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Elizabeth Weintraub
Sacramento Real Estate Agents: Ramp Up
I love waking up in the wee hours of the morning to find a bunch of purchase offers in my email. Well, it beats stepping into cat puke. I don’t know why cats seem to wait until 4 AM to chew on houseplants as a new fun-filled activity and run around the bedroom horking when they should be sound asleep. Anybody who shares a home with cats knows exactly what I mean. As I sit here wiping my toes and scrolling through my email, I can overlook a bad start to my Sunday because little is as exciting as receiving purchase offers. If I’m thrilled, imagine how my sellers feel!
This is the best market ever for Sacramento area listing agents and sellers. After years and years of begging on my knees for a buyer to write an offer, the tide has changed. Flipped overnight. It used to be I would not dream of putting a home on the market if it wasn’t staged to perfection, shining from top to bottom and ready for foot traffic. I would be on hands and knees licking the floor looking for dirt. Now, when tenants whine at me me that they don’t have time to pick up the empty beer bottles, toss the half-eaten pizza in the trash, much less make the beds, they think I won’t show the house. Ha, I can shrug my shoulders because the home will still sell. It will sell fast. It will sell for top dollar.
The truth is this Sacramento real estate market is so burning hot at the moment a listing agent can sell even the worst property in a heartbeat. Buyers are making offers on homes sight unseen. I have to check my SUPRA stats to find out if agents have shown the property before sending me an offer because I need something to help us determine the strongest buyer. Believe me, if I have 5 identical offers from 5 buyers but only one of those buyers has looked at the home, guess which offer this Sacramento real estate agent is advising her seller to accept?
Agents complain that they can’t submit offers fast enough so they have to submit without showing. No, they don’t. They just need to get their act together. An agent lamented that he could not show a home yesterday during the time period it was convenient for the tenants to show it. He asked if he could send his buyers over to the home without an agent escort. No, he can’t. But I heard that some buyers were wandering around the home by themselves. Just because we’re in the middle of a home buying frenzy in Sacramento does not mean it’s OK to set aside standards of practice. If anything, we, as Sacramento real estate agents, need to ramp up our professionalism to ensure quality service to our clients.
And stay out of the cat puke. You know what they say. When the market gets tough, the tough Sacramento real estate agents get going.
When Does a Sacramento Short Sale Agent Quit?
Before I talk about when to give up on a Sacramento short sale, let’s look at attitudes. A person’s attitude affects everything a person does and how that person is perceived by others. A person can choose to be happy or miserable; nobody can make you miserable without your own permission. I will give you an example. OK, it’s kind of a funny example but what else do you expect from a loopy Sacramento short sale agent?
I read the birthdays in the paper. The Sacramento Bee lists the oldest people first and whittles that list down to the younger people or, as I view them, the insignificant. Hey, I’m not an ageist, it’s just that I have learned to stop reading the list when I get about 20 years past my own age. That’s because there are some birthdays of celebrities which make me feel good about my own age and some that do not. I use those dates as a measuring stick because I don’t have any kids who do that for me.
Donna Douglas, for instance, from the Beverly Hillbillies, was born in 1933. The fact that she is 79 now makes me feel happy and hopeful. Brigitte Bardot is 78. Raquel Welch is a youngster at 72, and Jane Fonda is 74. On the other hand, you’ve got Janeane Garofalo at 48, Brook Shields, 47; and Molly Ringwald, 44. How did those women get to be so old so fast? Oh, wait. They are all much younger than me. Which makes me, at 60, ancient, older than dirt. No, that doesn’t induce warm, fuzzy feelings. So, see, I just stop reading when I get to the women in their 40s.
But when it comes to Sacramento short sales, I never stop. I never give up and throw in the towel. And I always try to keep a positive attitude because it affects the outcome of my work. That’s the secret to being a successful Sacramento short sale agent. Not every agent in Sacramento is cut out to do short sales. Some of my closings are littered with failed attempts by others in which I was successful and they were not. I was successful because I didn’t quit.
I will argue with short sale bank negotiators until the cows come home. If a short sale gets rejected, it’s just one step closer to acceptance because I’ve eliminated that particular path. Other agents don’t understand nor embrace this attitude. I know this because I often spot their withdrawn and canceled listings in MLS, and I wonder why they gave up. Only a rookie quits. Very few banks refuse to do short sales nowadays. They aren’t going to spell it out for you but there are ways to close even the most stubborn short sales.
It’s best to hire a Sacramento short sale agent who sees the glass as half full. My performance is living proof of that. My production is more than $25 million in sold and pendings already this year. Hey, Lauren Bacall is 88. You know how to whistle, don’t you?
Two Short Sales in the City of Davis
There are two short sales for sale in Davis, California. One of those short sales is mine, listed by Lyon Real Estate, and the other is listed by a competitor. At the moment, we have 69 homes for sale in Davis, according to MLS. My Davis short sale is listed at $339,000. The second short sale is listed more than $100,000 higher. Both of these short sales are located in the same area — MLS features 5 separate areas in Davis. But the second short sale has a pool, and it’s in better condition.
My listing needs a little fixing up, but hey, what do you want for that price? There are only 4 homes for sale for less in all of Davis, and those homes are smaller. We’ve had a few showings for this short sale because it’s got a lot of other things going for it. Um, like price. And, then, there’s the price.
But I’m wondering if buyers in Davis don’t like to buy short sales. We received yesterday a lowball offer. We thanked the buyer and his agent for their interest, and expressed regret that we could not accept such an offer. ?The agent sent me an email, in the interest of promoting his client, I suppose, and said, he wished me “luck with my protocol” in Davis — which is expecting a buyer to commit to buying a short sale. We do ask buyers to commit. That protocol just makes sense. If you want to buy a house, you should act like a buyer. ?And then he added, that he is 15 minutes and a galaxy away from my Sacramento short sale environment where I could “pull off” that kind of approach.
Huh?
I want you to know that one of my team members lives in Davis. Her name is Linda Swanson. She is also a broker like me, and not just a salesperson. I love Linda to pieces. Linda has almost 25 years in the real estate industry. She’s worked for several prominent new home builders, too, and was a sales manager for one of them.
Linda’s heart and soul goes into selling homes in the four-county area of Sacramento, including the city of Davis. I would trust Linda with my life. She adores first-time home buyers and has the patience to show home after home until the buyer is 100% ecstatic about her selection. I don’t have that kind of patience, to tell you the truth, which is why I rarely work with buyers. I prefer the listing side of this business.
But Linda does, and she is an extreme professional, always ready with a smile and to help because she loves her job. Smart, witty and efficient. She is also my co-agent on this listing in Davis. If you would like to buy a two-story home in Davis for less than $340,000, you should call Linda Swanson on the Elizabeth Weintraub Team. We are working with Chase Bank on this short sale, and they might get the BPO today. If you’re willing to invest a little sweat equity and can handle a paint brush, you could transform this home in Davis. Call Linda Swanson at 916 607 0111.
Selling a Short Sale Rental in Sacramento
A rental short sale is becoming more ubiquitous. I have several new Sacramento short sales going on the market tomorrow that are occupied by tenants. I suspect part of what is fueling the increase is the new HAFA supplemental issued a few months ago that pays tenants the relocation incentive. This was a brilliant move by the government.
Tenants often worry when an investor decides to sell their rental as a short sale, and with good reason. They might be uprooted. Nobody wants to move against his or her will. That rental is a home to a tenant. A tenant doesn’t want strangers traipsing through. They feel inconvenienced and rightly so because they are inconvenienced. I try to be very respectful of tenants and tenants rights when I list a rental property. Because selling a rental property is an intrusion for the tenants.
Sometimes, tenants refuse to cooperate. I’ve met the guy in the rolled up t-shirt with a pack of cigarettes stuck in his sleeve — the guy who is holding back the barking pitbull by the choke collar and won’t open the screen door. But I still have to take photographs of every listing and complete my agent visual inspection. I can sense from the body language of some tenants that they are not happy with my presence. I try to be understanding as I step over the garbage strewn about on the floor, wondering if they dumped it there for my benefit or if that’s how they live.
Tenants also worry the home will go to foreclosure and they’ll get evicted. Yet, tenants in foreclosure have rights, too. Even so, sometimes they stop paying rent, although they’re not supposed to. See, even if the landlord doesn’t pay the mortgage, the tenant still owes the landlord the rent, whether or not they like it. However, not every Sacramento short sale is in foreclosure. Some landlords keep their payments current during the short sale. Some pay just enough to keep the home out of the pre-foreclosure process.
A tenant in Hollywood Park last night was not eager to show the home. He wished the seller would have waited a few weeks, but the fall season is here and the time to sell is now. Once October is over, our home selling season in Sacramento slows down. It’s a seasonal thing. He wouldn’t let me put on a lockbox. He refused to give me a time to show. I kept talking. Then, finally, as I was preparing to leave the home, he paused in the doorway and said, “Look, I know you’re just doing your job. You’ve been very professional. Why don’t we show the home on Saturday, from noon to 2 PM?”
Bingo. That’s what I came to get. A showing time without buyers having to make an appointment. Buyer’s agents don’t like to make appointments with tenants. That’s because they’ve had the experience of showing up at the appointment time with buyers in tow and nobody is home. But in today’s entry-level real estate market in Sacramento, a few hours of showing is all the time a seller probably needs to get that home sold. Well, that, and a competent Sacramento real estate agent.
It Takes a Village to Close a Sacramento Escrow
Pia is stressed at the vet.
Welcome to home buying stress. Anybody who is buying a home in Sacramento today is stressed out. I don’t care who you are. There is no way to buy a home and not be stressed about it, so don’t feel alone. Even if you’re lucky enough to have beat out all of the competition and get your purchase offer accepted, you still need to get through underwriting. Lenders are much more strict than they were 5 years ago, more restrictive than a year ago or last month, it seems. Just because your lender says you’re fully approved does not mean you will get a loan.
I’m not trying to give you one more thing to worry about but getting approved by underwriting is a concern. I had one seller cancel an escrow a few months back because the buyer asked for too many extensions. It wasn’t even a short sale, it was a home with equity in Elk Grove. No matter what the buyer did, she could not close her loan. The reason she could not close her loan was because the IRS was backlogged. She needed her tax returns from the IRS. She couldn’t get them. My seller got tired of waiting and canceled. I didn’t blame her.
Another buyer in Lincoln could not close on her approved short sale. Something happened to her financial situation so the USDA loan she was trying to get was no longer a reality. She could not afford the FHA loan under its program terms, so she ended up losing the house. She lost her earnest money deposit, too, if I recall correctly, or maybe they are still fighting over it. My seller sold to another buyer who could perform.
Just last night, a Roseville buyer found out her “fully approved loan” did not pass underwriting. She needs to now haul in her parents to be cosigners, which means escrow will be delayed. All I can say is thank goodness this escrow is not a short sale and we don’t have to beg and plead with a short sale bank for a short sale extension that we may or may not receive. My seller expected to close this week, and now she will have to wait another couple of weeks or start with over with a new buyer. Oy.
My cat Pia is feeling very stressed. In fact, I had to rush her to Davis last night for an emergency vet visit. We are not ruling out a urinary tract infection but it could just be stress. She is stressed for a number of reasons. The vet says my work stress might affect my cat. Working as a Sacramento real estate agent can be stressful, even if it’s suppressed. Who knew stress could transfer to your pets? She is also very upset because I sold the dining room table, not to mention, her buddy, my husband, has been unavailable to her. Her environment has changed. Cats hate environmental changes.
The real estate environment has changed in Sacramento. This is not your mother’s residential resale market. It’s a world with wacky mortgage and appraisal guidelines, extreme competition, not only from other home buyers but from cash investors; and very few homes for sale. Better hope you have a good real estate team on your side. Believe me, it takes a village to close escrow these days. I won’t sugarcoat it for you. But the Elizabeth Weintraub Team will do everything in our power to get your escrow closed.
