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Elizabeth Weintraub
When is the Purchase Offer Accepted for a Sacramento Home?
You will find veteran real estate agents in Sacramento who do not know the answer to when do sellers and buyers have a purchase offer accepted? What is the date of offer acceptance? Moreover, what date is the date of the purchase contract? Even Bank of America does not know the answer to this question, but at least it has picked a method by which to determine the date, even if it is incorrect, according to California law.
I had a conversation with a short sale negotiator at Bank of America yesterday about its SSPCA, which is a form used in a short sale. It specifies and references the date of the California purchase contract. This particular negotiator said that bank policy is to pick the date the real estate agent typed the offer, the date that appears in the upper right hand corner of every page of the C.A.R. Residential Purchase Agreement. This date may or may not be the date on which the buyer even signed the offer. It is definitely not the date of the purchase contract, even if it is the date the buyer signed the offer.
But I can see Bank of America’s point of view. It needs some sort of conformity in its short sale processes, thank goodness, and its lawyers probably decided that since the laws in all states are different, and their lazy ass wants to use only one form nationwide, then the lawyers would just make up their own rules. Nobody cares about short sales much anymore.
When it comes to a home buyer in Sacramento, though, the date of the purchase contract is extremely important because it establishes the contingency period date. Purchase contracts contain contingencies for all sorts of things such as home inspections, appraisal and loan approval. Those time periods, typically 17 days by contract default, start the day after the purchase contract is ratified, fully accepted.
The date the contract is fully accepted, the date of contract acceptance, is the date it is delivered to the party named on page 8 in the first paragraph (subject to counter offers, if any). If it is the buyer who is named, then it is the date that the buyer receives the fully executed contract. If the name is that of the buyer’s real estate agent, then it is the date the buyer’s real estate agent receives the fully executed contract. It is “delivery” and receipt of that delivery that starts the clock ticking.
For example, if a purchase contract is signed by the buyer on October 16th, accepted by the seller on October 19th, but not delivered to and acknowledged by the buyer’s agent until October 21st, then it is October 21st that is the date of delivery and the official date of the purchase contract.
Selling a Sacramento Home for a Family Member
Selling a home in Sacramento for a family member is not a possibility for this Sacramento real estate agent because I have no family in Sacramento — apart from my husband — whom, BTW, just informed me the other day that he is not really a family member according to Facebook, and that I should not have included him when I updated my list of family members in Facebook. WTH? See, this is why I don’t much care for Facebook.
I sometimes get referrals, though, from other agents who don’t want to work with a family member to sell a home or buy a home in Sacramento. It’s not so much that they don’t want to work with their relative as it is they don’t want problems to arise in the family over it. Anybody involved in an ordinary family will understand those dynamics.
For example, I would not sell my own sister’s home. I would not help her to do it herself as a for sale by owner. I would find her a top-notch producer to do it, try to make sure she stays out of trouble, if I can, but I will not interfere in her transaction. Some people might think that attitude is cruel, especially since I’ve been in the business for just about 40 years now and could be of great assistance, but they don’t know my sister and they aren’t in the real estate business.
I love my sister to pieces. I’d like it to stay that way. Plus, my personal feeling is family and business do not mix very well. It is very difficult to be impartial when it comes to family. A real estate agent has to hold fiduciary with a client, do what is best for that client, not what she thinks is best.
Further, imagine if a real estate agent with decades of experience feels it is not a good idea to represent a relative in a real estate transaction, the kind of a job a brand new agent with no experience might do?
How Responsible is a Sacramento Agent Whose Client Cancels?
There are Sacramento real estate agents who believe it is the other agent’s fault when a party to a real estate transaction cancels. I noticed this a few weeks ago when one of my sellers accepted an offer, and the Sacramento agent who wrote it seemed familiar to me. Like we had worked together in the past, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. So, I asked her if there was a reason her name rang a familiar bell with me.
Immediately, the agent apologized for her former client’s behavior. As though what had happened carried a stigma of some sort. I didn’t even recall the transaction. I searched for her name on my computer and found a sale in which she had submitted an offer, but I could not recall any details. It was a few years ago, and hundreds of real estate closings later. Whatever happened was water under the bridge.
I don’t believe it’s the other agent’s fault when a client cancels. Maybe that’s because I have sold hundreds of homes in Sacramento and, as a result, I realize that stuff happens — stuff that we can’t always control. Once, I had a seller start to cry when I brought him an offer. It was full price, everything he wanted. But that’s when the reality hit. He was too emotionally attached to his home and had relied on other reasons, things he had used as an excuse to sell, and he had talked himself into putting his home on the market. However, when it came right down to it, he didn’t really want to sell.
Was I going to beat him over the head and say: See ya in court, buddy? To a man who is in love with his house and made a mistake? That’s incredibly stupid on so many levels. I released him from the listing.
Agents we remember who “did us wrong” are agents who are unprofessional. Those who don’t return phone calls or, worse, scream into the phone, or refuse to submit required documentation, intentionally thwart transactions. Not agents whose sellers or buyers cancel an escrow. Sacramento real estate agents tend to hold other agents accountable for honesty, ethics, and doing the best job that they can. Not for how their clients react.
Agents this Sacramento agent remembers are those with whom I close escrow, not the others. Some agents who work with me end up in multiple transactions with me. They know I will be professional. That’s a good thing.
When a Sacramento Real Estate Agent Fails Communication 101
A good ol’ Midwestern work ethic never goes out of style, says this Sacramento real estate agent, who was raised in Minnesota. See, I do not see it as a drawback not to hail from the city where I work and live. In fact, in the overall scheme of things, I have lived longer in my second place of residence, Newport Beach (Orange County), than in Sacramento, as I’m celebrating only my 11th year in Sacramento this month, and worked in real estate in Orange County for 15 years.
But I survived the goofy pretentiousness of Orange County, and I made it through another bunch of 50-degrees-below-zero winters in Minnesota after that, so I can easily deal with Sacramento’s beautiful weather, friendly people and the occasional quirky agent. When I tell somebody I’ll be somewhere at a certain time, I hold up to that promise. When I say I’m presenting offers at a certain time in MLS, that’s what I do. If an agent or a client emails, sends me a text message or calls me, I’ll return the communication. But not every agent operates this way.
Some real estate agents don’t respond at all for days. All of us might wonder how do they get away with that kind of attitude, at the same time coupled with, hey, why can’t I behave that way? Yeah, a little bit of jealously, I suppose, that they get to screw off and the rest of us responsible agents don’t. Why can’t we all be rude?
It’s embarrassing to have to explain to clients that they can’t have an answer on an offer they wrote three days ago under an MLS deadline stipulation because the other agent doesn’t respond. Yet, it happens. So, how does one deal with the frustration of hearing the agent’s voicemail is full and there is no communication via text or email?
Realize we can’t change the other party. We can’t force an agent to conform or communicate. That person will dig his or her own grave. Being upset or irritated with an agent doesn’t make the process move any smoother or faster, either. After all, as agents we want our clients to win — we, as agents, don’t have to win in the process.
The way I personally deal with it is vow that I will never be that kind of real estate agent. We can only control our own behavior. Further, Sacramento has plenty of really good real estate agents who raise the bar just by walking on the other side of the street. Don’t let a bad agent here and there ruin your day.
Dental Implants and the Tug O’ War of Samsung vs iPhone
There is hardly a person alive on the planet today who hasn’t at one time or another thought about teeth. Well, there was that guy in the 1930s, living in isolation on Floreana in the Galapagos who had purposely yanked out all of his teeth so he wouldn’t need dental care, but that seems to be a bit radical. My late father-in-law’s second wife had all of her teeth removed, and so did my great grandmother. Bone loss can be hereditary.
As we get older, we sometimes need to replace our teeth when we lose bone. I am beginning to feel like bionic woman. I’ve got Fort Knox living in my mouth and none of it is gold. I had two dental implants drilled into my jaw several years ago and thought was the end of it. But when I heard the news from my dentist the other day, I felt like I was walking by a metal detector and whammo, my face slammed up against the machine, dragging my body, immobilizing movement. Magnetized.
Except I read that titanium, the stuff dental implants are made from, is not magnetic. Yes, I looked it up because it was something I was concerned about. Thanks to Breaking Bad, I have developed an interest in chemistry. TI, that’s the symbol for titanium. Atomic #22.
There comes a point when you say to yourself, how much longer am I going to live? It is worth it to go through the enormous process of bone grafts, sinus lifts, appliances, healing, drilling, healing and crowns, all of which can take anywhere from 6 months to two years? Wikipedia says dental implants are good for only 30 years.
And then I look at my new Apple 5S cellphone. That which I’ve been resisting. I just made the switch yesterday from Samsung to Apple. My life is all things Apple and has been since I first went online in 1991. For years I had faithfully used a BlackBerry before I made the agonizing switch to an Android. My newest Samsung Galaxy was my sidekick for 2 years. It’s hard to let go. I know the iPhone will make my real estate business run much more smoothly because my laptop, desktop computer and iPad are synched to the Cloud. The switch makes sense.
Until I met with a client yesterday, and she pulled out her brand new Samsung, with that big screen, even bigger than my old Samsung screen. Incredibly easy to read. A thing of beauty. For a moment, just a moment, I felt a twinge of envy and sorrow over the death of my old cellphone. My client had just done the opposite, switched from an iPhone to the new Samsung.
Everybody makes different choices that are best for them, and all of those choices are right. So, I guess I am getting more implants.
