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Why Some Sacramento Home Buyers are Not Buying a Home
Sacramento real estate runs in cycles but no year lately has been the same as the last, much less the approaches used by Sacramento home buyers. We had a big run for 8 long years of short sales and foreclosures, but that reign is pretty much over. Sacramento has been on the rebound for the past 2 years and rising prices has shown us that. The really big push in price increases was in 2012, which continued into the summer of 2013 — what some would call a market correction. That’s why the investors have left the market because they were there at the bottom and don’t want to ride the wave up, leaving us in a real estate market filled with confused home buyers.
Yet, don’t get the idea that the market is overpriced or over inflated because it’s still appreciating, it’s simply doing so at a quiet and very slow pace. In some neighborhoods, prices might be a little flat, but they’re not falling. Full-price offers and multiple offers are still happening on the entry-level homes, especially those that are highly desirable, ready to move into. My February is filling up the calendar with March closing inventory nicely. I predict we’ll see a huge push in closed sales for March across the board in Sacramento.
I also see some Sacramento home buyers making big mistakes. I highly doubt they’re not getting good advice from their buyer’s agents because most agents have a pretty good idea of what’s going on. I suspect that buyers are talking to Uncle Joe who’s moving kinda slow, the guy who mows their lawn, the clerk at Safeway, and getting bad advice because they’re looking for advice in the wrong places. The buyer’s agents I know are working extremely hard and feeling like they’re banging their heads back and forth in a door jamb — because it feels so good when they stop. But they’re not going into escrow with their buyers.
Some Sacramento home buyers think a seller would grab an offer without financing, known as all-cash, over an offer with financing. But sellers don’t really care if you hand them a brown paper sack filled with $100 bills or a check drawn on Bank of America, it will all end up in their bank account anyway. Sellers care about the sales price and terms. Buyers don’t get a break due to financing. They might move up the scale in a multiple-offer situation with better financing or cash, but price is still king. Price rules. Get with the program. It’s a new dawn.
I’ve also seen Sacramento buyers submit under-market price offers, sometimes known as lowball offers, when they know the seller has received multiple offers, as in 3 or 5 offers or more. I wonder why they do that to their agents? It sounds sadistic to me. They have no chance in negotiations yet they insist on submitting an offer. Maybe that’s not sadistic, perhaps that’s the definition of insane, doing the same thing over and over with no chance in hell of accomplishing anything.
Home Sellers and Buyers Who Need to Find an Agent Can Start Here
If you need a real estate agent in another state, I can help you to find an agent, and I might even give you a little real estate advice along the way. Telling clients what I believe is in their best interest for them to do comes very easily to this Sacramento real estate agent. I have no problem sharing what I believe because a) I’m generally right about it and b) if the other person don’t agree, that’s his or her prerogative. Besides, clients really seem to appreciate my advice and tips. Even people who aren’t my clients call to ask for my opinion.
Oh, maybe they read an article I wrote about home buying at About.com and want to do some hairbrained thing, so they track me down. I’m not that difficult to find, especially since I answer my phone. Sure, when I see the caller is calling from Pocatello, Idaho, I am tempted to click my bluetooth answer button and say Joe’s Pizza Shack, do you want pepperoni or sausage today, but fortunately, I’m not always looking at my phone when it rings and I answer with my name.
A woman called yesterday who told me she was in her 70s and thinking about selling her duplex to a tenant. The tenant had suggested taking over her mortgage payments, plus make payments on her equity. She felt sympathy for the guy because he was married with 5 kids and financially struggling. You know what? Maybe that guy can’t afford to buy a home because he can’t get a loan? She did not think about this. If he can’t get a loan, why would she jeopardize herself?
Her lender could call her loan due and payable under the alienation clause once title transfers. Was she mentally prepared if necessary to file a Notice of Default Could she go to court if push came to shove? My advice was tell the guy to get a loan or sell the home to a person who can get a loan. Don’t get sucked into this crap. There’s enough elder abuse in the world these days. Is this something I would said in the 1970s when owner financing was all the rage? Ha, ha, probably not. Today more than ever it pays to find an agent.
No client can ever accuse this agent of being wishy-washy or not voicing an opinion. I won’t give legal advice, but I promise to make you think about your issue. With 40 years in real estate, I am lucky to possess a wealth of experience to draw upon. If you can’t hire this Sacramento real estate agent because you live in Pocatello, Idaho, I can find an agent with experience in your area. Call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916 233 6759 or send me an email through my contact button on this website. It’s the top-left envelope icon that says email Elizabeth. Just click it.
Punxsutawny Phil Predicts 2014 Sacramento Real Estate
Punxsutawny Phil says this is the week in Sacramento real estate in which the rubber meets the road. When the market starts to hop like mad. Because finally, all of those winter vacations are pretty much over, the holidays are gone, the Super Bowl is finished — well, I heard it was finished in the first 12 seconds of the game, but I don’t follow football so I would not really know. But I do know almost everything there is to know about Sacramento real estate. Not ashamed to admit that.
2014 Winter Carnival in downtown St. Paul, MN
We can now freely hold open houses and not be freaking out over which football teams are playing, and whether visitors will come to the open house. The weather will begin to warm up a little bit, although we still desperately need rain, and I don’t care if it rains during an open house because people will still go out to look at homes in the rain. We are not wimps in Sacramento. We don’t cower in a little rain. Look at these photos of the Winter Carnival in St. Paul yesterday shot by my sister, Margie. It was 8 below zero.
2014 Winter Carnival Como Park, St, Paul, MN
On top of this, new listings are coming on the market. This Sacramento real estate agent has got about a dozen in the pipeline that I’m working on, and it’s these listings that will make up some of the March to May closed sales. You might think that May is a good time to go on the market, but actually May is a good time to close escrow. All of the activity for the next 3 months mostly originates in February. Think about that if you’re considering selling your home this spring. And be happy you don’t live in St. Paul, Minnesota where, dare I say once again just to remind you, it was 8 below zero yesterday.
Sure, we’ve got holidays this month but they’re not the type of holidays to interfere with real estate. I’ve got news for you: Punxsutawny Phil, the groundhog who saw his shadow yesterday, he wants you to buy a house. So do Presidents Lincoln and Washington and Obama. It’s the American thing to do, to own your own little piece of real estate, your own heavenly spot on earth.
Call Elizabeth Weintraub, your Sacramento real estate agent, at 916 233 6759. I answer my phone.
Photos: Margie Burgard, St. Paul Winter Carnival 2014
Don’t Make These Sacramento Home Buying Mistakes
It can be a slow process, trying to buy a home in Sacramento, but it’s even slower if you don’t know where you want to live. Home buyers just starting out might have unreasonable expectations, and those types of expectations can lead to disappointment.
Before engaging a buyer’s agent to show homes, it’s common for buyers to identify and target a few communities. Agents can be a great resource, but buyers should really ask an agent to show homes when the buyers are ready and able to write a purchase offer. That’s not to say that an agent can’t help buyers to choose a place to live because that’s what we do. However, there are plenty of open houses every Sunday in Sacramento where buyers can go to look at homes, talk to other agents, get a feel for neighborhoods, without a personal escort.
Agents don’t hold all of the information anymore regarding homes for sale, but we do have access to MLS, which a buyer does not. We can send a buyer listings in certain areas defined by custom searches or however a buyer would like to receive the information. The best home buying website is generally the buyer’s agent’s own website or a feed directly from MLS.
Here are some of the common home buying mistakes I’ve heard about over the past few weeks that can easily lead to disappointment and frustration:
- Looking at homes with sales prices way above the buyer’s affordability point. It makes no sense to look at homes priced at $400,000 if your pre-approval letter maximum is $300,000.
- Dragging your agent through the same square-foot model home over and over, which a buyer does not like. If you really hate that closet and bathroom, it won’t look any different in the same model with different paint on the walls.
- Expecting a buyer’s agent to immediately respond to your email questions about new homes you just found on another website when she is showing homes to another client for a few hours.
- Asking personal questions of a seller to satisfy idle curiosity that have no bearing on whether the home is suitable for you and your children.
- Finding a home that fits your needs and pricing but not buying that home because you wonder if there might be some other home that is better for you. There is always another home.
Bottom line, if a home buyer needs to personally inspect 200 homes before buying a home in Sacramento, that buyer is probably not yet ready to buy a home. And that’s OK. But let your agent know and discuss expectations before asking an agent to show homes.
If You Aren’t Ready to Buy a Home in Sacramento
Don’t be afraid to tell a real estate agent why you are calling.
When a person calls a Sacramento real estate agent about buying a home, there are basically two things that agent wants to hear. Either the person is ready to buy a home in Sacramento or the person is not ready to buy a home. Either one is OK. We are not answering a phone solely to make a sale and push a buyer into making a decision that perhaps a buyer is not yet ready to make. But it’s helpful for us to know what the buyer hopes to accomplish by talking with us.
We are not standing behind a desk at an office, monitoring a candy dish for those who walk in. Most of the time, when a buyer calls a real estate agent, we are busy selling real estate. We are with a client showing homes, writing purchase contracts, shooting photographs, driving out the W X Freeway on our way to a listing appointment. We could also be walking the dog, comparing cold cuts at Taylor’s Market or picking up our car from Midtown Autoworks after an oil change.
We don’t work retail. We work from our cellphones.
I’m one of those agents who tries to answer her phone, which seems to blow away many callers. I have to admit that, yes, they have reached a real live person, which astonishes them. If a buyer wants to buy a home in Sacramento, I am ready to help. But if it’s so surprising that an agent would answer her phone, when buyers do reach voice mail and leave a message, why don’t these same buyers answer their phones or return the calls agents leave for them?
Probably because they are not yet ready to buy. Many are “just looking.” Just looking seems to be a phrase for describing curiosity. Technology makes it easy to contact a Sacramento real estate agent. If a buyer is simply curious about a sales price or some other aspect of a home she has just driven by, it’s OK to say so when calling. Just say: I am not ready to buy a home in Sacramento.
She can also search the web from her Smartphone and get the answer just like she finds out which is the top downloaded song from iTunes and the present weight of Kardashian’s beehive butt.
Because so many callers forget or are afraid to mention that they are not really buyers, this becomes the reason many agents don’t answer their cellphones and send all unknown calls to voicemail. But I can’t help myself, when my phone rings, I tend to answer it.
