Email ElizabethTenant Damage to a Rental House Riles Insurance Company
If you have tenant damage to a rental house, call your insurance company, then a lawyer.
I pause sadly to reflect on our last season running of Nurse Jackie, in which Edie Falco plays a drug-addicted medical professional, and then brighten when I think about the pair of doctors who are getting sued because they damaged a rental house. There is retribution in the world. These two doctors, I’m told, recently bought a million-dollar home somewhere but not before trying to destroy my client’s house. Tenant damage to a rental house is always a seller concern.
I suppose it’s possible that they just lived that way, in a pile of rotting garbage, and the tenant damage to a rental house was not intentionally inflicted. I mean, after all, when I tried to get an appointment to inspect the home, I was informed that they would not allow it. As though they could prevent it through sheer haughtiness and mean spirit because all rental agreements provide for the right to enter with 24 hours’ written notice. Which I could have prepared and stapled to their front door, but why cause a normal person like me more stress than is necessary?
If they were living in squalor, I can see why they might so vehemently be opposed to anybody from the outside world peering into theirs. Doctors are not immune from mental disease and, in some ways, might be more prone, just given the profession. I once worked with a doctor client from Davis who was looking at homes in Land Park, and he made no bones about what he thought of himself. He said, “I want a home that my friends can drive by and say ‘that’s where Dr. So-and-So lives.'” He eventually couldn’t afford it, and stayed in Davis.
There was no choice in this matter except for the sellers to evict the tenants so we could sell the home. I generally work very well with tenants when selling a rental home, but these people were not cooperative in the least. After the tenants vacated and moved into their million-dollar home, the property management went over to investigate. They found extensive tenant damage to the rental house. The carpet was so bad it had to be replaced, and the cherry cabinets had to be refinished — this home is 6 or 7 years new. The tops of the knee walls looked like somebody grabbed a pizza and ground it into the paint, then poured beer on top of it and stuck their red plastic cups in the mess to decay. It was a work of art. But not quite an installation.
I suppose they figured nobody would go after them and this was payback for being evicted. Surprisingly, the seller’s insurance company paid for all of the repairs. Why? Because the company determined the home was vandalized. It was more than tenant damage to a rental house, it was intentional and vindictive. The insurance company ran samples of the carpeting at a lab and discovered that Castrol oil had been poured on the carpeting, deliberately, they concluded. But you know, if those tenants can afford a million-dollar home, let’s hope they can afford to write the insurance company a big fat check. You can’t damage a rental house and expect to get off scott-free.
About Writing a Real Estate Blog
The oddest thing I have discovered is that some people, and I won’t tell you who they are, binge-read my Sacramento real estate blog. They start by reading about a certain topic, must develop a curiosity about the forward and backward buttons, so they start clicking and they don’t stop. It becomes a marathon. A real estate blog reading marathon. Now, I have a hard time believing that any individual can be so interested in the inner workings of my twisted nature or that anybody could possess a sincere desire to learn more about how to prepare a home for sale that a person would devote so much time to my dribble, but it doesn’t mean they don’t do it.
Funny thing is I have had people tell me they have had no interest whatsoever in something I had to say but couldn’t stop reading my real estate blog. I’m left to conclude they must find stuff I say amusing, or maybe I lead such a weird life, so completely different from their own that they like to view from the outside what goes on in somebody else’s life. Kinda like watching Reality TV, probably, without the coaching and do-overs and horrible people.
I’ve appeared on several TV shows in my life, and they are not as interesting to do as you might think. There is a lot of sitting around and a lot of Take 2, Take 3, Take 4, Take 5 and they keep doing it. That fresh, energetic explosion needs to be replicated over and over, and that’s really difficult to be spontaneous on demand. You have to think to yourself, what was I thinking about, what was my motivation, why did I do that? And then try to do it again, but it comes across as insincere and limp. Or, it does for me.
Which is probably why I will never make it as an actor. I’m a little old for that now anyway. Although I always did want my own home improvement TV show. A do-it-yourself TV show for women who use power tools. That idea had alway been simmering in the back of my mind, but then I got swept up and carried away in Sacramento real estate, and I’ve never looked back. I don’t want to be a celebrity anyway.
I intensely dislike doing seminars, too. Because when you’re on stage and you stop speaking, there is silence in the room. You’ve got to always be thinking about the next thing you’re going say, and that’s way too much work. I prefer dialogue to monologue. It reminds me of the van driver who transports tourists in Maui along The Road to Hana. This guy must talk non-stop for 8 hours straight. It has to be funny, engaging and interesting banter. Not only that, but he has to repeat it day after day, week after week and month after month. The same conversation every single day. That’s worse than having to eat Ralston Cereal for breakfast every day until you die.
Bottom line I can’t sing, either; I can’t act, I can’t draw anything but stick people and I can’t tap dance. I really possess zero artistic abilities except an eye for beauty and a desire to write. The next best thing is selling Sacramento real estate and writing a real estate blog.
Elizabeth Weintraub on Agent Panel at Zillow Event
Zillow has graciously invited this Sacramento REALTOR to appear on its agent Zillow panel this Thursday, September 11th, at the Courtyard by Marriott near Cal Expo. They are calling it The Sacramento Zillow Select Summit, and the program itself runs roughly from 10 AM to noon. I don’t have all of the details, but I imagine guest speakers will present a market overview, vendors will pump wares, and the agent panel will answer questions from a moderator about working with Zillow leads.
I suspect they asked me to appear on the agent panel because I am a top Sacramento real estate agent in real life as well as on Zillow. Today my Zillow profile shows I have sold 105 homes over the past 12 months. I support Zillow because I like its online format. It’s now about the biggest real estate site on the internet. To concentrate my online presence, I had to pick years ago between Trulia and Zillow, and I chose Zillow. Just lucked out with that selection. Because I’m the kind of person who when faced with the choice between picking heads or tails in a coin toss will almost always make the wrong guess. I’m rarely lucky with even odds.
The moderator is Brad Andersohn, who is in charge of Zillow Academy. Brad also used to work at Active Rain, which is where I got to know him a little bit before he left for Zillow. He once asked me to participate in an agent webinar for Zillow, and I gladly accepted his request. He’s such a friendly, nice guy who is passionate about his career. Who doesn’t love Brad?
I have been an early adopter of Zillow, ever since it first popped into being. I eventually signed up in 2006 and created a profile because the one thing I truly crave is information about real estate. I’ve watched it evolve over the years and today it has more listings and data than ever, including predictions about how much your home in Sacramento might be worth years from now. Not that I put a lot of stock in those predictions but it’s fun in much the same manner as to watch that coin-operated fortune teller at the Cliff House in Ocean Beach spit out a fortune on a tiny piece of paper. Sadly, they’ve since moved that antique to Pier 45, in case you’re wondering, but it still works. I’ve been to visit it. Just like I’ve been to visit the stuffed giraffe Zarafa at a museum in La Rochelle, France — some things are worth the journey to see, but I digress.
Afterward, there is a free lunch and an interactive session for an hour. But you need to first get a free ticket at the link above.
I’m gonna try to get all of my new listings put together before Thursday so I can focus on this event. Every so often, busy agents should probably stop work and give back to the real estate community. I work too much to ever be a mentor to individuals who are not on my team, but I can share in a group setting. The Zillow Summit will be fun and educational, and all of my team members are attending. Hope to see my other Sacramento agent friends there, too.
Then it’s back to selling Sacramento real estate. If any day is good for a real estate agent to break away for a couple of hours, though, it’s a Thursday.
Working With Bad Home Sellers Is Not On My Agenda
When you get to be as old and cranky as this Sacramento real estate agent, one of the benefits of still working successfully in the field of real estate is the fact I get to choose my clients, which means I don’t have to work with bad home sellers. Newer agents sometimes have to work with sellers they would rather not be involved with and other agents have skins as thick as a crocodile, so these guys don’t care if they are treated badly as long as they get paid. These are the “laughing all the way to the bank” agents.
But I’m not one of those “laughing all the way to the bank” agents because I prefer to laugh during other times in my life. We’re all different. I am actually envious of agents who can work with just about anybody regardless of temper tantrums and abuse. You can run into obnoxious people anywhere you go: the grocery store, an elevator, a garden center, driving down the freeway, the bars and pool halls of Midtown Sacramento, and you can just ignore the occasional jerk.
It’s harder to do that in real estate because it’s not always obvious. There are bad home sellers all over the country. Agents from Oregon to Florida have shared their stories with me, and you can read about it in the above link to bad home sellers.
Basically, I treat people the way I would like to be treated. With courtesy, professionalism and tact. But every so often I run into a monster, some creep who is demanding and ugly. I just don’t work with those people. I might refer them to another agent outside of my office, or I might tell them I can’t work with them at all. I certainly don’t want my team members to work with an individual who would cause them misery.
People don’t like to be rejected though. So, I can’t just say get outta my face, even though I might want to, because there is no reason to stoop to that level. But I can say that the home sellers I work with are simply delightful and enjoyable. There are no bad home sellers in the bunch, and I’m often dismayed when a transaction closes because our intense interaction comes to a close. So, yes, I don’t make as much money as I probably could if I worked with everybody I met. And that’s perfectly OK. I make enough to rank in the top agents in Sacramento.
Sacramento Real Estate Agents Who Resist Change
Most people dislike change or the unfamiliar, especially certain Sacramento real estate agents, I’m guessing. A while back an agent got his knickers into a twist because I called him to find out why he left my lockbox open. It was pretty easy to figure out who did it because the SUPRA online system stores contact information, including time and date stamp; it tells me when any of my 70-some lockboxes are accessed.
At first, the agent denied the accusation. When pressed and presented with evidence, he became agitated and admitted he probably did leave it open but he had a good reason. (There is never a good reason to leave a lockbox open unauthorized.) His reason was he was confused. He had never showed a home which had 2 lockboxes, one for Supra to open to retrieve the code and the second for contractors, in which the key was stored. So, it was all the listing agent’s fault and not his. Ya gotta love the logic. Sometimes I use this system because it’s convenient for contractors: those people who do home staging, or maybe employees from pest companies, roof inspectors, home inspectors, handyman, what have you, who need access to the home.
It is also required by our MLS. Our MLS forces agents to use SUPRA lockboxes if an agent wants to advertise a listing as having a lockbox. Pretty clever, that MLS business alliance. In other words, a Sacramento real estate agent is not allowed to put on a contractor’s box and state the home is vacant with a lockbox and provide the code. It’s governed and stipulated that way at most associations. Otherwise, agents would buy contractor’s lockboxes because they cost roughly one-third the price of SUPRA lockboxes. They’ve got almost ten grand of my money — $10,000 that could have been invested in an aging barrel of Maker’s Mark, but no, I have lockboxes.
Although I like the SUPRA lockboxes because it allows me to follow up on listings and obtain buyer feedback after an agent shows a home I have listed. It provides greater security for my sellers because only agents can access those boxes. However, if contractors need to access the home, for example, I will also attach a contractor’s box to the property. It allows me to better devote my time to marketing the home, following up on showings and tracking open houses than standing on the front steps waiting for some guy to show up so I can open the door. Yet, two lockboxes are still very confusing for some buyer’s agents.
The biggest problem I see with buyer’s agents is not the fact that they can get confused over lockbox instructions, it’s that they don’t often read the entire MLS listing before taking action. They are so excited that their buyer wants to write an offer, they don’t always take the time to peruse confidential agent remarks or note the type of financing that is offered. They waste a lot of time writing offers that have little chance of acceptance because of this little quirk.
I wish I could digitally manipulate my listings. I would put big red arrows and circles that draw attention to specific information for agents, maybe include a few starbursts.
This morning I received an offer that was sent to the wrong agent last night. Three specific lines in the agent remarks state where and how to send the offer, yet they were overlooked. On top of this, the email from the agent said her buyer had seen the property and was very interested in owning it. Except the property is located in a gated community and there are no showings allowed. It’s enough to make one wonder if the buyer’s agent mixed up the address of the property and perhaps wrote the offer for the wrong home.
On top of this, it was an FHA offer, and the property is not listed with FHA terms and the seller cannot accept an FHA offer because an FHA offer is not allowed on that particular home. That was a lot of work for the agent to go through to write an offer, provide supporting documentation on behalf of the buyer, get the purchase offer signed and then deliver it to the wrong agent when there is no way the offer can even be countered.
All of which could have been prevented if the agent had just given that MLS listings one more glance before writing the offer. Are there attachments to the listings? Long gone are the days when all homes are listed with identical terms. Almost every listing is as unique as the sellers are unique.
My policy as a real estate agent is not to fight change, I embrace it.
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