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Elizabeth Weintraub
Sacramento Appraiser Sends Unprofessional Tweets, Raises Ruckus
You would think if you were a Sacramento appraiser trying to get noticed online, that a guy like that would be more careful about what he says and how he says it. It started last spring over a home in Carmichael I had briefly listed, which had been the unintentional topic of many alt-right news reports. The Tweets from the Sacramento appraiser eventually made it to the Sac Bee online news. Due to the orchestrating of bringing proprietary information not meant for public consumption to the public by the appraiser. In other words, look as though this Sacramento appraiser made it his business to Tweet about a member-only status in MLS with the intention of purposely igniting the alt-right.
And ignite the alt-right he did. Whether he is an official Trump supporter is only a hypothesis mentioned by others, but this person seems to show a lot of empathy for that group. Yet it seems that his ability to poke his nose into situations that are not his business know no bounds. He obviously flagged the property in question in MLS and when a status change showed up, he Tweeted about it in such a manner that the seller says he caused her mental anguish and physical pain. The status change was to Temporary Off Market, which is only available to members of MLS.
It means this seemingly right-leaning Sacramento appraiser crafted a Tweet about a property he had no right to Tweet. His intention was self promotion. This was not his listing. He did not appraise this property. The seller believes he abused his MLS membership by taking private information and making it public without permission. At the time, I had the property listed and put it into TOM status for a number of reasons. For starters, the seller, her agent and her agent’s company began to receive vile threats and emails from all over the country, thanks to this appraiser. This guy’s effort to make a buck off somebody else’s distress is frightening. He jumped right in and added fuel to the burning fire. People threatened to literally burn down the house because of this Sacramento appraiser’s Tweet.
When I originally listed the property, it was a bit high. The seller based her price on another property on the same street in the same vintage condition that sold a couple of years ago. Sometimes, vintage homes fetch prices you won’t believe. My method of operation is to always try to get the amount the seller would like, within reason. And with the understanding that if we can’t get it, the price will be adjusted. After we placed the property in TOM status, I had several discussions with the seller about reducing the price. Based on her reaction, I could see this would be a long process. Months.
At this point, the seller also wanted me to file a complaint against the Sacramento appraiser at the California Bureau of Real Estate Appraisers for unprofessional conduct. For putting his own personal profit ahead of decency. I could understand the seller wanting to report him, but my part in this was not required. His participation in the false supposition that the seller lost $130,000 because she refused to sell to a Trump supporter was way off base. She dropped that stipulation months earlier. But perhaps the seller should pursue her $130K loss in court? If it’s on Twitter, it must be true.
I guess a case could be made by an astute lawyer that the Sacramento appraiser caused her to lose that money. I’m not a lawyer so I wouldn’t know. Instead I suggested the seller contact a lawyer, and I sent her several referrals.
In any case, this was the seller’s obligation to object to and file. She was the most damaged from the Sacramento appraiser’s careless, stupid and thoughtless actions. The agents are not really a party to the transaction or to her grief. Although, the situation had caused me to more thoroughly examine the facts at hand:
- Alt-righters and White supremacists were threatening to burn down the house, among other distasteful actions.
- A Sacramento appraiser who won’t stop tweeting, regardless of how much damage he causes, about matters that are not his concern.
- A seller who needed a lot more encouragement to reduce her price to where it needed to be, and the fact that this high maintenance issue was eating up all of my available time and then some.
- The seller didn’t use a computer and lived out-of-town.
- Every conversation lasted at least an hour, almost daily.
- Listing was too high publicity. The seller deserved a fresh start because my marketing and branding were too easily recognizable. It was best for the seller to let a new agent at a different company handle this.
As a top producer in Sacramento real estate, I regularly sell a couple of houses a week, on average. So, I turned to one of my very best friends in Sacramento real estate, a listing agent I admire, trust and respect, and asked her to take over the listing. My seller still deserved the best service available, and this agent and I are like two peas in a pod.
Sacramento Appraiser Tweets Again
Sure enough, soon as my friend listed the property — which took her several months to get into MLS — the Sacramento appraiser struck again. She had just put the listing into pending status after only a few days on market. This time his Tweet raised such a ruckus that the buyers canceled. They told the listing agent they did not want to buy a house associated with this Sacramento appraiser’s Tweets. They did not want their new home burned down. Fortunately, the agent promptly sold it again without changing the status in MLS and without notifying the busybody Sacramento appraiser.
When I asked the listing agent what she thought of this Sacramento appraiser’s actions, she texted, “Everybody’s entitled to their own opinions, but when you try to bring other people down based on your belief system, and try to profit off it, that’s stepping way over the line of professionalism, into hatred and bias and greed, [that’s the case of] a small-minded pea brain.”
Consumers deserve a good appraiser, too. The best appraiser in Sacramento, a professional I can personally vouch for, is Amy Parker at Appraise it Today.
This home in Carmichael, btw, has closed escrow.
Are You Guilty of Ignoring People?
Ignoring people, a good topic for today. Do you like to be ignored? Under any circumstances? I mean, if somebody is gonna ignore you, it doesn’t help if they’re a friend or a stranger. It’s just as bad, regardless, to be a person ignored. Whether or not you know the person, not relevant. How about if you’re the customer and the company’s representative is guilty of ignoring people? But you like the guy. His heart is in the right place, you know that, but he has a nasty habit of ignoring people when he gets overwhelmed. Plus, he’s just doing a job. A job he gets paid to do because it beats being unemployed. Not like me, not a Sacramento Realtor who loves her job and would almost do it for free.
Since the middle of last week, I sent 5 follow-up emails about a trip to New Zealand and Tasmania for 2020 to my travel agent. Rather than tell me he is too busy to handle our requests, he ignored my emails. When I finally accused him of ignoring people, he offered to send us to a specialist in another city. Because, get this, he didn’t want to make us to wait any longer. No grass grows under my feet. Of course, I booked the trip without him. This is not some stranger. This is a guy who has booked many trips for us, and we’ve even traveled WITH him. But this is also not new behavior for him. Same spots, same dog.
My sprinkler repair guy at Kona Pride Irrigation Repair has gone missing in action, too. Always there for me previously. He made an appointment to come over the day I left earlier this month, and then didn’t show up. Didn’t call. Didn’t answer his phone. Sent all calls to voice mail. Basically must have decided he was better off ignoring people. I contacted a different sprinkler company through Yelp and got no response there, either. So, I look at myself. Am I invisible? What did I do to justify this kind of behavior? Nothing.
What do guys who are guilty of ignoring people think to themselves? How do they rationalize that kind of rude and insulting behavior? Do they tell themselves: well, after several attempts to reach me, if she’s unsuccessful, she’ll figure out I am not accessible and stop. Ha, you are talking to a Sacramento Realtor. I never give up. If a person contacts me about selling a home in Sacramento, you can bet I will do my best to connect. I will call, leave a voice mail, send a text and email. Then do it again the next day. Because not everybody can be me.
Also, because life is unpredictable. People can end up in the hospital, on a plane, in an accident, breaking up a relationship, bonding with a new baby, overdosing on drugs, landing in jail, or otherwise engaged for at least a 24-hour period, I try to give people a bit of space. They get a break. But after 3 days of trying to contact a person to offer the assistance they inquired about in the first place and getting nowhere, it can be a bit confusing.
Finally, the other day, I just laid it on the line to a potential seller in Bridgeway Lakes. I emailed the following: The Referring Company asked me again this morning whether we have connected, and I let them know I have emailed you several times and have not received a response. Would you like me to stop emailing you? Would you like to talk? See, I do not know the answer to either of those questions.
I got an answer right away! Imagine that. The answer was he had an agent. Did he have an agent when he contacted the Referring Company? Does he just want me to stop bothering him? Is he a real buyer? None of those things matter. The point is I got him to respond. Small victory.
Ignoring people. It shouldn’t be like this.
What Does it Cost Sellers to Close Escrow in Sacramento?
Before listing, most people want to know how much it will cost sellers to close escrow. That’s a pretty loaded question because the largest expense is not always the commission. The way it works is you generally get what you pay for. If you want a top producer to focus on your home and maximize the profit potential, you will pay more in a commission, but you net more than the difference paid. For example, when top producers like myself charge 6%, we also pay attention to ways to reduce closing costs. On top of trying to attract multiple offers to increase the price. If we weren’t worth it, sellers would not pay it. They see the value. I show it to them.
So, actually the commission is not the biggest expense. The biggest expense is hiring a cheap agent who doesn’t know what he or she is doing. Or falling victim to the home inspections’ scam of a bloated request for repair. This is when the buyer bids over list price and then tries to grind down the seller after inspections reveal, guess what? That the house is like every other house of its vintage and has a few defects. Inexperienced agents can’t really explain repairs to buyers, and inexperienced listing agents are no better. Many just tell the seller to pay the buyer’s demands. That’s the extent of their so-called service, but that’s also why those listing agents don’t make the big bucks. Not like this elite club of top producers who get paid more because they are worth it.
Otherwise, to figure out how much it will cost sellers to close escrow in Sacramento, a seller would also need to add back all the money the seller didn’t lose after inspections. In addition to adding the higher list price because we grabbed a buyer from the Bay Area. Those sorts of specialities performed by top producers.
But an easier way to compute how much it may cost sellers to close escrow is to take the sales price times 7% and deduct that number. Then deduct the unpaid balance of your mortgage. What’s left is your net profit, assuming you have hired a top producer to list your home. If you haven’t, you can probably deduct another 5% to 10% for inexperience. If you have hired a top listing agent, then your net profit is 93% of the sales price, less your existing mortgage balance. My wacky way produces a result within $500 or so with this off-the-cuff method.
Of course, the sellers I work with get an estimated closing statement upon demand. But if you wanted to figure this on the fly, that’s how you do it. If sellers prefer a breakdown of itemized deductions, as a former escrow officer, I can certainly explain each item.
It reminds me of selling real estate in the 1970s. Yes, I am that old. I started in real estate when I was five, LOL. With seller financing — and I was a huge proponent of seller financing / creative financing back then — I often sold homes for a mere 7% down. Because that amount covered the seller’s closing costs and commission. Sellers carried owner financing for the balance. I can even see those days coming back.
California Garage Door Openers Must Work in a Power Outage
An interesting item tucked away in the local section of the Sac Bee yesterday says California garage door openers must work in a power outage. Automatic garage door openers not operating during a power outage has spurred this effort to save lives. Apparently, during the 2017 wildfires in California, 5 people died because they could not get their garage door open after losing electrical power. This is a new law governing garage door openers sold after July 1, 2019. The new Senate Bill 969 passed the Senate 39-0 and the House 65-7. Our governor signed it into law on September 21, 2018.
Who knew? I sure didn’t hear about this. You’d think that the California Association of Realtors would have published information about this upcoming change. Well, of course, there is still time; but after a bill is signed into law, it’s kinda late to oppose or offer additional insight. The whole reason CAR exists is for political adversary.
Still, it will be a difficult law to impose because it will take a while for things to shake out. The law states a garage door opener sold after July 1, 2019 must include a backup battery. It is the backup battery that can then take over during a power outage and supply power to the garage door opener. I can see it now, nobody will test their backup batteries and they will run out of juice without anybody knowing it. However, the civil penalty is $1,000 if your brand new garage door opener does not work with a backup battery.
Sure, some people will say, hey, can’t you just yank the red cord? That disconnects the garage door opener and frees it so you can manually lift the door. Although the problem with that is some older people cannot manually lift their garage door. If there was ever a reason for seniors to hit the gym, this could be one motivator. I know the day is bound to arrive when I won’t be in a position to open a garage door without help. Unlike my broker friend Barbara Todaro in Massachusetts. She is my heroine.
Are you wondering how will this new law making garage door openers work in a power outage will affect a Sacramento Realtor? It won’t at the moment. However, next year, if a seller replaces her garage door opener after July 1, 2019, it better utilize a backup battery. Or, unless a Realtor is selling a home built after July of 2019, which could happen in our Sacramento resale market a year from next summer. This is one of those new law changes we need to be aware of and make our sellers aware.
This new California law that garage door openers must work in a power outage made me think about 1996, when my husband and I built a 24 x 24 garage. With our own two hands. One of the most enjoyable times of my life and, based on his “I hate wood” mentality, the worst for my husband. Yes, this is a photograph above of me pounding 2x4s.
Why Buyers Should Hand Pick a Sacramento Buyer’s Agent
We’ve heard all the silly reasons why buyers don’t believe they should pick a Sacramento buyer’s agent, and those are not valid reasons. Ninety-nine percent of the time, buyers are better off sticking with their own representation to buy a house in Sacramento. Because they don’t know the real estate business from the inside out. Which means they sometimes resist the concept and do not want to pick a Sacramento buyer’s agent. If they truly understood how Sacramento real estate works, they would be clamoring for an agent to assist.
Instead, they think they can go to the listing agent. Or worse, I’ve heard buyers tell agents that yes, if they buy the house, they will use the agent who showed it to them. But they don’t know why they should pick a Sacramento buyer’s agent. They’d like to use any warm body who is available to open a door. And therein lies a major mistake on the part of home buyers. In today’s world, buyers with representation get better service, better protection and better negotiation over the any-warm-body-will-do mentality. Because choosing any warm body is more likely to mess you up than to offer service. There are thousands of warm bodies who are licensed to sell real estate in Sacramento, and most of those have little to no experience.
Let’s talk about going to the listing agent. I know what buyers are thinking. Buyers wrongly believe the listing agent will be so utterly greedy that she will do whatever is necessary to double-end the transaction (earn twice the commission), even if it means breaking fiduciary. Part of me wants to ask why would a buyer want to hire an unethical greedy agent to commit this crime for them? It is a crime. It is against the law to break fiduciary. When presented with a legal way to buy a house and a way that could get you sued by working with an unethical agent at best and criminal element at worst, why? Why take that risk? Why wouldn’t you want to instead hire the best negotiator you can get?
It doesn’t cost a buyer anything to hire a Sacramento buyer’s agent. Exclusive buyer’s agents represent buyers as their sole business model. Imagine how beneficial an exclusive buyer’s agent can be with all of that specialized experience? No distractions. They only represent buyers. No sellers. Imagine that wealth of knowledge and experience?
Of course, some buyer’s agents create bad experiences for buyers, I understand that. They don’t communicate well, don’t stay on top of new listings and rarely put the buyer’s interests above their own. However, a top notch exclusive buyer’s agent, especially from the Elizabeth Weintraub Team, is always on the ball. If you’re in the market to pick a Sacramento buyer’s agent, you may as well pick one of the best. We insist on fast communication, and we will email, text or call you immediately. Our clients receive top priority in our daily activities. You will never wonder what is the next step because we are already 3 steps ahead of you.
Go ahead and give us a try. You’ll be writing a 5-star review for us when escrow closes. To get started, call top producer Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759 for your personal consultation.
