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Elizabeth Weintraub
Solution for Selling a Home in a Bad Location
It’s really hard to tell a seller who has lived happily in a home for 30 years that it will be a challenge selling that Sacramento home because it’s in a bad location, but I manage to share that news when it’s warranted. It’s my job as a Sacramento real estate agent to set realistic expectations for my sellers and to be straight with them. The apartment buildings behind this pool home were a major concern, and I knew it would turn off buyers.
Now, some agents get upset when sellers have their own way of dealing with such news, which is sometimes to ignore it and see how things go, but that’s the seller’s prerogative. It doesn’t bother me. I get it. The seller is the boss. The seller owns the home and makes the rules. I would never come back and say I told you so. That’s not my style — although I might think it because I am human. But I completely understand a seller who may have trouble coming to grips with the reality of a situation. Nobody wants to realize his childhood home is stigmatized because of a bad location. Sellers who need time to process can take all of the time they need.
This particular home had a beautiful back yard, a covered patio, sparkling pool that had just been refinished, and a separate area for parking RVs, complete with a row of storage sheds. But all those apartment windows looming over the pool was a huge concern for buyers. It screamed: bad location.
Agent after agent sent me feedback over a 3-month period stating their buyers would buy that home except for the apartments, which I forwarded to the seller. Potential buyers didn’t want strangers gawking at their kids. After the seller read the numerous feedback statements over and over, he finally asked what he could do. Well, the obvious was to lower the price, but a better option was to fix the problem. No, I don’t mean blow up the apartments. But you can erase them from the picture, just like you can in Photoshop, by putting up a barrier to block the view.
For about $5,000, the seller planted 28 Italian Cypress trees along the back fence. That process involved digging through the concrete by the fence. Once that plan was put into place, the home sold at list price to a large extended family. The seller had become so used to the building over the years that when he looked into the back yard, he did not see it. Now the buyer won’t see it, either.
How to Save Money When Selling Your Sacramento House
Hire a pro to truly save money when selling your Sacramento home.
If you’re interested in how to save money when selling your Sacramento home, this blog is for you. This is a true story. By paying attention to gut instincts, these particular home sellers hired the best Sacramento real estate agent and made almost 10% more by selling their house through me. They almost didn’t. They were about to hire some agent they stumbled across by accident or whose name was printed on a bus bench. I don’t know how they found her, but she wanted to sell their house for about 10% under market value. Oh, she had some investor who would pay cash and it would quickly close, and there were other stories involved, to which I didn’t pay any attention because it was all garbage. Dual agency, too.
This is what happens when sellers are chasing down some random discount agent to sell a house. They might save a percent on the real estate commission on the front end but they can lose it on the other end in far greater numbers. If you truly want to save money when selling your Sacramento home, you’ll hire a more expensive agent.
The sellers called me because they were feeling uneasy about the agent they were about to hire and talked to an agent they trusted in Benicia about it. She suggested they call Elizabeth Weintraub for a second opinion. When I told the sellers they could sell that house for a higher price, for a lot more money, and still receive multiple offers, their eyes bugged out. They looked at me like I just landed in a spaceship in their backyard.
After all, this other agent had said, blah, blah, blah. Why was my advice different? Good question.
I didn’t ask them to take my word for it because they didn’t know me from anybody. I’m just an agent who pulled up in a foreign sportscar and was walking around waving a clipboard like I owned the place. I showed them a list of sales within a half-mile radius, houses just like their house, similar square footage and age, and explained why I gave the price a little push. My logic and explanation made sense to them. They signed the listing paperwork. Now they are actually going to save money.
We went on the market on May 21, received many excellent offers, and we had to cancel the upcoming open house. I love it when that happens. The sellers countered the offer they liked best and we closed on June 18th, fewer than 30 days later. No hassles. I helped the sellers through a minor hiccup after the home inspection — as this is the point where many buyers try to renegotiate — but the sellers had me looking out for their interests, so they prevailed. It’s a good thing they hired the best Sacramento real estate agent to represent them. I feel good about the closing because I know that my decades of experience added immensely to their bottom line net profit.
If you want a professional job, you should go to a professional agent to save money when selling your Sacramento home.
Top Producer Sacramento Real Estate Agents and Objectivity
I have often said that if a client works with a top producer Sacramento real estate agent, the client never has to worry about her agent’s objectivity because objectivity is first and foremost. It’s very easy to keep a clients’ interests at the forefront of every transaction when an agent’s income is not affected by whether it closes. I can see some agents reading this blog now and exploding. They might think it sounds like I’m saying agents who don’t do a lot of business will compromise their ethics, and that’s not what I’m implying.
At least not consciously. I don’t believe a real estate agent looks at a pending escrow and contemplates what will happen to the agent if it doesn’t close. Agents are not necessarily counting on every transaction to close in order to pay their mortgage payment or maybe they are, I don’t know. I just know there is no conflict when finances are not a concern. When you’re busy all the time, the money just appears like magic. There is no wondering if you’re doing the right thing when advising a client because you know in your heart that you’re putting the client’s needs first. There is no internal struggle.
Besides, you’re too damn busy to think about yourself. All you have time for is your client’s wishes and desires.
I can recall an instance in the mid 1970s when I was interrupted and asked how long it would take me to finish an appointment with a client. I had been behind closed doors talking with an elderly client for several hours. My answer was it would take as long as it takes. I’m still the same way today, 40 years later. I give my clients all the time they need to make a decision, and I don’t push or shove them into anything they’re not ready to do. I lose some clients this way because I don’t always follow up with them; I figure when they’re ready they’ll call me back — some do, but some get sidetracked.
If sellers want to sell their home, fine, I’ll sell it. If they don’t want to sell, fine, I won’t. If the buyer makes a demand that the seller doesn’t agree with, the seller can cancel and I’ll endorse that decision — if that’s what the seller really wants. Because if the seller doesn’t care if it closes, I surely do not. If the seller wants to close, I’ll do whatever it takes. It’s very easy to be objective. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that clear objectivity might be a reason why some people struggle a little bit with trusting a real estate agent and sometimes squint at agents out of the corner of their eye.
Sure, I get paid but it’s not my focus. I hope nobody ever looks at me with one eye closed.
Why Your Mortgage Lender in Sacramento Matters
Out of the 7 closings this Sacramento real estate agent is working on this week, only 2 transactions, according to the mortgage lenders, are closing are time, which makes closing delays pretty much par for the course for this week. Why? Because of the mortgage lenders. A few of the escrows are delayed because the buyers could not qualify for a conventional loan and were informed at inception that they should choose FHA but instead opted for conventional. Or, at least that their mortgage lender’s story and the guys are sticking to it. In others, everybody else thought somebody else was doing a job that nobody else was doing. Total cluster-you-know-what.
It’s also possible that the buyer’s agent felt the buyer didn’t stand a chance in hell of getting an FHA offer accepted upfront so the agent wrote the purchase contract with conventional terms and obtained the preapproval letter showing conventional financing, figuring who gives a rats if the transaction doesn’t close on time. But most buyer’s agents aren’t that devious. I suspect the truth of why some mortgage lenders can’t perform lies somewhere in between.
When a buyer runs past the closing date, the contract has expired. The seller has the option to cancel the transaction. The seller is not obligated to give the buyer more time to close the escrow. A lawyer might argue on behalf of the buyer and say the buyer invested money for the home inspection, paid for a pest inspection, perhaps other reports, and showed a good faith effort to close. She might say it’s not the buyer’s fault that things were delayed in underwriting or the mortgage lender messed up.
But that’s a tough argument if the contingencies haven’t been released, and the seller might believe the buyer is in breach of contract. The seller might give the buyer a Notice to Perform and then cancel. And let’s face it, many first-time home buyers barely have two nickels to rub together, and they can’t afford to hire a lawyer. So, they better choose a mortgage lender who can properly advise them and then follow that advice.
Here is my advice for home buyers today. For crying out loud, mortgage lenders all have access to pretty much the same ol’ bag of money, and you’re not gonna save 1/2 point here nor there, so pick the mortgage lender in Sacramento who can perform. Pick the company that won’t lead you astray. Pick the loan officer who will have your back. Don’t go with the guy who dishes out apologies when you’ve lost the house.
In all of my years of working with and referring business to Dan Tharp, this mortgage lender in Sacramento has never disappointed.
A Few Words About Targeted Marketing
Regardless of what anybody says, I don’t believe that people like to be sold to, much less manipulated by advertisers. I read a spokesperson’s comment for either Facebook or Google — don’t recall which, they are so similar these days since both want to control the world — who said that people want their advertising better targeted to themselves. Yeah, right. People don’t want targeted advertising, you stupid jerk, get your head out of your butt.
Sure, it’s worse when the advertising doesn’t fit your parameters whatsoever, but it’s still highly irritating when the advertiser is trying to manipulate and trick you into buying a product you have no need for at all. And that covers most useless crap that is sold today and pretty much explains advertising, targeted or not.
I get emails from companies trying to sell me industrial plumbing supplies, meant for commercial buildings. That’s as welcome as an ad for baby food or birth control. People ask why I don’t carry loyalty cards, and the reason is I don’t want nor appreciate targeted marketing. I also don’t care if things I regularly buy are on sale because I’ll buy it locally to put money back into the neighborhood, regardless of price.
Many older buyers are like me. Younger buyers are much different. In fact, Honda, the car manufacturer, can’t reach its targeted audience anymore, which is young people, because kids don’t watch TV or read newspapers in print. As a result, Honda has decided to sponsor music concerts, which isn’t nearly as annoying.
But I still walk around with a big fat bullseye imprinted on my forehead simply because I am a real estate agent and a high profile agent in Sacramento at that. It means that mortgage lenders and other real estate companies continually use targeted marketing, calling to set up a special coffee date. I never met up for coffee when I was dating, for chrissakes. I made the guys meet me wherever I went, Home Depot to buy a weed wacker, getting my oil changed, whatever. Online companies call because they can’t find my email anywhere. Go ahead, you try to find my email; it’s not out there.
Anybody is free to send me an email through a variety of portals, but if it’s advertising or spam it is deleted before my eyes skim past the subject line. I really miss the days of when slamming down a phone carried a message. Clicking off by tapping the disconnect button doesn’t have the same satisfaction. There is a downside to it, though. The other day a guy called who sounded just like a telemarketer. After I asked: please don’t call me again, and when the phone was about to go dead, just before it disconnected I heard him cry, no, wait, wait, I’m an agent.
Fortunately, I have redial and CallerID.
If you’re looking to buy a home in Sacramento, you can contact the Elizabeth Weintraub Team. We won’t pressure you or try to sell a home to you. We are providers of new listings as soon as they hit the market — as a real estate agent is your best and only real source to receive current homes for sale in Sacramento. If you want to tour a home, you can let us know.
