. That's how every Petersen Group listing has started for twenty-four years.