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I Will Scream If You Say Sacramento Realtors are Messengers
Do not ever say Realtors are messengers because it is a stupid thing to say.
Where do agents get the idea that Sacramento Realtors are messengers? It’s true that we have a fiduciary relationship to our clients, which means we have to represent their interests and our clients are the boss, but it doesn’t mean we have to dance like a trained monkey. Part of representing our clients’ best interests means we advise them if they are wrong or about to make a huge mistake. Part of advising means helping clients to clearly understand what they need to do, which can often be in direct opposition to an initial desire.
I practically did scream at a buyer’s agent a few days ago who said to me, “Well, we are just messengers.” He chuckled. “We just do what we’re asked to do.” As though that explains it. He gets a kick out of my passion for the business, he laughed. Hey, this no laughing matter, dude! You can’t honestly believe that Realtors are messengers. That’s not true. It’s completely inside out of reality. Just stop saying it.
The agent just laughed again. Told me how much he enjoys talking to me. He won’t enjoy it so much when I’m finished hammering home my point. And I launched into it. We are doing a grave disservice to our clients if we act merely as a messenger. We possess superior knowledge gained from decades in the business, and we are here to guide, to advise, not to follow directives, especially if those directives are idiotic.
You need to grab your client by the shoulders and explain why the action they want to take can lead to disaster. Realtors make suggestions, you offer alternatives and reasonable solutions based on wisdom. We are a counselor, a trusted advisor, not directionless, without opinions and uninformed, which is how we would come across if we don’t speak up. If you think Realtors are messengers, you aren’t a very good Realtor.
I will smash a pie in your face if you continue to say Realtors are messengers. I will kick over your open house signs. I will teepee your yard. Stupid things you say tend to have a way of turning into reality. Sometimes agents don’t want to be anything more than a messenger because a messenger is a non-accountable position, but we are paid to share our knowledge. To be accountable. To do anything less is, well, it’s simply inexcusable.
Are You Getting Screwed in Real Estate?
When the Sacramento housing market tightens, getting screwed in real estate is more likely to happen.
Getting screwed in real estate is an interesting topic. You can look at Sacramento real estate like it’s one big f-ing orgy, and you wouldn’t be too far off base. Of course, that attitude won’t get you anywhere. You can wallow in that mud hole, rub that wet sticky mud all over naked body parts, and it still won’t resolve anything. The only thing a particular experience of getting screwed in real estate does for you is provide a new set of warning signs that it’s coming. It’s like a giant asteroid that could suddenly smack the earth. If you see that sucker coming, you can start running all you want — but when you’re under its shadow, it’s gonna squash you anyway.
This is why my 40-some years in the real estate business tends to pay off for my clients. It doesn’t mean I will never shoulder an experience of getting screwed in real estate, but those situations are super few and far between. My radar is constantly up. Searching. Analyzing. But it’s by habit and not a focused project. I don’t spend a lot of time on it. Yet, the stuff I’ve recently sent flying like a boomerang would make your head spin.
I can tell you that many people don’t start out with a plan to exploit. Because that would mean they are the devil incarnate, like Ted Cruz in the flesh, and most people are not. Nor would they even recognize that trait if it was embedded. People really don’t dig that deep within themselves. We’re too busy ushering kids to soccer, heads buried in our cellphones, ordering pizza delivery. On top of this, people tend to rationalize what they do to an extent that they make it OK to step on somebody else’s head by accident and grind those eyeballs into the concrete sidewalk.
It just comes with the territory of selling real estate in Sacramento. The more real estate an agent sells, the more likely she is come across these crooked situations and avoid them. I average around 100 sales a year.
Three Ways to Prevent Getting Screwed in Real Estate
I can’t see anyway to completely prevent getting screwed in real estate, but I can often lessen the chances of it happening. 1) The most obvious way is to be ethical and to operate with integrity. This way you tend to attract individuals like yourself. 2) The second is to pay attention to red flags, things that seem out of place. Probe. Inquire. Push a little for answers. 3) The third is to hire an experienced Sacramento Realtor who has been around the block so many times she can count the number of cracks that broke your mother’s back.
Call Elizabeth Weintraub for your Sacramento real estate needs. My laryngitis is just about over. It’s OK to sound like Stockard Channing, I’ve decided. I’ll get the job done right, and I try to ensure every client is a happier person along the way. Call 916.233.6759.
Why Home Buyers Forage for that Condo Mailbox Key
Ask your Sacramento agent for help in obtaining a condo mailbox key to the community mailboxes.
As a condo homebuyer, forget what you think you know about getting a condo mailbox key at closing. Nobody seems to ask about the condo mailbox key until the transaction is closed, and then all holy hell can break out if the seller does not leave the condo mailbox key. Buyer’s agents might want to include a line in the California Residential Purchase Agreement in paragraph 8, B 3 to include the mailbox key. There doesn’t seem to be a provision for the key otherwise in the contract.
For example, the United States Post Office in West Sacramento charges a $75.00 deposit for a mailbox key to the condos at Riva on the River. The mailboxes are owned by the USPS. They are not owned by the occupants nor the HOA, a fact which I presume is spelled out in the condo docs that nobody ever reads because they are the size of the Great American Novel. Like the autobiography of Mark Twain, which I still can’t muddle through.
Sometimes sellers forget about the mailbox key deposit like one would forget about an ex-husband or four. Distasteful, yet out-of-sight, out-of-mind. Just glad it’s over with so you can get on to better and more interesting things in life. There is not enough space in most people’s brains to contain the fact that they had once upon a time paid a deposit for a condo mailbox key and, even if they suddenly recall, it’s too much of a hassle for many to drive over to USPS to retrieve it. We don’t yet have winged monkeys available at our service. Sigh.
Should the buyer reimburse the seller for the condo mailbox key? Perhaps. But when a buyer is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy a condo, it seems a bit of out of whack. Por supuesto, (of course) you could say that about every fee charged to the seller as well. $20.00 for a notary, $40.00 to overnight documents. $9.00 for recording. Petty fees, yet necessary.
Bottom line is if there is no provision in the contract to provide a condo mailbox key, some sellers will refuse. On top of which, maybe the sellers had rented out the condo and the tenant did not turn in the key. All kinds of things can happen to that condo mailbox key. If your buyer’s agent is on top of his or her game when writing the contract, that agent can protect you. We provide that kind of protection for buyers on the Elizabeth Weintraub Team. Call us at 916.233.6759.
Adding an Extra Bathroom to Your Sacramento Home
Adding an extra bath can cost less than buying a home with two baths in Sacramento.
Adding an extra bathroom to your Sacramento home is the single best value booster you can do if you buy a home with one bath. Now, I realize many people are wary of home improvement projects for a lot of reasons, most of it having to do with lack of knowledge . . . and lack of knowledge can produce fear. Fear produces resistance. And resistance results in no action at all. I have discovered this little scenario first-hand when I bought my very first home, so I speak from experience as well. Fortunately, I got over it. Knowledge is power.
Not knowing anything about construction or how you would go about adding an extra bathroom in Sacramento should not result in passing up a perfectly marvelous home because it features only one bath and you want two baths. Every home buyer in Sacramento wants at least two baths in a house, but some settle due to price restraints, or they fall in love with the neighborhood, ultimately the home, so they buy a one bath house and wonder what to do next.
The thing is once you understand construction, there is nothing scary about it all. I recall when I remodeled a bath many years ago and decided to add a row of block glass as a window at the top of my shower. It involved a supporting wall. That was a little frightening to me. What if the roof fell in? But I hired a contractor who installed windows for a major supplier in town and he framed it for $200. Well, actually he charged me $75, and I gave him a bonus because he underpriced his work. See? Costs are all over the place. You can’t really Google it and get an estimate. You need to talk to contractors.
I began reading home improvement books to understand the scope of the work involved and to get a feel for dealing with contractors. It is not rocket science. Not nearly as complicated as you might imagine. I’ve known people with the intelligence level of plant life who work on plumbing, for example. I’ve built my own garage with my own two hands. Further, when we bought our present home in Land Park, there was no gas line into the kitchen. My contractor charged us $400 to add a gas line from the gas meter, and that was probably too much. Now we have a gas stove. Yet, I’ve seen buyers pass on a home with an electric range.
When I was in the market (yes, even Sacramento Realtors can act just like a buyer and forget about a Realtor hat) and touring homes in Land Park, my husband and I insisted on looking only at two-bath homes, which we eventually bought. But I passed up a perfectly gorgeous Tudor on Markham because it had only one bath. In hindsight, it would have cost about $15,000 to have added an extra bathroom to that home. Yet we paid a lot more for our home, much more than that home on Markham cost, simply because our home had two baths.
So, I urge you not to mirror this mistake. If you love the home you’re looking at but you need to add an extra bathroom, consider adding an extra bathroom. Contrary to popular belief, it is not expensive, even if you have to add the bath to the exterior. The cost of new construction in Sacramento averages around $185 to $200 a square foot. This means a 10×10 bath could cost around $20,000. Why pay $50,000 or $100,000 more for a 2-bath home when you could just add an extra bathroom? If your dream home happens to have only one bath, don’t pass it up.
Why Trulia Listings Are Missing Homes for Sale in Sacramento
The delays in delivering Trulia listings to the public means that home is probably not available.
It doesn’t matter if you are looking for Trulia listings on Trulia or Zillow listings on Zillow, the information offered is not exactly the same data a home buyer could receive if the buyer obtained her listings from a Sacramento Realtor. That’s a major disadvantage to a buyer who does not have an agent. Relying on Trulia listings or Zillow listings is a very difficult way to hope to buy a home in Sacramento; almost impossible. Yet you wouldn’t know that because the photographs are pretty and the homes appear to be for sale, even when many are not.
Let’s say, just for the fun of it, that you find a home through Trulia listings that you would like to buy. Here’s what you don’t know. You don’t know if any of the four agents presented to you as authorities for a particular neighborhood have ever sold a home in that neighborhood. Fact. Many are new agents who pay to advertise their mugs on Trulia in hopes you will call them. If you do call one of those agents, realize the phone number is not the agent’s phone number. The individual phone numbers listed for agents belongs to Trulia or Zillow and . . . Big Brother is tracking and recording your call. Betcha didn’t know that.
If you do manage by some miracle to contact an agent who answers her phone, the agent will want to show you other homes if that home is pending, and that particular home is most likely pending or sold. Just realize the odds of that home being for sale are not very high. The market for Sacramento real estate is moving FAST. Often homes sell before the For Sale sign is pounded into the ground.
I can assure you there are homes you want to buy RIGHT NOW that are not among Trulia listings. I hear Trulia is working on this issue, but it’s been an issue for us agents forever. When will it get fixed? I don’t know. Like you, I want it now, and I can’t get it from Trulia. If a 40-year veteran agent can’t get it, what does it say about you?
The lead time for MLS data from brokers to download into Trulia is 48 to 72 hours. There is a delay. Two to three days for brand new listings to appear! Fact. Plus, Trulia does not pick up every listing that shows up on Zillow, either. Although Zillow tends to immediately reflects new listings for sale, providing they were not entered into its site in some earlier format, but loses points because it also lists homes that are not for sale at all such as so-called preforeclosures.
If you are not working a local Sacramento Realtor, the truth is you probably will not buy a home. Or, certainly not the home you really want. You need that connection to the inventory and our specific market knowledge, not to mention our networking within the industry.
If you want to find out if the listing agent presented to you is actually the listing agent, then you need to click on that agent’s website and look for the address. Or, you can decide to hire the best Sacramento buyer’s agent you can find. The agents who work on the Elizabeth Weintraub Team are top-notch, and we are crazy busy in this spring market, but never too busy for you. Call us. We can help you to navigate the maze of independent websites offering homes for sale. Your best bet is not Trulia listings nor Zillow listings. Your best bet is an experienced Sacramento Realtor. This is not a do-it-yourself situation.
Call your internet specialist, Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759. Top producer Sacramento Realtor at Lyon Real Estate, the #1 Sacramento brokerage for sales.
