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Why Did the Seller Reject an Offer for That Home?
Why the seller rejected an offer to buy a home is really not all that important but it doesn’t mean a buyer might not want to know. Moreover, it might be the buyer’s agent who is more curious about why than the buyer. In my earlier years of real estate, like back when Jimmy Carter was in office, I would often feel like I was helping a buyer’s agent by explaining how the buyer could do better next time, but over the years I’ve come to conclude that trying to help was about the dumbest thing I could do. It’s not my place to try to help. I’m just the listing agent.
First, it doesn’t matter why the offer was rejected, the fact is it was. It didn’t meet some sort of criteria. There could be a bazillion reasons why an offer could be rejected but after the seller has accepted another offer, there is nothing the rejected buyer can do but wait for that buyer to cancel. If the seller is so inclined, the seller could agree to sign a backup offer with the buyer but many sellers dislike backup offers. They often prefer to retain the freedom to respond to fluctuations of the real estate market in the event prices later rise.
Second, short of discrimination / violating Fair Housing Laws, the seller can reject an offer for just about any reason. Sometimes it’s a toss of the dice.
Maybe you could look at it like a point system. Offers need to meet certain points. There is price, of course, terms of agreement, length of escrow, type of loan, possession dates, lender reputations, buyer’s agent reputations, amount of earnest money deposit, even to how the offer is written — whether error free, and each carries weight. When I try to help a seller weigh an offer against others, we add up the positives and look at the negatives. A negative would be a possible bad situation or red flag that could prevent the escrow from closing.
The final choice is always the seller’s. Anything I were to disclose to a buyer’s agent about why their buyer’s offer did not measure up would be subjective on my part and could open my seller to a potential lawsuit, so I don’t go there. My lips are zipped. Yeah, I might know what the seller told me as to why your offer was rejected, but unless I am representing a buyer under those circumstances, which I am not, those reasons will never pass through my lips.
Why the seller elected to reject an offer is not the buyer’s business.
Call Elizabeth Weintraub, Broker #00697006, at 916.233.6759.
Why Your Realtor Cannot Show Homes in a Safe Neighborhood
Hardly a buyer exists who has not at one time or another asked a Sacramento Realtor to show homes in a safe neighborhood. It’s such a normal expectation. Like asking for a three-car garage or homes with hardwood floors. Part of the buying process. Except your Realtor cannot show homes in a safe neighborhood. This tends to surprise buyers.
Yesterday I talked with a new buyer who will be working with the team. He lives in the Bay Area and she is in Canada. People from all over are moving to Sacramento because it’s one of the last great places to live in California that features affordable homes. Affordability was certainly a consideration when my husband and I moved to Sacramento. Although, I had my heart set on going back to Newport Beach, my husband insisted on Sacramento. Which means it is all his fault we have lived in Sacramento for the past 16 years.
One of the first things the buyer mentioned was wanting to look at homes in a safe neighborhood. I knew this would be startling to break the news that we can’t do it. But why, the buyer asked. What is wrong with wanting to live in a safe neighborhood?
First, a safe neighborhood is a matter of perception. Everyone has different ideas of what constitutes a safe neighborhood. For me, a safe neighborhood might mean there are no daily shootings in the streets. Another person might feel a neighborhood is safe only if every homeowner drives a BMW, which is always parked in the garage. Someone else might refuse to live in any area that is not a gated community.
Second, a Realtor could be found guilty of violating Fair Housing Laws or illegal steering. Because I have a Jewish name, I’ve had people ask me to find them a home in a Jewish neighborhood. Can’t do it. A Realtor can lose her license over Fair Housing violations. Realtors cannot steer buyers away or to neighborhoods based on demographics or racial configurations. We cannot discriminate against any of the federal 7 protected classes.
California has expanded legislation that provides further protections and does not allow discrimination based on the following criteria:
- Age
- Ancestry
- Arbitrary discrimination
- Gender expression or Gender identity
- Genetic Information
- Marital Status
- Medical Condition
- Sexual Orientation
- Source of Income
A certain conservative Sacramento appraiser who routinely sticks his nose where it doesn’t belong might be amazed to learn it doesn’t cover political affiliations. But over all, it’s not a good idea to discriminate against anybody. One of the things we need to do in this country is to try to find the good in all people, except maybe the truly evil guys. It is nearly impossible to find the good in an evil White Supremacist, for example, but if we cannot, how will we ever effect positive change?
The last reason an agent cannot show homes in a safe neighborhood falls under risk management. It’s not part of our job definition. It relies on assumptions which may or may not be true. No Realtor wants to get sued after closing because she told the buyers they were buying a safe neighborhood, in a place where police often haul off thugs to jail.
How can a buyer find a safe neighborhood? The Sacramento Police department posts crime maps on its website. You can check for sex offenders on Megan’s Law website. Drive through the neighborhoods at different times of the day and on weekends. Talk to the neighbors. Ask your friends and associates for their definitions of a safe neighborhood. Look for homes in neighborhoods with top-rated schools. But don’t ask your Realtor to provide crime information.
If your Realtor scoffs at that notion, pulls you aside and promises to help out regardless, do you really want to work with an idiot? Ask yourself that question.
A Day in Tahiti is One Day Too Long
You know the adage if a tree fell in the forest? If you don’t know that something exists, you might form your perceptions around that which you do know, because you’ve got nothing else to go on. Your reality is formed by your own beliefs and experiences. And in that way we all create our own reality, regardless of whether you realize it.
For example, when I was in my 20s, I used to think a great vacation experience would be to stay at a place like the Disneyland Hotel. To have room service, a real soft bed (instead of a waterbed) and peace and quiet. Today, not so much. That’s not because I’ve turned into some other weird haute person, it’s because I’ve discovered there are other options that don’t involve sharing your space with 50 million other people.
There is a place in French Polynesia that is home to one of the largest atolls in the world. An atoll is a place where the island has sunk in the middle and all that is left is the coral reef, which has long ago died and today is covered with sand, grass, plants. I swear, the weather is perfect; the water turquoise, brimming with tropical fish; and the resort boasts a small string of modernized and updated over-water bungalows.
I can see why a day spent in Tahiti is a day too long.
There is a first-time home buyer I referred from Sacramento to an agent in another town where I don’t work. The home buyer sent me a dramatic email a few days ago, begging for a new agent. The reason she did not want to work with the agent I referred to her was because the agent refused to answer her questions about the ethnic make-up of a neighborhood. No matter how we explained it to her, the buyer could not understand that federal Fair Housing law prohibits the discussion.
This is an agent to whom I will definitely refer more business.
