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It Takes Two, Baby, a Selling Agent and a Listing Agent
There are times in the Sacramento real estate business that I am reminded how it can really take two REALTORS to close a transaction: both a listing agent and a buyer’s agent. Just for the record –and because it tends to confuse both agents and the public alike — a buyer’s agent is a selling agent. A listing agent is a seller’s agent. The listing agent represents the seller but can’t really sell the property without an agent who represents the buyer, which would be the selling agent. No agent is an island in real estate. It takes two, baby. God, I hate that Marvin Gaye ear-worm and can’t believe that I, at any time in my life, could possibly have sung along to it.
I am very grateful to work with selling agents who on occasion can save my butt, too. I am not forced to interact with selling agents throughout every transaction, but I generally prefer to communicate directly with my fellow agents. Unless, of course, they are an asshole. Then they can talk to the wall for all I care. It is possible to never communicate through any type of technology, if one so chooses, and some agents are like that. Hi, this is Joe and I answer my phone during blue moons between 1:15 and 1:17. But I don’t run into very many of those, maybe one a year if I’m unlucky. For the most part, selling agents are professional, smart, funny and a sheer delight, even though we represent opposite sides in the transaction.
There are people who think the selling agent and listing agent need to maintain an arm’s length distance, and while we cannot divulge any confidential information about our clients to the other agent, it doesn’t mean we can’t work together toward a common goal and still have fun doing it.
Here’s an example of above-and-beyond cooperation for you. I listed a vacant home in Roseville a while back that had a series of apparent issues, fogged-up windows, no carbon monoxide detectors and no keys. The seller lived across the Pacific. To expedite matters, I hired a locksmith and paid for a new set of keys. I also bought 3 carbon monoxide detectors to install on each level of this tri-level home, and plugged them into the respective walls.
When the home sold, the buyer’s appraiser could not locate the carbon monoxide detectors. They all had vanished. Carbon monoxide detectors are a huge, huge deal, a bigger deal than whether a home has a functioning air conditioner or a solid finished floor. A carbon monoxide detector is to real estate as a door frame is to a door: without it, you’re not closing. And somebody had stolen the carbon monoxide detectors. I tried to imagine a mother collecting CO detectors throughout the tour and stuffing them into her baby bag. Why? Or, a real estate agent blazingly walking out the door carting all 3 in his hands.
Nobody broke into this house. Whomever swiped the CO detectors entered through the key in the lockbox.
Yet, the selling agent didn’t shrug once, and she replaced the carbon monoxide detectors, even though it wasn’t really her place to do it. We all do what we need to do to take care of our clients and each other. At least the professionals do. The others apparently walk off with carbon monoxide detectors.
To put 40+ years of experience to work for you, please call Elizabeth Weintraub, Broker #00697006, at 916.233.6759.
The Problems With Carbon Monoxide Detectors
This Sacramento real estate agent is not out to solve the world-wide problems of death, destruction and mayhem, but it would be nice to figure out how to ensure a carbon monoxide detector is installed in a home at the time of sale. The small things. I like to focus on the smaller picture because those things I should be able to do something about. Making sure carbon monoxide detectors are installed is not really a newsworthy or noble cause. Not like the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, electing to personally kill, clean and consume his own food for a year.
I can barely cut off a fish head and clean out its guts. If I had to shoot my own cow or strangle a chicken, I’d give up meat. Then I’d starve to death because I don’t much care for hard, raw vegetables like eggplant or zucchini, for example, veggies that multiply and are easy to grow. I’m no Sarah Palin. Nope, nobody would ever confuse us, thank goodness.
Neither was my mother. My mother as a teenager took a job in a chicken plant. It involved plucking the feathers off of a chicken — after wringing its neck. This was in the 1940s. I would never eat chicken again if I had that kind of hands-on experience. I like my food not to resemble the animal from which it came. Let’s face it, some foods are better off being disguised, like bacon. It would be so much easier for me if I were a committed vegetarian but the truth is I like being carnivorous. I just don’t want to get all up-close and personal about it.
I have to get up-close and personal about carbon monoxide detectors, however. My job requires it. Whenever I list a home in Sacramento, I have that “talk” with my sellers. I explain what happens when the buyer’s appraiser comes out. The first thing the appraiser looks for is a reason not to be in the home, and that reason to leave is no carbon monoxide detector. If the carbon monoxide detector is missing, the appraiser can’t finish the appraisal. This means he gets to charge another $125 to come back.
When that happens, the buyer yells at her buyer’s agent. You know the direction crap rolls. This means the buyer’s agent calls me to yell. Although, I will not yell at my own client. Sometimes, I suggest that sellers put a sign on the wall with an arrow pointing down to the receptacle where the carbon monoxide is plugged in, especially if it’s a spot that is not easy to see.
When the California law requiring carbon monoxide detectors in a home went into effect a year ago in July, this forward-thinking Sacramento real estate agent bought 50 carbon monoxide detectors and stuffed them in my front trunk. If I ever rammed into the rear end of some SUV, the road would be littered with dozens of carbon monoxide detectors, but at least I’d never be without a carbon monoxide detector when I needed one. So, I used to just give them to my sellers when I listed their home. But that didn’t necessarily solve the problem.
I have almost poked out my eye on more than one occasion trying to open that theft-proof packaging. Once, I stabbed myself in the chin and drew blood, and then ran around the vacant house trying to find toilet paper. Why do people take partially empty rolls of toilet paper with them when they move? How expensive is toilet paper? The other problem with that solution is when the sellers moved out, they take the carbon monoxide detectors with them as well. By accident.
This is a huge problem for home buyers because they are the people who get stuck paying for a second trip by the appraiser. Short of handing a buyer $125 when they write a purchase offer, I think instead I’ll try to be more diligent. That seems the easier path.
