Email ElizabethWhy the Death of Robin Williams Hits Many of Us Hard
The sad news of Robin Williams’ suicide startled me as my husband was reading Twitter and announced it just before bedtime last night. I think the first words out of my mouth were to ask why, was he so depressed over being poor and having to do a TV show that he killed himself? Having to essentially start over can be extremely depressing. To start from scratch.
I don’t know why we act like we personally know our celebrities when we don’t and get all worked up when they die. Even if I had spotted Robin Williams on the street, I probably would not recognize him because I would not expect to see him. I don’t recognize people generally who are out of their element and in places I don’t expect. Although my husband once spotted a colleague in the center of a crowd at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome gazing upward, but my mother could have shoved her elbow into my gut and I wouldn’t have known her.
When Mork & Mindy came on TV in 1978, I had recently moved from Colorado to California, and I related personally to the scenes filmed in Boulder because I had lived just up the hill in Nederland. I think all of America was mesmerized by Robin Williams back then. Anybody in her 60s today traveled through life with Robin Williams as a sidekick, even if she didn’t know him, through his movies and extensive entertainment career.
My sister said today that Robin Williams was recently in Hazelden a few weeks ago. That’s a rehab center in Minnesota for drug and alcohol addiction — and word travels fast in Minneapolis when a celebrity enters rehab. If that rumor was true, and it could have been, I can see why being sober, broke and reeling from a canceled TV series, is probably worse than being stoned out of your gourd and unemployed.
I once had to start over in my life, and it was very depressing. It was so horribly depressing that even now it’s difficult to put into words, and I had no friends who could empathize because they were all living with joy that horrible life that I was so bummed out about. I was truly alone. Even my cat had died. I was living in the basement of my mother’s house in Minneapolis, having left Newport Beach, facing a horrendous divorce from a despicable crook. No career, no income, no prospects. And winter was coming, Jon Snow.
Whenever I think I have it rough now selling real estate in sunny Sacramento, I conjure up those memory flashes from 25 years ago — like that little 19-inch television set in my room — and I am so enormously grateful for the life I have built, for my husband, friends, my career, my home. It helps to keep things in perspective and take nothing for granted. RIP, Robin Williams. We’ve lost a tremendous talent. He always made us laugh no matter what.
The Broken Sacramento Short Sale is Not a Real Listing
When the phone call starts out with the caller apologizing for not calling this Sacramento real estate agent earlier in the game, I tend to go on red alert. Because if they knew to call and didn’t, there might be something wrong that I can’t fix. But you never know. Particularly in a Sacramento short sale, sellers often end up listing with the wrong agents — those who don’t live up to their expectations — but sometimes the expectations themselves are out of line. I have to figure out which.
Real estate agents can end up as the punching bag simply because there’s generally nobody else around when things don’t pan out. That comes with the territory. Sometimes they deserve the fickle finger of blame pointed in their direction but not always; we’re all different. Here are two different types of situations. In this first transaction, a seller called to say he hadn’t heard from his agent in months, and didn’t know what was happening with the sale of his home. Wha?
There was no sign in the yard when I went over to the house. It was listed in MLS and this Sacramento short sale had expired in pending status, which is a status that can draw a fine from MLS because expired pending status listings are not allowed. Yet, there it was. Lonely and forlorn. Weeds overgrown. The lockbox was still on the gate with a key inside. The gate was unlatched, banging in the breeze on the fence. It’s hard to say what had transpired in that listing, but it’s now in escrow with me, sold again and pending.
Earlier last week a seller called to plead that I sell her home as a short sale because she discovered that I’ve closed hundreds of Sacramento short sales. I do hold the dubious honor of having sold more short sales in a 7-county area than any other agent for the past 8 years. She had a hard-money second with 21st Century, so I know the problems associated with that particular type of short sale and how to handle them. We talked for a while, and it was beginning to look like I could help her but it was bugging me that she had dinged around for more than a year and did not receive some type of approval or rejection letter. The facts just weren’t adding up.
Then I asked the important question. Was she living in the home? Nope, she had moved about a year ago. OK, second-most important question: Did she buy another home? Yes, she did. All right, third-most important question: In whose name? It was her name. Ding, ding, ding. Like I told her, she can easily find some agent to list it — many so-called short sale agents don’t understand short sales even though they may have a certified designation next to their name — and there’s a small chance, maybe a 10% chance that her Sacramento short sale might get approved, but those odds aren’t high enough for me to take that listing.
I prefer to take listings that close. Much of my successful career is due to the fact that?I inherently gravitate toward the 100% closings. Even an overpriced listing will eventually come down to a point where a buyer will want to buy it, but one can’t fix a broken short sale. Before any of my Team Weintraub members allow a buyer to sign a purchase offer for a short sale, we check it out to assess whether it will close. Not all of them will because not all of those short sale listings are a short sale to start with.
3 Tips for New Sacramento Real Estate Agents
Believe me, I know how it feels for brand new Sacramento real estate agents, even if it’s been more years than I care to count for me. I got my real estate license in the 1970s — bellbottoms and all — and I was excited about my career in real estate as I am today. I recall walking down the street and catching a glimpse of my newly licensed self reflected in a window and thinking, wow, I look JUST LIKE a real estate agent, and then I never wore that outfit again. Ha, ha, little joke there.
I’ve learned a lot of things over the years that I’d like to pass on to new agents. My intent is to be helpful and not to criticize. Buyers, if you’re reading this blog, you might remind your brand new agent to follow these principles to be more successful because your agent’s success is ultimately YOUR success. I also direct the following tips to buyer’s agents because most agents get their start in the business by working with buyers. They learn how to operate a lockbox, show homes and write a purchase contract. And along the way they get advice from veterans and hopefully it’s not the blind leading the blind.
The top 3 things all Sacramento real estate agents can do to ensure a successful career in real estate:
- Call the buyer immediately after the buyer makes contact. Don’t think to yourself that you can wait until you finish with whatever you’re doing to return the phone call, send a text or an email. It doesn’t matter if you’re showing a home to Brad Pitt or in the shower, take a moment to get in touch with the buyer. If you don’t follow up with that buyer right away, the buyer will contact another agent, if the buyer hasn’t done so already. You don’t get a grace period in this business.
- Read the MLS listing information completely. This means from top to bottom, paying attention to how to show the home, whom to call with questions (especially if 2 agents are listed), download attachments to MLS — click on the paperclip — and determine how to submit an offer, including whether specific documents are required for submission.
- Call the listing agent before writing an offer. Sending an offer out of the blue to the listing agent delivers a message that the buyer’s agent might not really care if the seller accepts. Agents who care call the listing agent. These buyer’s agents want to confirm submission requirements and ask whether there have been previous offers, if the seller has any special considerations.
In case you are a buyer reading this blog, you might think to yourself, whoa, this seems so simple and easy I should go into real estate myself. But don’t kid yourself; it’s not simple and it’s that not easy. These 3 things are very difficult for a buyer’s agent to do. If you hire an agent who understands these 3 principles, though, you’re way ahead of the game.
Beyond the Marketing of Homes in Sacramento Real Estate
Many successful listing agents in Sacramento maintain an unusual love affair with real estate, coupled with a magnetic attraction to the psychology of marketing homes in Sacramento. We want to understand the techniques that trigger a person’s home buying button. Our brains are turned on by this. It’s often a matter of: W + X + Z = $, ding, ding, ding. We latch on to proven techniques.
We don’t let our emotions rule or get out of hand when dealing with people because it might not deliver the desired result if we go off half-cocked. It’s tempting to be snarky but if that snark irritates or annoys the person we’re trying to attract and receive an offer from, well, that’s a defeatist attitude and not in our seller’s best interest, much less anybody else’s. My advice to agents struggling with snarky syndrome is to suppress the snark. Save it for your friends who appreciate it. Or for your own blog. Like this one.
As a listing agent, I want buyers to feel comfortable and happy and their agents to be thrilled. That’s the goal. When all is said and done and the escrow has closed, is the buyer’s agent a hero / heroine to the buyer or a person to avoid by walking on the other side of the street?
Part of marketing homes in Sacramento successfully is achieved by making the buyer ecstatic over the home purchase. Home staging is a proven strategy and tends to generate a lot more money for the seller than homes that are vacant, and it generates happiness. It’s different than decorating or furnishing a home. Home staging highlights features of the home without making it apparent, and it’s an art. A decorator or designer can’t do it. Staging, when done properly, creates an emotion the buyer can’t get out of her mind, no matter how she tries to shake it.
Another aspect is responding quickly to the buyer’s requests for paperwork and being available if the situation warrants. Little is worse than trying to call the listing agent who has vanished for the weekend. Cooperation is key. Meeting reasonable expectations. Finding solutions. When you put all of these elements together, it’s a recipe for a successful closing and happy parties. It’s not just the marketing of homes. But that’s where one begins.
Why Websites Will Not Replace a Sacramento Real Estate Agent
Thinking about Zillow and Trulia client interactions with those websites generated profuse apologies last Wednesday from this Sacramento real estate agent to my doctor. It was like a light bulb had gone off, and I accidentally stepped on it and broke it. I was at the doctor’s to talk about my cholesterol but while I was there I thought it would be a good idea to also discuss another situation that, on the surface, appeared minor but health is not my profession. I am an agent who sells real estate in Sacramento.
However, I would be remiss if I didn’t admit that I had been looking online and reading other websites, comments and input from complete strangers, about a medical issue. Like I know crap from shinola. It involved spots on the heel of my foot. Just as I opened my mouth and inserted said foot, I realized how idiotic I sounded yet I still shoved a piece of paper in front of my doctor on which I had written the name of a particular affliction.
This is a woman who has completed a 2- to 3-year residency after 8 years of college and has worked as a doctor at U.C. Davis for more than a decade. My medical knowledge would fit in her pinkie. I felt incredibly ashamed when I admitted that I found the name of that disease online. I immediately backpedaled and said I realize it must be irritating to have patients with absolutely no medical background diagnosing themselves at Web MD or other websites.
I felt like a total idiot.
The doctor calmly asked if I am particularly flexible. No, not really, I guess. OK, can I do the splits, for example? No, I cannot, unless you count crawling over a fence gate to retrieve a lockbox and just about killing this Sacramento real estate agent. Well, then I don’t have said disease I had presented and the spots, while painless, are also harmless.
I don’t know how doctors handle these ridiculous episodes because they must come up over and over from patients. We can’t help ourselves. The internet is right THERE and doctors are not. I imagine those in the medical profession spend a good part of their precious time reassuring patients over imaginary diseases, time that would be better spent treating them and not explaining why the internet is wrong.
But times are what they are and people naturally gravitate to the web to look up stuff. I have patience when clients tell me they looked up the market value of a home on Zillow and therefore they know exactly what it’s worth. They don’t know any better. It’s the same patience I employ when a buyer calls to say she found the perfect preforeclosure home on Trulia while I explain that it’s not for sale. It’s OK to look online for homes, but it’s not OK to rely on it.
Bottom line, the internet is absolutely, positively, indubitably and without question no substitute for education, training and experience. I hear agents yapping that Trulia and Zillow will replace them. Silly wabbits. The internet can’t replace an experienced Sacramento real estate agent.
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