Email ElizabethPicking the Buyer When Selling Homes in Sacramento Could Violate Fair Housing
Regular sellers with equity — and even sellers of homes in Sacramento who end up doing a short sale — can choose their buyer and establish requirements that the buyer must meet. You know why they can do this? Because they own the home and, with some legal exceptions, sellers can decide what kind of person buys it.
This is not to say that a seller can discriminate against any of the protected classes under the Fair Housing Act. For example, a seller could not say I am interested only in selling to a family with kids or to a guy in a wheelchair. You can’t pick a protected class and exclude others or vice versa. This is yet another reason to hire a top Sacramento real estate agent because agents are supposed to know, understand and follow the Fair Housing Act, among other regulations.
I’ve personally had buyers say to me they did not want to buy in a neighborhood in which minorities of any color live and, believe it or not, I have stopped the car and told them to get the hell out. Fortunately, we were still in the parking lot and not on the W / X freeway. They can go find some redneck yo-yo to work with them, but not this agent. Sadly to say, there is always some doofus moron who doesn’t give a flying fig about Fair Housing, but I’m definitely not one of those.
Sellers are allowed, though, to choose an owner occupant, for example, over an investor. I asked our lawyers. That’s almost a moot point as most of the investors have left the market in Sacramento, which leaves a bit of breathing room for Sacramento home buyers now, but it’s good to know. Btw, if you see that sales are down by 1/3rd, it’s because the investors have split. But some are still hanging out, writing lowball offers in hopes that if they throw enough crap at the wall, something will stick.
If you want to ensure the quality of your neighborhood and care enough to please your neighbors when you depart, then you might want to consider selling to an owner occupant over a buyer who will rent out your house. Even if that home needs fixing up, a rental investor is not always the answer. Whenever there is an increase of rentals in a neighborhood, the value of the other homes around it tend to go down.
Are There Valid Reasons to Dump a Real Estate Agent?
I am rarely in the shoes of a first agent who listed a home that did not sell in Sacramento. Unless, of course, the seller was unreasonable on pricing or refused home staging. I’ve seen a handful of those sorry situations in which the seller dumps the agent, reduces the price, stages the home and then bingo, it sells with agent #2, with agent #1 left standing there wondering what am I, chopped liver? Why did nobody listen to me? But bottom line is nobody can really make another person do what that person doesn’t want to do without brute force, and few agents want to clobber a seller over the head, making him stare down the barrel of a gun with a foot up his neck.
More often than not I’m on the other side of this scenario. After a seller fired his agent — or took the path of least resistance and let the listing expire before hiring the next agent — namely in order to hire this top producing Sacramento real estate agent. That’s the position I love to be in because now I’ll get paid for another agent’s hard work, plus I am most likely working for a far more reasonable and seasoned seller.
I made an interesting point to a seller a few months ago when he was thinking about hiring another agent because he had not yet received an offer. Sellers can be impatient, I understand. I told the seller that he could certainly hire another agent but he’d be throwing away his money. He did not strike me as the kind of guy who wants to lose money, but that’s exactly what he would be doing by hiring somebody else. Another agent would simply capitalize on all of my efforts, duplicate my strategy and pocket my fee. He should reward the agent who has earned the commission and let her sell his home. Put that way, he agreed, and I sold that home for him.
Having said that, sometimes there are valid reasons to fire an agent. No iffs, ands, or butts about it, in this crazy profession, most agents are not on the ball. Read more on About.com today in an article I wrote about Top 10 Reasons Sellers Fire a Real Estate Agent.
Don’t Wait for Buyers to Tell You What’s Wrong With Homes in Sacramento
The colors of homes like these in the Netherlands do not work in Sacramento
What works for house colors in countries such as Italy, Ireland or Mexico, does not necessarily work as colors of choice for homes in Sacramento. Personally, I adore colorful homes and would love to see more Americans adopt color, but then again, pioneers tend to get arrows in their backs, so I don’t want to initiate the trend. If you’re expecting to put your home on the market, though, the color of your home down to the color of your carpeting can be the difference between selling or not selling.
Sometimes, these things are not evident to a homeowner nor necessarily apparent to the agent, either. But you find out what’s wrong by putting the home on the market and obtaining buyer feedback. You can do this on your own before putting your home on the market, which is what I advise. You can ask your neighbors and your friends and, what the heck, grab somebody you don’t know off the street and invite them on over. Ask for their honest opinions. Walk through the house and assess every room. Stand in each doorway and stare. What’s wrong with your house? Ask your agent, too. Some agents don’t want to tell you the truth for fear you won’t like them. Tell your agent: go ahead and offend me.
Because you know what? There’s probably something wrong with it. Not in your eyes, of course, but in the eyes of today’s buyers. Your eyes don’t count. You’re leaving and moving away where you can do the same horrible things to your new home. But this home, the one that you’re living in right now? This home needs to change to meet the needs of the buying public. Buyers have certain requirements that homes in Sacramento need to meet.
Yes, I realize you don’t wanna paint that wall or yank up that shag carpeting but you’ll pay for that stubbornness when selling. A neighbor of mine painted her Land Park home the same orange color as the light rail station over on 21st Street. I like it, I just wouldn’t buy it nor want to buy a home next to it because it doesn’t conform. It looks weird. People like homes in Sacramento to be similar and not stand out like a sore thumb. Trust this Sacramento real estate agent, you don’t want to be that weird home when you’re selling a home in Sacramento.
David Lindley and Hot Tuna at the Crest Theatre Sacramento
All the old hippies were out in throngs last night in Sacramento and heading over to the Crest Theatre to see David Lindley perform, followed by Hot Tuna. Always good for a few great Warren Zevon songs, Lindley also kissed and stroked his ostrich shoes on stage, which is what I guess one would expect. We had great seats, too, front and center. Jack Casady, one of the greatest bass players in the world, strolled on stage wearing a long scarf, which he dramatically flung off his shoulders and then paused for recognition, looking very San Franciscan and cool.
He wore a watch, though. Jorma had a watch on his wrist, too. Who do you know today who wears a watch?
The only problem with Hot Tuna at the Crest was it was past my bedtime by the time they got to any songs I remembered from my Jefferson Airplane days, and I was actually thinking about resting my head against my husband’s shoulder, but I knew what would happen. What would happen is I would fall sound asleep. You think a person can’t sleep through a concert? Ha. The last one I slept through was a few years ago at the The Fillmore when we went to see Richard Thompson, and I love Richard Thompson. This is the problem with getting older.
The only thing worse would be to fall asleep and drool or snore. Which I just did not feel was appropriate when a person is sitting in the front row of a show. Fortunately, during the Richard Thompson performance, I was in the balcony and even though I was probably snoring and drooling, nobody could notice because it was too dark and the music too loud. This is what happens when there is a table in front of me, it’s past my bedtime and I’m tired. Even though Hot Tuna at the Crest was entertaining, I started to slip down in my chair . . .
Which brings me to groan about what else I’m tired about. I’m tired of real estate agents who fall off the face of the earth. A seller called me a few days ago about listing his home. I looked it up in MLS and it was listed at “expired, pending.” He was not in contract. He had no offer. On top of this, the listing had expired in December. Our MLS can fine a Sacramento real estate agent for an expired pending listing. Until a listing is removed from MLS, a new listing cannot be entered.
I cannot understand how an agent would NOT notice a listing like this in MLS. I mother my listings daily and hover over them, checking status, showings, tweaking verbiage, switching out photographs, updating days on market with new MLS numbers. But then somebody else probably can’t figure out how I could fall asleep in the middle of a rock and roll show, especially Hot Tuna at the Crest. We all be different.
Sacramento Home Buyers Who Fall in Love With Homes
Have you ever noticed that the longer some companies remain in business, the crappier their products become? I suspect it’s because corporations tend to value bottom-line profit over anything else. They might promote a cute slogan like “people first” but you and I both know that’s just marketing fluff. It doesn’t really matter where you look, you’ll find some item that was made years ago is probably a better quality product than today’s merchandise. Even homes. Even homes in Sacramento.
Tour homes in some of our leafier neighborhoods such as homes in Land Park or homes in Carmichael, and Sacramento home buyers will find thick redwood joists and plaster walls, not the cheaper wood and thin drywall like today. I poke my cheap-ass Jawbone device and wonder why can’t they make it work like the earlier models when callers could actually hear me talk. Or, what about the Victoria’s Secret pajamas that used to actually keep a person warm at night and now you can see through the material, and btw, that’s not on purpose. Don’t even get me started on cars made out of plastic. Cheaper, and cheaper and cheaper until the corporation can no longer sustain itself because the profit margin is so thin and it bankrupts.
The one thing that hasn’t changed is our love affairs with real estate. No matter how small or cheap builders build, we keep buying these homes and falling in love with them. If you think people don’t fall in love with a home, then you’re not a Sacramento real estate agent. One of the entities that publishes homes for sale online, just on a lark, I guess, conducted a survey among 1,000 buyers and their lust for homes. It found that 2 out of every 3 buyers stare at online real estate porn and develop fixations.
I was surprised that the number wasn’t higher. But surveys can be skewed. People tend to participate if they have a strong opinion one way or the other and the results don’t always represent the opinion of an average person. In any case, I try to present my photographs online in such a manner that people will stay up late, glued to their laptop and click on every one of them. Because I want that next click to be an email to me, asking to see the home. What else they do with their laptop on the privacy of their own sofa, I don’t want to know about.
If you’ve about to fall in love with homes, call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759. Don’t wait. Do it today. The really cute homes go fast this spring.
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