Sacramento Sellers With Equity a New Trend!

You know how sometimes when your phone rings, and you either hear the phone number repeated in your ear, because you’re wearing a Bluetooth device, or you look at your phone and either way think to yourself: Oh, rats, nothing good can come from this, but you answer your phone anyway? OK, maybe you’re not in real estate then nor a Sacramento real estate agent like me. But I admit that I have, on occasion, fostered preconceived notions about who is calling me because so often I am correct about the fresh hell. There are times I do regret answering my phone and then there are other times that I am pleasantly surprised. It’s the trade-off for being proactive in this business.

Lately, what I’m finding is I am talking to more and more sellers with equity who want to sell their home in the Sacramento area. That’s a very good sign that our market is beginning to rebound and could be a new trend. I love working with sellers with equity. I would not say our Sacramento real estate market is recovering in leaps and bounds and you can get all crazy and ask whatever price you want for your home — because it’s not and you can’t — but the market is definitely turning the corner and the upward trend points to equity sellers. For the past 7 years, about 80% of my listings have been short sales. In 2012 alone I closed around 165 sides of which 129 sides were short sales. That still works out to about 1 out of every 5 is an equity sale, a seller who is not upside down.

I am predicting that if things continue on the same path I see now, my listing percentages for 2013 will be 1 out of every 3 sellers will be sellers with equity. I’d like to see at least half, you know, 50 / 50, but I suspect we have a ways to go on that. Who would have thought 7 years ago that a listing agent today would be so saturated with short sales that she’d almost forget what it was like to do a regular transaction? The pure joy?

I’ve learned so much about listing and selling homes in Sacramento from selling short sales that I can’t begin to tell you what an education it has been. I’ve learned a lot over the almost 40 years I’ve been in this business, no grass grows under my feet, but my extensive short sale experience has definitely made me a stronger and better real estate agent. If I can sell a short sale, I can sell anything. I can sell that empty cup from Starbucks you’re clutching. You need a home sold in Sacramento? You call this Sacramento real estate agent: Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759. I answer my phone. Even if I regret it at times.