Email ElizabethHow Do You Know if the Sacramento Home Buyer is in Love?
Because it ain’t over ’til the fat lady sings in Sacramento real estate — meaning home buyers basically make a zero commitment during the first several weeks of escrow — it’s not unusual for a seller to worry about the buyer’s intentions. Is the buyer serious? Is the home buyer in love with your home? An offer means little, believe it or not. The offers I receive from buyer’s agents on behalf of my sellers generally provide very little insight. I’m lucky if the agent manages to tell me anything tangible about the buyer. It’s not unusual for an agent to scan the offer to my email without so much as an introduction or greeting.
You remember the components of a letter, right? Well, if you’re of a certain age and dig way back in your attic, you’ll recall the salutation, body and closing. Nobody bothers with that formality today. In fact, I’m grateful if an agent says, “Hey, here is my buyer’s offer.” Or, maybe they send a link so I can retrieve the offer myself from ZIPforms or Dropbox.
There is no interaction. No discussion, usually, unless I generate it. The bulk of emails with offers attached that share any insight whatsoever about the buyer will commonly note: The buyer is in love with the home. They better be in love with the home; I don’t know any buyer who isn’t in love with the home — except the buyers who swear on their grandmother’s grave they are so in love with the home and then won’t pony up an extra thousand or two to meet the seller’s counter offer.
They’re in love to a point. Don’t tell us how much a buyer is in love with the home, show us. Put your money where the agent’s fingertips have traveled on that keyboard: present that huge honkin’ earnest money deposit and make a few concessions.
A seller asked this morning how we can tell if a buyer is serious. That’s a tough one because we are forced to rely on the documents before us and veteran agents with a few decades behind our big fat butts, well, we partly rely on intuition. Gut instincts is a collective intangible asset developed over years. Listing agents like me will draw attention to any item that could cause a problem in the purchase offer as a reason to disqualify a buyer when helping the seller to choose between two or more buyers. Anything that makes a buyer appear less qualified or uncommitted, pffft, out of the running.
Choosing between offers can result in assigning negative points to certain things such as type of financing, credits, length of escrow, repair demands, mortgage lender, agent experience, inspection periods, among other aspects of the purchase contract. Too many negative points and your offer won’t get accepted. In this market, sometimes one negative point is enough to make a buyer lose a home.
Tip: If you’re a buyer who is trying to buy a home in Sacramento, figure that you have competition for every home you want and ask your agent to perform accordingly. Agents, take a few minutes to share the strong points of your offer / buyer qualifications with the seller. Don’t just email an offer and skidaddle off to your lake house for the weekend. Tell us why the seller should take your buyer’s offer over another.
How Being a Bad Influence Pays Off in Sacramento Real Estate
Bucking the trend, being a maverick or rebel, is often frowned upon in society because it could mean a person is not a team player, doesn’t fit the norm, but in Sacramento real estate those traits in a real estate agent are very helpful. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard as a kid some parent warn my parents: that Elizabeth is a bad influence. Up yours is what I thought when I heard that crap. I’m not making your kid do anything that kid doesn’t wanna do.
I’ve realized from a young age that a person can pretty much do whatever a person can dream up. I’ve always thought: what if we do it this way instead? Or, how about this idea? And they weren’t always popular ideas or necessarily the best ways to do things, just different. Yet they worked. I’ve never thought of myself as a trendsetter or a person with followers, no entourage, I don’t care how many people read my prattle on Twitter and, quite frankly, if you’d have me in your organization, I’m not so sure I want to belong there; yet I know people still gravitate to stuff I write.
I don’t have anything out of the ordinary to say. I call it like I see it. This is a reason why people trust me, and why my clients can rely on my advice. I don’t generally say stupid things.
But there’s always tomorrow.
Being a bad influence means people often do what I want. I just give them permission to do what they already want to do.
When I met with sellers earlier this week, they asked why the price I suggested for their home was so much higher than the agent they had already dumped. Well, my price suggestion had nothing to do with the fired agent. It was based on the pending sales, peppered with the sold comps. I wet my finger and stuck it in the air to see which way the wind was blowing. It’s OK that people ask how I arrived at a conclusion. It’s OK if they ignore it, too. It’s not my house. These people took my advice, though.
I met with another seller and mentioned the smoke alarms needed to be installed in the sleeping areas. Lenders require it. She had installed a smoke alarm in the hallway and felt that was sufficient. Then she argued about it and told me I was wrong. Over and over. That she is a homeowner, so she knows the laws, and just because my profession depends on complying with regulations to close escrow, well, what would I know? She’s a maverick and I kinda like her. And she can find out the hard way. It’s not my house. This one, I’m not gonna argue with.
For a person who is a bad influence on others, real estate is the perfect place to be. If you want to know why my sellers typically get top dollar over other listings in the area, it’s because they listen to this bad influence. Call me at 916.233.6759.
Even Land Park Agents Need Access to the Interiors
Why can’t you send me an electronic estimate of the value of my home in Land Park, asked a seller via email. He seemed rather irritated that I would a) correspond with him and expect a discussion when he preferred anonymous interaction, and b) why I wasn’t doing what he wanted me to do. After all, I’m a Land Park agent who lives and works in Land Park, and I have a ton of experience selling hundreds of homes all over Sacramento. Why, Zillow promised I would send him an estimate, and that’s what he expected. Why was I asking if I could see his home in Land Park? That just didn’t sound right.
Why wasn’t I a robot? Isn’t that what the internet is for? You ask a question and get free information? What the hey . . .
It took me a while to explain that Zillow is a private website with which I have little interaction except that it maintains my profile and manages reviews for me, and I pay to have my photo plastered around Land Park. On top of which, the homes in Land Park are special and unique. They are different from each other. They are not tract homes like you’d find in Natomas or Elk Grove. An interior inspection could make the price swing by $50,000 to $100,000 to $150,000 or more. It’s only one of the reasons why Zillow is so completely inaccurate when it comes to pricing of homes in Land Park.
Many online property value websites use a computer algorithm and do not take into consideration upgrades, orientation on the lot, nuisances next door that could affect value nor the emotional pull of architectural details. That’s why a Land Park agent needs to see the interior of the home before rendering an opinion of value.
I mean, I could send a CMA, which is a comparative market analysis, but it involve throwing numbers into the air. It wouldn’t carry any weight. It would have no meaning. It would not be an appraisal or even a very good estimate of market value. It’s not like I belong to a secret cult that allows me access to information on behalf of the seller. I need to look at the home with my own two eyeballs, the old fashioned way.
Do I need to personally inspect every home in Sacramento to determine value? Surprisingly, no. Sometimes I am right on the money just knowing the neighborhood and amenities, but homes in Land Park, regardless of my familiarity, need the personal touch. Just like homes in East Sacramento and Curtis Park and Midtown. You can’t look at numbers and determine value without interior access. No professional REALTOR would attempt it.
After I explained all of this and was successful at getting him to understand, turns out the seller isn’t yet ready to sell. Not until the fall, after his tenants move. So a value submitted today would change by this September anyway. And the September market in Sacramento is different from the spring market. We’ll meet up after the summer is over.
Do Sacramento Agents Discount Real Estate Commissions?
Just because a real estate commission is negotiable doesn’t mean I am willing to cut a deal for a stranger. Heck, I don’t even make deals for friends because I don’t have any friends selling real estate in Sacramento. But even if I did, they would still pay me for my services. Real estate commissions must be negotiable in order to comply with the Sherman Act, but it doesn’t mean a real estate agent needs to offer a discounted commission. Yes, you can negotiate with this Sacramento real estate agent, and I’ll cut right to the chase here, my answer is no.
Not only do I charge the same percentage that I have charged since I started in this business way back in the days of bellbottoms and Beatles, but I am doing a bazillion times the work since then. I have two rules that I work by that are completely inflexible:
No discounts and
No assholes.
See, I can’t always choose the agents on the other side with whom I work nor their clients, and some of those people might be assholes, but I can choose my own clients, which is why I don’t work with the assholes. If you’re an asshole, you can go work with some other agent.
I have to save my asshole interrogating energy to work with the other side.
Would you want an agent who eagerly said Sure, I’ll give you a big fat discount? Because that kind of agent might do the same thing when you get an offer. Put pressure on you to accept a lowball offer. When I receive a purchase offer, the first thing I often think is: how is the other side putting the screws to the seller? Is the offer on the level and clean? I’m not eager to jump into escrow unless the seller is excited and the offer warrants it. Because I don’t really care about me. I care solely about what the seller wants.
Sometimes clients ask me if I will reduce my commission when they are faced with a price reduction. Although I can vaguely see how they might come up with that idea — for example, they are reducing the price so I should come down — they are not looking at the fact that by the mere percentage calculation, I am already hit by a reduced compensation. Lower sales price X percentage rate = lower fee. I share the loss with them already. I know they don’t mean to say that they want to penalize me nor do they want me to work less. They want me to work even harder. And I do. That’s my job. To sell their home.
But don’t ask an agent to give you top-notch performance and then work for less because it doesn’t work that way. Most of us earn our commission, one closing at at time. If 1% separates you from the best in the business, you’ll probably lose a lot more than THAT down the road because it means you think we are all the same. We are not all the same. All agents are not created equal.
Sacramento Home Staging Agents Maximize Your Profit
The talents of a real estate agent are often multifaceted but Sacramento home staging agents are generally not real estate agents. Real estate agents must be excellent communicators, expert negotiators and excel at marketing, but they are not a home stager. That’s not to say that a real estate agent can’t give you home staging advice because she most certainly can. But if you want her to stage your home, she’s not the best person to go to — because her specialty is selling real estate not warehousing furniture, not to mention she does not possess the specialized experience that is required to create the stage. There are home staging specialists in Sacramento who do nothing else but that job.
A home seller would no more hire her listing agent to stage her home than she would hire the listing agent to paint the walls or replace an aging roof. If her real estate agent does offer to stage the home, it’s possible the home stager is a professional home stager and not an effective real estate agent. You also would not hire a mortgage broker who happens to hold a real estate license to sell your home. Well, some people might without realizing it. Then they pay for it later when it’s too late.
The fact remains you should hire a person to do a job that the person is licensed to do and solely specializes in doing. My real estate practice is so specialized that I have agents, for example, who work with me to show property because showing homes is not something that I personally do. I’m not that good at it, if you want to know the truth. I walk into the wrong house, get on the wrong freeways, break my nails opening doors and can’t keep my mouth shut if the place stinks.
I’m much better at representing sellers and selling homes for top dollar. That’s my strength. Being an expert listing agent is a real specialty. And I sell homes throughout Sacramento, Placer, Yolo and Eldorado. I can tell you if a room has too much furniture in it and to take down your photographs from the walls. But if your home needs staging — and let me say that not every home does — then I will be the first to tell you so and to help you to settle on a home stager. I have access to many home stagers in Sacramento in my arsenal, but I would never presume to do a better job for you at home staging than a professional home stager will do. To think that an agent would is a crazy presumption.
I prefer to hire the specialists when I need a job done professionally and so should a home seller. Don’t try to shop on price, instead, hire the home stager you relate to. They all tend to charge about the same; it makes sense to hire a professional home stager if and when you need it. Then listen to your home stager and take her or his advice. Home stagers focus solely on staging your home for maximum profit, and typically have earned degrees and certifications in the business. It’s an entirely different business from selling real estate, although it deals with the same outcome, a closing.
If you just want to dump your home in its present condition, I can certainly do that for you. But if I recommend a home stager, it’s because I believe you can make more to cover that cost of home staging and pocket the rest. I have a home right now that if it were sold in its present shape, the seller would lose about $25,000 to $35,000, but with home staging, with fees less than 1/10th of that potential loss, the seller will make a big profit. I’m all about maximizing profit. Home staging pays, it doesn’t cost. If your Sacramento agent suggests it, ask how much you will lose if you don’t.
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