Email ElizabethMy 62nd Birthday in Maui
I forgot it is my birthday when I got up this morning in Maui. Completely slipped my mind until I noticed a couple of Happy Birthday emails. This is what Maui can do to you. Oh, yeah. I’m 62 today. I am happy any day that I open my eyes after waking up. Today isn’t any different, but it does mean another year has gone by and I am looking forward to the next — sort of like one’s own personal New Year’s, without the horrible drunk people passed out on your living room floor.
Just about every year now, I try to take a mid-year vacation around my birthday and let that celebration roll on past the Fourth of July. The only thing that’s uncomfortable about that kind of planning is our poor cats are home with the pet sitters to deal with the awful sound of fireworks, hiding under the bed with their little kitty paws over their ears. That scenario is not gonna happen this year, though, because my wonderful husband is at home in Land Park, tending to their kitty needs and hearth.
He goes away every year with “the boys” from college to various spots where guys like to go, which often involves visiting frisbee golf courses and playing board games. I prefer to sit quietly and stare at the waves rolling in. Barbara Dow, my team member, enjoys that leisure activity as well. So, the two of us are now in Maui, watching the sun slowly rise to the east. We will lie on the beach, slathered in sunscreen (seems like it defeats the purpose), toes wiggling in the sand and read books after books.
Barbara and I have taken up temporary residence on the top-floor corner suite at the Fairmont Kea Lani, with a wrap-around balcony that presents a magnificent 180-degree view of the ocean. The symphony is warming up as the sun rises higher. I can now hear not only mourning doves but the chatter, tweets and chirps from the entire string section — not a leaf blower around.
Perhaps after a lazy nap on the beach mid-day, we’ll check emails and go for a stroll along the water. Who says you can’t have a restful vacation and keep tabs on your work at the same time? Only people who aren’t in love with their careers. It’s like having the best of both worlds. I just tell clients to please allow for the 3-hour time difference between Maui and Sacramento.
FSBO Seller to Agent: Will You Find a Buyer for My Home?
As a busy Sacramento real estate agent, I receive all kinds of odd calls during the day, but probably the strangest call I received lately was from a FSBO, a for sale by owner, who asked me to find a buyer for her. Now, I know the way I was supposed to answer that question, the way a real estate agent who is hungry for listings might do it, but I couldn’t bring myself to stoop that low.
I was supposed to say sure, I would help her find a buyer, knowing that there was no way in hell I would. Then I would email her and talk about the market and other sales in the neighborhood, and day by day, week by week, I would wear her down until she is so damn tired of trying to find a buyer all by herself that she will turn to me, the real estate pro, and list. Because that’s how it works with FSBO sellers.
No, thanks. I’m not wired like that. Instead, I leveled with her. She didn’t like it one little bit. There are a lot of people in the world who just don’t want to hear the truth because it’s not the version they expect.
But you know, I wasn’t the person who called this real estate agent and flat out stated she had no desire to hire me as her listing agent because she wasn’t planning to hire any listing agent, and starts off by implying she has no respect for the job that I do because any person with a for sale sign and a hammer can slam it into the yard to find a buyer, but she wanted my help anyway. Oy. I tried to explain this was the wrong way to go about it, but she didn’t want to hear any of that.
I asked if she knows where buyers come from? No, she didn’t. Well, obviously not because she was calling to beg me to bring her a buyer. Buyers come from a listing. When a listing agent puts a listing into MLS and across the Internet, that agent gets buyers. That’s the way it works. No listing in MLS, no buyers.
Another reason she has no buyers and has taken to calling complete strangers from the Internet is because she thinks that agents who do have buyers are dying to work with her. No, they are not, and in fact, they go out of their way not work with a FSBO if they don’t have to and have a lick of common sense. They don’t want the liability, and they certainly don’t want the extra work that comes with trying to close an escrow with a FSBO seller who is unrepresented. Whoa, she was very unhappy and told me that was not true.
Well, between a person who has been in the business for 40 years selling homes, and a FSBO seller who is so desperate she is calling random agents to try to find a buyer, I think we know who has a better handle on the real estate market and the way things work. But you know what, I am on my way to Maui this morning with a team member for a little R&R in an oceanfront suite at Fairmont Kea, and you know what they say? Hair today gone to Maui. And my hair looks great!
Closing a Short Sale with USAA
Closing a short sale with USAA when the loan is in second position and a hard-money loan is a lot different than closing a short sale with USAA when the loan is a first mortgage with this lender. If you don’t care about reading the particulars, then you might want to click the back arrow on my blog to read a more amusing piece because this one will give you nightmares.
I met with the sellers in February at their beautiful home in Natomas. They were the last holdouts of that community. Everybody else who bought when they did has since sold that underwater home and moved away. The neighbors who paid half a million are gone and replaced by college kids who party on rent free in the rentals recently purchased by their parents for about half that price. The demographics are remarkably changed.
They recalled our conversation later, the images and words still vivid in their minds. This would not be an easy short sale. It would involve stress. It might be tough. I gave it to them straight. But I believed it would close. I have not lost a short sale for a long, long time. It’s why people know me as the best Sacramento short sale agent in town.
The first lender was Green Tree and the investor Fannie Mae, easy to work with for a first mortgage. But the second lender, USAA, was much more difficult. I am used to the way lenders submit demand letters for much more than they are willing settle for, as that’s often a normal method of operandi. We negotiate a bit and they settle. But not USAA. They asked for an astounding amount of money, and issued an approval letter based on that amount, which is basically worthless.
Because the investor was Fannie Mae, the maximum they could receive was $6,000. California Civil Code 580e prevents the sellers from making a contribution or being required to pay anything extra above the proceeds of sale for the short sale. We argued. Eventually, we had received what amounted to as 4 rejections from USAA, each asking for a ridiculous amount of money to settle.
By that point, even my faith was beginning to tremble. I had to wrestle with do I tell the sellers or don’t I? I finally concluded they should know that we had a good chance it might not close. That was not a piece of information I should shelter them from because it was not my place to withhold those pertinent facts. It didn’t mean I was giving up by any stretch, but they needed to be prepared, just in case. They deserved to know my thoughts. Everything I had read about USAA indicated that USAA would not bend, but you can’t always believe online crap, especially from agents who don’t close very many short sales.
I pushed forward though. I sent a 5th request for short sale approval and explained all of the reasons why. Then, it was like an awakening in the Biblical sense. Trumpets playing. Clouds parted. And angels appeared. OK, I overslept. But the fact remains that USAA approved the short sale and accepted the $6,000 payoff. They just needed to deny it 4 times first, most likely in accordance with guidelines. We closed last week.
Why is Land Park a Great Neighborhood?
What makes a good neighborhood a great neighborhood in Land Park? That question crossed my mind for two reasons. First, I was reading a blog written by an agent friend from Benicia about the topic of great neighborhoods. I read through her blog and into the responses. Somebody remarked that a good neighborhood is a place where people don’t mow lawns at 7 AM or sing along top volume to G-L-O-R-I-A at midnight and don’t run over your cat, and then it dawned on me, right at the point where I was thinking: hey, I completely agree with this poster, yeah, right on, that the person who wrote the comment was me. And that particular blog was written last year.
Which just made me laugh out loud. This Sacramento real estate agent gets around online, I guess.
Second, I think about when I retire, even though that’s a ways off and I don’t know where to retire, and I wonder about giving up the benefits we enjoy from living in Land Park. We all should appreciate the here and now while the here and now is here. I noticed that while watching Californication, the episode at Hank’s house when Becca tells him she’s getting married, which looks like that balcony scene was filmed in a beach community, maybe Venice or Malibu, in southern California. What I couldn’t help but notice was how close the houses are, tumbled on top of each other (which I had forgotten) and that most people left their windows open.
Being that close to the water means tourists, too. Traffic and noise. I used to live at 1234 Balboa Boulevard in Newport Beach in the 1970s, the decade in which I was first licensed to sell real estate. This was smack dab on the beach peninsula, extreme noise, traffic all day past my humble abode, but I never noticed it. Young people screaming, hootering and hollering, drinking and smoking pot and what-have-you, running amuck, carrying on, playing records too loudly, and this was just the noise from inside my apartment.
While I yearn to return to the beach life, I also realize that I will never afford a $10 million retreat on the water, which means anything less equates to putting up with a bit of noise. We don’t have noise in Land Park. It’s really quiet. No cars hardly drive down my street. There are no children squealing or shrieking around my house. My neighbors in Land Park are respectful and keep to themselves. Friendly enough when they need to be but mostly private. I like it this way.
Sometimes, when we leave the windows open at night, we can hear slight traffic way off in the distance or the fireworks from Raley’s field. With the windows closed, though, I don’t even notice the morning sprinklers which, due to the drought, is only twice a week now. I appreciate the silence. I especially love the fruit from my next door neighbor’s cherry tree as much as he enjoys the tomatoes from our garden. If you’re looking for a friendly but quiet neighborhood, you won’t find much better than Land Park.
You can view existing vintage homes in Land Park here or active listings of homes for sale in Land Park here.
What Were You Thinking?
One phrase you’ll probably never hear this Sacramento real estate agent mutter is: What was I thinking? Because a) I generally know what I am thinking and b) it’s usually right, because I’ve worked through a process to arrive at a reasonable conclusion. One of the biggest problems I’ve encountered in the real estate industry is that so many people do not think. They react. They do. They participate. They take action. Words fast fall out of their mouths, like some drunken orgy, but they don’t think.
I’ve encountered agents whom I want to grab by the shoulders and shake. We have all had that experience. I’m not alone. We want to scream: What were you thinking? But it doesn’t matter because it was the wrong thing. Sometimes, it’s a horribly wrong thing.
What is wrong with thinking twice? Or three times? Or asking yourself: what are the consequences if I choose option A over B? Are there other choices I have yet to contemplate that might better fit the situation at hand? How will others react to me? Am I doing the right thing?
You know who often does the wrong thing? Individuals who think only about themselves. People who believe the world revolves around them and they are the most important item in it. They focus on narcissism and call it self help. They run around in circles unsupervised, like a chicken with its head cut off.
And this is why most real estate agents are not successful. To be successful you have to think about other people, how other people react, and what is truly best for your clients over what is best for yourself. Because what is best for your clients is always always always what is best for you.
The answer to what were you thinking is you were not. I wish we could teach people how to think and reason. That used to be what schools were for and why we read books. #Whatwereyouthinking? You weren’t.
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