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The Lost Art of Pie in the Face
The movie studios don’t really make slapstick comedies anymore and I miss that kind of humor, unless you count the world of Sacramento real estate — in which one can almost always find a highly amusing moment as there are so many to choose from. I kinda like slapstick because I grew up with it, not to mention, it gave me a good excuse to whack my brother’s face for no reason. I laugh at pie in the face from the old Soupy Sales skits. Don’t get me started on the Marx Brothers or the Three Stooges. But today so much is PC you don’t get that kind of humor from Hollywood or media.
Not that I’m against being PC because I’m not. As an enlightened human beings of the 22nd Century (Is that right? Are we in the 22nd Century now? How did that happen?), we don’t need to reinforce stereotypical issues that harm people or encourage discriminatory opinions, but what’s a pie in the face gonna harm?
I wish I could carry whipped cream pies in my briefcase for spur of the moment chuckles. I mean, maybe for health and safety purposes they could be stored frozen in the freezer like Cool Whip and removed to thaw just before I needed them. I could find many uses for this product.
Thank you for this lowball offer, whoosh, pie in the face. Thank you for never intending to close escrow, whoosh, pie in the face. Thank you for that Request for Repair on this AS IS sale, whoosh, pie in the face. Thank you for listing with your husband’s cousin, whoosh pie in the face. Thank you for picking my brain about all the fine nuances to sell and then sticking a FSBO sign in the yard, whoosh, pie in the face. Thank you for failing to deliver loan docs, whoosh pie in the face.
See, just thinking about this makes me laugh. But maybe that’s why I’m a Sacramento real estate agent who has survived and thrived all of these decades. If you gravitate toward goofy stuff, you’ll probably enjoy Anchorman 2.
Let It Be and Hire a REALTOR in Sacramento
If you’ve ever wondered why it’s a good idea to hire a REALTOR, the California Association of Realtors has launched what it says is new content for REALTORS, even though the source of its data is 2012. Or, maybe that’s a typo in the artwork image. We can all make mistakes — heck, while watching the Grammy’s Salute to The Beatles a few nights back, I suddenly realized I had misheard the lyrics to Let it Be all these years later. No joke.
Turns out Paul McCartney’s mother was named Mary. Why I do not readily recall this tidbit is a mystery. I surely must have stashed away this bit of information into my memory blocks at some significant time in my childhood, just as surely as I vividly recall writing The Beatles over and over, trying to write it 5000 times during class to win a Beatles wig from a local Minneapolis radio station, and suffering the agony and instant flash of hatred toward my teacher who snatched the papers off my desk, crumpling my work into her own little twisted hands while an evil grin spread slowly across her wretched face . . .
The line in Let it Be is When I find myself in times of trouble Mother Mary comes to me. Don’t ask me how I managed to believe during all of these decades that The Beatles sang: When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother married constantly. It made sense to me on some weird level. Maybe I thought if you couldn’t afford to pay your bills, you could always marry into money? Some things don’t make sense like a dead skunk in the middle of the road.
It also doesn’t make sense to try to sell a home in Sacramento by yourself when you can hire an agent who, if she’s any good, will probably make you more money than you could get on your own, even after paying the agent a commission. The California Association of Realtors says on average FSBO homes sold for $184,000 versus homes sold by a REALTOR at an average price of $230,000. C.A.R. concludes that sellers lose $46,000 by not hiring a REALTOR.
Bottom line, no matter how much you think you might know all the words to your favorite songs, some of us can mess it up and get it in our heads the wrong way. Just don’t mess up your home sale by trying to go it alone. If you need an experienced and aggressive listing agent, call Elizabeth Weintraub, at 916.233.6759.
Image: California Association of Realtors
The Lead Based Paint Disclosure for Sacramento Sellers
One of the (many) problems inherent in selling a home yourself as a for sale by owner is FSBOs typically don’t have the seller disclosures. All sellers in California are required to disclose certain conditions and information about a home. Most of the time, a seller never gives these things a second thought because her agent handles that for her by providing the forms. We are constantly, as Sacramento real estate agents, thinking about managing risk for our sellers and, by extension, ourselves.
I try to have that “disclosure talk” involving potential lawsuits with each and every one of my sellers. I must put the fear of god into them because of the way some respond. For example, yesterday, a seller sent me a series of emails about whether his home has or does not have lead-based paint. He couldn’t remember when he bought the home what the seller at that time had disclosed. He wanted to make sure he disclosed the same thing. I love sellers like him to pieces. They are conscientious.
The lead-based paint form is a federal form that is required for every California real estate transaction in which the home was built prior to 1978, and I use it for transactions involving newer homes as well. You never know where a person might buy lead-based paint. It’s still sold in some states.
The lead-based paint form states there might be lead-based paint in the home. It puts a buyer on notice that if a buyer is concerned, the buyer needs to further investigate. This might involve having the paint tested. There is also another law that says you can’t hire a painter to paint a home who doesn’t comply with lead-based paint removal procedures.
My seller wanted a yes or no answer. Should he say yes he has lead-based paint or should he say no, he does not. Not everything in life requires a yes or no answer. Some things simply need to be disclosed and a seller should disclose what a seller knows for certain to be true. My seller was pretty happy yesterday that he had a real estate agent. While we can’t fill out these forms for our sellers, we can direct and help them to make the right decisions.
Why It’s a Bad Idea to Be a For Sale By Owner — FSBO — in Sacramento
Although I have done it myself in the past — back when I was young and foolish with not nearly as many wrinkles as I have today — I still don’t advise it. I’m not saying this because I am a Sacramento real estate agent. I’m promoting this because I’ve been in the business long enough to know how many small things that can mushroom into big things can go wrong in a real estate transaction and, for that reason alone, you need a real estate agent. It’s just not a good idea to try to sell your home yourself as a FSBO (for sale by owner).
A seller in the Elk Grove area called me yesterday. He asked if I recalled our meeting in my midtown office 3 weeks ago. He had been interviewing Elk Grove agents to sell his home in the Elk Grove area. I sell a lot of homes in Elk Grove and Laguna, primarily because that’s where many homes are for sale and these neighborhoods are in high demand right now.
I did remember meeting him. In fact, before our meeting, I had emailed him a CMA for his home. We spent a good hour at my office going over the plat map, the county records, discussing how he needed to bring some technical aspects up-to-date, pouring over the comparable sales, explaining how to adjust the comps by adding / subtracting for improvements and variations. I also gave him a range of price in which I felt his home would sell, but cautioned that it may sell for more than our asking price in this seller’s market. It’s hard to predict exactly what a desperate buyer might do.
The reason that he called was to tell me out of all the agents he interviewed, he felt I was best suited for him and the most professional. However, and yes, there was that little BUT in his voice, he has decided to sell to his tenant and he is selling the home himself as a for sale by owner. I had done such a great job presenting what I would do and how I would do it, that I made it look too easy. This guy somehow believes he could do it himself.
He probably can sell it himself, but will it close at the sales price? Did he get the highest sales price he could possibly get in this market? Was his home exposed to the largest pool of buyers to get him the highest price? What will he do if the underwriter throws out the buyer’s loan at the 11th hour? How will he handle technical title issues that affect his land? What comparable sales will he give to the appraiser to assist the appraiser in determining value should the present comps fail to support him? How will he handle the home inspection? Will he fill out the disclosures correctly, and does he have a list of every disclosure the seller needs to provide?
He thinks he will walk out of this transaction with a big chunk of change. Money that he would like me to help him to invest in fixers. Although, he has no experience buying fixers to flip, and there are very few opportunities in Sacramento at the moment. He doesn’t strike me as a flipper. But he also didn’t strike me as a person who would try to sell his home by himself. The main reason to try to do that is to try to save commission, but in his case, he is probably losing more money than the commission would have cost him.
He asked me about the FIRPTA. How should he fill it out?
Really? He’ s got to ask himself that question, not a person who does not represent him. If he wants to be his own real estate agent and represent himself, he’s got to pull himself up by his bootstraps and get with the program.
