Email ElizabethDoes Your Sacramento Agent Want to Buy Your Home?
I’ve heard from a couple of buyer’s agents lately who have been, in one agent’s own words, “hoarding” homes in Sacramento from their buyers. This is such a great real estate market in Sacramento right now that some agents are saying forget buyers, I want that house! Is your agent in competition with you? You might want to ask. Does your agent want to buy your home?
This is not to say anything bad about another Sacramento real estate agent because real estate agents have always had first shot at homes, and some of them go into the business strictly to get an upper hand. They want the best deals. There is nothing wrong necessarily if you find an agent who wants to buy your home, just like any other investor. But a buyer might not want to compete with an agent. Especially a first-time home buyer.
Heck, I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t say sometimes I was tempted to want to buy my own listings, but I don’t do it. It’s a conflict of interest to me. I don’t know how other agents do it. How can you tell a seller that you are trying to get the highest offer and then make it your own offer? We’re not that generous. People believe whatever they repeat to themselves long enough, I suppose.
Do you want your agent’s leftover crumbs? The homes your agent couldn’t buy at an attractive enough price? You might want to ask before hiring a buyer’s agent if you’ll be expected to compete. This is a strange market and strange times.
Road Rage and the Sacramento Real Estate Agent
I have a frame around the license plate on my car that features my name and the name of my brokerage. Other agents ask me if I don’t worry that identifying myself on the road could have consequences on my real estate business if I were to do something so rude as to cut off another driver in traffic. See, that thought never occurred to me because being rude on the road is not something I would do. I’d much rather be rude in person, thank you very much — just kidding!
The fact is if I see people waiting to cross the street, I stop my car and let them cross. Especially if they are standing in the crosswalk because pedestrians have the right-of-way in California. It also gives me 5 seconds to check email. I move far away from people on bicycles when I drive past them. When I spot a vehicle merging on the freeway, I either speed up to get out of their way or I slow down to let them in, but I don’t try to impede the merge. I am not an angry driver. Other drivers don’t make me mad unlike some people I know — whom I won’t name because I want my dinner served hot and not cold tonight.
My focus is to get from Point A to Point B in one piece. It’s nice if I enjoy the journey along the way but it’s not a requirement. It’s the same sort of focus I bring to my real estate business. There is no reason to let personalities clash when trying to focus on closing a transaction. I don’t let obnoxious people rile me up. The big picture is in my radar at all times. Just because I might have your number doesn’t mean I’ll dial it.
Like yesterday a neighbor from one of my listings called, very irate. He was spitting mad. He claimed the sellers’ kids were breaking into a house to party before they went to school. I guess it used to be their house. I think he wanted me to storm over to the house, rip my sign out of the yard and beat the kids over the head with it. He wasn’t happy when I suggested he call the police and pointed out I could not call the police because I am not a witness to the alleged crime. I could hear the venom spitting into the other end of the phone. I suspect when it comes time to put his home on the market, he won’t call me.
And that’s OK.
I passed along his story to the sellers.
If you’re thinking about putting your home on the market and need an experienced Sacramento real estate agent, call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916 233 6759. You won’t get drama out of me. Just hard work.
Are Short Sales Over in Sacramento?
Are short sales over in Sacramento? I might recall the year of 2012 in years to come as a year-long Chinese celebration or maybe lost lyrics to an Al Stewart song; however, I am fairly certain that the short sale-blitz in Sacramento has pretty much gasped its last breath. I would know this because I list and sell a ton of short sales in Sacramento, among other types of homes in Sacramento. For the past 8 years, I’ve been very much focused on short sales because short sales have made up a big part of the home sales in Sacramento. It’s not like a Sacramento real estate agent who wants to do business in Sacramento can ignore 1 out of every 3 possible sales.
I think I can safely predict that when my inventory is switching to equity sales, then short sales are beginning to ease up. Most of my new listings are traditional sales for sellers with equity. In fact, very few phone calls are from sellers with a documented hardship for a short sale. Most of the people who call me about a short sale are either trying to sell a home for somebody else in the family who died and the home is underwater. Or, something just happened to create a reason to sell such as divorce, medical emergency or relocation, and the home is underwater.
Most homeowners in the Sacramento area who wanted to do a short sale have already done a short sale. Some of the homes that these sellers have closed as short sales have popped back up as a short sale for the new buyers who bought in 2008 or 2009. Yeah, there have been short sales completed on the same home twice! I’ve worked on a few short sales from sellers who bought in 2010. But that was pretty much the last defining year, and 2010 was on the edge. So, while there are still many homes (around 40%) in Sacramento underwater from the 2005-era, if those owners haven’t dumped the home by now, they probably won’t.
Throw into the mix we’re in the hottest real estate market I’ve ever seen in Sacramento. There is no way to describe the debauchery of this seller’s market. If interest rates were not so ridiculously low, the market would be different, I imagine, but cash buyers are definitely fueling the flames of the buying frenzy. I feel empathy for the buyers out there who can’t buy a home.
But I do believe the year of the short sale is over. We may find many short sales over in Sacramento. At last, the short sale train has left the station. So, don’t pay any attention to those guys in the party hats blowing streamers because they don’t have any tickets. They’re just hungover.
Should You Notify the Bank Your Home is For Sale?
Should you notify the bank your home is for sale when you’re selling as a short sale? Clients sometimes confuse my role as a Sacramento real estate agent with that of a lawyer. I have fiduciary with my clients and am their advocate 100%, no doubt about it, but I can’t give them legal advice — even if I know the answer. Because even if I know what seems like a reasonable answer, if it’s a legal answer, it might not be the best answer, and it certainly doesn’t take into consideration all of the finer nuances of law much less the client’s particular individual situation. On top of that, believe it or not, I don’t have a license to practice law.
So, I freely tell clients that if I so much as address what seems like a solution to their dilemma, they should get legal advice and not rely on any of those words that may or may not fall by accident from my lips.
The question I get asked a lot is whether a client should notify the bank that his or her home is for sale. First, think about all the things that can go wrong in the world of business and commerce. How often do you make a request that is carried out in the manner in which it was requested? Probably not very often. Second, consider the fact that if you’re behind in your payments, for example, the department that has mostly likely been assigned the task to get that payment is the collection department. The collection department might be located in a different building, perhaps a different city than the department that escrow or your Sacramento real estate agent would speak with.
These two departments rarely speak to each other or even communicate with each other. They post notes in a computerized file sometimes, but that would take a person capable of accessing the correct file on top of actually reading it to decipher. That’s probably not gonna happen, I mean, let’s get real.
The collection department, if a seller is delinquent, wants the seller to make a payment. The collection department is not likely to say, “Oh, why didn’t you tell me your home was for sale? We’ll just slink away and leave you in peace.” They are like a horse racing at Santa Anita. They just want to get to the finish line, and that’s the focus, to get a payment out of the seller. There is no other focus. There is no human element of caring and compassion.
Why do people want to think that banks are compassionate? Where do they get this idea?
If I stopped making my mortgage payments, I’d immediately change my phone number. I’d notify the bank it’s not allowed to call me at work. In fact, I’d change all of my communication preferences to mail. Snail mail. Through the U.S. Post Office. But I’m not a seller who is delinquent. I’m just a Sacramento real estate agent who will say what the hey; it can’t hurt to call the bank and let an employee know. For all the good it will do. Yet, there is that 1% chance it might make a difference, so, go ahead and call. At least once.
Nationstar Bank Short Sale and Down Syndrome
I woke up this morning with a Nationstar short sale and Down Syndrome whirling around in my brain. I don’t know why. See, this is what being a Sacramento real estate agent does to you. I didn’t dream about Shameless — that Showtime series about my family when I was a kid. No, seriously, my father was not nearly as sweet nor endearing as William H. Macy’s character. Yet, I couldn’t help but wonder if that baby on Shameless with the Down Syndrome really has Down Syndrome. I don’t mean on the show; I mean in real life. Because that would be really tacky. The NDSS would be all over that.
Unless the baby could talk. Then, it might be a way to better understand those born with Down Syndrome, we could develop empathy and this would be considered acceptable. Except the kid can’t talk. But if the baby could talk, I bet he could speak more clearly and distinctly than a negotiator at Nationstar.
A kid at Nationstar told us yesterday that the bank will no longer let sellers pay for a natural hazard disclosure when selling as a short sale. They don’t want to see that crummy little $99 fee on the HUD anymore. Yes, they realize it is state law that a seller must give a copy of the natural hazard disclosure to the buyer. Yes, they realize it is also against state law for the seller to pay for a natural hazard disclosure out of the seller’s pocket because all fees must be paid through the short sale. California Civil Code 580e says the seller is not allowed to pay for anything.
So, on the one hand, you’ve got Section 1103 in the California Civil Code that says the natural hazard disclosure must be delivered to the buyer as part of the sale. On the other hand, the Civil Code says sellers can’t be required to contribute or the bank is breaking the law. And then you’ve got a group of managers at Nationstar Bank deciding it won’t allow the seller to pay this fee from the proceeds of sale.
I realize every $99 adds up. Hey, I sell real estate in Sacramento and not in Newport Beach or I’d be retired by now. But, really, Nationstar. My TC sent me a copy of the email from the negotiator who told us to read the California Civil Code again, although it still says the same thing it said the last time we read it. Nationstar might be making her go sit in the corner for lunch, but that’s not our M-O.
Here is part of that email: “There is nothing to check with my managers as they are the ones who told us to no longer accept the NHD on the HUD. Guidelines change all the time, you cannot expect things to always stay the same. Malyssa”
All over ninety-nine bucks.
Today, there are more than 400,000 individuals people with Down Syndrome living in the United States. I hope none of those people ever have to subject themselves to Nationstar.
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