Email ElizabethHome Staging is Back in Sacramento and Elk Grove
Another sign of our slowly recovering real estate market is home staging is making a big comeback in Sacramento, especially among Elk Grove homes. For years, we had so many short sales in the midst of a down real estate market that many sellers did not stage their homes because they didn’t have to, wasn’t needed. How do you know if a home needs to be staged? Because some homes don’t.
First and foremost is how hard will it be to sell that home? Are there other factors about the home that could discourage a buyer from making an offer such as bad condition, horrible location, unreasonable price? It is a home that most buyers don’t want to buy? I also look at the competition. What else will a buyer see when they tour other homes nearby in this same price range. If other homes are staged, yours better be, too.
It’s not really the buyer’s fault that a buyer can’t visualize potential or, more important, feel the emotional tug of a home. Door opens, they walk inside, they immediately know whether they like the home in 3 seconds. The rest of the tour reinforces that original perception. It gets better or it gets worse depending on their first emotion.
Buyers try to “rule out” buying homes just as much as they “rule in” buying homes. Some believe in fate, whether or not you may agree with that premise, a perception of fate might be the buyer’s reality and you go with the flow. Curb appeal hits them first and the interiors second. Third they tend to look for the amenities they have told their agent they want, but they’re not nearly as analytical as sellers might expect. Staging a home helps to overcome barriers.
This is why it’s generally a good idea to make that home as attractive as possible and set the stage to encourage an offer. Just sold today another home in Elk Grove that was on the market for almost 3 weeks without staging at an attractive price point. After home staging, whammo. Two offers. It works like this all of the time. This is not an isolated situation. You’ve gotta remove all of the objections, and one way to do that is to stage the home.
How to Pick a Sales Price Without Comparable Sales
Trying to pick a sales price when there are few to none comparable sales is a little bit tricky in our Sacramento real estate market, but this is when an experienced real estate agent can be very helpful. Sometimes it comes down to relying on gut instinct, mixed with a bit of pixie dust sprinkled on top of those dusty old comparable sales, to come up with an accurate and reasonable number.
Further, I might do goofy things that are right on target such as grab a random sales price from 2005, divide it in half, multiple that result by 50%, and then slap another 25% on top to arrive at an estimate of value, which is often much closer than Zillow’s screwy Zestimate and computed about in the same fashion. But that’s just to double-check the ballpark. It’s not to pick a sales price.
When talking with a seller who just closed escrow yesterday on a fixer home I had listed, we had discussed the sales price and reviewed how we arrived at the final number. I confessed that it wasn’t based entirely on the comparable sales. My input was based a lot on how much I thought we could get for the property, resulting in the intrinsic market value of that home. The seller laughed and said he realized I had grabbed it from thin air when I made the recommendation.
Well, I wouldn’t say thin air. But it was an educated guess. It was an educated guess because although I had examined the comp prices for turnkey homes, I had not arrived at a value for the unknown condition of the property, which was basically trashed. I had been expecting to see a home in move-in condition. These types of homes are a bit difficult to price when the home has so much wrong with it that you can’t even figure out which part of the house you’re standing in. Oh, this must be the living room, I muttered to nobody, when it dawned on me where I was as the floor suddenly sloped down under my feet.
After hitting the market, lots of agents called to give me push back and to complain about the price. They thought it was too high. Many offered substantially less. They moaned and groaned. Hey, give the sellers what they want, I suggested; it’s simple, just do it. Don’t yak at me about the comps and your honorable intentions. Put up or shut up. Then, two buyers submitted offers that were very close to our asking price, and those were the two buyers we worked with, closing with the best offer and zero renegotiations during escrow.
Sometimes, you just get lucky trying to pick a sales price, but it helps to have experience on your side when you’re the seller.
An Accepted Purchase Offer in Sacramento is Only the Beginning
When buying or selling a home in Sacramento, the parties often don’t realize that it’s hardly over when both sides sign an accepted purchase offer; in fact, the process is just beginning and anything can go wrong. This is where FSBOs (For Sale By Owners) tend to struggle and where real estate agents with less experience can mess up as well.
Think of this point in time as that scene in the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy, all freshly scrubbed and sporting her sparkly ruby slippers, is merrily laughing and singing with her gangly companions, setting out from Munchkin Land to skip down the Yellow Brick Road, just before Glinda vanishes in a puff of twinkly fairy dust. Everybody is happy and excited, looking forward to arriving in the magical Emerald City. They have no idea what lies in store for them.
And neither do most Sacramento home sellers and buyers.
This is when your Sacramento real estate agent can make a world of difference to you. Selling a home in Sacramento is a lot more than just finding a buyer. It means qualifying the buyer, thinking ahead and predicting what could happen, and taking steps to prevent the trees from strangling you and throwing apples at your face. It means fighting off the winged monkeys.
And, if it’s necessary, making it snow.
Keeping everybody on the path to closing. And happy. It’s not the money, either, because a commission check can lose its luster fast if the seller or buyers are unhappy when it’s all over. This is no easy feat. But it’s what I do every day, and I believe I do it well. Going into escrow is just the beginning. If you’re looking for a veteran Sacramento real estate agent, please call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916 233 6759.
5 Ways to Get Your Sacramento Purchase Offer Rejected
We have weeks in Sacramento real estate during which I stare at my offer tracking sheets to count the number of offers that are excellent examples of how not to write a purchase offer to buy a home in Sacramento, also known as how to get your purchase offer rejected. You see, one of the benefits of working with the Elizabeth Weintraub Team is that I provide useful information to my own team members. I often advise my team how other listing agents look at purchase offers — because I know how I look at them — and offer tips about what NOT to do. How not to get an offer rejected. Which is why so many of my team member’s purchase offers are accepted.
Because when an agent is working with a buyer as a buyer’s agent, often the focus is directly on that buyer. The buyer’s agent can be so wrapped up in what her buyer wants and in trying to fulfill those requirements that an agent can forget how her or his actions and words appear to the parties who can make or break that Sacramento home purchase.
- The first rule is do not argue with the listing agent. I don’t care if that listing agent is dumber than a bag of rocks, don’t argue. There is a big difference between arguments and negotiation. Don’t try to explain a “cash offer” for example to the listing agent as there is hardly a Sacramento real estate agent alive today who doesn’t know the advantages of cash over financing, even though it is always all cash in the end.
- The second rule is don’t insult the seller. If you think the house appears cluttered or dirty, for example, don’t demand that the seller “wash the floors” and take all personal items with them. Our California purchase contract already addresses debris. Wash the floors? Seriously? And how does one wash carpeting? Tear it off the floor and toss it into the washing machine?
- The third rule is send all of the documentation that is necessary in order to submit a purchase offer. And, for heaven’s sakes, try to submit this paperwork in one file in the manner specified in the multiple listing. If the paperwork is incomplete, the purchase offer is incomplete.
- The fourth rule is don’t submit a lowball offer when the seller has received multiple offers. You would think this would be such an obvious rule, but gah, it is not. I suspect some agents do this anyway to “teach a lesson” to their buyers so hopefully on the next purchase offer the buyers will be more reasonable.
- The fifth rule is don’t submit a lowball offer while also breaking rules 1 through 4. This is worse than 3 strikes and you’re out. Why do you think the sellers would want to consider your lowball offer that insults them, makes unreasonable demands and is incomplete?
It’s tough in some Sacramento neighborhoods right now to buy a nice home. Don’t make it so much harder on yourself than it needs to be.
Do Not Touch the Sacramento Lockbox Without Permission
I’m thinking about slapping a preprinted notice over my 70-some lockboxes that warn: don’t touch the lockbox without permission. It is never OK for a Sacramento real estate agent to use a lockbox and enter a home without checking the showing instructions in MLS — yet it happens. Unauthorized access happens not because agents think but because some of them don’t think. An agent today explained why he entered a home that is not even on the market, after I emailed him twice to ask for an explanation. He said it was because he lived across the street and the seller told him she was listing with me.
I imagine that news went over well.
So, he decided it was OK to bring over a buyer to walk around the home and trample on private property. Because he knew the seller. It did not occur to him that he had no written agreement with this seller nor permission to be there. Not only did he not understand that he was trespassing, but imagine his surprise when he noticed the lockbox and thought to himself, hey, here I am, a Sacramento real estate agent with a buyer and whoa, I have a display key that will open this lockbox. I will do it.
I know when the agent was there because I check my lockbox showings via the Supra website 2 to 3 times a day.
This agent did not bother to see if the home was listed. Which it is not published in MLS yet. Or maybe he did and he realized it was not on the market and that was simply his flimsy first excuse. Because his second excuse was he figured the seller would receive multiple offers, and he thought for some odd reason that we would give him priority with his offer if he submitted it quickly. And the way to submit a fast offer first was to break into the home without permission. Yeah!
This is winning on so many levels, not.
MLS guidelines allow showing of a home when that home is in active status in MLS and the showing instructions are followed. In some parts of town, and I’m not saying where, I don’t even put a for sale sign in the yard because agents out showing homes will use a lockbox if they can spot that lockbox without looking up the home in MLS to even determine if it’s available to be shown. I’ve had buyer’s agents enter occupied pending sales unauthorized with a naked seller in the shower. Geez, Louise!
MetroList should improve its training for agents and not just hand out lockboxes like they are candy.
All I can say is it’s a good thing that seller didn’t hire this agent and instead chose me. We’ll see what tomorrow brings when this home hits the market.
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