Email ElizabethWhere You Will Find Your Dream Home in Sacramento
Thinking about a dream home in Sacramento?
Buyers who are looking for a home in Sacramento tend to end up on my Sacramento real estate website because they find the link for homes in the area where they want to live leading to my site. I am not sure why my website tends to rank higher in Google than others but it’s a site I’ve worked very hard to support, and I’ve protected my domain name from inception.
I also create a lot of content for my readers that they find useful. I blog about what happens to me from day to day as a Sacramento real estate agent and woman over 60 who can’t believe that nobody has yet written the book: Shit That Happens to You When You Get Old. This drives readers to see what I’ve been up to. Recently, I’ve added a “subscribe to” link directly to the right of my blogs so my readers can enter an email address and voila! My blog will appear in their email every morning, no more clicking around. But they know that they can always visit my website to find a home in Sacramento.
I love to connect online, reach out to clients and showcase my sellers’ homes to a local as well as nationwide market. Every so often I’ll get an email from an agent who works at any of the smaller competing brokerages around town. They write to say that when they type the address of their listing into Google, some random home in Sacramento, my website pops up. This upsets them to no end, and they accuse me of theft, as though I had anything to do with their non-ability to maintain and promote an online presence.
Every home that is for sale in MLS throughout the Sacramento Valley is on my website, just like you’ll find on any other agent’s website through an IDX. The fact that an address entry into a search engine also directs buyers to my website is a credit to the fact that I am a top producer in Sacramento who sells a ton of homes. I’ve also been writing online for years. I am tough competition for other agents.
Yet, that’s a great benefit to my sellers. If they list with another agent, though, that home in Sacramento could very well be showcased in Google with a link to my website, so they may as well list with this Sacramento real estate agent to start with.
Selling a Home to Reluctant Buyers in Sacramento’s Fall Market
Selling a home in Sacramento is more challenging today over our spring market. Many a Sacramento real estate agent is frustrated with the way our real estate market has changed this fall and having a hard time dealing with home buyers. It doesn’t matter if one is a listing agent or a buyer’s agent, you’ve still got to deal with that home buyer if one wants to get into escrow. Selling homes in Sacramento is what I do for a living. Don’t look at me sideways, somebody’s got to.
Gone are the days when upon receipt of a goofball offer a listing agent could say: Hey, buddy, pony up or don’t let the door hit you in the butt. Neither can a listing agent adopt the attitude of say, have you suddenly morphed into a moron or were you simply born stupid? Because one would not under any circumstances poke fun at those who came into this world unprepared, unsupervised and without the ability to reason and deliver rational thought — that would be unacceptable behavior, especially after test results proved the individual was incapable of functioning in a social environment in a normal manner. That would just be mean.
Now, the tables have turned, the winds have shifted and we’re wearing our underwear inside out. We Sacramento listing agents are grateful for an offer. Any offer. It’s like, hey, sweetie, yes, you, you with the head-to-toe tattoos, shaved head and metal gauges in the lobes, come over here and sit down next to me. Here’s a satin pillow. Let me rub your feet and bring you a cup of tea. Would you like lemon? A cool towel for your neck? A copy of People Magazine?
To survive in any real estate market, a good Sacramento listing agent must be a chameleon. Go with the flow, change with the market. Adapt.
Last week a first-time home buyer made an offer on a home in Elk Grove. After much discussion, weighing the pros and cons, my seller negotiated and then elected to accept the offer. Everybody was happy. We changed the status of the home in MLS to pending. The following day, the buyer’s agent called to say the buyer had changed his mind because the buyer’s wife didn’t like the home.
What? Let me talk to the guy. I would say: hey, just divorce her. Get rid of that witch. There are plenty of women in this world who would LOVE that home in Elk Grove. She doesn’t deserve you, man, if she can’t see the beauty in your world. You do something nice for that woman and you get crap. You don’t need that.
And this is why sellers love me.
Security Gaps While Selling Your Sacramento Home
The occupant of one of my listings leaves her front door unlocked when agents come over to show. She vacates and doesn’t lock the door because she doesn’t want a lockbox on the house. This procedure is not only unsafe, but it completely baffles the agents who show. The buyer’s agents can’t believe a person would not lock the door.
Because she won’t allow a SUPRA, I have installed a contractor’s box and suggested she put the key inside when she leaves, and then she could lock the house and retrieve the key when she gets home. She refuses. Her thoughts are it is perfectly OK to leave her door unlocked, and she lives in a safe neighborhood. All neighborhoods are safe until security gaps pop up.
Criminy, when it comes to security gaps, there are no safe neighborhoods in Sacramento. Every person is vulnerable no matter where you live. She won’t listen to me, and her actions make me uneasy, like they would cause any Sacramento listing agent to fret.
Then, this weekend, an agent called to say she dropped the key to the home she was showing somewhere in the kitchen and she could not find it. It might have rolled under the ‘frig. If I wasn’t avoiding any strains on my back, I would have dashed over to help her move the refrigerator. This sort of thing could have happened to any buyer’s agent. Although usually they break the key in the door or slip it into their pocket and take it home; they don’t generally lose it somewhere in the house.
I tried to call the seller but my message went to voice mail. The buyer’s agent couldn’t reach the seller, either, which is why she called me. I sent the seller an email and attempted to contact the co-owner as well. Nobody should leave a door unlocked anywhere.
Fortunately, the seller came home and was able to put a new key into the bottom of the lockbox. Then, later yesterday afternoon, another twist happened at her home. A group of strangers showed up on her doorstep holding a business card from a real estate agent. The real estate agent was not with them, they were unaccompanied and alone. The seller let them into her home! Give me a heart attack, why doncha? Never let a stranger into your home without an agent present. Talk about security gaps. Excuse me while I pick myself up off the floor. I swear, my sellers are gonna kill me yet.
How to Help Senior Real Estate Clients Use the Internet
When people my age complain about using the internet, I like to point out that this Sacramento real estate agent has been online for 23 years, having first signed up for a Bulletin Board in 1991, at which time my first sentence ever composed online was swiped from Steve Martin: I was born a poor black child. That experience prepared me for eWorld in 1994 using my very own 900-baud dial-up modem. I was so excited. I wasn’t using the internet much for my real estate business back then, it was much more a network of people, unlike the spam and mass product marketing of today.
It takes a while for some older people to become comfortable using a computer. Of course, I can recall when we had no computers. And then in the 1980s when only secretaries used computers, which forced us Type A personalities to say, oh, crap, just give it to me and I’ll do it. I bought my first IBM clone in 1988 and promptly took the computer apart to examine its hard drive, and then put it back together again. I read the DOS Bible at night to understand how they worked.
I used one of the first voice mail systems to run a pet recovery business on the side, called Pet Crisis Hotline. But I didn’t use a computer for real estate.
When Apple pulled the plug on eWorld and shut it down, I was devastated. Completely crushed. That happened, I believe, around 1995 – 1996. We knew it was coming because Apple informed us of that impending doom. It meant eWorld users would have to switch over to AOL, which would cost twice as much and we didn’t know anybody at AOL. Waahh. It was a strange new land.
I try to use my former experiences when I work with senior real estate clients who struggle with the computer. They don’t know how easy they have it because they don’t know how hard it used to be. Before Xtree came along, we had to use DOS all of the time. That was like slumping through the mud in a Goldie Hawn GI uniform, crying in the rain. Real misery. I have known real misery, and I never want my clients to know it.
When I first introduce my senior real estate clients to DocuSign, for example, I upload a one page form I created entitled TEST, with their name on it; it’s personalized to make it friendly. I walk them through how to set up a signature and sign that initial test page. Then, when we get an offer, their information is already in the DocuSign system and it’s easy-peasy for them. There is no heart attack panic to get it signed or computer crash concerns.
If you’re looking for a Sacramento real estate agent who shows compassion, even if her senior clients are not tech savvy, you’ve come to the right place. Let my experience guide you. Call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759.
What Kind of Sacramento Real Estate Agent Does That?
It’s not unusual for an agent to hire this Sacramento real estate agent, or for any of my clients to have held at some point in their lives a California real estate salesperson license, because roughly 1 in every 35 people in California has a real estate license. Having passed the real estate exam and being entitled to practice real estate for 4 years, however, is no guarantee of knowledge, and it certainly does not reflect experience, yet there is a certain comradery among us agents.
I say this because I just closed a real estate transaction in Fair Oaks for a couple of sisters, one of which is a real estate agent. They found me online and read many of my blogs, articles on About.com, and were impressed with my decades of experience. But they still wanted to interview several other agents. Actually, I don’t know if they ever did because after they hired me it didn’t matter. I presented a strong case to choose me over another agent they were considering because I have a strong case to present. I don’t have to sugarcoat any facts or make myself sound better than I am to attract clients.
After the sale of this particular duplex closed escrow, I called to let the sellers know I had received confirmation of closing. It’s important that I speak directly to the sellers when a transaction closes, even if we’ve been communicating all along through email or text. I don’t want take a chance of a technology failure to deliver the news. So, I do the old-fashioned thing: press my Bluetooth earpiece and demand a phone call.
Sellers often like to reminisce during these types of conversations, and this seller was no different, even though she was a real estate agent. She said that what I did to truly earn my commission in her eyes was how I handled the situation when we received an offer that was $9,000 below list price. I advised her to issue a counter offer at list price because I believed she could get list price.
I didn’t deliver this advice off the top of my head. I studied the way the offer was written, reviewed the proof of funds (it was all cash), looked up the history and production of the buyer’s agent, analyzed the deposit check, among a myriad of other things that I do upon receipt of a purchase offer. Sellers pay me to think, not to react without consideration. I’m not a messenger, I am a negotiator. Given the present inventory on the market, and the attractive price of this duplex, I believed the seller could demand list price so that’s what I advised her to do, to counter back to list price. Which was accepted, btw.
There is a fine line between telling a seller what to do and advising a seller. I am not a White Knight Agent. I don’t make decisions for my clients. I deeply care that my clients are informed, and I deliver my advice based on experience and knowledge. I’ve worked with agents who get themselves all worked up into a lather and somehow superimpose themselves into the escrow, which creates horrible nightmares. I don’t lose sight of my position nor fabricate answers for my clients.
The seller asked out loud yesterday, after her reflection on events: What kind of agent does that? What kind of agent tells a seller she should counter? I guess this one. She seemed to be blown away that a Sacramento real estate agent would actually do what is best for her client. Although, I don’t really understand why. We have a fiduciary to our clients. It doesn’t matter to me if the seller wants to accept a purchase offer or send a counter offer or ignore the offer as long as the seller is happy. I suppose I should ask her for a review.
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