5 Questions for Sacramento Real Estate Clients from Hell

You might not recognize Sacramento real estate clients from hell until you have signed a contract.

Part of the way to avoid working with Sacramento real estate clients from hell is to learn to recognize your screaming zonkers from the beginning. My team member, Amy, asked if we could give them a “crazy person breathalyzer” on the sly. Love Amy. She gets it that selling real estate is basically people management. Because with some types of Sacramento real estate clients from hell, you really can’t determine how weirded out they can get until you get to know them better.

By then it’s too late.

On the surface, the psychopaths can seem fairly normal. The pinheads might be married, socialize with friends and even hold a job, although perhaps it’s not a very demanding job, one that allows ample freedom to disguise mental insufficiencies like maybe politics. Yet, later, when you spot their true colors, shaking your head, wondering why nobody, out of the need for sheer self preservation, has never dumped these looney tunes into the Sacramento river in cement shoes, they could be yours.

No one prepares you for working with Sacramento real estate clients from hell when you get a real estate license. You learn how to deal with the nut-jobs and loose cannons as you go along, getting stabbed in the eyeballs, followed by shit pies in the face. Wouldn’t it be nice, though, if you could give them sort of a test to determine if they are likely to morph into the spawn of Satan before you get into escrow?

May I suggest:

5 Questions for Sacramento Real Estate Clients from Hell

Situation: As a VA buyer, the home you offered $500,000 for just appraised at $485,000.

Do you:

A. Jump on Twitter to proclaim your Realtor hates all disabled veterans and is a disgusting pig?

B. Discuss a strategy to request a price reduction with your Realtor?

Situation: As a seller, you just received a full-price offer from a well qualified buyer for your home.

Do you:

A. Run over to Yelp to complain that your Realtor is a dirty, lying, snake in the grass, who should be tarred and feathered because she cares only about her next paycheck?

B. Break out the champagne to celebrate a job well done?

Situation: As a seller, a buyer’s agent did not read MLS showing instructions and came over without calling first.

Do you:

A. Accuse your Realtor of sabotage, call her a lazy piece of shit and threaten to shoot her and all of her friends if she so much as steps foot on your property?

B. Ask your agent to remove the lockbox?

Situation: As a buyer, your agent discovers another buyer wants to buy the home you want.

Do you:

A. Immediately dump your agent, but not until you write a diatribe of nonsense on Facebook about how much you hate your agent and the horse he road in on?

B. Decide how to write a very attractive offer the seller can’t refuse?

Situation: As a seller, the buyer’s agent tells your Realtor the buyer needs two more days to close escrow due to a lender delay.

Do you:

A. Demand your agent cancel the listing, the purchase contract and shoot herself in the head before you hire a hitman to do it for you?

B. Sign an extension.

Some of my readers will think I’ve made up these situations. Realtors know differently. Mental illness is real, and if you were not insane before you decided to buy or sell a home, you may come to appreciate the fact that you’re never far from it. There is something about Sacramento real estate that tends to trip the reality meter.