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Are You Getting Screwed in Real Estate?
When the Sacramento housing market tightens, getting screwed in real estate is more likely to happen.
Getting screwed in real estate is an interesting topic. You can look at Sacramento real estate like it’s one big f-ing orgy, and you wouldn’t be too far off base. Of course, that attitude won’t get you anywhere. You can wallow in that mud hole, rub that wet sticky mud all over naked body parts, and it still won’t resolve anything. The only thing a particular experience of getting screwed in real estate does for you is provide a new set of warning signs that it’s coming. It’s like a giant asteroid that could suddenly smack the earth. If you see that sucker coming, you can start running all you want — but when you’re under its shadow, it’s gonna squash you anyway.
This is why my 40-some years in the real estate business tends to pay off for my clients. It doesn’t mean I will never shoulder an experience of getting screwed in real estate, but those situations are super few and far between. My radar is constantly up. Searching. Analyzing. But it’s by habit and not a focused project. I don’t spend a lot of time on it. Yet, the stuff I’ve recently sent flying like a boomerang would make your head spin.
I can tell you that many people don’t start out with a plan to exploit. Because that would mean they are the devil incarnate, like Ted Cruz in the flesh, and most people are not. Nor would they even recognize that trait if it was embedded. People really don’t dig that deep within themselves. We’re too busy ushering kids to soccer, heads buried in our cellphones, ordering pizza delivery. On top of this, people tend to rationalize what they do to an extent that they make it OK to step on somebody else’s head by accident and grind those eyeballs into the concrete sidewalk.
It just comes with the territory of selling real estate in Sacramento. The more real estate an agent sells, the more likely she is come across these crooked situations and avoid them. I average around 100 sales a year.
Three Ways to Prevent Getting Screwed in Real Estate
I can’t see anyway to completely prevent getting screwed in real estate, but I can often lessen the chances of it happening. 1) The most obvious way is to be ethical and to operate with integrity. This way you tend to attract individuals like yourself. 2) The second is to pay attention to red flags, things that seem out of place. Probe. Inquire. Push a little for answers. 3) The third is to hire an experienced Sacramento Realtor who has been around the block so many times she can count the number of cracks that broke your mother’s back.
Call Elizabeth Weintraub for your Sacramento real estate needs. My laryngitis is just about over. It’s OK to sound like Stockard Channing, I’ve decided. I’ll get the job done right, and I try to ensure every client is a happier person along the way. Call 916.233.6759.
Don’t Look for Answers About Agents in Consumer Reports
Consumer Reports says it interviewed 303 real estate agents . . . and 86% of those agents said real estate agents are out to screw you and are dishonest. Now, it could be the manner in which Consumer Reports phrased the questions or it could be that they are talking only to the dishonest agents or maybe the cross section is skewed. Whatever, this Sacramento REALTOR aligns herself within the minority — the meager 42 agents of those surveyed who believe agents want to do the best job possible.
They couldn’t have tried to trash an industry any better than the March issue of Consumer Reports. It seems to me that they didn’t interview enough people. The numbers are off. They say buyers care more about interest rates than buying a home because they got married or they need more space. Wha? They say an agent’s median fee is 4.2%, which might apply to a tiny real estate market in Idaho somewhere but certainly is way off in other markets.
If you ask Consumer Reports, it will tell you that they pulled the stats from real estate agents, not outta their butts. Below is their claim:
- Agents will steer buyers to homes yielding higher commissions: 32%
- Agents make exaggerated claims when marketing themselves: 30%
- Agents refuse to disclose structural problems: 26%
- Agents persuade sellers to sell for less than their homes are worth: 27%
The only thing they got right was when is the best time of the year to sell, which is April. They neglect to point out that homes selling in April tend to close in May. I wonder if they talked to any experienced real estate agents at all or just those with their feet up on the desk watching the homeless sleep in the park.
Who among us hasn’t thought at one time or another to lie, or hasn’t been tempted under certain circumstances to bend the truth? Would an agent lie? It’s normal to consider. The fact is most of us would not do it. Like last week I discovered a referral had closed escrow and the company that had referred the buyer to us was not paid. I use a tight system to track buyers but this one had slipped through, with the buyer’s agent forgetting to source the lead.
I looked at the buyer’s name. The name given to us by the referral company was slightly different than the name that had closed escrow. In fact, the referral company most likely would never track this referral. I could have just left it lie. Forgotten about it. Nobody would know. The thing is I would know. And I do know. And I agreed to pay that company, and that company should be paid, even after the fact. So, I contacted the referral company and arranged for payment. Also, fixed a hole in my referral business tracking so this kind of thing doesn’t occur a second time.
I believe that most agents are honest and ethical, and they would do the same thing under similar circumstances. But when a company is out to provide “insider advice,” sometimes the only way to do that is to paint an entire industry with a tainted brush and proclaim that everybody is a crook — create a little hysteria, even if the facts are wrong.
The real estate industry is such an easy target. We walk around with a bullseye drawn on our foreheads. I’m not sure Consumer Reports could recognize a real estate pro, though, if they found one. It’s a sorry day when we can’t even rely on Consumer Reports to get the facts straight.
Honesty Should Not Be Tough For Real Estate Agents
Agents need to be truthful when asked if they have shown a property to their buyers if, for no other reasons, than the California Bureau of Real Estate makes honesty a requirement for a license and the REALTOR Code of Ethics demands it. You would think being honesty for real estate agents is a no brainer but some apparently disagree. The dishonest sort tend to twist honesty into a pretzel and a format they recognize, something they can rationalize, but there really is no rationalizing the truth. You are or you aren’t. You did or you didn’t. You did not have sexual relations with that woman. You are not a crook. You’re just some whack job driving a white Bronco very slowly.
We all get it. We all wish it would stop.
Except, sometimes, the people who perpetrate and give life, meaning and clarity to the unfortunately descriptive word: asshole. This sort doesn’t give a crap.
The California Bureau of Real Estate created bare-bone requirements to become a Sacramento real estate agent. You must be 18 (you do not have to be a high school graduate), you must complete 3 real estate courses, and an applicant for a real estate license must be TRUTHFUL and HONEST. Right there, that requirement probably knocks out at least 1 person out of every 5, yet they still get a real estate license because if they are untruthful, do you think they will admit it? Ack.
In the REALTOR Code of Ethics, the very first article a REALTOR pledges is to treat all parties HONESTLY. Yes, honesty for real estate agents is a prerequisite.
Yet, when a listing agent asks a buyer’s agent who submitted an offer the sellers want to accept if the agent showed the property to the buyers and the agent responds, “Yes, she loved it,” when the agent did NOT show the property, well, what do you make of that? When presented with the facts such as maybe the sellers were home all day and did not possess a business card from that agent, only then might the buyer’s agent admit that the buyer did not actually view the inside. Inferring, btw, that the buyer was outside of the property with the agent, which probably did not happen, either.
It’s the writer’s instinct in me, I ask questions and probe.
Agents, you might be tempted to “fudge” the facts even if you don’t see it as outright lying, but please don’t. Dishonesty is against the law, it’s against the Code of Ethics, and sellers might ignore your buyer’s offer when they find out what you did. I will tell them. It’s in my fiduciary to disclose what I know to my sellers. Just be honest. Why is honesty for real estate agents so tough?
