Email Elizabethchoosing a real estate agent
Sacramento Real Estate Agents Who Get Results Develop Confidence
You know what kind of listings the top-ranking Sacramento real estate agents prefers to take? You might think it’s the luxury homes in Granite Bay or El Dorado Hills at a million or more or maybe it’s the homes in Land Park right by my house or the homes by my office in East Sacramento and, while all of those are good choices, I don’t focus entirely on those neighborhoods and the price tag isn’t the deciding factor.
Most successful Sacramento real estate agents gravitate toward listings for sale by sellers who are reasonable and who will listen to advice. It doesn’t mean they have to follow to the T every single suggestion I come up with, but they shouldn’t ignore my advice. I’ve spent decades picking up experience to share in the real estate business, and I’ve been successfully honing my craft ever since the 1970s.
I’m not one of those part-time Sacramento real estate agents. I am a full-time Sacramento Realtor. I’m not a mom or a grandma who raised a bunch of kids and is now looking for something to keep myself occupied. I started in the real estate business when I was barely 22-years-old, and it’s been more of a calling than a job.
For that reason, I see the big picture when I talk to a client. I spoke to a guy a few days ago about listing an investment property in a somewhat scary part of Sacramento. It’s not Land Park by any stretch, but if a seller needs to sell, I go to where they need me to go. I don’t discriminate or think I’m too hoity toity to take a listing in an economically distressed or crime-ridden neighborhood. I drove over to this not-so-nice part of town in 106-degree heat and shot professional photographs, standing in the middle of the street, walking the property line, sweating to death, perspiration dripping down the middle of my shirt.
I studied the comparable sales. It was clear to me that the amount I could probably sell this property for would be an astronomical sum that my competitors who looked at the same comparable sales probably would not see. It would be a challenge but I could do it. That’s where my years of experience come in handy. Plus, I know how to extract top dollar for a property; I network and I have connections as well. I could have given the seller a lower price and been done with it, but it wouldn’t have been the ethical thing to do.
After I prepared the paperwork and sent it to the seller, I got a bit of push back on the listing. It wasn’t about the price or overall compensation. The seller wanted to change my strategy and insisted I conform to the seller’s idea of how to sell this particular piece of challenging real estate. The seller is not in the business of selling real estate. In fact, I’d go so far as to say the seller should not have ever done what the seller had done with regards to this particular property but that doesn’t alter the present.
My thoughts about this are it’s not gonna work for me. We’re not a team on this, not of one mind. It ultimately won’t really work for the seller either the way he wants to do it but the seller won’t figure that out until it’s been on the market for 6 months without any offers. I just tell people what I see and how I work. If they don’t want to go along with it, that’s OK. My feelings aren’t hurt. I am not a foie gras agent, prone to force feeding my clients. I don’t shove anything down anybody’s throat.
I just look at the client who is closing next week and pocketing an extra 10% profit because she listened to me. When I met with her, she was undecided between hiring me or another Sacramento agent. The other agent would charge less and wanted to list at a lower price, too. The seller had a hard time believing that she could sell for the price I quoted and did not want to pay a full commission. But in the end, she gave the listing to me at the higher price, paid my fee without griping, and now she’s laughing all the way to the bank.
Jealousy Can Lead Real Estate Agents to Badmouth Other Agents
Real estate agents who badmouth often feel the need to discredit another Sacramento real estate agent and can end up sabotaging their own career without realizing it. Before you can ask: how stupid are they, let me remind you that badmouthing another agent is stupid to begin with. There’s just no upside potential to it. It makes the agent who is doing it look horrible, not to mention small, petty, jealous and well, stupid.
I am often called to a listing presentation in which a seller who is hoping to choose a Sacramento listing agent has interviewed 2 other agents. I say, hey, good agents you called. But you would be amazed at some of the stuff I hear other agents tell the seller. Because the sellers tell me what they say when the agents learn that Elizabeth Weintraub is the competition to their presentation. First, I imagine the agents feel a bit intimidated when they look at my sales production and how much I sell. It can be 10 times the number of homes they sell, or more. This is intimidating because these agents can’t fathom how in the world I do it and remain competitive, because they can’t do it.
So they say stuff like, oh, Elizabeth Weintraub is too busy for you and won’t give you personal service. These agents should be shot and stuffed with mouse poop for allowing lies like that to leave their lips. You want something done right, you give it to a busy person, that’s what I have to say. Clients tell me that I treat them like they are my only client. I respond immediately to their concerns and address all of their questions, sometimes before the questions are even asked. I make them feel special because they are. Nothing should lead a real estate agent to badmouth. They should be better than that.
In my world, every client is important. Every situation is different. Another agent told a seller that I don’t negotiate my own transactions because, how could I? Yet, I do. It’s a fat lie to say I don’t. I personally handle every single listing myself. I shoot professional photography; I write copy and prepare the paperwork; I tweak my photos in Photoshop; I manage all of my listings; I collect feedback and deliver, provide suggestions, negotiate multiple offers, and there is no pawning off — I do it myself. Just because another agent can’t do what I do is no reason to make up crap about my real estate practice. You know what they call that? They call that attitude sour grapes. The Code of Ethics calls it unethical. I call it idiot real estate agents who badmouth.
A new client I’m meeting with this weekend asked me why none of the other agents she talked to didn’t tell her the things I suggested she do to get started. Well, I don’t know why. It makes sense to me that I bring up potential problems and solve them before we go on the market. I have no idea why other agents do what they do; I know only what I do, and that is I perform to high standards built on my decades of experience. When the only bad thing another agent can makeup is I must be too busy or I must not do the work myself, well, that tells you more about those agents than about me.
I’m not too busy. I do the work myself. If you expect excellence, you will get it. That’s how an ethical Sacramento real estate agent stays in business and gets referrals year after year after year. Sellers can hire a not-so-successful agent for the same amount of money, but why?
The Sacramento REALTOR with the Highest List Price
Do sellers always pick the Sacramento REALTOR who proposes the highest sales price? Not if they’re smart they don’t. They should pick the REALTOR they most trust, like and who has the experience to do the best job for them. But what if they do take the REALTOR with the highest price and that REALTOR just happens to be me? That’s what happened this summer, and I wasn’t feeling really good about the fact that price might have been the main reason I was chosen to list that pool home in Carmichael.
I’m not underestimating my experience because I’m certain my decades in the business was a motivating factor, but I had the sneaky suspicion that if I had suggested a lower sales price, that seller might not have elected to list with me. It doesn’t mean I will sell out my ethics or tell a seller a price that I don’t think the seller will get just to obtain that listing. That’s not how I work. I do try to get the seller the highest price possible, though.
The thing is home pricing is so variable. There is no single list price, actually. There is a price it should be listed at, which is not necessarily the price a seller expects to get. There is a price a buyer might offer, which is not necessarily the price at which the home may appraise. There is market value and there is appraised value, and the two are not necessarily the same thing. It’s more of a strategy, mixed with science and emotion.
Much of my pricing is based on how the home feels emotionally to me. I know that might sound a little new-agey and touchy-feely, but buyers make offers based on emotion. I try to look at the home through the buyer’s eyes, and then I turn that feeling into a dollar figure, followed by a way to justify that price to an appraiser. It’s a different approach than most REALTORS use, and it’s been very successful for my sellers.
There were REALTORS in my real estate office who thought we had priced that Carmichael pool home too high. It didn’t have upgrades. It wasn’t remodeled. Some of the appliances didn’t even work. Other REALTORS at the listing presentations had suggested sales prices that were tens of thousands of dollars lower than mine. My suggested sales price was the highest. From a sole listing viewpoint, the price didn’t make sense. From a buyer’s viewpoint, though, it did.
We sold that Carmichael pool home at list price. It closed last week. So, while I always tell a seller do NOT pick the REALTOR who gives you the highest price, in this particular instance they might have just done that and it was not the wrong thing to do. Still, I hope they chose me for my willingness to always do what I believe is best for them and not because my suggested list price was the highest.
I don’t intend to beat out a competing agent by suggesting higher prices during a listing presentation. I do what I believe is right.
