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Security Gaps While Selling Your Sacramento Home
The occupant of one of my listings leaves her front door unlocked when agents come over to show. She vacates and doesn’t lock the door because she doesn’t want a lockbox on the house. This procedure is not only unsafe, but it completely baffles the agents who show. The buyer’s agents can’t believe a person would not lock the door.
Because she won’t allow a SUPRA, I have installed a contractor’s box and suggested she put the key inside when she leaves, and then she could lock the house and retrieve the key when she gets home. She refuses. Her thoughts are it is perfectly OK to leave her door unlocked, and she lives in a safe neighborhood. All neighborhoods are safe until security gaps pop up.
Criminy, when it comes to security gaps, there are no safe neighborhoods in Sacramento. Every person is vulnerable no matter where you live. She won’t listen to me, and her actions make me uneasy, like they would cause any Sacramento listing agent to fret.
Then, this weekend, an agent called to say she dropped the key to the home she was showing somewhere in the kitchen and she could not find it. It might have rolled under the ‘frig. If I wasn’t avoiding any strains on my back, I would have dashed over to help her move the refrigerator. This sort of thing could have happened to any buyer’s agent. Although usually they break the key in the door or slip it into their pocket and take it home; they don’t generally lose it somewhere in the house.
I tried to call the seller but my message went to voice mail. The buyer’s agent couldn’t reach the seller, either, which is why she called me. I sent the seller an email and attempted to contact the co-owner as well. Nobody should leave a door unlocked anywhere.
Fortunately, the seller came home and was able to put a new key into the bottom of the lockbox. Then, later yesterday afternoon, another twist happened at her home. A group of strangers showed up on her doorstep holding a business card from a real estate agent. The real estate agent was not with them, they were unaccompanied and alone. The seller let them into her home! Give me a heart attack, why doncha? Never let a stranger into your home without an agent present. Talk about security gaps. Excuse me while I pick myself up off the floor. I swear, my sellers are gonna kill me yet.
Sacramento Real Estate Agents Who Resist Change
Most people dislike change or the unfamiliar, especially certain Sacramento real estate agents, I’m guessing. A while back an agent got his knickers into a twist because I called him to find out why he left my lockbox open. It was pretty easy to figure out who did it because the SUPRA online system stores contact information, including time and date stamp; it tells me when any of my 70-some lockboxes are accessed.
At first, the agent denied the accusation. When pressed and presented with evidence, he became agitated and admitted he probably did leave it open but he had a good reason. (There is never a good reason to leave a lockbox open unauthorized.) His reason was he was confused. He had never showed a home which had 2 lockboxes, one for Supra to open to retrieve the code and the second for contractors, in which the key was stored. So, it was all the listing agent’s fault and not his. Ya gotta love the logic. Sometimes I use this system because it’s convenient for contractors: those people who do home staging, or maybe employees from pest companies, roof inspectors, home inspectors, handyman, what have you, who need access to the home.
It is also required by our MLS. Our MLS forces agents to use SUPRA lockboxes if an agent wants to advertise a listing as having a lockbox. Pretty clever, that MLS business alliance. In other words, a Sacramento real estate agent is not allowed to put on a contractor’s box and state the home is vacant with a lockbox and provide the code. It’s governed and stipulated that way at most associations. Otherwise, agents would buy contractor’s lockboxes because they cost roughly one-third the price of SUPRA lockboxes. They’ve got almost ten grand of my money — $10,000 that could have been invested in an aging barrel of Maker’s Mark, but no, I have lockboxes.
Although I like the SUPRA lockboxes because it allows me to follow up on listings and obtain buyer feedback after an agent shows a home I have listed. It provides greater security for my sellers because only agents can access those boxes. However, if contractors need to access the home, for example, I will also attach a contractor’s box to the property. It allows me to better devote my time to marketing the home, following up on showings and tracking open houses than standing on the front steps waiting for some guy to show up so I can open the door. Yet, two lockboxes are still very confusing for some buyer’s agents.
The biggest problem I see with buyer’s agents is not the fact that they can get confused over lockbox instructions, it’s that they don’t often read the entire MLS listing before taking action. They are so excited that their buyer wants to write an offer, they don’t always take the time to peruse confidential agent remarks or note the type of financing that is offered. They waste a lot of time writing offers that have little chance of acceptance because of this little quirk.
I wish I could digitally manipulate my listings. I would put big red arrows and circles that draw attention to specific information for agents, maybe include a few starbursts.
This morning I received an offer that was sent to the wrong agent last night. Three specific lines in the agent remarks state where and how to send the offer, yet they were overlooked. On top of this, the email from the agent said her buyer had seen the property and was very interested in owning it. Except the property is located in a gated community and there are no showings allowed. It’s enough to make one wonder if the buyer’s agent mixed up the address of the property and perhaps wrote the offer for the wrong home.
On top of this, it was an FHA offer, and the property is not listed with FHA terms and the seller cannot accept an FHA offer because an FHA offer is not allowed on that particular home. That was a lot of work for the agent to go through to write an offer, provide supporting documentation on behalf of the buyer, get the purchase offer signed and then deliver it to the wrong agent when there is no way the offer can even be countered.
All of which could have been prevented if the agent had just given that MLS listings one more glance before writing the offer. Are there attachments to the listings? Long gone are the days when all homes are listed with identical terms. Almost every listing is as unique as the sellers are unique.
My policy as a real estate agent is not to fight change, I embrace it.
Anything You Say Can and Will Be Used Against You
Anything you say can and will be used against you, I warn home sellers in Sacramento. Sacramento home sellers have rights and don’t have to say anything to a third party. On top of that, no matter what a buyer’s agent may believe, it is not the seller’s responsibility to convey transaction status or to discuss anything about the terms of selling the home with another agent. That’s one of the reasons sellers hire a Sacramento real estate agent, to represent the seller. Yet, agents seem to continue all the time to ask sellers this stuff.
When a listing notes in the showing instructions to make an appointment with the owner, it means an agent can call a seller to make an appointment. It doesn’t mean an agent is free to engage in a conversation about how many offers the seller has received, whether any of the offers were cash, or if the seller will accept less than list price — yet, you’d be amazed at how many agents do exactly that. No wonder some agents don’t let anybody talk to their sellers. Because anything you say can and will be used against you.
Regardless of how a listing agent might try to micromanage a transaction, though, one can’t always separate a buyer’s agent from a seller. It’s simply impossible. The buyer’s agent might run across the seller pulling out of the driveway as the agent is pulling up to the front of the home, and it is fairly easy for the buyer’s agent to slam her vehicle into park, leap out, run up to the seller’s car and knock on the window.
I practice sometimes with my clients to repeat after me: “you’ll have to ask my agent,” as a response to questions thrown by outsiders in their direction. I don’t care if it’s something simple as how long have you lived here, the preferred response is: you’ll have to ask my agent. You might think a transaction is all about win-win but it’s really about a listing agent trying to do what is best for her seller and a buyer’s agent trying to do what is best for the buyer.
Any information a home seller provides can and will be used against the seller. You’re not just two people standing next to each other in a grocery store line having a chat about some reality TV show on the cover of People. You’re probably a seller who doesn’t want to drop bags of cash out of the window. Trust your agent and go be BFF?after the transaction closes.
Sacramento First-Time Homebuyers Now Have a Fighting Chance
Compared to a few years ago, first-time homebuyers in Sacramento now have a fighting chance to buy a home without a ton of competition from cash investors. They just have each other to compete with, yet some of them are going about it the wrong way. The wrong way is when the buyers refuse to take their agent’s advice. They might say they listen to it, and then they do things their own screwed-up way. When the offer doesn’t get accepted, though, they tend to blame their agent instead of themselves.
This is nuts. My heart goes out to buyer’s agents who end up writing offer after offer that gets rejected because buyers are hung up on the wrong things. Like list price, for example. List price can be meaningless. It’s a measurement. It’s the comparable sales that matter. But people get attached to personal agendas, mantras and odd beliefs, not to mention our favorite sidekick: fate.
Homebuyers last week told me they had a specific price point in mind, but they were looking at an Elk Grove home priced higher. This home had been on the market for only a few days and they wanted to offer less than list price because it didn’t fit their plan to pay slightly more. Well, a reasonable person would say: stop looking at a home you can’t buy at the price you want to pay. But reasonable people aren’t necessarily buying real estate. The fact is a hesitant buyer needs to conform because some other proactive buyer will conform. These buyers reconsidered, conformed and they got the house, over a full-price cash investor.
This market in the spring of 2014 in Sacramento is different than previous markets. We no longer face stiff competition from cash investors. Of course, we Sacramento listing agents still receive full-price cash offers and a few lowballs from investors, but for the most part, the market is made up of first-time home buyers and move-up buyers. I counsel my sellers about choosing between an investor buyer and a buyer who will occupy the home. Does it matter who buys your house? You bet it does. And sellers can legally choose to sell only to an owner occupant.
Not surprising to real estate agents, a story in the Sacramento Bee says homeownership in Sacramento has fallen to a 40-year low. That’s not surprising, given the number of sellers we observed who said yes to the cash investors over the years and no to the first-time home buyers. But now the tide is reversed, and we still have a fighting chance to take back our neighborhoods, providing first-time homebuyers step up to the plate.
The kind of purchase offer a buyer makes can mean the difference between buying a home and not buying a home. Here’s my general advice: Study the comps, listen to your agent and, if the home is on the market for only a few days and the price is justified, pay it or somebody else will. A more savvy buyer will probably pay more than list if the deck is stacked against them. If the home is super desirable, a hot commodity and you’re an FHA buyer or a VA buyer, you’re just not as desirable to the sellers as the conventional buyers, so step up your price and terms or you’ll fall to the bottom.
Hey, agents don’t make the rules. The market dictates.
Do Not Touch the Sacramento Lockbox Without Permission
I’m thinking about slapping a preprinted notice over my 70-some lockboxes that warn: don’t touch the lockbox without permission. It is never OK for a Sacramento real estate agent to use a lockbox and enter a home without checking the showing instructions in MLS — yet it happens. Unauthorized access happens not because agents think but because some of them don’t think. An agent today explained why he entered a home that is not even on the market, after I emailed him twice to ask for an explanation. He said it was because he lived across the street and the seller told him she was listing with me.
I imagine that news went over well.
So, he decided it was OK to bring over a buyer to walk around the home and trample on private property. Because he knew the seller. It did not occur to him that he had no written agreement with this seller nor permission to be there. Not only did he not understand that he was trespassing, but imagine his surprise when he noticed the lockbox and thought to himself, hey, here I am, a Sacramento real estate agent with a buyer and whoa, I have a display key that will open this lockbox. I will do it.
I know when the agent was there because I check my lockbox showings via the Supra website 2 to 3 times a day.
This agent did not bother to see if the home was listed. Which it is not published in MLS yet. Or maybe he did and he realized it was not on the market and that was simply his flimsy first excuse. Because his second excuse was he figured the seller would receive multiple offers, and he thought for some odd reason that we would give him priority with his offer if he submitted it quickly. And the way to submit a fast offer first was to break into the home without permission. Yeah!
This is winning on so many levels, not.
MLS guidelines allow showing of a home when that home is in active status in MLS and the showing instructions are followed. In some parts of town, and I’m not saying where, I don’t even put a for sale sign in the yard because agents out showing homes will use a lockbox if they can spot that lockbox without looking up the home in MLS to even determine if it’s available to be shown. I’ve had buyer’s agents enter occupied pending sales unauthorized with a naked seller in the shower. Geez, Louise!
MetroList should improve its training for agents and not just hand out lockboxes like they are candy.
All I can say is it’s a good thing that seller didn’t hire this agent and instead chose me. We’ll see what tomorrow brings when this home hits the market.
