Email ElizabethAbout Health and Safety Issues in a Sacramento Home Inspection
Those dreaded words for a home buyer after a home inspection — Health and Safety Issues — could mean life or death or it could mean federal regulation, get out of my face. The people who freak out over health and safety issues probably do not adhere to the 5-second rule. You know, if you drop a piece of food on the floor, you’ve got 5 seconds to pick it up and eat it before it becomes contaminated.
For example, an ungrounded receptacle into which a lamp is plugged is most likely not going to explode or burn down the house. Sometimes, people replace ungrounded receptacles with 3-prong receptacles, which are still ungrounded if attached to the same wiring. You can even find instances in which a homeowner has piggy-backed the neutral to make it appear grounded when a home inspector’s tester is plugged into the socket. In my own home, built in 1948, I have pulled Romex from the electrical box to new outlets for our electronic equipment, but I do not lose sleep over a lamp plugged into an ungrounded receptacle.
I have a healthy respect for electricity. After all, I am a person who once, by accident, stuck a fork into a receptacle when I was a kid. Then, after the shock wore off, I wasn’t really sure what had happened, so, just to be sure, I inserted said fork back into the receptacle. It’s a miracle I am alive today. Don’t ever do this.
A really good home inspector can explain the issues to a home buyer because, believe it or not, most agents are not certified home inspectors and don’t want to engage in conversations about this. The liability is too great. Yet, home buyers need help to understand a home inspection.
I’m a little jaded, I suppose, because I’ve worked on my own investment homes over the years and there’s not much I can’t do in the arena of home repair and maintenance. I can put on a roof, install a fireplace, cut holes in the ceiling for skylights, build a garage, finish off a lower level shell, all with my own two hands and aching back. Unless a home is sliding off its foundation or sinking into the ground, most defects can be fixed and are not necessarily a huge deal.
We recently had an escrow in which the buyers were terrified that the door to the garage was not fireproof. Notwithstanding the fact the home was built in the 1960s and hasn’t yet burned to the ground. They wanted the seller to install a fireproof door because their FHA appraiser noted it in the appraisal. This happened to be a short sale, which is sold AS IS. We had explained to the buyers that any repairs they wanted needed to be completed at their own expense, but somehow those words didn’t sink in, and when they spotted Health and Safety Issues in the home inspection, they became even more freaked out over it.
Agents get freaked out, too, but generally for a different reason than buyers. They don’t want to get sued. They know that a raised sidewalk is a trip hazard and could be called a Health and Safety Issue. They also know that if you can’t look where you’re walking, then don’t step off the curb and text; moreover, you should probably go home and lock yourself in the bathroom because you’re too inept to walk in the world among the rest of us.
Fortunately, the buyers finally came to their senses in that escrow and installed their own fireproof door in the garage. We closed yesterday, and the seller was ecstatic.
When a buyer purchases an older home, there will always be Health and Safety Issues because codes and regulations continually change. These “issues” probably not exist as a code when the home was built. Are they gonna kill you? Probably only if you don’t eat it in 5 seconds. Ask your home inspector.
Selling a Home in Sacramento and Offer Negotiation
A seller who is selling a home in Sacramento should not have to wonder if the buyers who just wrote an offer on her home really want to buy the house. I mean, what if I told you that I am willing to sell you a Ferrari for $10,000, but you say the sale is subject to your ability to find the money buried in a barrel Breaking Bad style out in the desert somewhere? Oh, and on top of that, at anytime, you can decide to renegotiate the price with me or ask me, if you like, to throw in, say, a year’s supply of gas and car washes for you. You’d probably think you hit pay dirt.
This is exactly what buying a home in Sacramento is like for some home buyers. The market is super hot for sellers of well-priced homes. Doesn’t matter if that home is located in Elk Grove or East Sacramento or Lincoln; if it’s priced right, the seller will probably quickly receive a full-price offer, if not multiple offers. On the other side, buyers don’t like to compete with multiple offers. It’s just a mindset though. Because buyers are competing the minute they step foot inside a home for sale where another buyer has recently been.
Lately, I’ve been encountering buyers who must think they are clever. Their idea is to lock down the home immediately by promising the seller everything the seller is asking for and, after a few weeks have passed and all of the other buyers have gone away, then they will ask for a price reduction or a credit. I sell more homes than most agents, and I see this tactic used over and over. It’s not enough to elicit a promise from the buyer that a home is sold AS IS because some buyers conveniently forget about that promise.
In one situation, I reminded the seller that the buyer might not know any better. The buyer might be getting pushed by relatives or friends who say that even though the buyer promised to not ask for a repair, the buyer should demand a new HVAC installation. Because you never know. Sometimes, sellers cave. I don’t like to see buyers and sellers at each other’s throats when there is no reason for it.
However, the seller pointed out that this was no first-time home buyer who was buying his home in Roseville. Nope, this was a retired guy over the age of 65. The seller said the buyer knew exactly what he was doing. Maybe. Age is really no guarantee, but the seller could be right.
This Sacramento real estate agent sometimes advises her sellers to issue a counter offer when an offer comes in at full price, quickly and with a shortened time frame for acceptance. The counter is not about price. It’s about performance.
If the buyer blows a fuse because the seller insists upfront upon no renegotiations down the road, well, what does that tell you? Buyers always have the right to cancel within the contract default period of 17 days for any reason — but once a buyer commits to buy a home, the negotiations should really be pretty much over. Particularly in today’s real estate climate. There is nothing wrong with pointing out to a buyer that AS IS in the residential purchase contract means AS IS. It doesn’t mean maybe.
You can shake hands all you want, but a pen to paper is always better. If you’re thinking about selling your home in the Sacramento metro area, call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916 233 6759. Put 40 years of experience to work for you.
Where is the American River Bike Trail in Old Sacramento?
Have you ever wondered where to find the American Bike Trail in Old Sacramento? It doesn’t matter which direction you come into Old Sacramento, from the North or the South, the bike trail disappears. ?That’s because you’ve got tourist attractions, old wooden boardwalks and cobblestone streets, all of which is hazardous to riding a bike.
Nothing against the broasted-chicken-legged serious bike riders in Sacramento, I’m just a regular old-lady bicyclist with a pink Townie, featuring upright handlebars. Most days I take a bike ride before dinner. It’s a great way to interact with nature, get a little exercise and ponder all of the incredible crap that happens in Sacramento real estate every day; thrusts me into a different environment. Every day I almost kill myself, too.
Why do we have to ride with traffic? That seems so insane. I’d much rather look the driver in the eyes before I am sprawled with my face smushed against his windshield. I don’t like trusting other drivers not to hit me because half of them are morons. So, sometimes I ride on the sidewalks and almost mow down pedestrians. I ride on the wrong side of the street. So, sue me. I’ve ridden on those raised boardwalks in Old Sacramento, too, looking for the bike trail in vain, vibrating like crazy, and almost losing my cellphone, which is attached to my handlebars. I’m lucky my Jawbone didn’t bounce out of my pocket.
For lunch yesterday, it seemed like a good idea to stroll through Old Sacramento with my husband on our collective four feet and look for the bike trail. Old Sacramento is a smaller version of Skagway, Alaska, a town Robin Williams called the End of the World. We discovered a new store there called The Chefs’ Olive Mix. It’s on the corner of Second Street and J. The retail section is set up with stainless steel urns on the top shelves and the bottom shelves are filled with product, mostly balsamics and olive oils from all over the world.
You can sample fabulous olive oils and check the polyphenol percentages, the higher the percentage the more intense the flavor. I tasted the truffle salt. Word of warning, don’t lick a big ol’ handful of truffle salt because the taste will not leave your mouth. Not even after you fork out $1.76 for two pieces of candy at Candyland and carefully suck on that cherry Tootsie Roll Pop. The truffle will linger.
However, Eureka, we did find the bike trail. Because I ride from my home in Land Park, I hop on the American River Bike Trail from Broadway heading north, but you can also pick up the bike trail from Front Street past the Animal Shelter. Either way, once you reach the Tower Bridge, the trail will disappear. This means you’ve got to drive in traffic down Second Street, dodge the horses and little kids, or navigate through the throngs gathered in front of Joe’s Crab Shack and the Delta Queen. Those tourists just stand there and spin around directionless like they can’t believe where they are, watching pigeons poop.
There is no sign for the bike trail until you get there. But from Second Street, if you take a left, head west, at the Railroad Museum and go past the old-timey hardware store, cross the train tracks, there is the American River Bike Trail. If you’re coming from the north, just head toward Tower Bridge and Embassy Suites.
Photos: Elizabeth Weintraub
Three New Home Listings in Sacramento Metro
As a Sacramento real estate agent who lists a lot of homes, I’ve got to replenish inventory that closes with more homes for sale. It’s the same with anything in life. If I run low on milk, for example, I might have to stop by the store on the way home and pick up another carton. I apply the same principle to items in my own home. If I buy a new piece of furniture or article of clothing, something else must go out the door. It’s a system of checks and balances. It also means after a few homes close escrow, more homes had better go on the market or this agent would soon run out of homes to sell.
Fortunately, the replenish system has been working well for me. I love to sell homes, even if I have to sell homes twice. You’d kind of expect that to happen in a short sale but not in a regular real estate transaction. Two homes that should have closed escrow last month did not, and they canceled. Both were traditional sales involving buyers who could not get a loan at the very last minute. The files sat in underwriting and were spit out. Denied.
Both sellers were understandably distressed and dismayed. I get their pain. In one situation, I told the seller that I was confident we would put the home back on the market, sell it for more money, and he’d look back at this particular cancellation and say it’s the best thing that could have happened. That was my intuition talking.
I love it when my intuition is right. It generally is, and I can rely on it. That’s exactly what happened, too. The next buyer paid cash, no appraisal. In the other sale, the replacement buyer had written a contingent offer. Sellers are often wary of contingent offers, but they can also be used as a benefit. And the contingent offer buyer removed the contingency within a couple of weeks and closed as well. Both of these escrows closed on Friday.
I’ve replaced these two sales with three more listings: An energy-efficient home in West Sacramento near the river at $240,000. An Elk Grove home, updated kitchen with granite counters, new appliances and wood floors, featuring 4-5 bedrooms, more than 2,700 square feet, turn-key ready at $395,000. These homes are open for viewing this afternoon. And last, but not least, a short sale home in Sacramento near Calvine, offering allergy-free floors, 3 bedrooms, formal living room with a brick fireplace and cozy family room at $225,000. Check out my new listings:
142 4th Street, West Sacramento, CA 95605
A Perfect Storm Short Sale Denied
With the exception of an FHA short sale, I can’t recall the last time this Sacramento short sale agent lost a short sale. Every short sale I do in Sacramento pretty much closes as long as the seller doesn’t give up. It is extremely unusual and rare for a bank to deny a short sale these days. I’ve been selling and negotiating short sales since 2006, so that’s about 8 years, and back when short sales started, maybe half were accepted. Not so today.
Today, it’s about 100% that close, and I’ve closed hundreds of short sales. Because banks generally prefer a short sale vs foreclosure. Properties are most likely in better condition, which helps them sell for more money; and there is a pool of buyers who believe a short sale is a good deal even when it’s not.
To close a short sale, the transaction needs to be a round peg that fits into a round hole. Follow the rules and the short sale is approved.
To over simplify, the basic rules are this:
- Seller must qualify
- Sales price is market value
Sellers often ask me how I know their short sale will be approved, and it’s based on those two factors. But sometimes the investor guidelines stipulate that the bank cannot do a short sale. PSA agreements can make it more profitable for the bank to foreclose. We don’t have access to the PSA agreements as mere real estate agents, so we won’t know for certain whether the PSA will kick out the short sale until a package has been submitted and reviewed.
We can get around that problem by submitting for a HAFA short sale. Most of the banks participate in the HAFA short sale program, as long as the investor is not a government entity. Government-sponsored entities have revamped their own program versions. But when a bank does not participate in HAFA in 2013, that is probably a red flag.
You would think the bank could disclose upfront. You know, read the guidelines and say nope, don’t bother submitting. That would be too intelligent and logical. Two words that don’t describe the American banking system. Instead, they put everybody through the song and dance before slamming hopes.
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