Email ElizabethWhen Buyers in Sacramento Refuse to Close Escrow
Keeping up the spirits when buyers refuse to close escrow is an art form in itself. Not only do I need to keep myself pumped and ecstatic to move forward, but my primary focus as a real estate agent is to help my sellers move past the disappointment and crushed feelings. Sellers aren’t just unhappy when a buyer cancels, they are often furious. They would like to stomp on the heads of those buyers and drop the assholes into the river in cement shoes.
Me? I just lost a commission and money is replaceable. Another buyer will eventually show up. But the seller has lost a lot more. Sellers lose hope. Whatever plans a seller has had in the works for after the closing are put on hold or, worse, permanently canceled after a buyer walks out the door. It can be a life-changing event.
During escrow, it’s common for sellers to put their emotional attachments and any unwelcome baggage associated with the home into the past, but when a buyer cancels it all comes rushing back at them. It’s as though they failed in their mission. It’s heartbreaking, and buyer’s agents don’t ever see this side of the business. They skip merrily on their way to buy another home with their buyers and don’t look back.
After the feelings settle down a little bit, the sellers often want to sue the buyer. I understand that sentiment. Unfortunately, buyers in Sacramento have 15 ways from Sunday to cancel a contract while in the contingency contract period. If they cancel during that time period, they get their earnest money back.
Isn’t there some way to get that good faith deposit when buyers refuse to close? Not really. Not if there are contingencies in force. Unfortunately, no matter how well a seller qualifies a buyer, there is never an assurance that a buyer won’t refuse to close escrow. In squirrelly markets, cancellations can happen more often than not. Rely on your Sacramento real estate agent to help guide and navigate. I am here for my clients, especially if it gets rough.
You Never Forget How to Ride a Bicycle
No matter how hectic being a Sacramento real estate agent is for me, I always try to set aside some time over the weekend to enjoy an adventure, something totally unrelated to real estate. There comes a point when I must pull my head out of my computer and go outside. And not just to take a listing, which is a lot of fun in itself, but to do something completely different. It keeps me refreshed, motivated and focused during the week. Agents who don’t take a little time off now and then can burn out.
Besides, I have just put another listing into escrow this weekend, an unusual property in Orangevale. Negotiation of a sale to fruition is generally a good cause for celebration. It’s not easy to put a sale into escrow when the seller doesn’t have email nor a computer. This is where having the luxury of 17 Lyon Real Estate offices around the Sacramento Valley comes in very handy. Without satellite locations for me to work in, I’d have to make several roundtrips by car to obtain signatures, which can eat up half an afternoon. It’s not the best use of my time, driving around. The best use of my time is talking with a client and advising a client.
Sliding my cellphone into my wristlet, my husband and I ventured off into Midtown. Although we live in Land Park, we often walk to Midtown because, well, because we have two feet and we can walk. The weather was beautiful. Homes in Midtown are unique and interesting. And all of that walking helped to burn up some calories we probably packed on after a stop for Dim Sum at New Canton on Broadway, but hey, a person can get hungry walking around.
It was about then that the thought popped into my head that perhaps I should buy a new bicycle. I don’t really like the bicycle I have. It was not a bike I picked out myself. It was a Christmas present one year from one of my ex-husbands who didn’t really know what he was doing. This was during the 1980s, and the doofus bought me a silver touring bike to ride around town, super skinny tires, turned-down handle bars (hard on the back) and one of those cross bars that if you fell on it, yowza, you don’t forget the pain. It’s also oversized for me, and it’s been hanging up in the garage for years gathering dust.
We headed over to the bike shop in Midtown on 24th & K Street: City Bicycle Works. This bike shop has a lot of inventory. If there’s a drawback to living in Sacramento, it’s the fact that most stores in town, regardless of what you want to buy, lack inventory. I was really attracted to the Bianchi bike in the photo on top of this page, but I ended up buying a hot pink Electra Townie (to the right). It has a basket to hold that imaginary cat who someday will want to ride with me, a chrome bell to warn those in my path to get the #$%& out of my way and, of course, a cellphone caddy.
Unfortunately, my new bike would not fit in the back of my husband’s Prius, so I rode it home. It was only 3 miles. Truth was I could not wait to get on it. There are bike lanes all over Midtown, but the ride down T Street under the shaded tree canopy was especially lovely. The other aspect I found to be especially enjoyable was being able to tap the bike pedal backwards to slow down. It’s one of those instinctive things a person like me would recall from when I first learned how to ride a bike in the 1950s. That feature is back in these new models. I guess they know their market for nostalgic town bikes.
Maybe today, after listing a pool home in Carmichael, I’ll take an hour off and head over to the river by Old Sacramento and zip down the levee. If you spot a woman on a pink bike with a cellphone attached to handlebars and her ponytail flying, wave hello.
Why Buyers Should Talk to their Sacramento Neighbors
If you think your neighbors don’t matter when you buy a home in Sacramento — or anywhere for that matter — think again. I could not imagine a smart person buying a home in a neighborhood without talking to the neighbors and, perhaps, even asking the neighbors what they think about each other. Some people love to gossip.
My parents didn’t do that when I was growing up. They bought a home and did not talk to the neighbors in 1955 in a brand new subdivision called Heritage Homes, located in the Village of Circle Pines, an isolated area at the time about 15 minutes outside of Minneapolis. Our neighbors, the Palmquists — I vividly recall those horrid people and their hoard of little brats to this day — were absolutely unbearable. Apart from letting their lawn die, throwing trash all over the yard — such an eyesore — and their screaming, yelling and drunken brawls at all hours of the night, the kids were hoodlums who would steal toys in bright daylight right out of our yard. One of the Palmquist kids stuck a water hose into my bedroom window and turned it on full blast.
To try to put a stop to this kind of behavior, I stuffed one of the little Palmquist girls into my red wagon and pulled her out into the field across the street. A field that was converted into an ice rink in the winter but in the summer was blanketed with stickers. After a stern lecture and warning, I removed her shoes, dumped her in the field and left.
Fortunately, the neighbors on my street of homes in Land Park are wonderful. We stop when we see each other outside and talk. It’s a quiet street with very little traffic, only a block long. It’s rare for anybody who doesn’t live here to walk down our street or drive by. It’s like an oasis. There were a couple of neighbors whom some people didn’t much care for and they moved away.
Neighborhoods can change. We’ve been lucky throughout the ups and downs of the Sacramento real estate market that we’ve had only one short sale on our street. Imagine the economic make-up of areas where everybody paid half a million or more for their homes and those very homes are now worth $200,000 or so. That’s assuming, of course, that those individuals who overpaid could afford it at the time they bought.
One of my clients, a seller who had owned a home in an upscale community of million-dollar homes, recently closed escrow. Homes in that neighborhood are now selling around $400,000. He held a liquidation sale the last few days of his occupancy, and some of his neighbors who served on the board of his HOA showed up and tried to stop him from having the sale. They even sent security guards over to his house to stop the sale. They videotaped his wife screaming at their rude behavior, such a mild mannered and sweet woman otherwise. This is what neighbors can do.
You’re not just buying a home; you’re buying a neighborhood. Talk to the neighbors before buying a home.
A Sacramento Real Estate Agent’s Words and Photography
Almost every Sacramento real estate agent who knows me realizes that I will help out other real estate agents when they’re in a pickle. If they need my help or advice, I’m generally available to give it to them. I’m not sure if it’s my sense of responsibility to the profession, the fact that I’ve been in the real estate business for almost 40 years, or if my willingness to reach out to other real estate agents is because I might have been a teacher in an earlier life if it had paid enough, which it doesn’t. (It’s appalling how poorly paid teachers are, the backbone of our society.)
That’s why it’s puzzling when I see a Sacramento real estate agent swipe my content or photographs and try to use my personal creations as the agent’s own without permission. It’s even more confusing when an agent in my own company plagiarizes, but it happens. We’ve got almost 1,000 agents and I don’t know all of them — although, last year I ranked as the #2 agent, a top agent at Lyon. Here is an instance that occurred recently.
Earlier this year, a seller came to me to sell a home. It wasn’t located in the Med Center but this seller wanted to receive the higher Med Center prices. Another agent probably would have refused to accept such a listing, but I try not to be that judgmental. Plus, I liked the seller. Sellers can change their minds down the road, a rogue buyer can pop up out of nowhere, real estate markets can change with the wind; I just want to help and be the Sacramento real estate agent who sells it.
I developed an extensive marketing plan designed specifically for this client, put the home on the market, and a short while later the seller received a very fair offer and rejected it. At that point, a prominent party in the seller’s life pushed the seller to change agents. Or, that was the story. It doesn’t matter. I will always cancel a listing if a seller asks me to do it — which is so rare I can pretty much count on one hand the number of seller-requested cancellations. Other agents will often make a seller stick to the term length of the listing, but not this Sacramento real estate agent. There’s no point. Not to mention, I prefer to generate tons of glowing Elizabeth Weintraub reviews.
This morning, I spot the listing pop up again in MLS in my daily hot list. I’m perusing the marketing comments, and they sounded so familiar to me. Why, those marketing comments were something that I would write. I can recognize my own prose because I have my own definite style.
It was odd, I thought, when the seller asked a few days ago if the new real estate agent could use my photographs. If the agent needed my photos, the agent needs to ask me, which the agent did not. If a client wants my photography, I gladly supply a CD of my professional photos at closing. I use a high-end Nikon digital camera with a Tamron 18 / 24 wide-angle lens, and I’ve sold some of my photography to newspapers over the past 40 years. I’m proficient with Photoshop. My photographs make a home sparkle and shine! No wonder the seller coveted the home photos.
I suspect some sellers don’t give us enough credit for what we agents do. They don’t really understand that when they hire a Sacramento real estate agent, they are hiring the entire package. They get top-notch photography and my years of marketing experience to write the ad copy, on top of my excellent, says my clients, communication and negotiation skills. It doesn’t mean another agent can snatch my photos nor my words.
I’m sure there will be some lame excuse from the agent simply because I called the agent on it: I ran out of gas, I had a flat tire, I didn’t have enough money for cab fare, my tux didn’t come back from the cleaners, an old friend came in from outta town, someone stole my car, there was an earthquake — a terrible flood, locusts, it wasn’t my fault, I swear to god. (Excuses Credit: John Belushi.) I wrote to the agent this morning to say I had no idea my words were so brilliant that she needed to copy them word-for-word.
If the agent is that desperate, the agent can have my words. That which I have been educated to do and worked for years to perfect. Just take it. The agent obviously needs it or the agent would not have swiped it. If the agent were standing on a street corner holding a sign that said I don’t want to work, I’d still throw the agent a $20 bill.
If you want the real thing, the whole package, a Sacramento real estate agent who knows how to sell your home, including how to market it, then call Elizabeth Weintraub. Don’t try to hire a substitute.
Hiring a Sacramento Real Estate Agent From the Internet
If you never met me in person, you would probably think I was at least 6-feet tall. That’s because there are advantages and disadvantages to meeting your Sacramento real estate agent in person. Actually, I think I look just like my photo, and I’d look even more like my photo if I had a photo on my webpage of Susan Lucci. OK, I’ve wandered into delusion-ville, but people do say I remind them of her but perhaps that’s in reference to the number of ex-husbands I’ve killed off or kicked to the curb.
You may find this difficult to believe, but oh, my God, Susan Lucci is not the first thing that clients say when they meet me. They say: You’re so much shorter in person. If they don’t say it, they’re thinking it, or I’m wearing my 6-inch heels and they’re uncertain.
When I was much younger, friends used to say they were afraid of me until they got to know me. After we hung out for a while, it was then that they realized I’m really very easy going and down-to-earth. I get it; I have a strong personality because I voice strong opinions and, I guess in print, I come across as tall as Michael Jordan when I’m really much shorter, more like Mickey Rooney.
I say this because people’s impressions can be skewed before they get to know a person or meet them in the real world. Take, for example, my recent trip to the Superior Court to serve on Jury Duty in Sacramento.
There I was, sitting in the jury selection box, along with 3 rows of other people, thinking to myself how fortunate I was that my court-wearing outfit so nicely complemented the grey and pale yellow tear-drop pattern in the plush seating. Somebody had to purposely choose that pattern and color combination for a courtroom. I hope the design decision didn’t go to committee: Orange, orange, I think inmates are tired of orange. Black, red, too racist. It was then that my eyes flickered over to the table situated before the judge and at the people seated at the table.
Whoa, Nellie, I thought to myself: Since when do they let meth freaks become lawyers? I realize I’m a bit out of touch with the younger generation sometimes, but that seemed to be taking things a bit too far. I mean, a lawyer should dress up for court and perhaps brush her hair, put on some makeup, and not appear before the bench with a blotchy face looking like a drug addict. But that’s kids for ya.
Then the judge appeared and welcomed everybody and gave us the speech about how we must presume the defendant is innocent unless we hear all of the facts and evidence of the case that could prove otherwise. The judge read the charges against the defendant, which were driving under the influence of drugs. It was then that I realized that person at the table was no lawyer.
That was Amy Sedaris. I swear, deadringer for Amy Sedaris in her role as Jerri in Strangers With Candy. If you were in that Sacramento Superior courtroom that day, I know you would agree. She even sported the same goofy smile, turned down at the corners. Stringy hair. Pants that dragged the floor. How lucky was this? Amy Sedaris’ character was in the same courtroom with me.
Uh, oh.
I was hosed. I knew it.
There was no way I could presume that defendant innocent. She was guilty as hell and I knew it. Even though I wanted to perform my civic duty, I could not in good conscience serve on that jury. No way, Jose.
See, this is what happens when we meet people in person. We form opinions. We make judgments. We rely on our gut. And sometimes people don’t want to go into a real estate transaction unless they meet their Sacramento real estate agent, even though that’s not always possible or even necessary.
Last weekend I met with sellers from the Bay area before listing a duplex in Midtown Sacramento. We’d been talking about the property by phone and email for a while, but they really wanted to meet in person, so I accommodated them. Now, I’m certain they feel much more comfortable after hiring me as their listing agent.
On the other hand, I just closed a short sale this week in Citrus Heights, which I’ve been working on since March. Like I do after all my transactions record, I called the seller to let him know I had received confirmation. We talked a little bit about how we had never met in person. He was OK with it, although I suspect it was a little bit strange for him on the concept side, yet not odd on the implementation side. I did a good job, he said, as I got his daughter a relocation incentive, and I made the process very easy for him.
I sell a lot of real estate for out-of-town sellers whom I never meet. I also sell a lot of real estate for sellers I meet face-to-face and shake their hands. Either way, virtual or real world, you’ll get good service from this Sacramento real estate agent. No crackhead here.
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