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Elizabeth Weintraub
Your Real Estate Problem is This Sacramento Agent’s Challenge
If you’ve got a problem with a home in Sacramento, come on over here and sit down next to me; I’m happy to talk about it. This is what I do all day long. As a busy Sacramento agent, I solve real estate puzzles and problems. I get to hear about some of the wildest situations, and I find a way to put the pieces together and close escrow.
It doesn’t matter what the problem is or the perception of that problem. I’m a good Sacramento agent to take care of it. Not every problem a seller perceives is actually a problem. Moreover, there is not much I haven’t run across or had to deal with in some form over the years, knock on wood. OK, I’ve never had to supervise the digging up of a grave in the front yard, so I suppose my time is coming. I’ve never had to drink milk directly from a pail toward which a cow’s udder was recently directed; oh, ick, I am such a city girl. There are few things, though, I have not done.
A few weeks ago I listed a home in Sacramento County that was pretty much trashed from one end to the other, and it was a big surprise for the sellers when they saw it. The tenant died in the house. But you know, the dude was watching one of his favorite programs on the TV Land channel: Bonanza, and he died peacefully in an overstuffed lounge chair. That’s not a bad a way to go; especially with everything being all right with Joe and Hoss on the Ponderosa. There were no cliff hangers on Bonanza. Every show neatly tidied up its drama. When I bite the dust, perhaps I’ll be watching Tattoo screaming: the plane, boss, the plane.
Another seller has a home with orange walls that I’m looking at later on this afternoon. My recommendation will be to paint the walls a light beige. Paint is kind of expensive when you figure it’s about $25 a can, and you need at least 2 cans of paint per room, but it’s the cheapest way to improve a home and get top dollar. You can also hire a pro for $300 to $500 per room.
There is the seller who had to turn off the water in his vacant home due to plumbing problems he couldn’t afford to fix, not to mention, the roof is beyond its end of life, and the payments are in arrears, have been in arrears for several years, but still, this might not be a short sale, and I am hopeful that I’ll find a first-time home buyer for this home in Elk Grove. I know other agents probably would not touch this listing with a 10-foot pole, but not me. I’ll take on the challenges.
The more challenges I solve and close, the better Sacramento agent I become. I’m still selling millions per month on average, even in today’s slower real estate market. You need a listing agent? You call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916 233 6759. I’ll be there.
How Not to Flip Your Sacramento Home
Can you make $100,000 profit on a Sacramento home you bought last summer and flip it? To clarify the answer further, let’s say the home was purchased at market value, the price at which most homes in Sacramento sell. Forget about the fact that the home abuts a gated community, and it’s not actually located in the gated community but instead is situated on a busy street with traffic. The caller wanted to know if she could make $100,000 profit, darn it, she wants to flip. Flipping the home is her goal because she and her husband no longer want to own this house.
Why don’t they want to own the house they bought only last summer? Because the work commute to San Francisco is too long. The sellers underestimated how gruesome it would be to drive 2 hours each way every day to go to work. So, now it is imperative that they make $100,000 profit and dump what they view as a bad decision. They’ll just flip it. They watch cable TV.
I tried to explain to the seller — without looking up the sale of her home or anything about it — that our market experienced its big appreciation in 2012. The first half of 2013 brought more appreciation and we saw another leap. But we’re pretty much done jumping around at the moment, and the market has been fairly stable since last July. I wondered what she thought would make her home worth $100,000 more than she paid for it, plus the costs of sale to flip it.
To get the answer, I go where I usually go when I’m looking for horribly bad property information that is widely available to the unsuspecting public — which is Zillow and its Zestimate. Believe it or not, this time Zillow wasn’t that far off on value, maybe by only $20,000, so it wasn’t Zillow’s fault. I pulled up listings in MLS to see what else was for sale in her neighborhood because sometimes it’s another home for sale in Sacramento that makes sellers think they can get more for their home. Hey, it’s down the street and on the market . . .
They don’t always realize that people can ask whatever they want. They stick any old price tag on it and find a real estate agent who is willing to list that home for sale. Sometimes, believe it or not, that Sacramento real estate agent could even be me as I don’t always turn down overpriced listings with potential — because those homes could sell someday for less, and I’d like to be that agent when they sell. It’s not my home. I do inform my sellers if I believe the price is too high, but it’s always their call because it’s their property.
Sure enough, I found a home for sale that is listed at about $100,000 more within a half-mile radius. It has a ton of upgrades. Quiet street. Nicer location. Bigger property, single level, and in fact wasn’t really a comparable sale at all in the world of Sacramento real estate. The potential seller who contacted me had a solution for this though, she could put in $50,000 to remodel her home and then she could make $100,000. Is she a professional flipper? Don’t think so.
And this is what HGTV has done to the minds of otherwise normal people.
The difference between me and the other two real estate agents she called? I talked to her. But my name would be mud if I encouraged her, and that’s just not the right thing to do. It means I won’t get the listing, but that’s how it goes.
How to Profit from a 50% Pending Home Sales Fallout in Sacramento
It pays today to be a home buyer on a backup offer in Sacramento since we seem to be experiencing such a high cancellation rate on escrows; in some cases up to 50% of the pending sales are falling out. I say this not to be an alarmist but to point out what other real estate experts are too frightened to bring up because they are worried this kind of data would harm our fragile sales market. Every real estate professional, just about, knows this is happening in the Sacramento real estate market, if they’re doing any kind of business. They’re just not talking about it.
That’s because we have to be positive and spread only good news about Sacramento real estate. Oh, spittooey. You’ll read in other news media that sales are UP. What media is not telling you is real estate sales naturally increase in the spring. Inventory is low, which is true, inventory is low as compared to previous years, but it doesn’t matter because there aren’t enough buyers for it. Home buyers today typically lust over only the best home on the block and the rest are ignored.
On top of this, buyer’s agents think they are working with buyers because buyers tell the agents they are buyers. They might even pop up with a pre-approval letter in possession. But it doesn’t mean they are a buyer, because a buyer closes escrow and eventually ends up with a home.
It’s not the end of the world if an escrow cancels, because it will generally turnaround and go back into escrow again under a second purchase contract within a relatively short period of time, but that’s why you want to be a backup buyer, if you can. Don’t think you can’t write a contingent offer, either, if you have a home to sell, because sellers are accepting contingent to sell offers from buyers.
For other listing agents, my advice is don’t put that listing into pending status until the buyer has deposited funds into escrow, which should occur within the 3 days MLS gives us to change the listing status. Because nobody wants to deal with the unfair stigmatization of a back-on-market listing because some doofus buyer on a whim canceled the escrow.
For buyer’s agents, don’t write multiple offers when your buyer can’t afford to buy each of those homes. Not only is your reputation as a Sacramento real estate agent at stake, but those types of “buyers” can easily morph into a vanishing act after both offers are accepted. If your buyers really want a pending home, consider writing a backup offer.
For buyers, get over the fact that homes might cost $100,000 more today than they did 3 years ago. Those days are gone. But prices are still low as compared to the prices pre-market crash. Don’t wait for interest rates to go up and slowly rising prices to price you out of the Sacramento real estate market all together. Get in while the getting is good, and for heaven’s sakes, stay there.
The Sacramento Bee Masters Club Edition Arrives
The Sacramento Bee Masters Club edition came out today, but I know this primarily because I belong to that old fart’s group of individuals who still pick up the newspaper off the front porch. Our Sac Bee home subscriber numbers are dwindling, and it’s kind of sad to me to see an old institution like our daily newspaper in print slowly lose its life.
Crap, it was sad for me to see Ladies’ Home Journal bite the dust for home subscribers, and I would never read that magazine even if I was bored to tears at my doctor’s office reception, sitting there without cellphone reception. Watching time-honored institutions die is like watching little bits of my flesh get chipped away by the hammer and chisel of technology.
Print has its purpose. One of the problems with looking at the Sacramento Bee Masters Club edition online instead of holding the paper in your hands is you can’t draw devil horns on those grinning agents with the eye teeth exposed. You can’t put a mustache on that blonde grandma baring cleavage or draw horned-rimmed glasses on Mr. Surfer Dude. Who wants to look at photographs of a bunch of real estate agents in Sacramento online? I mean, outside of the ad department of the Sacramento Bee. Which didn’t do such a hot job with my online photo which, for some reason, is different from the print version.
All of the Sacramento region print publications have this racket going on with real estate agents and Masters Club. Let’s see, they ponder, who can we hit up for advertising dollars and make all of them pay for a wonderful opportunity? Because if an agent is in Masters Club and her photo isn’t there, the public will think she is not a member, so we’ve got ’em all by the balls, um, lady parts. You don’t get your photograph in any Masters Club edition of any newspaper or magazine unless you pay for that privilege. This is not a charity nor public service.
The Sacramento Bee “supports” Masters Club because agents pay the Sacramento Bee to do so.
Who’s got the money? It’s always who’s got the money. The people with the money are Sacramento real estate agents who sell at least 8 homes a year at $3.5 mil, say the advertising departments, and so they run after real estate agents and thrust their grubby little paws into agent pockets. I pay for most publications except for one that nobody else reads. Soon, though, this nonsense can stop. When the newspapers stop printing all together and the magazines shrivel up and die.
And that will be a time of sorrow.
So, even though I yipe about it, I pay for Masters Club print editions year after year.
Every Sale in Sacramento Real Estate is a Custom Sale
Selling Sacramento real estate is not a slam dunk like some in the public might perceive. I know there are sellers who believe all we agents have to do is stick a sign in the yard and the buyers will come, which is why some run out to get a real estate license. But after passing the exam, forking out several grand to get started and staring at a phone that doesn’t ring, new licensees soon figure out there is a lot more to it, and many fail.
Sellers and buyers are as different as night a day. The type of communication that works well for one client would make another want to shoot her agent in the head. On top of this, each home is different — yes, even the tract homes in Natomas and Elk Grove, which some people believe all look the same yet are not identical. There are small nuances that can produce variances in a sales price, and some not-so-subtle, including location.
I’ve had sellers ask me, what do we do if and when XYZ happens? They want to cross bridges twice when we might not have to cross them at all. What I might suggest in one situation is not the solution I might offer for a similar transaction. That’s because I think about it. I don’t simply react. There are no cookie-cutter solutions in Sacramento real estate. Every single sale is unique. I also surround myself with other professionals who are like-minded and apply a similar holistic approach. It’s not math and science, I can tell you that.
This is why my Sacramento real estate practice cannot be duplicated and, as a result, I am very selective when choosing my clients. My clients get an agent they can’t find elsewhere. A newspaper reporter asked last year where she could find an agent just like me in her part of the country, and I had no answer because I don’t know. You can’t take a form, ask questions, check off boxes and find the right agent. You have to use a combination of your brain and heart.
My goal with sellers is simple: get the home sold at the price the seller expects and close it. It’s an easy focus for me because I don’t let myself get distracted by the circus sideshows. I allow no room for prevarication in my business.
The first three weeks as a new listing on the Sacramento real estate market are crucial, no matter what. I prefer that my listings splash when they come on the market and make everybody at the pool turn their heads. If the home hasn’t sold after 30 days, it doesn’t mean there is something wrong with the price or the listing itself; but I do examine the surrounding market to find an explanation and then adjust for it.
Every listing I take in Sacramento is special. Every listing is custom. Every listing needs a buyer. My job is to find that buyer.
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