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The Best Way to Buy and Sell at the Same Time in Sacramento Today
You can easily buy and sell at the same time if you are not contingent.
One of the specialties of the Elizabeth Weintraub Team is helping our clients to buy and sell at the same time in Sacramento. Since our team features specialized Realtors — I handle the listings and my team members operate as exclusive buyer’s agents — it’s a match made in heaven for clients who need to buy and sell. A listing agent has a completely different focus than a buyer’s agent. Since we specialize in one or the other, we’ve become highly trained and efficient at what we do because we do the same sort of thing over and over.
Imagine, if you will, the effectiveness of a buyer’s agent who only helps buyers buy a home, or the listing agent whose sole focus is her sellers. We are never at our wit’s end or in the crossfire. We have no conflicts of interest. And like I’ve said before, I predict this way of selling Sacramento real estate will be the wave of the future. We are pioneers. You can remind me of this after I am dead and gone.
A while back, I had the pleasure of talking with a couple about buying a home I had listed. It since sold yet they wanted to put in a backup offer, which is generally a great idea in this market because so many transactions fall apart. Except these buyers wanted to buy with a contingency to sell their own home, without putting their own home on the market. Since I work for the seller, I could not encourage that type of situation. It was not in my seller’s best interest.
The best way to buy and sell at the same time in Sacramento right now is to buy the home you want first. But don’t make it contingent. If you can afford to own two homes, and many people can in this market, you can get a bridge loan or simply just buy a home and sell your own home later. Selling a home is not the problem. Not from my perspective, anyway. It’s buying.
A contingent buyer would be competing with buyers who don’t have to sell, and you know which offer the seller will take in those situations. Hmmm . . . a sure thing or people with a problem? Sellers tend to accept the sure thing. The buyer who can close without additional issues or complications. We have very little inventory for sale. Not much available. If you spot a home you’d like to buy but your home is not yet on the market, consider buying it without a contingency to sell. Talk to your mortgage lender.
It will take the stress out of trying to buy and sell at the same time. Then I’ll take care of selling your existing home after the fact. Call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759. I’ll be happy to discuss your situation and offer solutions to just about any real estate dilemma.
The Amazing Story of a Sacramento Real Estate Miracle
A Sacramento real estate miracle does not happen every day.
No Sacramento Realtor expects her client to call, late on Sunday no less, just as The Oscars are starting, to excitedly announce he has written an offer on her listing with another agent. Yet, stranger things have happened in Sacramento real estate. Things that can make clients believe this is the way they always occur, and anybody can do it. When my client first uttered those words last night, I thought he was joking. We closed escrow in 2013, but I recall his transaction like it was yesterday, even though I’ve sold hundreds of homes since but few are a Sacramento real estate miracle.
This guy was originally a referral to me by another agent. He claimed to have overpaid for a home he owned in north Sacramento, which he needed to sell, and yes, it wasn’t worth what he owed. He also wanted to buy a home in Elk Grove during a super-heated real estate market. Selling and buying concurrently is a delicate balance, but even more so in a hot market. That scenario typically requires careful planning, including contingent offers. I took him on as a client as a favor to the referring agent, and because he needed a miracle. Fortunately, I can perform miracles.
I sold his home in north Sacramento for a lot more than it would likely appraise at to a cash buyer from San Francisco. That buyer’s agent did not know the neighborhood. Negotiated a 6-month rent back at less-than-market rent for him, so my client did not have to move. At the same time, I helped him buy my short sale listing in Elk Grove through my team member. The sellers received a number of offers for this short sale but they decided to take my team member’s offer for this client because they believed, even though it was contingent upon selling his home, that I would sell it. They had faith in my abilities. Some other agent, maybe not, but I perform. I can do a Sacramento real estate miracle.
Ordinarily, you cannot submit a contingent offer for a short sale to the bank because the bank will say come back when the home is sold. But I calculated by the time the bank raised that particular objection, I would have sold his home. And that’s what happened. Basically, this was a guy who was underwater, and I moved him from north Sacramento into a four-bedroom, two-story home in Elk Grove. All the stars aligned. It was a Sacramento real estate miracle.
You can imagine my shock when this guy said he had written an offer through another agent on one of my listings. The agent is his buddy, a long-term friend, says he, the guy who had initially sold him the home in north Sacramento. Then he apologized, said he was sorry. Well, that makes two of us. Of course, I immediately realized that he did not write an offer for any of my listings. I’m not sure which home he is trying to buy, but it’s not one of my listings, and he confused me with some other top Sacramento agent. Not only that, I checked MLS and his home was not on the market, it is not for sale, so he is not buying anything. Sellers generally do not accept offers from contingent buyers if that buyer’s home is not for sale.
I don’t see a Sacramento real estate miracle happening here.
I am very successful with selling and buying a home at the same time, in part because other listing agents in Sacramento know I will perform as well. They know my reputation. If you need to both sell a home and buy a home, call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759.
Not Every Sacramento Home Seller Wants to Deal With a Counter Offer
When an agent says to me, you can always issue a counter offer to my buyer, that sounds like code for: the buyer is unreasonable, because I don’t think an agent is trying to tell a veteran how to sell real estate. But you never know in this market. We have a very weird market in Sacramento right now made up of serious buyers and squirrelly buyers and lowballing investors. I never know on which the roulette ball will land, as it is like a roulette wheel.
I can share with an agent that we have multiple offers, and yet the buyer’s agent will send me an offer that is contingent on selling the buyer’s home without a Contingency of Purchase addendum, much less a pre-approval letter. You can’t make this stuff up. Oh, and on top of it, maybe the agent hasn’t shown the home. It makes you wonder if buyers aren’t thumbing through MLS listings like a Neiman Marcus catalog and saying when I win the lottery, I’ll buy this house and that house and that house. And agents are writing offers for these guys. Blows my mind.
Most sellers in Sacramento do not enjoy bidding wars, believe it or not. They hope that a nice family will purchase their home at a fair price and close escrow — live there happily ever after. That’s what sellers want. Not every seller will want to deal with a counter offer. It’s stressful for many sellers. Negotiating does not come as easily to some of us as it does to others.
Myself, as a top-producing Sacramento real estate agent, I negotiate daily for a living, and I love to negotiate. But I’m also sensitive enough to realize that many of my sellers do not want to negotiate. They don’t want to deal with counter offers and all that they imply. They just want to sell their home.
If we receive 5 offers, the sellers, more likely than not, will take the path of least resistance and choose the best offer for them. Especially if it doesn’t involve a counter offer. If you’re thinking about writing an offer for a home in Sacramento, you should ask your buyer’s agent to call the listing agent to discuss what you might want to do. Although a listing agent cannot and should not ever speak for the seller, a listing agent can help to guide. You might have to write your best offer and stop trying to ding around.
On top of all of this, no offer should ever land on a listing agent’s computer without an advance call from a buyer’s agent. Not in this Sacramento real estate market.
