No Homes for Sale in Sacramento

The real estate market in Sacramento is a little bit like that website depicting reasons why You Will Not Go to Space Today. I could easily create a website about why homebuyers are not buying a home today, except I can’t draw very well. Great Sacramento real estate agent, but lousy artist. I know my limitations.

A guy called yesterday to ask about a Sacramento listing. Said he found it among his list of homes for sale. He was looking on Zillow, poor guy. I don’t know how to get the word out to buyers that looking on Zillow is the wrong place to look. So is Trulia and, if we’re really talking about homes for sale, Realtor.com is not that hot, either. All of those websites are missing listings, showcase expired and sold homes, and they take too danged long to update. If you’re gonna buy a home in Sacramento, you better be getting your listings from a Sacramento real estate agent, either from an agent’s MLS-connected website or, even better, directly from MLS yourself.

You can’t get new listings directly from MLS unless a) you are an agent or b) an agent sends them to you.

But it doesn’t really matter because there are very few to no homes for sale in Sacramento. The guy who called yesterday was stammering because he could not remember the street address and was frantically searching for it during our conversation. I don’t think he expected me to answer my phone or to answer it as quickly as I did. Hard to say. But as he was stuttering, repeating himself and trying to buy time to find the address, I felt like telling him the home was probably sold, except I didn’t want to offend him; he sounded so sad and depressed. My heart goes out to first-time homebuyers, but if they already have an agent, I can’t help them.

I have new listings coming up this week. First, I will tell my Elizabeth Weintraub team members about them. Then, I will let agents in my office know that we have new listings. Many real estate companies in Sacramento withhold listings from MLS for 72 hours because we can. Lyon Real Estate agents are market leaders in Sacramento. By the time these listings show up in Zillow or Trulia, they will most likely be sold. This is a tough market with so few homes for sale. Almost every day buyer’s agents call and email, asking if my pending sales are falling apart or whether I am taking a new listing.

If home buyers are relying on Trulia, Zillow or Realtor.com to help them find a home to buy, I hate to say it, they are not buying a home in Sacramento today.