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Elizabeth Weintraub
Sacramento Home Buyer Says: I Do Not Want to Be in a Bidding War
In Sacramento real estate I often hear expressions reiterated over and over such as I don’t want to give away my house and my new favorite: I do not want to be in a bidding war. Personally, I don’t know of any seller who is giving away her house, so that’s a goofy expression. I take it to mean they want to negotiate; they want market value, and that’s a more positive way to phrase it. But buyers who say they don’t want to participate in a bidding war, or in other words a multiple-offer situation, well, they generally don’t have much choice, to tell you the truth. If it’s a nice house, others will want it.
The problem that arises is a buyer’s perception of what a “bidding war” means. An agent told me yesterday that her client does not want to pay $10,000 over list price in a bidding war. I was dumbfounded. Where did they get that number? That was so 2012. Those days of buying homes in Sacramento are gone. We might be receiving 2 or 3 offers on a home now instead of 20, and those offers mean you will pay list price or very close to it. If a buyer has to offer a little bit more to make the offer attractive, generally it’s by a $1,000 to $2,000.
And smart agents will wrap those small incentives into the closing costs anyway, and not in the sales price. Because they know we listing agents give our seller’s net sheets to show how much they will receive when multiple offers arrive. It’s the best way to compare those offers.
A bidding war means a Sacramento buyer might be in competition with one other buyer. And maybe that other buyer has a doofus agent who advises them to offer under market value as many of them do these days for no ungodly reason. If that’s the case, and odds are it is, a #2 buyer can buy that home just by writing a clean offer at list price.
Multiple offers don’t always mean what you think. They don’t always mean a bidding war. If a buyer doesn’t want to make an offer on a home that some other buyer wants, it’s possible that buyer might not buy anything. It’s worth the small risk to sign your name to a purchase contract and let your buyer’s agent go to bat for you. Don’t let words scare you.
When Will My Home in Sacramento Close Escrow?
Sellers don’t take kindly to the correct answer when they ask: when will my home in Sacramento close escrow. The correct answer is, of course, when fairies sprinkle pixie dust. If a buyer is lucky enough to be working with one of our preferred mortgage lenders, I can accurately predict a closing date for my sellers, but if it’s some other lender, an exact closing date is difficult to nail.
Oh, sure, there is a closing date specified in the purchase contract on page 1 near the top. It will either indicate an exact date, such as April 30th, or it will give an approximate number of days (usually 30) from the date of the contract to close. The date of the contract is the date the agent (or buyer) received the executed contract, which is usually the date the last buyer signed, not the date the purchase contract was drawn. However, to many mortgage lenders in Sacramento, those closing times are simply estimates and mean little.
If the closing date expires, the mortgage lender will simply expect all parties to extend the purchase contract. That’s because mortgage lenders might not give a crap about whether the loan blows up because the seller refuses to extend. They work in some other financial arena, worlds apart from Sacramento real estate. It happens. Sellers are not obligated to extend the purchase contract upon expiration. Buyers might cry foul under those circumstances but what happens if a seller could sell to another buyer for more?
Big name banks, and you all know who they are, are the most guilty of not closing on time, but so are the itty bitty real estate companies that try to wear two hats and be a mortgage broker plus a real estate agent to some poor fool. The first is because they’re too big to care and often employ salaried employees who don’t give a hoot either. The second is because they’re generally inexperienced and too small to carry any weight.
The fact is we real estate agents can push and shove or be as sweet as sugar all we want to manage escrow closings, but until the underwriter releases the file from underwriting and sends docs to title, we don’t really know for certain when we will close. Once we get the docs, then we can target the date. This is why it’s so important to work with a mortgage lender who can guarantee a closing date. These lenders do exist.
The Lost Art of Pie in the Face
The movie studios don’t really make slapstick comedies anymore and I miss that kind of humor, unless you count the world of Sacramento real estate — in which one can almost always find a highly amusing moment as there are so many to choose from. I kinda like slapstick because I grew up with it, not to mention, it gave me a good excuse to whack my brother’s face for no reason. I laugh at pie in the face from the old Soupy Sales skits. Don’t get me started on the Marx Brothers or the Three Stooges. But today so much is PC you don’t get that kind of humor from Hollywood or media.
Not that I’m against being PC because I’m not. As an enlightened human beings of the 22nd Century (Is that right? Are we in the 22nd Century now? How did that happen?), we don’t need to reinforce stereotypical issues that harm people or encourage discriminatory opinions, but what’s a pie in the face gonna harm?
I wish I could carry whipped cream pies in my briefcase for spur of the moment chuckles. I mean, maybe for health and safety purposes they could be stored frozen in the freezer like Cool Whip and removed to thaw just before I needed them. I could find many uses for this product.
Thank you for this lowball offer, whoosh, pie in the face. Thank you for never intending to close escrow, whoosh, pie in the face. Thank you for that Request for Repair on this AS IS sale, whoosh, pie in the face. Thank you for listing with your husband’s cousin, whoosh pie in the face. Thank you for picking my brain about all the fine nuances to sell and then sticking a FSBO sign in the yard, whoosh, pie in the face. Thank you for failing to deliver loan docs, whoosh pie in the face.
See, just thinking about this makes me laugh. But maybe that’s why I’m a Sacramento real estate agent who has survived and thrived all of these decades. If you gravitate toward goofy stuff, you’ll probably enjoy Anchorman 2.
Watch Out for Chief Denny’s Flip Sacramento
I’ll be the first to admit that I have never met Chief Denney, and I do not watch his little cable show on A&E about Flipping San Diego, nor have I perused his free propaganda, but I don’t need to in order to know what kind of person he is because it’s like my dead ex-husband Al Brown was resurrected and come to life right here in the Sacramento Bee. I can easily spot the Get Rich Quick schemes perpetrated by hucksters and snake oil salesman because I used to know so many of them from Orange County in the ’80s and, I hate to admit, was married to a couple of them in my younger and naive days, although not at the same time.
I see the warning signs. I read between the lines. And I scoff at the smiling faces full of charm and feigned sincerity, knowing full well that the public will buy that dog-and-pony show regardless of what I say about it. Still, I can’t keep my mouth shut when I see this baloney, and now it’s plastered in a full-page Sacramento Bee ad. Lord help us all.
Apart from the fact the poor schmuck can’t afford a proofreader so he didn’t catch the fact that they spelled his name wrong, he makes a clear statement that all of those properties he is showing in his FLIP SACRAMENTO ad are actual sales bought by members of his real estate team. They are not. Then, down at the bottom of the ad, he rebukes that claim by stating those properties are simply for demonstration purposes — meaning he had to insert a photo of some kind of property in those empty slots so the ones he chose are not indicative of anything. In fact, they are amounts due for back taxes and those homes do not sell at those prices.
That’s seems like blatant misrepresentation, but what do I know?
What can the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau nail him on when his ad is all about giving away free books and CDs that will change your life? It will change your life all right when he sucks you dry for all of the other investment ideas he has up his sleeve and products he will sell once you’re on the mailing list.
A smart person would run like hell. But there are a lot of suckers in the world. I hate to bear witness to this crap, and I can hear my phone ringing now with morons muttering about making big profits by buying properties at tax sales, oh, please. I suppose a person who sends away for a free Fix and Flip for Quick Cash Kit deserves what they get, but I can’t help but want to protect them from their own ignorance.
Once Upon a Time There Were 3 Homes in Escrow
One would think it was an April Fool’s joke the way things seem to be going this morning in my Sacramento real estate business, but I can assure you that it’s entirely coincidental that 3 properties are going back on the market today pending rescission through absolutely no fault of the sellers. It’s those buyers. Once we had 3 homes in escrow and then not.
You would think buyers would have received the message by now that we have limited inventory in the marketplace, and they are pretty much lucky to be in escrow on any home. But with any strange market comes strange buyers as part of the mix. The problem is as a listing agent, we don’t meet the buyers face-to-face and we have no idea really whether they face mental challenges or are just drunk or stoned. The scenarios seem so similar at times.
I want to suggest hey, buyer’s agents, why not rifle through your buyer’s personal belongings to see if they have stashed illegal drugs in their coat pocket and better sniff that water bottle, does it contain vodka? Because I don’t see any other explanation for such absurdities. I know for some people it’s a lot of fun to be in escrow and picture what life would be like after closing, but for some of those people, it pains me to say, well, they can harbor no intention of closing. Some of them don’t realize it at the time, I’ll give them that much; but others are fully aware, they’re just playing in some other kids’ sandbox, one that the cat visited.
Just seems like a big case of buyer’s remorse sneaking into town on slipper-clad feet. Like that purple smoky haze cast as a curse by Maleficent over Storybrooke. Three perfectly good homes in escrow back on the market today. It’s unbelievable. Enough with the negative, let go of that — time to focus on the positive. These will sell again. They always do.
If you need a turnkey home in Elk Grove at $225,000, or a model home condo in West Sacramento by the Lighthouse Marina at $195,000, or a huge upgraded home with hardwood floors and a fabulous view in Natomas around $300,000, please give this Sacramento real estate agent a ring today at 916.233.6759. I’ll be more than happy to help you find that perfect home and slip you into backup position as we await the processing of the inevitable. No April Foolin’, I promise. When we put homes in escrow, they generally stick.
