Stop being an unpaid contractor.

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By Kasey Jorgenson, designated broker, Jorgenson Real Estate · October 3, 2026

The short version: Prove the update pays with comps for the home as-is and updated, and skip it if the math doesn’t work. If you manage the project, agree on the fee in writing up front, get paid through your broker, take no cut from any trade, let the seller hire and pay the trades directly, and collect lien waivers before closing.

A lot of agents already do this. A seller’s home is dated, so you walk them through what’s worth updating, and then you end up running the painters, the flooring crew, the fixtures, the cleaners, and the stager. For free. You’re basically an unpaid general contractor, and you’re carrying the risk if it goes sideways.

That work has real value. Here’s how to make sure it’s worth doing, and how to get paid for it the right way in Texas.

First, prove the update is worth it

The math decides, not taste. Pull comps that support the home’s value as-is, and comps that support its value updated. If the updated comps justify a meaningfully higher price than the cost of the work (say a $25,000 refresh puts the home with comps that sell for far more), it’s a math problem with a clear answer. If they don’t, tell the seller to skip it. Some of the best advice you’ll give is “don’t bother.”

The national data points the same direction, toward cosmetic, high-visibility work:

• In NAR’s 2025 Remodeling Impact Report, painting the whole home was the project agents most often recommended before listing (50%), followed by painting one room (41%).
• NAR’s 2022 report estimated refinishing hardwood floors recovered about 147% of its cost, and new wood flooring about 118%.
• In NAR’s 2025 staging profile, 49% of sellers’ agents said staging shortened time on market, and 29% saw offers 1–10% higher. The living room mattered most to buyers.
• Even paint color counts. In a 2025 Zillow survey of buyers, a charcoal living room added about $2,600 to what buyers said they’d pay, and a yellow kitchen cost about $3,900. That’s what buyers said, not sale prices, but it’s a useful nudge away from bold choices.

Getting paid the right way in Texas

• Put the fee in writing before work starts. Spell out the scope and your fee in an agreement or a listing addendum. A handshake is how agents end up working for free.
• Everything runs through your broker. A sales agent can’t accept compensation for a real estate transaction from anyone but their sponsoring broker (Tex. Occ. Code §1101.651). The seller pays the brokerage, and the brokerage pays you.
• No secret cuts from the trades. Taking an undisclosed rebate or profit on an expense you made for a client is grounds for discipline (Tex. Occ. Code §1101.652(b)(13)), and TREC requires disclosure and consent before you take any fee from anyone other than your client (22 TAC §535.148). An agent is a fiduciary under Texas’s commercial bribery statute, too (Penal Code §32.43). RESPA generally doesn’t cover painters and contractors, but TREC’s rules still do. The clean answer is simple: no cut, no markup, no referral fee from anyone working on your client’s house.
• Let the seller hire and pay the trades directly. Never hold the money. When an owner’s agent controls construction funds, Texas’s construction trust fund rules can make that agent a trustee (Prop. Code §162.002). Keep yourself out of the money.
• Collect lien waivers and receipts before closing. The seller may have to give the buyer a bills-paid affidavit listing anyone still owed (Prop. Code §53.085). Unpaid subs can turn into title problems fast.
• Use licensed trades where Texas requires them. There’s no state general contractor license, but electrical, plumbing, and HVAC work need licensed pros.
• Check your E&O policy. Insurers can treat coordinating construction for a fee as construction management. Confirm your coverage before you take on the first project.

How JRE does it: JREfresh

We formalized this into a program called JREfresh, our make-ready program. The agent recommends what to update and what to skip, backed by comps. We get bids from local pros, the seller hires and pays them directly, and the agent coordinates the work through the finished, staged, photographed home. The fee is agreed in writing before anything starts and is paid at closing through the brokerage, and we never take a cut of the seller’s project from any vendor. Sellers can see how it works at jorgensonrealestate.com/jrefresh.

If you’re already doing this work for free somewhere else, let’s talk.

General information, not legal advice. TREC says I can’t practice law, and I like my license. Run your specific situation past your broker or a real estate attorney.

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