Email ElizabethFor Whom Does This Sacramento Real Estate Agent Blog?
Blogging is not the same thing as journalism. I mean, you know that, and I know that, but a few years from now, none of the young ‘uns will know it. There are people today who think online is the only place to get their news. They wouldn’t dream of unfolding newsprint from the front porch. Still, that doesn’t stop people from writing and asking me to write in-depth pieces that suit their own purposes, all in the name of public information, mind you.
They preface it with because I have so many readers, it is my civic duty to inform. I could have a lot of readers if I decided to tag the public sidewalk. Doesn’t mean a tagger should be delivering messages from public or private servants. A tagger’s work is self expression, much like blogging.
I write a blog because I write; because my computer is on my desk. It’s where I sit. Hopefully, I have something to say about real estate that’s not boring or stupid. Moreover, I hope that a client will read what I have to say and think we might be a good match to work together, but I also hope other types of clients will read what I have to say and leave me alone. That’s why I’m never afraid to say exactly what I think.
Just ask my husband; I offend him all the time. I asked for his help with an ad over the weekend. Given the changed real estate market, I decided it was a good idea to address the present day market. He fed me a line and asked me what I thought. I told him it wouldn’t work because it was stupid. This is not something I would say to a client, mind you. I would not tell a client if I thought her idea was stupid. I would use a different word. Like, impossible. Or, wait, how about inconceivable? Like that guy used in the Princess Bride!
Doesn’t matter because he stomped off and told me to do it myself. But the thing is his idea was kind of Donald Duck stupid on several levels. It just wouldn’t work. It was confusing, and it didn’t really address the point I wanted to make. Yet, my husband continues to try to help me when I need it. I tell you, he’s a saint. He also knows my heart is in the right place. Inside my body where it’s supposed to be, and not in a box stored in a vault waiting for some witch to crush the life out of it.
I have a new listing that came on the market today. It’s a gorgeous brick home in Curtis Park. Four bedrooms, 2 baths and over 1700 square feet. Updated kitchen. Spacious master suite. Hardwood floors, leaded glass, plus a 2-car garage. All for $369,000. Give this Sacramento real estate agent a ring at 916 233 6759, and I’ll get you a private showing before the open house on Sunday. Just don’t ask me to blog about your real estate cause because I’m trying to keep up with my own.
The Problems With Cash Investors in Sacramento
I’ve had investors call to ask if I was an “investor friendly” real estate agent. That seems to be such an odd question. You’ve got to wonder why an investor would ask such a thing. Because a Sacramento real estate agent is happy to list or sell a home for any type of person. It doesn’t matter if the person is a corporation, an owner occupant or a celebrity. We’ll do it because that’s our business. So, if a person is asking if we are “investor friendly,” you wonder what that means. I suspect it means they want something out of the ordinary.
When an investor is deliberately seeking out and talking to a Sacramento real estate agent who primarily handles listing — like this Sacramento real estate agent — it means the cash investors in Sacramento expect priority over other offers, and that’s just not gonna happen. To give an investor priority would mean I was breaking my fiduciary with my primary — my seller — and I won’t do it. It doesn’t mean other agents won’t, though, which is why investors ask. Sorry business this is sometimes.
But there are other problems with offers from cash investors in Sacramento. First, when I am representing the seller, and I see an offer from an investor, I look at the agent who delivered the offer. There are agents who are wholly intimidated by investors and the investors can push them around. Maybe it’s because the investors have more money than the agent or perhaps even more experience. Hard to say. But it’s not like the agent is most likely able to sit down and reason with the investor as an agent might do with an owner occupant. Lots of times the investor calls the shots 100% and is in control.
Second, sometimes the offers are written as all-cash and presented as all-cash offers and they are not. I question whether that’s legal. I don’t think it is. But it doesn’t stop them from doing it. Nobody gives a dang what I think. But a cash offer is an offer in which the seller presents proof of funds and those are the proof of funds the investor intends to use to purchase the property. It’s not supposed to be a smoke screen while the investor trots off and acquires a hard-money loan. A hard money loan is not cash. It doesn’t matter that there is no appraisal, it’s not cash. It doesn’t matter that the hard-money lender has always performed in the past for the investor, it’s not cash. Stop presenting hard money loans as cash offers, you guys. It’s a lie. It’s deceiving.
If you want to present an offer that looks like cash but is not, it is much better to reserve the right to obtain a hard-money loan. Otherwise, present the offer as cash only if you have the cash and intend to use it. This “reserving the right” works very well on short sales. If an investor presents the offer the other way around, as a hard-money loan with the right to pay all-cash, it weakens the offer in the eyes of the short sale bank. So, an investor can write an all-cash offer, present proof of funds for that cash, and then put a line in the offer that says he or she reserves the right to obtain a hard-money loan. Then, you’ve got disclosure, in my opinion. But I’m not a lawyer and this is not legal advice.
The third problem with all-cash offers from investors is sometimes the investors are writing a bunch of offers at one time, although they can only buy one or two properties. I advise my sellers not to get all excited when we receive an offer from cash investors in Sacramento, especially when the buyer’s agent says he will need the full 72-hours to get us an answer back. If he needs 3 days, he could be buying time for the other offers to respond so he can pick among them.
Which brings me to the fourth problem with all-cash offers. The home inspection. Every home inspection will disclose defects. A cash investor will say he or she is buying the home in its “as is” condition, but as soon as the home inspection is delivered, he or she might comb through it and pull out a number of items, assign a dollar figure, and then ask for a price reduction. Because investors don’t care; it’s just a business transaction to them.
You might read this and wonder why anybody would sell to an investor or that I am dead-set against investors, and that’s not true. I work with investors. Just sayin’, beware.
Constructive Criticism and Sacramento Real Estate
Some people think they are helping to improve a delicate situation by providing what they call “constructive criticism.” I have long been an opponent of constructive criticism. Not even somebody who hails from the South — with all of its sweet and enduring euphemisms — can pull it off. There is no way to tell a person that you’re about to say something really horrible about them, but it’s for their own good . . . and they’ll thank you later. Because it’s not and they won’t.
No matter how you cut it, constructive criticism is criticism. It’s judgmental. It says one person knows better than another. It’s one thing if it’s parent to child; it’s another if it’s peer to peer. In my own real estate practice, I try never to correct another person, because even though I might believe my way is the best way to do something, they might not. If another agent asks for my help, for example, I will give it, freely. But I don’t ordinarily try to fix somebody else’s problems without permission, and that’s what constructive criticism is, trying to correct a problem that you don’t have permission to address.
I don’t want to get involved in other people’s wars, either. I’m a good bullet dodger, and that’s what I do. I dodge bullets.
I love to sell real estate. I love to talk to people about real estate, I love the negotiation and the thrill of closing. There’s where I focus my time. So, it’s not that I’m avoiding those who call and want me to participate in their cause, it’s just that I’m focused elsewhere.
If you want to sell or buy a home in the Sacramento area, call Elizabeth Weintraub. I’ll be direct with you and brutally honest, but I’ll never offer constructive criticism.
A Good Reason to Do HAFA Short Sales in Sacramento
Several years ago, no Sacramento short sale agent I know was very happy with the way government short sales were run. But today it’s a different story. At least for the HAFA short sales. I am a Certified HAFA Specialist. It’s one of the few designations I felt it was important to get because it’s a certification in which I could learn something that I did not already know. A HAFA short sale is complicated because each is a little bit different, depending on the lender, and the Supplementals just keep coming. But every so often, you hit pay dirt.
I just closed a HAFA short sale over in Del Paso Manor. This was a home that the seller had tried to do a loan modification on for about two years. In fact, I don’t think she made a payment for two years while she struggled with this loan modification. Ocwen gave her the runaround like many banks do with loan modifications. I suspect, and I don’t know this to be a fact, but I suspect that banks really prefer to do a short sale. And whenever I am faced with a really difficult short sale, say, one in which the seller has, oh, over a million dollars in the bank, I will do a HAFA short sale. The guy with the million bucks did not live in Del Paso Manor.
I’m not telling you which of my short sales is or was the one with a guy who has over a million dollars in the bank. Just suffice to say that I suspect banks are a bit more lenient when granting a HAFA short sale than they are to do a traditional short sale. Believe it or not, the paperwork is reduced for a HAFA short sale these days. Not only that, but as long the boxes are checked and the hardship verified, the bank will probably not ask about the million dollars in the bank while processing a HAFA.
Banks get paid to do a HAFA short sale. The government pays the banks. The government will allow up to $3,000 as a relocation incentive payment to the seller as long as the seller occupies the home. Otherwise, that money goes to the tenant or it’s just not allowed if the home is vacant. But just because the seller might not receive a relocation incentive is no reason not to do a HAFA if your short sale appears to have no hardship. Think about this. Because as a Sacramento short sale agent, I surely do. It’s why I close so many short sales in Sacramento!
Not to mention, this is an excellent way for the banks to show the Feds that they are complying with all of those lawsuits. I’m telling ya, in many instances, HAFA is the way to go. Find yourself a Certified HAFA Specialist.
Note: The HAFA short sale time period expires on December 31, 2013. They are also no longer available for Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Also, despite the illustration, no sign in your yard will say short sale on it.
When Will Home Prices Double in Sacramento?
“When my home is worth a gazillion dollars, call me.” That’s what a former client expressed this morning. It put a smile on my face, and it was a good thing to wake up to find in my email. It makes me realize that as a Sacramento real estate agent, I need to keep in the back of my mind that we are all a sum of our total experiences. Most sellers do not really know anything about real estate or how it works — even though they might think they do — because they are not in the real estate business and / or they didn’t focus on economics much less real estate in college.
We can’t forget our roots, from whence we came. At one point in my life, I knew very little about real estate. Back when I was crawling around on all fours. After I gained an upright position and could jump rope and tie my shoes, I began an early fascination with real estate. I built houses out of sandboxes. Later, of course, I learned much from college courses, mentors, books, and the very best learning ground: first-hand experience. That means I probably made mistakes from which I learned. That was about 40 years ago, but I still try to keep those moments in time in check and myself grounded in reality.
A former client called yesterday in a panic because she thought for certain that I had sent her the wrong document to sign. For some reason, she did not read the lone sentence on the document, which gave her exactly what she wanted. No, she insisted that I send her a different form that we do not use. Then, she dove into further panic mode because she had signed the document in DocuSign and that was not her signature on the document. How could that be legal, she asked?
We are all a sum of our total experiences.
However, that does not explain how Kevin Spacey acquired that upper-crust Southern accent when his character’s father was a peach farmer. I’m talking about that great Netflix show: House of Cards. I suppose it comes from hanging around with other aristocrats. You don’t have to grow up with it.
I am also excited about Game of Thrones. First, let me say I am no Scarlett O’Hara. I am not clutching a handful of dirt thrust into the air and crying as God is my witness, but I do remember my roots. And I try to stay true to who I am. I grew up in the Midwest, in Minnesota. I relate to that pull-herself-up-by-her-bootstraps character, the Khaleesi. Something I read described her as the balls of a man and the heart of a woman. I appreciate strong women, and it makes the show interesting to me because it wouldn’t be interesting if it was just about men fighting. I get enough of that excitement from third-party mortgage brokers who can’t fund. Only thing is I don’t have any dragons. I have cats, but almost the same thing. Except they can’t breathe fire or explain to clients that I will be dead and gone by the time their $300,000 home is worth again $600,000 in Sacramento.
Sorry we are experiencing system issues. Please try again.
