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Elizabeth Weintraub
Don’t Make This Sacramento Home Seller’s Mistake
Nothing speaks louder than real-life stories of home seller’s mistakes in Sacramento real estate and, in some cases, it’s pretty tragic. Further, being an optimistic person who tends to focus on just the good stuff, I don’t ordinarily talk about the home sellers who “go south” (no offense to you Southerners) but sometimes the stories ought to be expressed.
I share this particular story in hopes that some other home seller in Sacramento will be spared. First, let’s set some misconceptions aside. In today’s Sacramento real estate market, often the first offer is the best offer you’ll ever get. You should negotiate with that offer and not shrug it away because you didn’t like the sales price. Sellers can harbor futile hopes that another buyer will pay more but that and a quarter won’t buy a Starbucks. The first offer you receive might be the only offer you will get.
Second, after you hire the best Sacramento real estate agent you can find, you should stick with that agent. Don’t listen to those who will try to persuade you that you can pay less and get more. Where in the world does that philosophy work? You tell me because I’ll go to that store. There is always a tradeoff.
A seller begs to go on the market. Needs to sell because she is getting a divorce and cannot afford the house payments. She has equity. The problem with her home is she bought it thinking she was moving into a certain neighborhood, a desirable neighborhood but, for whatever reason, she was misled. She bought a home in a neighborhood that was not so desirable, yet still close to the more popular area.
These types of homes on the outskirts are very difficult and challenging to sell at prices within the skirts. Although an appraiser who is unfamiliar with the neighborhood will use comparable sales in the more desirable area, buyers often won’t make offers in that price range, and therein lies the problem. Besides, there are real estate agents who know the boundaries of neighborhoods, even if the buyers do not. A home on the outskirts could be worth $25,000 up to $100,000 less than other homes located within that 6-block radius.
This seller received an offer that would have paid off her mortgage, all of her closing costs and give her a little pocket change. She refused the offer. She was indignant. A short while later, she asked to cancel the listing. Big home seller’s mistake. I will always cancel a listing for a seller, though. I am not one of those agents who hangs on to the listing with her teeth and makes everybody angry. I just let it go. Besides, people have their reasons. Maybe they no longer want to sell. Or whatever.
Which is what this seller told me. However, soon after the listing was withdrawn, it was back on the market with another agent. The seller said her ex-husband wanted to hire a different agent, but it was difficult now for me to trust anything she had to say. The relationship between a listing agent and a seller is a fiduciary and built on trust. If the trust is gone, the relationship does not exist. She also mustered the nerve to ask if I would give her my photographs because she did not like the photos taken by her new agent. What?
In any case, her home is now pending as an approved short sale. She could have walked away scott-free but chose this path herself. It makes me wonder why people do this. I take no pleasure in her misfortune. In fact, it breaks my heart. I hope it never happens to you. Because you know what they say, you can learn from your own mistakes, but it’s much better to learn from somebody else’s. Don’t make these kinds of home seller’s mistakes.
What is the Fair Market Value of Homes?
Home sellers in Sacramento often ask me how much is my home worth when that’s not really what they want to know. They want to know how much will their home sell for, and that could be two very different numbers. On the other hand, they might want to know if they can do a short sale, in which case the answer is always, without fail: the price will be market value, based on comparable sales, providing the seller qualifies.
It’s not the sellers’ fault. Sacramento real estate can be a big confusing can o’ worms. I imagine sellers hear all kinds of crap from neighbors, coworkers, relatives and others whom, even though they might have actually sold a home or two, haven’t worked with an agent who works the way the one in front of you does.
People think it’s OK to hit up an agent for a sales price. Why do they think it? Because real estate agents have encouraged them to behave in that manner. Why else, we think, would anybody ever want to talk to us unless it’s to find out how much their home is worth — its market value? We’ll give them a free Comparative Market Analysis. Free, because it’s not worth anything.
Before I was licensed, I dismissed agents from the possibility of listing my home because they lowballed me on market value. At least that’s what I thought. Because I didn’t really understand how market value is determined. You can’t just give an agent your address and expect that person to name an accurate number. Maybe a range. Not a precise sales price.
I wouldn’t even give my next-door neighbor a sales price without completing an in-depth analysis of his features and studying the past 3 months of sales as they pertain to his home, and I live next door to him. I also sell hundreds of homes. I should know, right? Because I am a Sacramento real estate agent, I keep pretty close tabs on what my own home is worth, but I couldn’t give you an exact number on my house — even if you stuck burning toothpicks under my fingernails and sang horrible 1980’s songs out loud — without an analysis.
Agents who do might short change. I’m not one of those.
Half a Chicken and a Red Radio Flyer Wagon
Because I’m one of these systematic people, meaning I devise what I feel are clever ways to monitor my Sacramento real estate business such as staying on top of new listings coming up, escrows in progress, short sales about to be approved, that sort of thing, I also apply this analytical process to track stuff in my personal life. For example, I track my weight. Of course, of all days to look at how much weight one has has gained or lost over the year, what better day to do it than Thanksgiving, I ask you?
I know what you’re probably thinking right now, what kind of goofball counts calories on Thanksgiving? That’s a day to stuff your face and not think about the amount of fat swimming in the gravy you dumped all over your giant mound of dressing, which you had crafted to look like that mountain in Close Encounters of The Third Kind. Unfortunately, I am privy to the disgusting fact I never forget on Thanksgiving, which I will now share with you so you can recall it as well: adults on average gain 1 to 3 pounds every Thanksgiving. That equates to an extra 3,500 to an additional 10,000-plus calorie intake.
If you’re one of those skinny rails that can work it off just by glancing crosswise at the treadmill, well, we all secretly hate you. There is an image that sticks in my mind when I think about fat. It’s not that I watched The Oprah Show on a regular basis but I happened to catch one episode, for some unknown reason, in which she recently lost weight. Like most of us, she’s a yo-yo dieter. Oprah pulled on to the stage a red Radio Flyer wagon filled with 67 pounds of gross fat, which represented her weight loss at that point in her life.
The other thing that struck home was the sad fact I never woke up on Christmas morning to find a Radio Flyer wagon under the tree, no matter how many wish lists I scribbled to Santa Claus. My sisters and brother all at some point received a Radio Flyer wagon for Christmas or birthdays, but not me. You’d think being the oldest that I would have been the first to get a wagon, but it was not to be. This was a depressing moment from my childhood in the 1950s, not as bad as living with an abusive and alcoholic father, but I learned how to cope with that. I never learned how to cope with not receiving a Radio Flyer wagon.
My girlfriend, Margie Moreno, upon hearing that story in 1988, went out and bought me a red Radio Flyer wagon. She put it together herself and delivered it to my house with a big red bow. That wagon lives in my garage now. I use it in the garden and it’s become an integral part of my life. Margie has long ago died. Yet, memories survive just like calendars.
I pulled out my calendar yesterday and noted the weights I have posted over the past 11 months. Yes, goofy as it may seem, I track my weight every few days. When I averaged all of my weights, which believe me I struggle to maintain at my age, my weight had gone steadily downhill from January to July, and then back up to the point where I’m at the same weight as I was in January, plus two pounds. It could be worse. It could be 3 extra chickens, which would be an extra 12 pounds. But when I put it into perspective, the weight increase amounts to only half a chicken. That’s not so bad.
Back in the last century, chickens used to weigh 3 pounds a piece, but for some reason today they are much fatter, and now they all weigh 4 pounds or more. Could be chicken steroids. I use the chicken-weight method when I ponder weight gain or loss. When my husband mentioned that we have the power to just not go for a second helping at Thanksgiving yesterday, that was an extremely good idea. Who knew he was so motivational? Just like Oprah! Of course, we didn’t skip dessert, though. We’re not that foolish.
A Thanksgiving Message About Reaching Out and Touching
Thanksgiving seems to be such an innocuous holiday, it doesn’t offend anybody for religious reasons or any other reason — except maybe those who study history — and it’s such a good time to reach out and spam somebody. At least that’s what the marketing guys, and especially those engaged in the Sacramento real estate business, seem to believe.
You know, if I haven’t heard from you all year long, maybe today is not the best day to send me Thanksgiving greetings. Don’t reach out and touch me with your spammy emails and hokey Thanksgiving cards, for I am not grateful for a nonexistent relationship with a person I do not know. I also don’t want to thank anybody on your behalf, so don’t give me a list of organizations and individuals I’m supposed to reach out and touch, simply because you demanded it.
I asked one such spammer a few days ago to take me off his database. I’ll never refer anybody to him and now that his name is so deeply ingrained, shoved into the irritation portion of my brain where I store names to stay clear of, I’ll make it a purpose to tell my clients to hire any other person except this guy. Clueless marketing like this can backfire. Because when I asked him to remove me, instead of apologizing and doing it, he tried to defend himself by saying it was just a holiday greeting.
It’s spam. Don’t reach and touch me. This is almost as bad as showing up on my doorstep and ringing my doorbell over and over, begging me to buy whatever worthless crap you are selling. These are the days I wished I lived in a two-story home so I could pour water on the creep down below.
Save your Thanksgiving greetings for those people you know and care about. Wish the checkout clerk at the grocery store a Happy Thanksgiving because the poor guy is working today and you are not. But don’t think of this holiday as an opportunity to market and promote yourself. Give it a rest.
Success is Focusing on the Joy
Sometimes, people tell me that my blog is just what they need to read for that particular day, and I hope today’s blog is that inspiration for some of you. Today I want to talk about focusing on the joy.
One of my Elk Grove sellers called yesterday after putting her home into escrow to personally say thank you for the wonderful job of negotiation — which was appreciated by this Sacramento real estate agent. Everybody likes to be appreciated. I am especially thrilled when my clients are thrilled. It makes what I do meaningful and worthwhile. It also validates that all real estate agents are not the same, something often overlooked in this industry.
There are those in the public who believe all agents are identical to each other, and therefore, we should all be paid as little as possible, because they sadly believe that what agents do is something a trained monkey can do. It’s an insulting attitude toward agents, but I can’t help what other people believe. It’s also craziness. Get this, I have had a former client once ask me to cut my already approved commission and yet spend more money to sell his challenging and overpriced property. They don’t get it. No matter what we do, we can’t force them to get it. But we can spend our time instead focusing on the joy.
Downer and negative attitudes, well, that’s OK because there are plenty of sellers who work from a different framework. It’s human nature to gravitate toward people who like and trust you. How do companies attract loyal and dedicated employees? They treat them well, show respect and value their contributions to the company. How many companies do you know of nowadays that do that? They don’t denigrate and expect an employee to perform well. ‘Cuz employees will quit and walk off the job.
Except real estate agents. Real estate agents take more abuse than most because there seems to be more of it going around. Tempers flare. Unreasonable demands made. Particularly near the holidays. Fortunately, I don’t encounter rude or demanding people very often and, if I do, I manage to stay clear. My sellers are delightful; I’m happy to say. It gives me great pleasure to call them with good news. I spend my time focusing on the joy.
Like this morning, I was able to call a single mom and let her know that not only is her short sale approved by both lenders, but she’ll receive $3,000 at closing, and we are closing the day after Christmas. I have one more Happy Thanksgiving call to make this morning as well, to say the nervous buyer has finally emerged from underwriting and his loan will close. This is a special business for those of us who harbor the right attitude and surround ourselves with fabulous people.
Successful people tend to concentrate on focusing on the joy, what brings them joy. Happy Thanksgiving.
