Email ElizabethWhy Buyers Will Not Make Offers on Overpriced Listings
Overpriced listings are not the best thing for a seller, yet some sellers are simply too close to the product to be objective. They struggle. Well, we don’t want to leave money on the table, is a common comment. Another: buyers can make any offer they want, right? And both of those ideas are myths. It is pretty much impossible to leave money on the table in a competitive bidding situation. Followed by buyers won’t offer at all.
In my 44 years of experience in real estate, overpriced listings can happen because the agent is watching for clues from the seller. Those clues might tell the agent if she doesn’t appear enthusiastic about the seller’s suggested sales price, the seller will list with some other agent. No wonder so many people do not much like real estate agents. Some agents only want the listing instead of what is best for the seller.
I’m not saying that this Sacramento Realtor never takes overpriced listings because I certainly do now and then. There are times I can show the seller all the comparable sales, invest a considerable amount of my time not only providing statistics but my reasoning as well. And sellers will still say, “I think we should start at XYZ price because we can always come down.”
Sure, but that strategy most often hurts the seller. Agents spot the price drops, the days on market, and they want to take advantage of the seller. Human nature. I always tell my sellers the price I believe the market will bear. Then, they can make their own decisions based on facts. If they choose to enter the realm of overpriced listings, at least they know they are going against my advice.
This keeps me from feeling too badly about overpriced listings because I know in my heart I have been honest with my sellers. I don’t ever want a seller to ask: why didn’t I tell them? Because it is my job as a listing agent to convey that information.
More often than not, though, buyers just won’t make an offer on any overpriced listings. They feel the seller might be unreasonable. Or stubborn. Plus, they don’t want to offend. It really is in the seller’s best interest to be priced appropriately. But I don’t shove that sentiment down their throats. Some already do a good enough job slicing their own.
When Life Throws Curveballs, Duck and Resolve
When life throws curveballs, there is no way to be prepared. Because you can’t always predict what can go wrong in your world as opportunities for failure are abundant. Which is why I start a list of problems to solve when I get more than three curveballs to deal with at one time. Toss into the mix the fact I multi-task and always try to pay immediate attention to priorities that pop up. Well, that’s a recipe for stress if things get out of hand.
Who could predict so many situations could require direct attention? It’s not bad enough that my AC is not working at our house in Hawaii. Oh, yes, I can hear you now. Like my sister who scoffs because she lives in Minnesota and turned off her AC months ago. I get no empathy from her. This will mark the third motor in 2 years. ECM motors by Carrier are so energy efficient that they cannot operate for very long before giving out. Too much technology.
Today is Day 6 without AC because Mike at Kona AC could not get over to the house. When he did show up, he threw $740 cash on the table as a refund. Claimed bad ductwork and faulty electrical wiring, too many surges and power shut downs. Three motors over 18 months is kinda nuts. I wonder why he doesn’t think it is the blower motor itself?
My new gardener says we have slugs and to buy slug bait. The bath remodel guys came back to plug the quartz and move the badly installed waterfall faucet over to the side. Fortunately they didn’t install the faucets wrong on both quartz countertops. They also had to fix the receptacles that were not relocated high enough.. You don’t want to hear the particulars of everything else that went wrong but is now fixed.
Suffice to say it was a lot. The new GFCI doesn’t work, so I went to Lowes to exchange it. The drivers sent to me by Lamps Plus to stop the LED flickering in our new light fixtures don’t fit the housing.
That’s because when life throws curveballs, I try to duck. Just put it on the list and take care of it myself, is my MO. I have 6 days left to renew my car registration. Since the Maui dealer registered the car in Maui County, I have a problem in Kona. However, if you think the California DMV is bad, try Hawaii. Their procedures conflict with each other.
At a listing in Sacramento yesterday an agent set off the security alarm. Agents and security alarms are a bad combination. Didn’t read MLS and get the alarm code. I could place a note in the lockbox itself but I know what happens to those. The notes end up crumpled in agent’s pockets. Fortunately for that guy, I answer my phone, so I gave him the alarm code.
Further, the number of new leads jumped into high gear yesterday. It’s been very quiet for the past 3 weeks but Monday, all hell broke loose. On top of that, as I tried to grill my dinner, I couldn’t stop the text messages from coming. Did you know if you get a text message on your iPhone, you can no longer access the timer on your iPhone?
My fish and vegetables were placed on the grill, and just when I opened the app to press “start” on the timer, I got a text message from one person. Followed by 3 more. My husband started sending text messages, too. And someone else texted me. One after another. The clock kept ticking and I had no idea how long I had been grilling because I could not access my timer.
When life throws curveballs, sometimes you’ve gotta laugh out loud. What are the odds I would get 3 people sending multiple text messages all at the same time? California time would have been 9:30 PM. Perhaps all of this activity is indicative of the Sacramento real estate market picking up a bit.
Further, after I received my new credit card last month due to Uber fraud, what else happened yesterday do you think? I lost the card. Sometime between Thursday and Monday. I used it at one store on Thursday, and that store could not find it when I went there. Oh, well, another day in the future will be spent notifying automatic payment creditors.
It is also true that when multiple problems happen at one time, it’s usually isolated incidences. Some people blame it on the full moon. Although, our next full moon is October 24. But gosh darn it, I got back to every new lead, spoke with every agent who called and worked on 3 new Sacramento listings. Still a very productive day in paradise.
Vacant Home Showing Tips for Sacramento Buyer’s Agents
This blog is about vacant home showing tips for Sacramento buyer’s agents. It’s a blog I feel compelled to write in hopes it will help other agents in Sacramento, mostly newer agents, with how to show vacant homes. But my next piece of advice really applies to every single agent who puts together home tours for buyers. That piece of advice, which often falls on deaf ears and blind eyes, is please, oh, for the love of god, please read the data contained in MLS.
MetroList constantly refines and tries to improve its system. Recently it added locations for the lockbox, which can be a pet peeve of buyer’s agents. Agents do not like to trudge through the mud or forage through a maze of bushes to find the lockbox. This is great improvement. Tells an agent right where to find the lockbox.
Although, sometimes I still get calls asking me where to find the gas meter. Since the gas meter is my favorite spot to attach a lockbox. Well, let’s just say the gas meter won’t get far on foot. Or, if you were a gas meter, where would you hide?
Now if you are a fairly new buyer’s agent about to fret over vacant home showings, please don’t. For one thing, you do not have to make an appointment unless the listing specifies and that would be rarely. Yes, that is true. When you see vacant with lockbox, that is your clue that you don’t have to call anybody, nor text nor ask for permission. Why, you can pick any old time you want to show that vacant home and just go. How easy is that?
But agents do not seem to know this. I received an email from a discount broker, won’t say which, asking if the date and time requested would work for a showing. The agent also asked if there was a better time to show than the time the agent had selected. In that email was also a request to let the agent know if I would be present at a vacant home showing. I was very curious as to why I would receive this type of email, so I inquired.
I mean, the house is vacant. It says there’s a lockbox. There is no reason the listing agent would be present at a vacant house or any house really, other than maybe a $2 million home in El Dorado Hills. Which means I can only presume the agent just wrote down the address and didn’t bother to read the directions or any information.
The agent replied that sometimes listing agents get upset if they don’t know a showing had happened. Seems very odd. The whole reason for vacant with lockbox is so agents do not need to make an appointment. Further, because there is a lockbox, SUPRA notifies me of every agent showing. So I know the minute an agent enters a vacant house. It sends the agent’s name, phone, broker name, email and time of entry.
But then my eyes fell on the license number of the agent. All new agents, those licensed within the last year or so, have a DRE license number that is numbered in the 2 million. Meaning in comparison to my license number, for example, which is 00697006. It means I obtained my license in the 1970s. Today’s new agents might have a license number like 0204256. Dead giveaway.
May I suggest a better way to let the listing agent know of plans to show, if that is a concern, is to compose a different email template. Perhaps an email that seems more professional, to wit:
This is a courtesy notice that I am planning to show 123 Main Street today at 3 PM. MLS states the home is vacant with lockbox. If that data has changed, please let me know.
How hard is that? It doesn’t require correspondence back and forth. The listing agent does not need to confirm a vacant home showing. Just lock up the house, leave a card on the kitchen counter. If the listing agent contacts you to ask for buyer feedback, it is considered a professional courtesy to send it.
Bath Remodel Update: Quartz Countertops and Lotus Vessel Sinks
We received our quartz countertops at our house in Hawaii last week. I paid for and ordered the quartz in June. The installers said the guy who sold the quartz did not want to ship it until he had a full load. Which could be true. At first he promised me delivery in June, and then suddenly after he cashed the check he had a different idea. What would happen if the shipment was delayed and I had already left for Sacramento? He suggested August shipping would be better controlled.
Now that I ponder my previous conversation about the quartz countertops, I imagine he probably had more clients in August. which would reduce his shipping costs. However, that’s when Hurricane Lane approached Hawaii and all shipments out of Honolulu shut down. After a shut-down of a harbor like that, everything is delayed when shipping resumes.
Long story short the quartz countertops were delivered a few days before I arrived in Kona. Our wonderful neighbor from Minnesota let them into our garage to store it. It is really pretty, too. They call it popcorn quartz, sort of an almond with white exploding popcorns.
I learned it is all right to install quartz directly on the cabinet, if the cabinet will support the quartz. Not every cabinet will. One of the reasons to use plywood is to raise the countertop enough to allow the drawers to open. If we don’t need plywood, I’d just as soon not bring any termite infested product into the house. So we got the quartz countertops installed without plywood.
Once the countertops were in place, it was time to install the Lotus vessel sinks. When I spotted the Lotus vessel sinks with the waterfall faucets on Overstock, no question in my mind that the sinks were perfect. One of the stipulations I made was the contractor needed to install air gaps under the sinks. Well, I was out at Kona Haven Coffee talking story with a couple of friends when I received a text message from the contractor.
Somehow, he decided not to install the air gaps. He had his own ideas about it, and tried to tell me they were only necessary on faucets with reverse osmosis. Look buddy, there is a reason one of my most popular blogs about Sacramento real estate is How to Fix a Vessel Sink That Doesn’t Drain Completely. Because without an air gap, they do not drain.
So I sent him the link. Later, when the construction guys were preparing to leave, they mentioned that their boss finally read my blog. That piece convinced him, and he bought an air gap. Of course, when he shows up on Monday to be paid, he won’t be happy when I point out the medicine cabinet in the guest bath opens into the waterfall faucet. Nor will he like having to switch the hot and cold faucets that are mixed up in the guest bath. Hot on left, cold on right is code these days.
You cannot rely on construction workers to always do the right thing. Everybody has an opinion and workers are only as good as the number of jobs completed. Kinda like real estate agents. If an agent hasn’t sold a ton of properties, they don’t learn much. These guys do a great job installing quartz countertops, but vessel sinks seem to be a new learning curve for them.
Also, I bought 3 vessel sinks in case one of them was damaged in shipping but all 3 arrived intact. Now I have an extra vessel sink with a waterfall faucet for sale dirt cheap, under $200.
Affordable 7 Bedroom Home in Citrus Heights Wildwood Estates
Would you like to buy an affordable 7 bedroom home in Citrus Heights, in Wildwood Estates? This home is located in a desirable tree-lined area, which is north of Auburn and a bit east of Sunrise. What I noticed was an abundance of pride-of-ownership in this neighborhood. I last sold a couple of homes in Wildwood Estates maybe a year or two ago, as I vividly recall all of the Glen-named streets. This particular area has gone through a remarkable transformation for the better.
It’s also not often that I list an affordable 7 bedroom home in Citrus Heights. Generally speaking, most homes featuring 7 bedrooms are much more expensive because they tend to be luxury homes, worth a million or more. In addition, this home is a single story, not a two story or multi-level, like most other 7 bedroom homes. You will also find 3 full baths.
Perfect situation for a multi-generational family, btw.
Basically, the center of home is fairly open and consists of the entry, spacious kitchen with granite, family room with breakfast space, and a large separate dining room with a pass-through window to the kitchen. Off to the left is a front bedroom with a fireplace, and down the hall are 2 more bedrooms and a full bath. Off to the right is four more bedrooms, including a master suite, and a full guest bath in the hall.
In addition to the main entertainment areas in the center of the home, there is also a large deck that bridges the exterior span between the two wings. It is simply enormous. And if that’s not enough, the lot is also huge with a couple of creek beds and a small footbridge.
You can also view the virtual tour here. Or, you can come to our open house on Sunday, October 21st, from 2:00 to 4:00 PM and view this affordable 7 bedroom home in Citrus Heights for yourself.
8113 Glen Creek Way, Citrus Heights, CA 95610 is offered exclusively by Elizabeth Weintraub and Lyon Real Estate at $405K.
The information in this advertisement, including, but not limited to, square footage and/or acreage, has been provided by various sources which may include the Seller, the Multiple Listing Service or other sources. Lyon Real Estate has not and will not investigate or verify the accuracy of this information. Prospective buyers are advised to conduct their own investigation of the Property and this advertised information utilizing appropriate professionals before purchasing this Property.
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