Dim Sum at New Canton and a Major Homebuying Mistake in Sacramento

Sacramento homebuyers face as many choices as dim sum at New Canton.

Sundays are usually busy days for Sacramento real estate and dim sum at New Canton. It’s a struggle to find time for an after-breakfast nap, even on a rainy day, when prized packages of savory gems of dim sum await just down the road from Land Park and my cell phone keeps ringing. I realize lots of agents just let calls go through to voice mail, but I answer to save myself the hassle of having to call back. It’s opportunity ringing. However, many of the phone calls I’ve been receiving lately are from Sacramento home buyers who do not understand how real estate works. They think they do, but they do not.

When presented with a situation like that, I have several choices. One of course is to tell them the listing they are calling about is already pending and hang up, but that’s a waste of an excellent opportunity to share. The first homebuying mistake many home buyers make is thinking that because they see a home without a pending sign on top of the sign post that the home is available. About half of the time, by the time the sign post goes into the ground, we’ve already got offers from buyers. Many agents do not bother anymore with pending signs. The second homebuying mistake many home buyers make is presuming that because they see a home in Trulia or Zillow, or any of the other popular online websites that feature homes for sale in Sacramento, that the home is available. Much of the time that home is either not for sale, maybe has never been for sale or is pending / sold.

The third homebuying mistake is calling the listing agent and presuming that listing agent is eager to work with the buyer. A home buyer told me yesterday that the only reason he was calling me, even though he had his own agent, a personal friend he has known for years who, by the way, is retired from real estate and no longer active, is because, wait for it . . .

listing agents have twice the incentive

Sorry, no, listing agents don’t have twice the incentive. The implications are insulting. We are not sleazes. Top Sacramento listing agents do twice the business because they list and sell twice as many homes. Not because they hope to “double-end a deal.”  If you could somehow find a listing agent solely focused on double-ending, why would you ever desire to hire an unethical person like that? Taking a home buyer who doesn’t know quite as much as he thinks he does and pairing him with a sleaze bag is a recipe for disaster on both ends. Maybe those kind deserve the muck, but you, YOU, dear home buyer on my cellphone, you deserve much better.

I won’t work directly with a home buyer, and I list and sell so many homes in Sacramento that I rank among the top 10 agents in 7 counties, and guess what? I don’t want to directly represent you. My seller would prefer that you work with a buyer’s agent as well. Here, I have several buyer’s agents I can refer you to who will gladly show you homes and negotiate a purchase offer on your behalf. No cost to you. Many of the top listing agents in Sacramento work this way. The response then is, wait for it . . .

Uh, I wanna do it on my own.

If you do it on your own, you will miss many of the homes for sale that fit your criteria and parameters. This is not your mother’s real estate market from 10 years ago. You can’t drive around a neighborhood and wait for a sign to be pounded into the ground. You can’t wait for a home to show up on a website. You need a direct feed of MLS listings directly from MLS that is instantly delivered to your email inbox the minute that home hits the Sacramento real estate market. And you can’t get that information on your own. You need a dedicated agent working with you to find homes that are not yet for sale as well. So, give me your name and phone number, and I’ll get a top-notch buyer’s agent to find your dream home and close it for you.

Or, you can keep driving in circles and calling listing agents who don’t answer the phone about homes that are sold. Your choice.

Then I slide into my chair at New Canton and begin to point at dim sum dishes I desire from the steaming carts rolling by. My husband orders oolong tea. I dig around on my plate to grab a delectable shrimp fun with my chopsticks, my husband asks for jellyfish and beef shins. As I survey the New Canton dim sum delights laid out before me on the table, I wonder why Sacramento home buyers limit their choices. It’s because they don’t know any better. They think they are doing the right thing but they are not working in the Sacramento real estate business, and they just don’t understand. Times have changed.

If you need an excellent buyer’s agent, call the exceptional Barbara Dow at 916.761.7398 or the amazing Josh Amolsch at 916.224.2756. Both on the Elizabeth Weintraub Team. Or, call that guy who is retired, out of touch, likely to screw up. Here, try a sesame ball.