Email ElizabethHow Responsible is a Sacramento Agent Whose Client Cancels?
There are Sacramento real estate agents who believe it is the other agent’s fault when a party to a real estate transaction cancels. I noticed this a few weeks ago when one of my sellers accepted an offer, and the Sacramento agent who wrote it seemed familiar to me. Like we had worked together in the past, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. So, I asked her if there was a reason her name rang a familiar bell with me.
Immediately, the agent apologized for her former client’s behavior. As though what had happened carried a stigma of some sort. I didn’t even recall the transaction. I searched for her name on my computer and found a sale in which she had submitted an offer, but I could not recall any details. It was a few years ago, and hundreds of real estate closings later. Whatever happened was water under the bridge.
I don’t believe it’s the other agent’s fault when a client cancels. Maybe that’s because I have sold hundreds of homes in Sacramento and, as a result, I realize that stuff happens — stuff that we can’t always control. Once, I had a seller start to cry when I brought him an offer. It was full price, everything he wanted. But that’s when the reality hit. He was too emotionally attached to his home and had relied on other reasons, things he had used as an excuse to sell, and he had talked himself into putting his home on the market. However, when it came right down to it, he didn’t really want to sell.
Was I going to beat him over the head and say: See ya in court, buddy? To a man who is in love with his house and made a mistake? That’s incredibly stupid on so many levels. I released him from the listing.
Agents we remember who “did us wrong” are agents who are unprofessional. Those who don’t return phone calls or, worse, scream into the phone, or refuse to submit required documentation, intentionally thwart transactions. Not agents whose sellers or buyers cancel an escrow. Sacramento real estate agents tend to hold other agents accountable for honesty, ethics, and doing the best job that they can. Not for how their clients react.
Agents this Sacramento agent remembers are those with whom I close escrow, not the others. Some agents who work with me end up in multiple transactions with me. They know I will be professional. That’s a good thing.
When a Sacramento Real Estate Agent Fails Communication 101
A good ol’ Midwestern work ethic never goes out of style, says this Sacramento real estate agent, who was raised in Minnesota. See, I do not see it as a drawback not to hail from the city where I work and live. In fact, in the overall scheme of things, I have lived longer in my second place of residence, Newport Beach (Orange County), than in Sacramento, as I’m celebrating only my 11th year in Sacramento this month, and worked in real estate in Orange County for 15 years.
But I survived the goofy pretentiousness of Orange County, and I made it through another bunch of 50-degrees-below-zero winters in Minnesota after that, so I can easily deal with Sacramento’s beautiful weather, friendly people and the occasional quirky agent. When I tell somebody I’ll be somewhere at a certain time, I hold up to that promise. When I say I’m presenting offers at a certain time in MLS, that’s what I do. If an agent or a client emails, sends me a text message or calls me, I’ll return the communication. But not every agent operates this way.
Some real estate agents don’t respond at all for days. All of us might wonder how do they get away with that kind of attitude, at the same time coupled with, hey, why can’t I behave that way? Yeah, a little bit of jealously, I suppose, that they get to screw off and the rest of us responsible agents don’t. Why can’t we all be rude?
It’s embarrassing to have to explain to clients that they can’t have an answer on an offer they wrote three days ago under an MLS deadline stipulation because the other agent doesn’t respond. Yet, it happens. So, how does one deal with the frustration of hearing the agent’s voicemail is full and there is no communication via text or email?
Realize we can’t change the other party. We can’t force an agent to conform or communicate. That person will dig his or her own grave. Being upset or irritated with an agent doesn’t make the process move any smoother or faster, either. After all, as agents we want our clients to win — we, as agents, don’t have to win in the process.
The way I personally deal with it is vow that I will never be that kind of real estate agent. We can only control our own behavior. Further, Sacramento has plenty of really good real estate agents who raise the bar just by walking on the other side of the street. Don’t let a bad agent here and there ruin your day.
Dental Implants and the Tug O’ War of Samsung vs iPhone
There is hardly a person alive on the planet today who hasn’t at one time or another thought about teeth. Well, there was that guy in the 1930s, living in isolation on Floreana in the Galapagos who had purposely yanked out all of his teeth so he wouldn’t need dental care, but that seems to be a bit radical. My late father-in-law’s second wife had all of her teeth removed, and so did my great grandmother. Bone loss can be hereditary.
As we get older, we sometimes need to replace our teeth when we lose bone. I am beginning to feel like bionic woman. I’ve got Fort Knox living in my mouth and none of it is gold. I had two dental implants drilled into my jaw several years ago and thought was the end of it. But when I heard the news from my dentist the other day, I felt like I was walking by a metal detector and whammo, my face slammed up against the machine, dragging my body, immobilizing movement. Magnetized.
Except I read that titanium, the stuff dental implants are made from, is not magnetic. Yes, I looked it up because it was something I was concerned about. Thanks to Breaking Bad, I have developed an interest in chemistry. TI, that’s the symbol for titanium. Atomic #22.
There comes a point when you say to yourself, how much longer am I going to live? It is worth it to go through the enormous process of bone grafts, sinus lifts, appliances, healing, drilling, healing and crowns, all of which can take anywhere from 6 months to two years? Wikipedia says dental implants are good for only 30 years.
And then I look at my new Apple 5S cellphone. That which I’ve been resisting. I just made the switch yesterday from Samsung to Apple. My life is all things Apple and has been since I first went online in 1991. For years I had faithfully used a BlackBerry before I made the agonizing switch to an Android. My newest Samsung Galaxy was my sidekick for 2 years. It’s hard to let go. I know the iPhone will make my real estate business run much more smoothly because my laptop, desktop computer and iPad are synched to the Cloud. The switch makes sense.
Until I met with a client yesterday, and she pulled out her brand new Samsung, with that big screen, even bigger than my old Samsung screen. Incredibly easy to read. A thing of beauty. For a moment, just a moment, I felt a twinge of envy and sorrow over the death of my old cellphone. My client had just done the opposite, switched from an iPhone to the new Samsung.
Everybody makes different choices that are best for them, and all of those choices are right. So, I guess I am getting more implants.
A Short Sale Home in Woodland Closes
The first time I spoke to a particular seller of a home in Woodland, this Sacramento real estate agent was in the middle of a four-day vacation in South Carolina at Hilton Head. My husband and I were driving across the island, searching for a restaurant featuring Gullah cuisine when my cellphone rang. The seller was such a refreshing voice to hear. A person who wanted my help. I like to help people, that’s why I sell real estate.
Unlike a caller earlier that day, a seller from Folsom who was furious because I had answered my phone “when I was not at home.” On a Sunday, no less. He expected me to physically be in Sacramento and was very upset that I was not, even though it didn’t make one hill of beans difference regarding the sale of his home in Folsom. He evidently believed that he knew better how to run my business than I. Not every seller is a rational person and not every seller makes sense.
This person yelled and screamed and was obnoxious. I offered to cancel the listing for him, since he was so irate. Nasty people? No time for them. So, it didn’t bother me in the least when he immediately listed with another agent at a higher price. Last I saw of his home he had canceled that listing 30 days later because no buyer in her right mind wanted to pay his price. Sometimes, these types of things are a blessing in disguise when I no longer have to deal with them.
The woman who called and needed my help wanted to sell a short sale home in Woodland as a short sale. Well, I sell hundreds of Sacramento short sales, so she came to the right person at the right time. Turned out she lived in North Carolina, and was astonished to hear I was driving around South Carolina. But she had confidence that I would sell her home. She had gone to my website and knew my experience and decades in the business. It didn’t matter to her that I was in Hilton Head at the moment.
Later that week, I met with the tenant who lived in the home in Woodland. I shot professional photographs, studied the comparable sales and the seller chose a sales price. Other real estate agents in Woodland expressed an opinion that they thought the price was too high but it was right on the money. We received an offer from a qualified buyer, the BPO came back at value, and the short sale home in Woodland closed yesterday.
The negotiations took 5 months. Two loans plus mortgage insurance, so approval was necessary from all three. The buyer waited patiently all of this time because the seller selected the right buyer from the beginning. An added bonus was the bank did not require a price increase because prices have gone up since then. That can happen with short sales that take a while to close, just fyi.
The thing is no matter where I am or what I am doing, this Sacramento real estate agent always tries to answer her phone. I continually work on selling my listings. I don’t turnover my work to an Elizabeth Weintraub Team member while I am on vacation, although I certainly could. Because I don’t have to be sitting behind my desk to sell real estate in the Sacramento Valley. That’s why we have laptops, iPads, cellphones and DocuSign. What matters is that I get the job done and my client is happy.
The Sacramento Real Estate Market Train
The fall real estate market in Sacramento is not at all how I pictured it would be. Usually, transitions are made slowly and you can see the danged train coming, but not this year. One day it was summer and the next, bare trees. This was a very abrupt change in the Sacramento real estate market. But like with all things in life, you’ve got to go with the flow and change with it.
Take home pricing, for example. Just a short while ago, a listing agent could advise her seller to price a home very aggressively. In fact, this Sacramento real estate agent would push ahead of the curve. Examine all of the comparable sales for the past 6 months, single out the best for the last 3 months, determine the direction they were moving, calculate the difference, pare it with the active listings to position and pad it a little. That strategy no longer works in today’s real estate market in Sacramento.
The reason it doesn’t work is because the attitude of buyers has changed. Buyers always drive the market, even if it’s a seller’s market. Today’s buyers are worried. They are worried that another bubble is around the corner, which it is not. They are worried about interest rates going up, as they should be concerned. They are worried about whether they’ll still have a job tomorrow and whether our government will ever get back to work.
Meanwhile, you’ve got REOs coming on the market at almost double the prices from last year. I just spotted another foreclosure this morning. This was a home that I had sold a year ago as a short sale, a cooperative short sale through Bank of America. We had the cooperative agreement signed from Bank of America and yet still the bank released the servicing just days before we were set to receive short sale approval. Bam. Now the file fell into the lap of Seterus, the seller no longer qualified for the short sale, and the home went to foreclosure.
Back on the market today, a year later, at almost double the cost. The comparables in that neighborhood do not support the price.
Today, it’s better to be sitting at the back of the train and watching where the train is moving. Catching glimpses of the front of the train going around the curve. That’s how a Sacramento real estate agent will know where the market is headed.
photo credit: White Pass Train at Skagway, Alaska, by Elizabeth Weintraub
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