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Are You Getting Screwed in Real Estate?
When the Sacramento housing market tightens, getting screwed in real estate is more likely to happen.
Getting screwed in real estate is an interesting topic. You can look at Sacramento real estate like it’s one big f-ing orgy, and you wouldn’t be too far off base. Of course, that attitude won’t get you anywhere. You can wallow in that mud hole, rub that wet sticky mud all over naked body parts, and it still won’t resolve anything. The only thing a particular experience of getting screwed in real estate does for you is provide a new set of warning signs that it’s coming. It’s like a giant asteroid that could suddenly smack the earth. If you see that sucker coming, you can start running all you want — but when you’re under its shadow, it’s gonna squash you anyway.
This is why my 40-some years in the real estate business tends to pay off for my clients. It doesn’t mean I will never shoulder an experience of getting screwed in real estate, but those situations are super few and far between. My radar is constantly up. Searching. Analyzing. But it’s by habit and not a focused project. I don’t spend a lot of time on it. Yet, the stuff I’ve recently sent flying like a boomerang would make your head spin.
I can tell you that many people don’t start out with a plan to exploit. Because that would mean they are the devil incarnate, like Ted Cruz in the flesh, and most people are not. Nor would they even recognize that trait if it was embedded. People really don’t dig that deep within themselves. We’re too busy ushering kids to soccer, heads buried in our cellphones, ordering pizza delivery. On top of this, people tend to rationalize what they do to an extent that they make it OK to step on somebody else’s head by accident and grind those eyeballs into the concrete sidewalk.
It just comes with the territory of selling real estate in Sacramento. The more real estate an agent sells, the more likely she is come across these crooked situations and avoid them. I average around 100 sales a year.
Three Ways to Prevent Getting Screwed in Real Estate
I can’t see anyway to completely prevent getting screwed in real estate, but I can often lessen the chances of it happening. 1) The most obvious way is to be ethical and to operate with integrity. This way you tend to attract individuals like yourself. 2) The second is to pay attention to red flags, things that seem out of place. Probe. Inquire. Push a little for answers. 3) The third is to hire an experienced Sacramento Realtor who has been around the block so many times she can count the number of cracks that broke your mother’s back.
Call Elizabeth Weintraub for your Sacramento real estate needs. My laryngitis is just about over. It’s OK to sound like Stockard Channing, I’ve decided. I’ll get the job done right, and I try to ensure every client is a happier person along the way. Call 916.233.6759.
Which REALTORS are Bad Real Estate Agents?
Bad real estate agents in Sacramento can seem like they outnumber the good Realtors.
There are some neighborhoods in the Sacramento metro area where I won’t leave a lockbox on the house because of the behavior of bad real estate agents. I’m not sure if it’s due to the fact some of these agents seem to work for brokerages that don’t spend a lot of time on training or if they are so new to the business that they are still wet behind the ears. Or, maybe it’s because they just don’t think, which is generally the cause of many problems with bad real estate agents in Sacramento. You know, if they would simply pause, consider the ramifications, the consequences of their actions before they . . .
Oh, who am I kidding? In my dreams. Like that’s gonna happen.
These are the agents who think it’s OK to open a lockbox and access a home before looking up the showing instructions. As if every home in that neighborhood with a lockbox is sitting idly, enticing them, begging them to trespass. I’m not sure what goes through their minds. But I do know this. Those guys are bad real estate agents.
It’s probably about time that the National Association of Realtors stops pretending that all REALTOR®s have a clue or that they are worthy of working with a client. A license does not give an agent the right to violate procedures, laws and common decency. And clients don’t know any better. They can’t tell an experienced agent from a novice, most of the time. In fact, I’m not sure clients know how much experience an agent needs. I’ve heard some clients say 5 years is a good length of time to get your feet stabilized in the business, but the years are worthless if the agent doesn’t sell very many homes.
My sellers get a good look at the underbelly in the Sacramento real estate business and the bad real estate agents. It’s not that I go out of my way because I most certainly do not. Agents do it to themselves when they call to make an appointment to show the home. I hear it from sellers after the agents call, and their opinion overall of buyer’s agents is generally not very high. I’m not even sure what it is the agents say or do, but I know some of them tend to alienate the sellers because the sellers tell me they don’t like the agent. It’s not really my business why.
That’s not good news for a home buyer trying to buy a home in the Sacramento area who is represented by one of these bad real estate agents. The buyers could be losing the offer before it’s ever written. Let’s not even discuss the unprofessional agents who turn belligerent when their buyer’s offers are rejected. If you have to ask, that would be your sign. Trust your gut instincts.
Are There Valid Reasons to Dump a Real Estate Agent?
I am rarely in the shoes of a first agent who listed a home that did not sell in Sacramento. Unless, of course, the seller was unreasonable on pricing or refused home staging. I’ve seen a handful of those sorry situations in which the seller dumps the agent, reduces the price, stages the home and then bingo, it sells with agent #2, with agent #1 left standing there wondering what am I, chopped liver? Why did nobody listen to me? But bottom line is nobody can really make another person do what that person doesn’t want to do without brute force, and few agents want to clobber a seller over the head, making him stare down the barrel of a gun with a foot up his neck.
More often than not I’m on the other side of this scenario. After a seller fired his agent — or took the path of least resistance and let the listing expire before hiring the next agent — namely in order to hire this top producing Sacramento real estate agent. That’s the position I love to be in because now I’ll get paid for another agent’s hard work, plus I am most likely working for a far more reasonable and seasoned seller.
I made an interesting point to a seller a few months ago when he was thinking about hiring another agent because he had not yet received an offer. Sellers can be impatient, I understand. I told the seller that he could certainly hire another agent but he’d be throwing away his money. He did not strike me as the kind of guy who wants to lose money, but that’s exactly what he would be doing by hiring somebody else. Another agent would simply capitalize on all of my efforts, duplicate my strategy and pocket my fee. He should reward the agent who has earned the commission and let her sell his home. Put that way, he agreed, and I sold that home for him.
Having said that, sometimes there are valid reasons to fire an agent. No iffs, ands, or butts about it, in this crazy profession, most agents are not on the ball. Read more on About.com today in an article I wrote about Top 10 Reasons Sellers Fire a Real Estate Agent.
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.
