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Elizabeth Weintraub
Do Sacramento Agents Discount Real Estate Commissions?
Just because a real estate commission is negotiable doesn’t mean I am willing to cut a deal for a stranger. Heck, I don’t even make deals for friends because I don’t have any friends selling real estate in Sacramento. But even if I did, they would still pay me for my services. Real estate commissions must be negotiable in order to comply with the Sherman Act, but it doesn’t mean a real estate agent needs to offer a discounted commission. Yes, you can negotiate with this Sacramento real estate agent, and I’ll cut right to the chase here, my answer is no.
Not only do I charge the same percentage that I have charged since I started in this business way back in the days of bellbottoms and Beatles, but I am doing a bazillion times the work since then. I have two rules that I work by that are completely inflexible:
No discounts and
No assholes.
See, I can’t always choose the agents on the other side with whom I work nor their clients, and some of those people might be assholes, but I can choose my own clients, which is why I don’t work with the assholes. If you’re an asshole, you can go work with some other agent.
I have to save my asshole interrogating energy to work with the other side.
Would you want an agent who eagerly said Sure, I’ll give you a big fat discount? Because that kind of agent might do the same thing when you get an offer. Put pressure on you to accept a lowball offer. When I receive a purchase offer, the first thing I often think is: how is the other side putting the screws to the seller? Is the offer on the level and clean? I’m not eager to jump into escrow unless the seller is excited and the offer warrants it. Because I don’t really care about me. I care solely about what the seller wants.
Sometimes clients ask me if I will reduce my commission when they are faced with a price reduction. Although I can vaguely see how they might come up with that idea — for example, they are reducing the price so I should come down — they are not looking at the fact that by the mere percentage calculation, I am already hit by a reduced compensation. Lower sales price X percentage rate = lower fee. I share the loss with them already. I know they don’t mean to say that they want to penalize me nor do they want me to work less. They want me to work even harder. And I do. That’s my job. To sell their home.
But don’t ask an agent to give you top-notch performance and then work for less because it doesn’t work that way. Most of us earn our commission, one closing at at time. If 1% separates you from the best in the business, you’ll probably lose a lot more than THAT down the road because it means you think we are all the same. We are not all the same. All agents are not created equal.
Sacramento Home Staging Agents Maximize Your Profit
The talents of a real estate agent are often multifaceted but Sacramento home staging agents are generally not real estate agents. Real estate agents must be excellent communicators, expert negotiators and excel at marketing, but they are not a home stager. That’s not to say that a real estate agent can’t give you home staging advice because she most certainly can. But if you want her to stage your home, she’s not the best person to go to — because her specialty is selling real estate not warehousing furniture, not to mention she does not possess the specialized experience that is required to create the stage. There are home staging specialists in Sacramento who do nothing else but that job.
A home seller would no more hire her listing agent to stage her home than she would hire the listing agent to paint the walls or replace an aging roof. If her real estate agent does offer to stage the home, it’s possible the home stager is a professional home stager and not an effective real estate agent. You also would not hire a mortgage broker who happens to hold a real estate license to sell your home. Well, some people might without realizing it. Then they pay for it later when it’s too late.
The fact remains you should hire a person to do a job that the person is licensed to do and solely specializes in doing. My real estate practice is so specialized that I have agents, for example, who work with me to show property because showing homes is not something that I personally do. I’m not that good at it, if you want to know the truth. I walk into the wrong house, get on the wrong freeways, break my nails opening doors and can’t keep my mouth shut if the place stinks.
I’m much better at representing sellers and selling homes for top dollar. That’s my strength. Being an expert listing agent is a real specialty. And I sell homes throughout Sacramento, Placer, Yolo and Eldorado. I can tell you if a room has too much furniture in it and to take down your photographs from the walls. But if your home needs staging — and let me say that not every home does — then I will be the first to tell you so and to help you to settle on a home stager. I have access to many home stagers in Sacramento in my arsenal, but I would never presume to do a better job for you at home staging than a professional home stager will do. To think that an agent would is a crazy presumption.
I prefer to hire the specialists when I need a job done professionally and so should a home seller. Don’t try to shop on price, instead, hire the home stager you relate to. They all tend to charge about the same; it makes sense to hire a professional home stager if and when you need it. Then listen to your home stager and take her or his advice. Home stagers focus solely on staging your home for maximum profit, and typically have earned degrees and certifications in the business. It’s an entirely different business from selling real estate, although it deals with the same outcome, a closing.
If you just want to dump your home in its present condition, I can certainly do that for you. But if I recommend a home stager, it’s because I believe you can make more to cover that cost of home staging and pocket the rest. I have a home right now that if it were sold in its present shape, the seller would lose about $25,000 to $35,000, but with home staging, with fees less than 1/10th of that potential loss, the seller will make a big profit. I’m all about maximizing profit. Home staging pays, it doesn’t cost. If your Sacramento agent suggests it, ask how much you will lose if you don’t.
Why Some People Hate Their Real Estate Agents
If you hate real estate agents, get in line; lots of people do and, as agents, we’re not supposed to talk about it. They say the easiest person to sell to in the world is a salesperson because salespeople are gullible (they believe their own lies), which makes them susceptible (an easy “mark”), and a Sacramento real estate agent is no exception. The third-party vendors to real estate agents realize this as do the trade associations who pander to us. I also realize it when I work with other fellow agents because there are telltale signs that give it away.
I use it to my advantage when I spot it. I can’t help myself. It’s just lying there like bundles of thousand dollar bills on a sidewalk. I could lay out all of those signs for you but it wouldn’t really make much difference because I find the tendency is then to separate one of those peculiarities, focus on that one thing, and one sign by itself is not enough to deserve a bad rap except maybe that REALTOR Badge graphic. I’m bringing this up to help explain why some people dislike and even hate their real estate agents. It’s because they feel like they’re being played and being sold to.
Nobody wants to feel like they are being manipulated, even if they know they are, they don’t want to personally feel those grabby little fingers of lies. It makes them uncomfortable. It’s much better to be straight with people and tell your clients what they don’t want to hear as long as it leads them to the direction they want to go.
That’s where I come in, and one of the reasons I sell so much real estate in Sacramento. I will tell my sellers and buyers what they don’t want to hear. But I try not to be rude about it, and I also want to give them what they want. They want an agent who is smart, pays extreme attention to detail but doesn’t sweat the unnecessary stuff, is empathetic to their situation and cares about them. Somebody else once said that a client won’t care about how much you know until you show how much you care about them. When you naturally care about other people, this is easy to do.
I am reading a book I love called #GirlBoss, written by my freaky twin sister Sophia Amoruso, CEO of Nasty Gal. She doesn’t know she is my twin sister — and she’s also 32 years younger than I am — but we’ve led parallel lives in many ways. She discovered what is unique about her, stayed true to it, and her company has revenue exceeding $100 million. But that’s not the only reason to listen to her. She has common sense, probably realizes it is the best of the 5 senses. A great sense of humor, too, the second most important sense.
I am unique in how I sell real estate as well; it’s how I got to where I am. I relate to people both emotionally and intellectually. That’s a weird combination. I also filter out the noise. Stuff that doesn’t need to enter my brain doesn’t get in there. I focus on what my client wants and on getting it for my client. If you need to hire a Sacramento real estate agent, you’ve come to the right blog. Send me an email above by clicking the envelope titled email or pick up any old phone and call. I still answer my cell, 916.233.6759.
How Much Will Your Sacramento Home Seller Take?
A common question asked by Sacramento real estate agents and directed toward the listing agent is how much will the seller take for that home? Now, you see, I could swear that there is a listing price attached to that home, but maybe the print is too small to read. I know, we could outfit buyer’s agents with those big honkin’ magnifying glasses like you see in photos of Sherlock Holmes. Or, maybe we should attach spectacles to a chain they can keep in their pockets or wear around their necks to whip out for such an occasion?
When an agent asked me that question yesterday, I immediately suggested he look in Zillow. I was being facetious, of course, but he didn’t realize it because I made that suggestion by projecting a lot of excitement and enthusiasm in my voice. I can’t help it. I have fun at work; and I like to make people laugh. Except the agent didn’t laugh because he didn’t know I was joking. I mean, let’s face it, Zillow is the last place for any reasonable much less professional real estate person to look for a market value, but that doesn’t mean the public doesn’t go there because they do. The professionals, on the other hand, use MLS for comparable sales to determine market value.
But it’s such an innocent question, an outsider might presume. How much will the seller take? It is . . . for a person who is not a real estate agent. And I suppose that question is OK for an agent to ask as well if they can get an answer. As my husband is fond of saying: a guy can ask 10 women to go home with him at the bar and the first 9 might slap his face. But that 10th . . .
I asked the buyer’s agent why he would ask me, the listing agent, because I am not the seller. I don’t make decisions for the seller and all that I really know for certain is the seller will accept list price. Not to mention, it’s a breach of fiduciary to utter any kind of different answer.
Well, he didn’t want to “waste time” writing an offer the seller would reject. What? Isn’t that the name of the real estate game? An agent writes an offer on behalf of a buyer and a seller either accepts, counters or rejects? And there is one way to find out what a seller will do, too. If you want to know how much the seller will take for that home, there is one sure-fired, tried-and-true-method to get that answer. You write a purchase offer and send it to the listing agent.
What it Takes for Cash Investors to Buy Homes in Sacramento
Many of the cash real estate investors I run into believe that Sacramento real estate agents are dumber than a bag of nails. They must, or why else would they send these stupid emails all about their cash offers and how much they love to pay cash and oh, wait, did they mention they have cash and it’s a cash offer? It is it possible we real estate agents can be blindsided by cash and forget all about ethics and, let’s not overlook, the sales price?
It’s hard to believe when you listen to me rant about cash investors that I got my start in real estate in the 1970s by working with investors. But these were first-time investors who generally put down the minimum required, which back then was 7% (enough to pay commission and closing costs) and obtained owner financing. I generally wrote the offer in my name or assignee and then assigned it to the investor in exchange for the commission.
Further, I was so young and foolish that I thought there was no point in looking at the property because it was just four walls and a roof. Before the 1984 Easton vs. Strassburger decision.
Our Sacramento market is attracting a different kind of cash investor. These are not the cash investors buying in markets such as Beverly Hills and San Mateo, in which almost one out of every 3 sales is to a foreigner with cash. These are second-rung cash investors who may or may not be actual cash investors. They might be investors with a handle on a hard-money source and parading the offer as a cash offer when, in fact, it is not.
Typically, these investors want to buy the home under market value. That doesn’t work so well with short sales, and it doesn’t work with Sacramento home sellers who demand market value, either. It works better with the desperate sellers who need to quickly sell and are willing to discount the sale, and our market is not exactly brimming with those.
As I used to say to my first-time investors from the 1970s, there is no shame in paying market value or even above market value if you end up with the property. One way you own real estate and another way you do not. The guys in southern California understand this, but in Sacramento they still want to get a “good” deal.
I’ve had investors call and demand that I do business with them when their cute tactics no longer worked. They try to appeal to my logical side, being the side that wants to work with investors and bring on new buyers, but they forget that I am working for the seller. Their words fall on deaf ears, and they don’t much like it. You know what? That’s too bad for them.
