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Elizabeth Weintraub
Overview: Sacramento Real Estate Market Report October 2017
County of Sacramento Real Estate Market Report October 2017
The Sacramento real estate market report October 2017 shows inventory declining and new listings falling but with a twist. Last month, pending sales spiked, despite the lower level of homes to buy. Like flying into Sacramento airport, we are beginning our seasonal descent. Is this a good time to buy, you might ask? Darn tootin’ it is. Because prices are not falling. Homes prices are rising. Our median sales price in Sacramento County is now $350K.
All across the board, pending sales are up. Below are the pending statistics for the Sacramento real estate market report October 2017 from Trendgraphix.
- Pending sales are up 18.2% over September
- Pending sales are up 14.7% over last year in October
- Pending sales are up .4% over same quarter last year
- Pending sales are up 3.1% the first few weeks of November vs October
In my own Sacramento real estate practice, I’ve encountered a big uptick of activity. I was so busy in October that I did not realize until the announcements were made by Lyon Real Estate how well this top listing agent and her team of 3 buyer’s agents performed. Lyon Real Estate ranked Elizabeth Weintraub in the top 3 agents for the month of October. In all of Sacramento County, year-to-date for number of homes sold, Weintraub ranks #3. We’re smokin’ hot at the moment.
The first couple weeks of November were relatively quiet and then all of a sudden, BAM. Offers began rolling in. I received 3 offers on one listing, 1, 2, 3, at or over list price, hot-to-trot buyers, fireworks going off. Then suddenly, spittooey. They all fizzled. Like the buyers slipped and fell into a bucket of ice cubes. Or, they woke up with a bad hangover. Before I had time to contemplate what happened, the volcanoes of Sacramento real estate market erupted again. As a result, last weekend I put 6 listings into escrow.
There are no dull moments in the Sacramento real estate market report October 2017. Buyers are clearly saying: hey, let’s close escrow before the end of the year! If you’re expecting to buy or sell a home, call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759. We’ll get the job done. Put 43 years of experience to work for you.
Too Late to Buy This Remodeled Home in Tallac Village
This remodeled home in Tallac Village at 5851 Brandon Way just closed at $405,000.
Sorry, it is now too late to buy this remodeled home in Tallac Village. It just yesterday closed escrow. Funny, when I originally listed this Tallac Village home, I got a lot of pushback from agents telling me they thought the home was overpriced. I’m thinking that might be because they were unfamiliar with the neighborhood. See, when I take a listing, I thoroughly examine the surrounding neighborhood for comparable sales. What I noticed in this area was a big mix of homes, mostly on the lower end. There were a few a streets that reflected enormous pride of ownership, and this was one of those.
So often, I find, agents take the easy way out with comps. They will click that little button on the listing in MLS for comps. It’s called “find comparables.” While that is one way, it doesn’t necessarily show all of the comps. For one thing, not enough room. For another, its radius is not always wide enough to find the other comps. Not to mention, you’re not looking at the listing and photos, just status. Buyer’s agents are always busy, so they quickly glance at the results of the “comp” button. I don’t know if they disregard square footage or acreage and just note the sales price or what. But most of the arguments I engage in with agents over comps seem to stem from a different point of view.
With this remodeled home in Tallac Village, the concern was mostly the cement tile roof and the solar panels. Not every solar panel contract is something a buyer wants to assume. It can be a big drawback in a sale. Solar panels add no value to the home. Turns out there were a few cracked tiles and the solar company had installed the panels incorrectly. We were fortunate they came out and fixed it. However, there were still a few repairs we hired a roofing company to fix.
The rest of the home was sold strictly AS IS. Our first buyer flaked out on us in less than a week. He received the home inspection and canceled right after. I reviewed the inspection and could not find anything disturbing in it, so who knows. The guy was a doctor and what do doctors know about home construction? Well, there is always another buyer for that Sacramento home.
Fortunately, we found that new buyer within days of the first buyer bailing. She turned out to be a great buyer who was very eager to live near UC Davis Medical Center. The sellers let her adopt their chickens. Bawk, bawk. Such a smooth and nice transaction. Day and night difference over the first escrow. Sometimes, I do have to sell an remodeled home in Tallac Village twice and get paid once, but that’s how it goes in Sacramento real estate.
The important thing is my sellers closed at their asking price and are happy.
There is Always Another Buyer for That Sacramento Home
No matter what, there is always another buyer for that Sacramento home.
There are many listing agents in Sacramento who do not subscribe to the theory that there is always another buyer for that Sacramento home. That’s OK, that’s their practice. We’re all different. Those who do not believe that premise tend to be the agents who will do just about anything to make a sale, including, at times, throwing their seller under the bus. That’s my opinion, btw. Of course, if you ask those agents, they will disagree. But the truth is I close so many escrows, my life is not tied up in any ONE sale. I’m not gonna miss a mortgage payment or starve my cats to death if we have to find another buyer. There is always another buyer for that Sacramento home.
It’s a fact, Jack. Especially in this seller’s market. Often, agents plead with me to make the deal work. Code for push the seller into a detrimental situation. Not gonna do it. First, it is not a deal. It is a sale involving collective memories and emotional attachments created in a home, often in which a seller has lived for years, if not decades. Second, this is a financial transaction involving a willing seller and a willing buyer. Until the buyer turns not so willing.
The bad part about the practice of Sacramento real estate, and most everywhere else as well, is the fact the listing agent is not allowed to talk to the buyer. Can’t negotiate with the buyer nor directly influence. Their agent bears that responsibility. Further, we have many different types of buyer’s agents in Sacramento. Plus, no telling from where the buyer originated. Could have walked into an open house, an office or stumbled across the agent in Facebook. Not necessarily a person the agent even knows. Personally, I think many buyer’s agents do a bad job of explaining to their buyers the agent’s role. They are so worried about offending or risking the buyer’s loyalty that they often say nothing.
Unfortunately, those types of buyer’s agents are door openers. Paper pushers. Taxi drivers. People pleasers. Ineffective non-communicators.
Which means we get uninformed buyers — buyers without any kind of professional relationship with their agent — those are the ones you never know if they will close escrow. They will sign a purchase contract, but it can be meaningless to them. Agents? If the buyer asks you how she can cancel, that’s a red flag.
One thing I know for certain. If a buyer wants to cancel, the buyer will do it. Oh, the buyer might claim the home inspection revealed too many defects, but what home inspection doesn’t? Most homes have stuff wrong. Wait until the next one, buddy, I think. You think this home inspection is awful, just hang tight. Your next home might be worse. And all of the things the buyer freaked out over? Fairly certain our next buyer isn’t gonna give a damn.
Because there is always another buyer for that Sacramento home. Sometimes, buyers with cold feet drop out of buying a home all together. They quit. They remain renters. On the other hand, the sellers I represent will sell and close.
Sellers Won’t Fund Future Home Improvement Projects for Buyers
Sacramento buyers are crazy to ask sellers to fund future home improvement projects.
Every few weeks or so, I run across a Request for Repair from a buyer asking the seller to fund future home improvement projects. This sort of practice is so wild and crazy. It makes me nuts. I can only imagine how the poor buyer’s agent feels when that agent is forced into a corner by the buyer to draw up such an insane document. Well, I can, actually, because I saw one of those documents last week. It was evident to me that the buyer’s agent just threw her hands up in the air and told the buyer to create their own request. Which ended up several pages long. She was obviously at her wit’s end with the buyer.
It’s a terrible spot to be in. On the one hand, the buyer’s agent does not want to alienate her buyer. She does not want her buyer to think, even for one lousy second, that the agent doesn’t care about what the buyers want. Because the buyer’s agent does care. Very much. She just doesn’t know what to make of a buyer who has gone off the deep end. It’s not uncommon. Take a normal person, put her into a real estate transaction and odds are two-to-one, she’ll flip out. Sacramento real estate makes otherwise normal people bonkers enough to believe sellers will fund future home improvement projects.
Or, as the way buyers put it:
It doesn’t hurt to ask.
Sorry, wrong, it hurts to ask. Big time.
It hurts the sellers. Makes them angry, and sometimes a little bit frightened that they are selling a precious home like theirs to such a basket case. It hurts the buyers, too. How does it do that, you might ask? It hurts them after escrow closes. When the buyer might need information or assistance or something else from the seller. Sellers have long memories. All the work I have done to maintain peace and harmony between the parties blows up.
Especially if the buyer has promised to purchase the home AS IS. Sending a Request for Repair to a seller to fund future home improvement projects makes a seller feel duped. Nobody wants to be duped. Or, lied to. Doesn’t matter how a buyer tries to rationalize the request. It still boils down to the buyer wants the seller to fund future home improvement projects. It’s not gonna happen. Any feeling of good will from the seller flies out the window.
Most sellers are reasonable. They want the buyers to enjoy their home and make it theirs. Just not at the seller’s expense. If buyers don’t like the kitchen counters or flooring or appliances, they will need to make their own arrangements. After escrow closes. Geez, Louise.
Do Not Sit on a Seller’s Counter Offer in This Sacramento Market
Buyers who deliberate too long over a seller’s counter offer could lose the house.
Many people selling homes in Sacramento do not want to issue a seller’s counter offer to a buyer. Some of these people think that buyers should instinctively know what they want. I will draw a counter offer over some of the tiniest things that need clarification or correction in a purchase contract, and you know why? Because the tiniest things can mushroom into big honkin’ headaches. Headaches happen due to ambiguity. Want to hear another reason for a seller’s counter offer? It lets me tell the next buyer’s agent who calls that we have a counter offer out but they have a small window to take this home away from that the buyer.
How can they do that when the buyers have a seller’s counter offer? It’s easy, because until the buyers sign the counter offer, the sellers are free to sell to anybody else they choose. The minute the Sacramento listing agent receives the signed seller’s counter offer, all parties are in contract. You know who wants a house so badly it hurts? The buyer who hears there is a counter offer out. Especially when that buyer is a position to swoop in to steal it. Everybody wants what somebody else wants. Law of human nature.
My typical method of operation involves sending out a counter offer to a buyer and giving that buyer 3 days to respond. If the buyer takes the full 3 days, maybe we’ll sell the property to a higher bidder on day #2. Not to mention, buyers don’t like to be pushed. They like to have the appearance of time on their side. No pressure. Their own agent should tell them time is of the essence and urge them to quickly act. Do they? I don’t know.
Often, when we employ this strategy, the buyer’s agent is a bit dismayed when suddenly the seller withdraws the counter offer. They say, what? Hey! My buyers were thinking about signing! Not my problem. The way to withdraw a seller’s counter offer is basically two-fold. First, the listing agent informs the buyer’s agent that the seller has revoked the seller’s counter offer, immediately. I do this via text and email. The next step? Get the Withdrawal of Offer (or the weirdly named WOO) signed by the sellers, followed by delivery to the buyer’s agent.
For example, a buyer’s agent insisted this week that we cooperate with her buyers and make the transaction work, damnit. In her mind, I guess. In my mind I don’t have to cooperate with anybody. If my sellers want to make the transaction work with that buyer, we’ll do it. If not, I’ll do something else. That something else generally involves selling to another buyer who doesn’t need a lot of time to ponder whether to buy the home at list price or better. I have fiduciary to my seller. I’m very clear on that aspect.
