Email ElizabethAbout Buying a Home in East Sacramento
My hairdresser in East Sacramento was getting married last Thursday so I had to get my hair done on a Sunday. Which is OK, I guess, at least this way I don’t have to style today, as long as I didn’t toss and turn all night and let our new kitten Tessa throw up on my head, and I think I’m good there. It was while I was sitting in the salon on a Sunday afternoon touching up what she calls my sparkles, when I realized my hairdresser needs to buy a home.
Wait a minute. Sparkles, what are sparkles, you might ask? I asked that myself because for a moment I thought perhaps diamonds were a thing of the past, like Bruce Jenner’s face. I swear he no longer looks like a man, he looks like a woman. And I wouldn’t know that if I wasn’t sitting in a hair salon on a Sunday afternoon peering at the cover of People Magazine and discussing Sparkles.
Sparkles are gray roots. Yes, one of these days I’ll get around to letting my hair grow out its natural color just so I can see what it is, but for now, I don’t have that kind of luxury of time. If I have gray roots, I color them. I am jealous of the women who don’t have to mess with that, but then again, you still need to get your hair cut unless you want to look like Albert Einstein, or maybe Morticia Addams — the latter is the direction I’m heading.
Rather than spend my time at the salon catching up on all of the pop culture stuff I’m better off not knowing about, I used that time to talk with my hairdresser about buying a home. She has two incomes, a spouse, decent jobs, and she’s tired of living in an apartment. She needs a house. So, if she’s gonna buy a house, she may as well get started on the right path.
It’s funny what you hear yourself say when you spend time talking to a person who doesn’t know anything about buying a home. This particular couple will probably buy a two-bedroom, 1 bath, maybe about 1,000 square feet, and I predict it will be an older home somewhere in Midtown or among smaller bungalow homes in East Sacramento. However, my hairdresser needs to learn about home repair. Take responsibility for fixing up her new home; I insisted, it’s empowering, too. Unfortunately, she believes she can find whatever she needs to know about home repair on the Internet.
Only if she chooses wisely. Doesn’t end up electrocuting herself.
So, yesterday we talked mostly about debt ratios and finding out how much she and her spouse pay each and every month for bills and living expenses. Her first step is to talk with a mortgage broker and get pre-approved. If she needs to pay down debt, now is a good time to get started. I have plenty of time to help her out, lots of patience, and I’m in no rush. My experience says, once she catches the fever, she may be the impatient one, though.
Another Sacramento Home Has Closed Escrow
Want to read about a Sacramento home that closed escrow without a hitch? It’s not often in this Sacramento real estate market that I am afforded the opportunity to gush about what a smooth transaction we just closed because in squirrelly times like the present, the real estate business is typically anything but smooth. The escrow that just closed, with the exception of the document delay on Wells Fargo’s end, presented no problems at all. It was a miracle, in retrospect. I will probably close more than 100 homes again this year and, when I can count smooth closings on one hand, I consider myself and those around me fortunate.
No agent is an island in this business. I might be a rock but I am not an island. I need my team members, escrow officer, transaction coordinator, lenders, title company, appraisers, office assistants and, most important, the agent on the other side to successfully close.
The trick is to not burden the client with every little hiccup in a transaction. That’s one of the reasons home sellers and buyers hire a Sacramento real estate agent — it’s to be a buffer. This doesn’t mean we don’t disclose what’s going on, but there are some behind-the-scenes situations that don’t affect the parties and the parties might be better off not hearing about it, until it closes, if ever. There is no reason on god’s green earth to make other people miserable if they can be spared.
That’s why Powers that Be created real estate agents. We are the ones who often bear the brunt of the transaction. We take the punches so our clients don’t have to.
The agent I worked with on this last transaction was wonderful. She worked tirelessly to meet the demands of the escrow, and I would eagerly work with her again in a heartbeat. Many agents are fabulous in this business and will do whatever it takes to close. In the beginning, though, her buyer was a little bit wary and not as optimistic as his agent.
The home that sold was newer, built in 2010, so we weren’t overly worried about defects or problems, although every single home on the face of the planet will have some kind of defect. There are no perfect homes out there. But because so many escrows lately have developed problems midway through after buyers discover a small defect and suddenly wanted to renegotiate or lower the price, the seller, on advice from a legal friend, elected to be upfront about what she expected. Cut off that behavior at the pass.
In the counter offer, she explained the Sacramento home was sold in its AS IS condition. Yes, that verbiage is in the contract, but few pay attention to it. She simply asked the buyer to agree not to request repairs nor try to renegotiate, regardless of what a home inspection may reveal. The buyer was worried that he could not cancel, but after he thought about it he realized that was not really a valid concern. The seller wanted assurance of some sort that when she removed her home from the market, the buyer would not continue to negotiate.
She wanted the AS IS clause to mean AS IS. Not maybe. There are buyers in Sacramento who have no intention of closing on the sales price they offer. They know it when they write the offer. These types of buyers plan to further reduce the price after the home has been removed from the market for a few weeks. That’s a sneaky way to do business.
Some buyers don’t know when the negotiations have ended. Some negotiations, on the the other hand, never end. But this one did. It stopped at the counter offer. The buyers agreed and the escrow closed, as they say in Shakespeare, without further ado, sigh no more.
Home Staging in Sacramento is Worth It
There are some markets in which a Sacramento real estate agent can barely get her sign planted in the front yard before her email starts dinging with purchase offers, which can make home staging pretty much overkill. This Sacramento fall market of 2013 is NOT one of those markets. Oh, but you might say there isn’t much inventory, but there is almost twice as much inventory as we had last spring. But half of that inventory is overpriced or a mess. So, in that regard, you’d be right, there isn’t much inventory.
This means if you want to sell your home quickly, without a lot of fuss and for a decent price, you’ll need to do home staging. You can hire a professional stager or you can do it yourself with your listing agent’s help, but for best results, get the home staged. This doesn’t mean you need to be deceptive, but your home is now a product and must be sold like a product. When a buyer walks into your house, she better be walking into a commercial that says buy me as she rounds every corner.
Agents are influenced as well, and while you would think an agent can look past the disarray, it is never a good idea to let a buyer’s agent view a home in less than stellar condition. I made that mistake once a number of years ago, and I allowed agents to preview a home that wasn’t ready for the market. Beds were unmade, toys strewn about the floor and clutter everywhere. I thought the agents could see past it, but they couldn’t. That image was ingrained in their minds, and it took me a long time to sell that home, even after it was fixed up and ready for sale.
Now, my policy is nobody gets in to see a home before it is staged and ready. Of course, not every seller is willing to stage. It doesn’t mean I won’t list the home because I will, and I will eventually sell it, too. Just not as fast. And maybe for not as much. Like I said, not every market requires staging. But this fall market in Sacramento definitely is screaming for quality inventory in tip top shape.
Downton Abbey Screening Party at Crest Theatre
I am so excited that the premiere of Downton Abbey Season 4 is showing in advance next month at the Crest. One of my favorite places to see concerts and movies is at the Crest Theatre in downtown Sacramento. Downton Abbey Season 4 is officially premiering on January 5th on Masterpiece at 9 PM on KVIE Public Television, but a few lucky people in Sacramento will get to see the first hour absolutely free. Yes, tickets are free! You don’t even have to be Michelle Obama to see it. How about that?
There will be a costume party and trivia. My husband was considering coming as Matthew, maybe carrying a steering wheel. Doors open at 6:00 and presentation starts at 7 PM. Over at 9 at PM. The Crest Theatre is located at 10th and K Streets in downtown Sacramento.
All you have to do is go to the Crest Theatre online and click on RSVP Today to Reserve Your Seat. I picked up four seats as my husband was driving me to the dentist to get four teeth yanked out. Spotted it as it came across my cellphone because I subscribe to new events at the Crest. Reserved the seats and transferred the QR codes to my Passport.
If you haven’t signed up for new events at the Crest, you should do so, because you get advance notice and can sometimes buy tickets before they even go on sale to the public. How do you think I manage to snag my front-and-center row seats for all of the shows we attend?
Oh, and here is a little bonus for you. After you finish watching Downton Abbey Season 4, you can go to this link and watch the recap. I’m telling you it is so hilarious it will make you laugh out loud like a guinea pig: If Downton Abbey Took Place on Facebook Season 3, Episode 7.
My two valuable Elizabeth Weintraub team members, Barbara Dow and Linda Swanson are coming with my husband and me. If you are not addicted to Downton Abbey, consider yourself fortunate, I guess, because some of us would do anything to get to see Downton Abbey. OK, maybe not anything. I would not eat raw termites. Since I have a couple of pest inspections to review today for several sellers, I’d rather not think about munching on termites.
Should the Buyer or Seller Order a Sacramento Pest Inspection?
Who pays what fee in a real estate transaction is negotiable in Sacramento, but there are customary fees that the parties generally pay, and a Sacramento pest inspection is no exception. For example, most sellers would not pay for a home inspection on the buyer’s behalf. A seller might order a pre-home inspection before putting the home on the market, but the buyer will still be advised to request and pay for her own home inspection.
Like with any legal matter, there are rules and guidelines to follow. Such as the seller can’t demand that the buyer use a certain title company, because that would be a RESPA violation. Buyers are certainly free to pay for their own title insurance policy and the lender’s title policy, and then the buyer can select the title. Most buyers won’t do it because a title policy is as good as the insurance backing it, and most of the companies who have bit the dust aren’t leading others into that grave at the moment, plus, those fees can top easily $2,000.
When it comes to a Sacramento pest inspection, though, it’s a common practice for the seller to pay for it. The problem that arises is when the buyer’s lender spots a pest report inspection as a condition of the purchase contract, the lender will want to receive a copy of the inspection. If there is work suggested, again, the lender will expect the work to be completed. Who pays for the work, whether it’s the buyer or the seller, is also negotiable. More often than not, though, it’s the seller who foots that bill.
It becomes a little more complicated when the seller has agreed in the purchase contract to sign the WPA, Wood Destroying Pest Addendum. Some buyer’s agents will include this document with their contract paperwork. A seller who agrees to sign an agreement to complete pest work for which the seller has not yet received a report is a seller who could be suddenly responsible to pay thousands of dollars.
Lately, the practice has been not to include any reference to a pest report in the purchase contract. This is not to say that if the buyer’s appraiser spots a condition of dry-rot or suspects infestation, that the appraiser won’t “call it out” on the appraisal, because the appraiser might.
In the opinion of this Sacramento real estate agent, when representing the buyer as a buyer’s agent, it’s generally better to let the buyer pay for the Sacramento pest inspection report, and allow the buyer to choose his or her own pest company. Then, if repairs are noted, the buyer can negotiate for the repairs with the seller. This does not apply to a short sale, btw. Buyers are on their own in a short sale, no repairs. But with a regular transaction, the buyer has the option to ask the seller to pay for the repairs or agree to a closing credit and finish the repairs after closing, or if the seller refuses, to just suck it up and deal with it later.
Most sellers will give the buyers a closing credit because a) if the deal fell apart due to the pest repair negotiation, the next buyer would receive a copy of the pest inspection and that buyer might demand the same thing, and b) escrow won’t be delayed while everybody waits for the pest company to finish the work and c) the buyers might be able to complete some of the work themselves after closing and save a little bit.
On the other hand, if the buyer pays for the pest report and the deal falls apart, those pest inspections stay on record for two years at the Pest Control Board. The seller is now stuck with a pest inspection report from a company that the seller might not feel has done the best job possible. There is controversy around pest companies that issue reports and also accept payment for completion work.
Just stuff to think about before allowing your agent to automatically include in the purchase contract that the seller will pay for the pest report. You might want to reconsider how it has always been handled. If an agent is representing the seller, it might be a good idea for the agent to advise the seller to order the pest before receiving a purchase contract. That was the seller is in control. Likewise, if an agent is representing a buyer, the agent might recommend the buyer pay for a pest inspection as part of the inspections allowed under paragraph 14b1.
It depends on which side of the fence an agent sits.
If you take the last route, be sure to let the seller know a pest inspection is in the works. Otherwise, your pest inspector might meet that old guy out in the yard, waving his fist and screaming for the pest inspector to stop poking holes in his house.
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