Email ElizabethThe Elizabeth Weintraub Team Welcomes Josh Amolsch
Josh Amolsch, The Elizabeth Weintraub Team
When it comes to selling Sacramento real estate, no woman or man is an island, especially not on the Elizabeth Weintraub Team at Lyon Real Estate; although, we might very well be rocks — OK, I can’t help but hear Simon & Garfunkel. We are stable. We are comforts to our clients during stressful times. We guide, we inform, we support, and we definitely perform. These are high standards for a real estate agent and, as leader of the team, I have high expectations as well. Which is why it was a hard process to choose a new team member. It’s good news that my business is expanding and growing. We need to make sure we can continue to offer quality service to our clients by bringing on new talent to join us. Today, we all welcome Josh Amolsch to the team.
You might not know that Josh is a real life rockstar, a guitar god. He is a musician who started banging drums as a kid (like they owed him money, he jokes) and rose up through the industry to perform in hot clubs throughout Midtown. He single-handedly organized a bunch of young men — which is sort of like herding cats — to play together as a band, creating magic in notes, over and over and continuously.
Josh’s speciality is first-time home buyers. He has patience and compassion for those just starting out on the path to home ownership. You might not know this, but not every real estate agent in Sacramento is willing to work with new home buyers. Whether single women, single men, straight or gay couples, young or old, purple or orange, every person who wants to buy a home should expect to receive excellent service from an agent.
Through representation from the Elizabeth Weintraub Team, our first-time home buyers get a double package. Not only will they work with superior agents of intellect and quality such as Josh Amolsch, but buyers will get the nitty-gritty experience of 40 years of negotiation tactics from Elizabeth Weintraub. We all learn from each other and grow together every day.
No drama here. Just results.
I imagine that Josh will always carry a tune in his heart throughout his real estate career. It might not be Sounds of Silence. Perhaps it’s more Sound City Grohl-like.
If you would like to buy a home in Sacramento, West Sacramento or anywhere in Placer and El Dorado Counties, please give Josh a ring. You can reach him directly at 916.224.2756.
Sacramento Short Sale Approval From US Bank
Sellers ask me if it’s impossible to get short sale approval for a US Bank short sale because so many Sacramento short sale agents seem to encounter difficulties working with US Bank. I would not say that US Bank is harder to work with than any other short sale bank, but the US Bank short sale process is not as streamlined, per se, as other banks. A short sale that might take 4 weeks through Bank of America can easily take 4 months with US Bank. You’ve just got to have patience.
Take my recent US Bank short sale, for which I have been working with two loans, both at US Bank. This short sale has been in short sale negotiations for 2 years now. Two long years! Most of the time when a short sale takes this long, it’s because the buyers bailed. The buyers might hang in to wait 3 months or so and then they cancel the contract, just when approval is about to arrive. I’ve personally witnessed this phenomena over and over. They lose faith. They give up. Just when they should not.
We try to engage buyers, keep them informed and updated every single week, but no matter how hard we can try to nail them to the front door, they wiggle away. When the buyer cancels, the short sale starts over.
Having said all of this, most of the trouble in this particular transaction has been a denial issued by US Bank. I generally don’t let denials dampen my enthusiasm. A denial just means we are one less negotiator away from approval. One less person to deal with and one less obstacle to overcome. After a revised analysis, I repackage the short sale and resubmit. My philosophy is somebody is not listening to us or we did not present the facts in a light the negotiator can accept.
I can’t recall offhand how many rejections and denials we were issued on this particular US Bank short sale. US Bank rejected the sellers a few times. But we finally received that golden letter of short sale approval and release of personal liability. Two years later. You have no idea how ecstatic the sellers are right now. If there’s a way to get that short sale approval letter, this Sacramento real estate agent will get it. Just like if there’s a way to sell your home in Sacramento, I will do it. It’s called perseverance and determination.
Why Real Estate Printing is Dead in Sacramento
The fact is all agents do not sell homes in the same manner, especially those confused by today’s technology; however, many top producers who love technology find it is generally pointless to revert to “old school methods” such as printing four-color flyers and sticking flyers in a box on a sign post, even though they may still retain other dated marketing habits. Real estate has changed a lot over the years, and it’s changed even faster over the past 5 to 10 years. The real estate printing that used to work well for a Sacramento real estate agent doesn’t necessarily work so well anymore.
I love to tackle listings that other agents can’t sell because they tried to do it in print. I just closed two homes that two other agents had tried to unload for months without any results. My approach is different, and I tailor each listing to appeal to my targeted audience. The first thing an agent should do is figure out who is the intended audience for that home? Who will be the buyer? And then market to that buyer using new technology.
I get such a kick out of sellers who come up with these age-old ideas that they believe are fresh and new when they don’t work anymore. They read it in a book somewhere, found it online, saw it on cable or maybe that’s how they sold a home 20 years ago. I worked briefly with an disgruntled and ornery seller last year who sounded like he was itching to cancel the listing because I did not want to put flyers on the sign post. I explained why flyers on the sign post was a bad idea. It was his idea, and he didn’t want it to be bad.
Putting flyers out in a flyer box in the front yard is a really bad idea for many reasons. For starters because kids steal them, if they aren’t removed first from the flyer box by a competitor. Second, it completely negates the purpose of the Virtual Agent signs I employ. My virtual agent signs allow a buyer to get information without talking to an agent, which is what some buyers prefer. They can:
- Call an 800# and get a virtual tour downloaded to their cellphone immediately
- Text to a special text number on the sign for an immediate cellphone download
- Use the QR code to retrieve immediate information to their cellphone.
There are also 3 ways to get more information by talking to an agent. They can:
- Call the large number on the sign panel to speak with a floor agent
- Call my cellphone number from the sign rider
- Call my buyer’s agent cellphone number from the sign rider
Walk by or drive by traffic can also go to my website on their smart phones to look at all of the property details. Others will find that home during neighborhood searches online from their home computers, laptops or iPads. Everybody is online and wired. If buyers can grab a flyer, they won’t use the Virtual Agent system or call. If they don’t call or contact me, I can’t track them or follow up, and they will probably never see the home in person. I capture all of their information when they utilize Virtual Agent. I don’t get that info if they bypass me.
If a buyer’s agent is showing a home, that buyer’s agent will print a flyer for the buyer with that agent’s contact information. They generally don’t want the buyer carting around a flyer with the listing agent’s contact information on it. That’s why sellers don’t really need flyers inside the home, either. An open house agent will print her own flyers; buyer’s agents print their own; and even buyers themselves print their own online flyers. It’s a waste of time and energy to produce flyers when the home is available to view online.
But you know what, even though I disagree, sometimes I will still print flyers for my sellers who insist. A hundred bucks buys a lot of happiness. But *print flyers are really unnecessary today for most homes in Sacramento. Real estate printing is a dead practice in town. Ask a top producer how things have changed in real estate. You might be surprised.
*An exception would be the luxury home market, in which brochures are the norm.
Why List Price to Sales Price Ratios Are Useless Agent Comparisons
I get it that’s it’s super difficult for many people to hire a Sacramento real estate agent, but comparing list price to sales price ratios is meaningless. I also realize that it’s especially challenging to hire an agent if those same people don’t really understand the profession nor harbor much respect for agents. It’s tricky for some of us to operate in an environment where so many in the public openly despise real estate agents. I think our popularity lies somewhere between used-car salesman and funeral home directors. What a wonderful world.
The way I make it through decade after decade of selling real estate is not to pay a lot of attention to the negative opinions that some people form because they don’t apply to me. I know that I do an excellent job for my clients, and these people are happy with my performance. Sometimes, though, I run into potential clients who have not dealt with a real estate agent like myself, and they don’t understand how I do what I do, and they expect to understand it instead of appreciate it. The only way to really understand the real estate business is to put on my six-inch heels and amble down railroad tracks wearing headphones with your back to the oncoming train.
Although I have never been asked for my list price to sales price ratio, a potential seller asked me for it. I didn’t even know my number because it carries no value. It’s like a Select Comfort sleep number. Some people like 40 and others 100. I ran my production numbers for last year, and that number is 104.21%, including the good deals buyers got –which contained some under-market transactions in a seller’s market when most buyers paid over-market, if they were able to buy at all in last spring’s frenzy.
See, this is the problem with list price to sales price ratio. So many variables. You can have a short sale, for example, in which the market value is, say, $300,000, but the bank demands $310,000 at the 11th hour, holds the buyer hostage, and it ends up closing at $310,000. Does that make the listing agent a much better agent? Not really. Out of the agent’s control. Or, what about the sellers who insist their home is worth $500,000 and secretly hope a buyer will lowball. I take some of those listings because it’s not my place to choose the sales price. If that overpriced home finally sells at $450,000, does that make me a bad agent? Not really.
What about changing markets? Markets that shift from a seller’s market to a buyer’s market, which can happen in any given time period. That affects the list price to sales price ratio. On top of this, there are a dozen other scenarios that can affect these ratios, including who is to say an agent who routinely sells at 104% is not deliberately underpricing her listings? Hmmm? But probably the biggest factor is every agent has the ability to change the list price to match the final sales list price prior to closing, and then the ratio is 100%. I know some agents who do it just so they can say their ratio is 100%.
List price to sales price ratios mean very little, and then mean even less when an agent’s production is limited to say, 6 or 8 homes a year. The moral is don’t judge an agent on list price to sales price ratios. If an agent with a high ratio is telling you it’s meaningless, that in itself should speak volumes.
Will a Sacramento Seller Sell for Less than List Price?
Buyer’s agents in Sacramento continually hear the question from buyers which, they in turn, pass along to the Sacramento listing agent: Will the seller sell for less? It’s not always phrased in those exact terms, but that’s what everybody wants to know. And that’s the one thing they cannot know and will never know unless they write an offer. For starters, no listing agent worth her salt is about to disclose to anybody for any reason how much her sellers will take to sell that home.
You might wonder why not. Because the listing agent has a legal fiduciary duty to the seller of confidentiality. The list price is the sales price. Period. If the seller prefers a range of value, then the sales price will be listed as a range of value indicated by a big ol’ V that nobody understands so nobody does it. Second, the listing agent doesn’t know what her seller will do because the listing agent is not the seller. She doesn’t own the home, and she can’t make decisions for the seller.
Every so often, I receive an email from a buyer’s agent that lays out all of the reasons why that agent’s buyers are such spectacular human beings and why they deserve to get an incredible break on the sales price — primarily because they are looking at a home the buyers cannot afford to buy. In my mind, of course, I wonder how that is my problem and what that has to do with me, Al Franken? I mean, why doesn’t the agent show her buyers the types of homes that her buyers can afford to buy? Why is she showing her buyers homes that are too expensive for her buyers?
You know why she’s performing such an unproductive service maneuver? Because she doesn’t want to take a chance that her buyers will dump her and run off to some other real estate agent in Sacramento. She wants to make her buyers happy. She wants to do what her buyers ask of her, like any agent. But somewhere along the line, an agent needs to educate her buyers. Explain the market, how pending sales are moving, supply comparable sales and provide education. Buyers are not real estate agents. That’s why they hire an experienced real estate agent: to guide, assist and help them to buy a home.
When an agent sets aside her professional self-worth in a feeble attempt to keep unreasonable clients happy, she loses credibility with those clients, which in turn makes clients miserable. It’s not a win-win.
Further, when a buyer is pre-approved to buy a maximum amount, buyers should look at homes priced below that maximum amount. At homes they have a chance in hell of buying. Buyers should not ask their agents to show them homes that are listed higher than that price point unless those homes have lingered on the market and are stale, overpriced. You don’t ask to see a brand new listing and expect to a seller to accept a lowball and sell for less. It doesn’t work that way. Well, maybe it does on HGTV, but not in the real world of Sacramento real estate.
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