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Elizabeth Weintraub
Not Every Sacramento Home Seller Wants to Deal With a Counter Offer
When an agent says to me, you can always issue a counter offer to my buyer, that sounds like code for: the buyer is unreasonable, because I don’t think an agent is trying to tell a veteran how to sell real estate. But you never know in this market. We have a very weird market in Sacramento right now made up of serious buyers and squirrelly buyers and lowballing investors. I never know on which the roulette ball will land, as it is like a roulette wheel.
I can share with an agent that we have multiple offers, and yet the buyer’s agent will send me an offer that is contingent on selling the buyer’s home without a Contingency of Purchase addendum, much less a pre-approval letter. You can’t make this stuff up. Oh, and on top of it, maybe the agent hasn’t shown the home. It makes you wonder if buyers aren’t thumbing through MLS listings like a Neiman Marcus catalog and saying when I win the lottery, I’ll buy this house and that house and that house. And agents are writing offers for these guys. Blows my mind.
Most sellers in Sacramento do not enjoy bidding wars, believe it or not. They hope that a nice family will purchase their home at a fair price and close escrow — live there happily ever after. That’s what sellers want. Not every seller will want to deal with a counter offer. It’s stressful for many sellers. Negotiating does not come as easily to some of us as it does to others.
Myself, as a top-producing Sacramento real estate agent, I negotiate daily for a living, and I love to negotiate. But I’m also sensitive enough to realize that many of my sellers do not want to negotiate. They don’t want to deal with counter offers and all that they imply. They just want to sell their home.
If we receive 5 offers, the sellers, more likely than not, will take the path of least resistance and choose the best offer for them. Especially if it doesn’t involve a counter offer. If you’re thinking about writing an offer for a home in Sacramento, you should ask your buyer’s agent to call the listing agent to discuss what you might want to do. Although a listing agent cannot and should not ever speak for the seller, a listing agent can help to guide. You might have to write your best offer and stop trying to ding around.
On top of all of this, no offer should ever land on a listing agent’s computer without an advance call from a buyer’s agent. Not in this Sacramento real estate market.
New Randy Parks Home Listing in Sacramento Absolutely Sparkles
Looking at the original cedar walls in the family room of this new Randy Parks listing in Sacramento almost makes me regret painting my rooms with cedar walls in my home in Land Park. Almost. The warmth and emotional pull of that family room is incredible. Lots of people tend to misidentify this wood, which was a very common material used by builders in the late 1940s and early 1950s, for pine wood because it features knots. But it’s really cedar, generally coated with shellac (remember shellac?) for preservation.
The family room is one step-down from the kitchen and is part of the original floor plan. The 8 windows on two walls are double-hung wood construction with sashes, and 7 of them open and close easily. One window needs the sash replaced, which is pretty good when you figure they’ve been in service for 63 years. All of this glass lends a spectacular view of the oversized yard.
If you need a yard for gardening, a place for children to play, dogs to roam, for sports such as volleyball or badminton, or maybe you prefer a big yard so you can survey all that you own and relish in your own privacy, this is definitely the home for you. The yard is only a small part that will attract you to this impeccable 1951 home.
First, it’s a Randy Parks home, which means it has random plank hardwood flooring and all of those cute built-in touches, along with quality construction. Home buyers really love a Randy Parks home because it’s timeless beauty. It never goes out of style and just becomes more beautiful with each passing year.
Second, all the floors in the 3 bedrooms are gleaming hardwood, because they’ve been refinished. This is a home that’s been in the family for 63 years, ever since it was built. The love and care is apparent every place you look. The cabinets in the kitchen are tall, run to the ceiling for extra storage, and they are painted in gloss with new hardware. The kitchen features a breakfast nook, too.
I could not find a scratch on the wall or even a pinhole from a nail that once held artwork. The wood burning fireplace is flanked by built-in bookcases on a wood wall in the living room. Dual pane windows throughout are low maintenance, except for the family room — and who in her right mind would change out those wood windows anyway? The sewer line has been replaced, and the roof is somewhat newer. There’s really nothing to do but move in and enjoy life.
3401 Saint Mathews Drive, Sacramento, CA 95821 is offered exclusively by Lyon Real Estate at $250,000. For more information, contact your #1 Sacramento Real Estate agent at Lyon, Elizabeth Weintraub, at 916.233.6759.
This Randy Parks home will be held open Sunday, February 23rd, from 2:00 to 4:00 PM by Keith Mikoff at Lyon Real Estate. Go east on El Camino from Biz 80 1.8 miles and left at Saint Mathews.
Aren’t You Tired of the Hello Are Your Carpets Dirty Guy?
Don’t you ever wonder how many do-overs the guy who recorded Hello Are Your Carpets Dirty had to do? Because you just know he had supervision, some manager, carpet store owner, who oversaw the production of that Robocall and squealed, “Can you just say it with a little more energy?” — until the guy was so far over the top he was completely irritating. “Yeah, yeah, that’s it, make them want to stab your eyes with an icepick.” The good news is new federal regulations are supposed to put a stop to this robo-calling business.
The FCC’s new Robocall rules say the consumer must give written consent to receive this crap. Further, the telemarketers can’t call a residential landline based on an “existing business relationship” — oh, thank goodness, just in time for the next election. And the icing on the cake is the telemarketers are supposed to give callers an “opt out” right at the beginning of the message, before the words Hello Are Your Carpets Dirty leave their lips.
See, I never get past that first sentence because I’ve already hit erase again on the answering machine. So far, they aren’t calling my cellphone, yet.
Even more interesting is how the new FCC rules affect real estate agents and mortgage brokers. Mortgage brokers, according to C.A.R., are not allowed to contact a borrower more than 18 months after the loan closed. Real estate agents can’t call sellers of expired or canceled listings if their numbers are listed on the Do Not Call Registry. Call me silly, but I highly suspect few of these individuals will comply, either due to cluelessness or outright refusal. This is Amaireeeeka.
Why, just yesterday I received a spam newsletter from a mortgage broker. I emailed to explain I do not know him, have not business with him, and I am trying to reduce the amount of unwanted emails I receive every day. It was, after all, my second request to him. There are days I receive anywhere from 300 to 500 daily emails as a Sacramento real estate agent. Unfortunately, in my haste to get rid of this guy, I had clicked “reply all”, and my kind request begging him to stop emailing me went out to all of his customers. Question: what kind of person sends a bulk email exposing addresses? Answer: I guess the kind who spams real estate agents.
When I complained, he wrote back to argue that he had represented a buyer who bought one of my sellers’ listings last year, so he figured we had “worked together.” He was hurt I didn’t remember him. Why would I? My records show I closed more than 100 homes last year. Moreover, to a Sacramento listing agent, a mortgage broker is a third-party vendor hired by a person the agent does not represent. There is no working relationship. I work with the buyer’s agent, not by extension the buyer’s mortgage lender.
For more information, please see the FCC Do Not Call List website. And let’s tell the Hello Are Your Carpets Dirty guy to stuff a sock in it.
Where Do Buyers Come From for Homes in Sacramento?
When greed and the need for shelter love each other very much, buyers for homes in Sacramento pop outta nowhere. Well, that’s the answer my husband came up with when I posed the question to him — where do buyers come from for homes in Sacramento — but he enjoys making me laugh. On the other hand, sometimes sellers think we real estate agents hide buyers under our beds. I’ve heard sellers say that they did not want to list their home, per se, they just want me to bring them a buyer. Buyers come from listings, they aren’t under my bed.
It’s true that we have some buyers who will wait forever to find that special deal, but typically what these buyers want is a home under market value. They often don’t want to pay list price for homes in Sacramento, and they don’t want to pay what the home is actually worth. They often want to steal the home. And every so often, I run across a seller who wants a buyer to steal her home, and I put the two of them together, but that is not the norm. It’s not really how homes in Sacramento are sold. It’s not how Sacramento real estate works.
Our listing agreements contain a big ol’ paragraph about why pocket listings are not in the seller’s favor. Sellers ask me when they see that paragraph if they should be a pocket listing because they don’t understand the verbiage. I realize C.A.R. thinks they are doing a service for sellers but instead it’s complicated and convoluted, like anything becomes when a committee is involved in the decision. When I explain pocket listings to sellers, which I shouldn’t have to do because I don’t take them or believe in them under ordinary circumstances, sellers then ask me why anybody would ever do it. Mostly because they’re bamboozled, I guess.
And then they want to know whether I have a buyer for the home.
We Sacramento listing agents get buyers for a home after an agent lists the home for sale. The agent looks for a buyer when the homes goes on the market. Often, the buyers might find another agent to represent them, but we are actively looking for buyers every single day. That’s what listing agents in Sacramento do. We dangle that beautiful listing in front of the eyes of every single buyer we can find. It’s like fishing. When we get a bite, we reel ’em in and toss ’em into the escrow boat.
Empathy not Sympathy Governs Sacramento Real Estate
So often when you hear people talk about Sacramento real estate, they will say something like: it’s not the money, it’s the principle, well . . . it’s the money. They’re fighting hard for that money. People on the other end of the argument for principle might believe that the principle is not worth the discussion, and therefore it’s not the money NOR the principle, and they wish you would shut the you-know-what up. They might become defensive and angry and accuse the person who presses the discussion about the principle, claiming that this person is making mountains out of molehills.
Do you know anybody who ever made a mountain out of a molehill? Huh? I ask you because I surely haven’t. I don’t even think a mole can make a mountain unless you call a small pile of sand about six-inches high a mountain, and that’s not my definition.
For me, and for most real estate agents, principles and ethics and integrity are how we run our Sacramento real estate businesses. By not compromising that foundation, we don’t have to wonder if we’re doing something wrong because we probably are not. I am fearless about it.
I see so much crap lately going on in Sacramento real estate, especially among other professionals, and I wonder why none of this bothers some of these people. What stories do they tell themselves to make them think it’s OK to lie, cheat and steal? What made them so desperate to stoop so low? We worked recently with an agent, who shall remain anonymous, who gave us the runaround on an offer. Refused to present, requested numerous unnecessary changes, used delay tactics and then, oops, double-ended it. One can report these agents to the Sacramento Board of REALTORS, but proof is difficult to show and consequences are small.
Sometimes, what comes around, goes around, though.
I thought about this as I sat across the table from a seller yesterday, signing listing paperwork. The sellers had talked to another agent who told them he did not need to view their home because he could work the numbers from the comparable sales. He was kinda pushy and insensitive to their needs. I don’t know how anybody can do well in real estate if one is insensitive to her client. Needless to say, the sellers didn’t get a good vibe from that agent and called me instead.
It’s empathy, not sympathy. People often confuse these words. It’s not a sense of sorrow for people. It’s understanding how your client feels and sharing those feelings. I can’t present a seller’s vision to the world unless I can understand it and feel it myself. That’s what we do when we sell real estate, we present the seller’s experience to the buyer in hopes that the buyer will relate and want to buy it. You might think this is weird, but houses talk. You can’t hear it unless you’re inside the home to listen and observe.
If you need a real estate agent who will listen to you, feel free to call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759.
