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Amazing Things That Can Screw Up Your Home Closing
Many things can go wrong after selling a home prior to your home closing.
Getting from Point A, which is agreeing to a sales price and terms with a buyer, to Point Z, which is your Sacramento home closing, is no easy feat for sellers these days, and there doesn’t seem to be any relief in sight. In fact, it’s getting more difficult and more challenging, and let’s not forget the additional layer of TRID, the new regulatory disclosures and mortgage implementation process. Much of the stuff that goes on in the middle of escrow and many of the things that can go wrong after selling your home, are not always discussed in entirety with sellers — either before the listing or after the sale — so some sellers aren’t even aware of the tribulations.
Selling a home and getting to the home closing is so much more than negotiating the offer upfront. That is only the beginning. This is why you really need an experienced Realtor. For starters, there is no guarantee the buyer really wants to buy that home. True dat. Many home buyers in today’s market freak out after signing a contract. That’s why I have a system that I like to use that can force buyers to wait a few days. If they’re gonna back out, they will probably do it during that time period, before we have accepted an offer. There is little I dislike more, much more than eating brussel sprouts, than to put a home back on the market after making the listing pending because it sends the wrong message to buyers. It’s what I call the kiss of death.
We have to get through all of the home inspections and hope like crazy the buyer doesn’t hire some doofus home inspector who has little clue. These are also the guys who love to spam listing agents after the home closing, hoping we will hire them, and they don’t even realize that listings agents are the wrong guys to go after, and yes, I’m talking about YOU, Brian. Stop spamming me. Focus on buyer’s agents and send them your spammy emails. I’ve warned this home inspector repeatedly not to email me but he continues, just like clockwork, the idiot.
Buyer possession is also another hurdle because it often happens that the final home closing date is not always the most convenient date for everybody to close. One of the parties might have a problem with it. Whether it’s movers who cancel at the last minute or the seller’s new home that is not available, or maybe the water heater suddenly blows up, there seems to be no end to the challenges that can face a home closing.
My job as a Sacramento listing agent is to try to figure out the personalities of the people involved and, based on my experience and research, accurately predict what could go wrong in the home closing and prevent it. When I receive an offer for my seller, the first thing that pops into my brain is NOT oh, goody, we’ve got an offer. My first reaction is: what is wrong with this offer that could cause the home closing to be delayed? What steps can I take to ensure a smooth process? It’s different for everybody. But that’s why I’m paid the big bucks.
Can New Home Buyers Remove the Realtor Sign in the Yard?
There is protocol to follow to remove a Realtor sign.
It is probably annoying, that Realtor sign in the yard after closing. After all, the sign is all about the listing company and listing agent, which often has little bearing on the new home buyer. If we did a ton of dual agency transactions in which we directly represented the buyer as well (which we don’t), I imagine the new buyers might not get so irritated over the Realtor sign in the yard because there would be some kind of identification with it. They would feel an association. Immediately after closing, though, buyers want to remove that Realtor sign. It’s their home now and no longer for sale.
Some new home buyers go so far as to yank the Realtor sign out of the ground and throw it down. Hey, just because the seller didn’t agree to make repairs for you is no reason to dump the seller’s broker’s sign into the dirt. Years later, when you forgot who your buyer’s agent was and are looking for a top listing agent in Elk Grove or the greater Sacramento area to sell your home, you will probably call the Elizabeth Weintraub Team at Lyon Real Estate. There is no reason to burn bridges because she represented the seller and not you in the initial transaction. You want this kind of assertive agent on your side. Because Elizabeth will be the listing agent you will probably call, even if you don’t realize it yet.
Other home buyers sometimes stash the sign in the garage or in the back yard, wrongly thinking, I suppose, that the sign company representatives will get out of their vehicles and politely knock on the door to inquire about its whereabouts. No, they won’t. And that for sale sign will sit in your garage until it rots. They’ll stop, look around, and if they don’t see the sign, they will drive off. They also won’t trespass on your property to retrieve the sign from behind a side gate because that is prohibited.
If you don’t know when the Realtor sign will be removed, text your buyer’s agent and ask. Your agent can notify the Elk Grove listing agent — and I mention Elk Grove because missing Realtor signs seem to happen there more so than West Sacramento, for example — to find out when the sign company will come by. When my listings close, I generally notify my office to send out the sign removal guys to pick up the signs. If I don’t, there will be a delay. First the title company needs to send the closing paperwork to our corporate office at Lyon Real Estate on American Drive. Then the paperwork is overnighted to our branch office, but probably not on the same day. After our office assistants receive the paperwork from corporate, they schedule the sign removal guys to come out.
The sign removal guys don’t work on Sunday or Monday. So, you can see a closing that happens on Friday, say, won’t have the Realtor sign removed from the yard until probably Wednesday. There should be a better way to do this within our closing-out system, but for now, that’s the way it is. It doesn’t mean we don’t care or have forgotten about the Realtor sign. Please just leave it in the yard.
Tips for Handling Disappointing News
Nobody likes to be stuck in stalled traffic on the Davis Causeway.
Handling disappointing news and dealing with challenging situations is a common everyday occurrence in the life of a Sacramento Realtor. As such a Realtor has a few choices: either handle it, ignore it or dwell on it. Many people choose the latter, dwelling on it, obsessing over it, complaining and whining about it, throwing their very own little pity party, paying for it twice with a hangover or whatever. I tend to look for solutions and try to find some other way to enjoy the experience because we don’t always get to choose what we experience.
My first setback yesterday was the disappointing news that the Regent Seven Seas abruptly canceled our Mediterranean Cruise for next August. When I spotted that cruise in a travel brochure, I immediately jumped on it, begging my husband to arrange for time off so we could go. It started in Barcelona, went to Monte Carlo, a few places in France and Italy, and on to Greece and Turkey. The excuse used by Regent Seven Seas were its shorter distance cruises, same number of days, were more popular, which makes little sense. I wonder if they ever go there?
They offered us a credit toward another cruise but we don’t want another cruise, we want that cruise. It hit the ports we desired to see. Other cruises don’t. It occurred to me that we don’t have to go to the Mediterranean next August. We can go elsewhere, we can tour Spain instead, we have options.
The next disappointing news was finally picking up a key for a duplex in Carmichael I am listing and discovering it did not work. The tenant left a key under the mat for me. It was attached to a card, so it looked like it had not been tested in the lock. It is always my M.O. to insert keys into the locks before putting the keys into a Supra iBox. Always. Without fail. This is for when the buyer’s agents invariably call to complain that the key doesn’t work. I can say YES it DOES. Try again. Without having to rely on my memory.
The key worked in the bottom lock but not the top. I also know enough NOT to leave the top lock unlocked because somebody, somewhere, someday will ultimately lock that top lock somehow, and then we’ll be locked out. This is what 40 years of experience in the real estate business teaches you, to rely on past experiences. The family’s daughter came home and swore up and down the key worked in both locks. You try it, I suggested. Then I called the seller’s adviser in San Diego and asked him to verify the key or keys, whatever it needs, will be placed into the lockbox today, just to try to make sure the family member gets it handled.
On my way back to my home office, I drove to Davis to my vet’s office to pick up a new insulin bottle for our cat, Pica. He is no longer responding well to insulin, so I need to ensure it’s not the insulin itself that is causing the problem. Note to self: do NOT commute to Davis between the hours of 3 PM and 4 PM on a school day. More disappointing news. Utter chaos on Interstate 80, and even Fifth Street was jammed. OK, I can blow up a few Ingress Portals while stuck in traffic. I’m Level 11 now. Silver lining.
I glanced at my music selections. Hmmm . . . haven’t heard Tea for the Tillerman in 30 years or so. You know, you just can’t get irritated in traffic when you’re listening to Cat Stevens. In fact, one might even be tempted to sing along: Oh, Baby, Baby, it’s a Wild World. That was a stupid song in retrospect. Doesn’t matter. It got me across the Causeway.
Why October is a Good Month for the Sacramento Housing Market
Sacramento Housing Market statistics for 15 months thru October 6, 2015.
At first I had intended to show you a graph of the Sacramento housing market but the real information to be gleaned is not contained in the graph of the housing market in Sacramento, it’s actually in the numbers. Simply put, we do not have enough inventory, not enough homes for sale in Sacramento to satisfy demand. I noticed this in my own real estate business because all of my listings are selling. At any given time, I generally carry a couple dozen listings of one type or another, and at one point in 2011 my inventory was up to 75 listings or so. I’m selling them all now within about 30 days.
I checked the stats on other top producers, and their inventory is reduced, too. For the last 12 months in Sacramento, Elizabeth Weintraub ranks as the #7 agent in the area. If you’ve ever thought about putting your home on the market in Sacramento, now is the time to do it. Are you worried that you might not find another home to buy? No problem, you can sell your home contingent on finding another home, and most buyers will wait for you. This is the market to move up in. We’ve got a big group of entry-level home buyers itching to get into a home.
Interest rates are still low and not expected to rise until maybe December. If you wait to buy when everybody else under the sun is buying, you’ll have too much competition for the home you want to buy. Warren Buffet is the guy credited with saying that you should buy when nobody else is buying and sell when nobody else is selling. Our Sacramento housing market is a perfect example of that wisdom.
Look at the statistics in the UPPER RIGHT. Sales have fallen 75% the first week of this month as compared to the first week of last month. Our pending sales are down for the same time period by 35%. This is an excellent time to sell your home in Sacramento. You have the best of all worlds. The median sales price has remained pretty much steady at $290,000 for the past 4 or 5 months. That hasn’t happened in years. I can’t remember the last time that happened. I also can’t remember the last time my inventory of listings dropped below 10 homes for sale.
We’re not gonna see a big uptick in pricing next spring. If you want to sell a home, right now you should be on the market. We have fewer than 2 months of inventory.
Call your top producer Sacramento Realtor today, Elizabeth Weintraub, at 916.233.6759.
Sacramento housing market statistics, Trendgraphix.
Making a Contingent Offer When Your Home is Not Yet on the Market
Few sellers take a contingent offer seriously if the buyer’s home is not for sale.
If you don’t eat yer meat, you can’t have any pudding. It’s not just Pink Floyd who says, among other disturbing insights, there is a certain order to the world if you want to get things done. If one can’t abide by customary procedures, then there could be ways around it, which is often my specialty as a Sacramento Realtor. To operate within the confines and restraints of a system with the goal of discovering a loophole designed to bestow an advantage for clients, while minimizing risk. And a contingent offer certainly falls within those parameters.
Part of that success means I need to know the residential purchase agreement inside and out and all of the accompanying documents. You won’t find me at a loss for words when a client needs advice. It might be complicated, but I’ll give it to them straight.
I wonder what other agents tell their clients? When I receive a contingent offer from a buyer’s agent in a pre-acknowledged multiple-offer situation without any preface, just: here it is, it makes me wonder. First I check to see if the agent showed the home. Nope, not that I can determine. That would mean the buyer probably came through a Sunday open house and then called his agent after being informed all offers would be considered immediately thereafter. Yet, why would a buyer submit a contingent offer when the buyer’s present home was not only not in escrow but not even on the market?
Having posed that question, let me add that I am sometimes lucky enough to get a contingent offer accepted for a home not on the market when we’re working with buyers, but we don’t just dump the offer on the listing agent without an explanation. We also produce an MLS number for the contingent property and explain our extensive marketing system. We give the other listing agent a solid plan to pass on to her seller. Then it’s no skin off the seller’s teeth to accept our offer because that listing can remain in active release clause.
Giving a listing agent a contingent offer subject to selling a home when said home is not even on the market is like Wimpy: I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today. It’s like saying: if I could afford to buy your home, I most certainly would, Ollie, and flipping your tie around. Such a thing can make you feel like you’re Bojack Horseman, trying to explain to Princess Carolyn that her date is really 3 little boys stacked on top of each other under a trench coat.
