Email Elizabethhome buying sacramento
The Sacramento Real Estate Agent Who Shows 3 Homes
Not every home that comes on the market these days is a highly desirable home in a hot location. Some of them are ordinary homes in Sacramento, owned by sellers with a little bit of equity who might need every scrap of equity they can squeeze out. Every once in a while, one of these sellers might be close to short sale status but would be willing to pay a couple of dollars just to close the transaction. These homes seem to be overlooked by buyers or possibly used by real estate agents as “the home not to buy.”
Back in the old days, and quite possibly even today as I type, real estate agents used to show 3 homes:
- A home the buyer cannot afford
- A perfect home that meets the buyers’ needs
- A home so horrible nobody would ever want to live in it
And they would show the 3 homes in the above order. Because when the Sacramento home buyer falls in love with the first home, it can be heart-breaking to realize that it’s just a dream, and the buyer can’t really afford to buy that home. It’s similar to the concept that HGTV uses on House Hunters, except 2 of those homes are often not for sale. After the buyer’s heart is broken, it’s on to tour the home that’s perfect.
The buyer can’t believe her good luck. Everything is exactly the way she thought it would be. The living room is in the front, she walks through the formal dining — past the two rooms she will never ever use in her lifetime — and into the kitchen with the Wolf 6-burner stove — a stove she will never turn on, but wow, it looks magnificent. Which reminds, did you hear that Burger King is now delivering to select areas in Sacramento? Yes, it is true.
While the buyer is salivating over the perfect home, the agent takes her to the home nobody would ever live in. Maybe it’s nestled next to the train tracks, or under the freeway, or across the street from a graveyard, by a school, or maybe the home is just a mess inside, with torn-up carpeting, Corian counters and half-chewed cabinet doors in the kitchen. Most buyers do not want to buy a fixer these days and, if they do, they will discount heavily for repairs that they have no idea how to undertake or what the repairs will actually cost.
So, then the buyer goes to the agent’s office and triumphantly declares she will buy house number two.
Sometimes, though, your number just comes up. Sometimes, in this limited inventory marketplace, we run out of the homes that are too expensive and the homes that fit a buyer’s every requirement. Sometimes, all that is left are the unique homes with a defect. Did your agent show 3 homes? Think about it.
And that’s when we’ll get three offers in one day on the same house.
Know Your Area Before Home Buying
Overwater bungalow at St. Regis Resort at Bora Bora.
The water is very still this morning, unlike the turbulent waves and constant ripples of the past week. I can see the sun barely begin to poke through the clouds. Even the air is hushed. There is some kind of creature rustling the palm fronds over my head. I prefer to think that it is a bird and not a rat. I have not seen a rat. Plus, a rat up on the roof would probably have to be a water rat since my structure was built over the water, and I don’t know if there is any such thing as a water rat in Bora Bora. But there are birds.
I spent several hours yesterday tracking down the types of birds we have seen. Two in particular. I researched them online until I was satisfied that I had located the correct birds. You might wonder why a person would spend an inordinate amount of time on her vacation to do this, and I guess there are two reasons. I like to be aware of my environment, and I am inquisitive. If you are aware of your environment, it heightens your enjoyment of said environment. You feel more connected to it, part of it.
It’s no different than how you might feel about your neighborhood or your home. If you are unfamiliar with a place you might want to move to, then hire an expert who can advise and assist, such as a Sacramento real estate agent to help you before home buying. If your agent doesn’t have the immediate answer, she has the resources at hand to get it for you.
Buying Sacramento real estate is not only an emotional decision for most people, it’s also somewhat logical and based on each person’s individual lifestyle. How will you know if your lifestyle is a good fit for an area if you don’t ask questions of your real estate agent? You don’t really need to know if an area will fit you, you need to know if you will fit in to a neighborhood. Doing homework before home buying pays off. I had a lengthy conversation before I left for my vacation with a fellow from Hawaii. I could sense instinctively that he would most likely be happier living in Curtis Park than in Land Park, and I didn’t draw that conclusion from anything tangible.
I present to you on this page a couple of Chestnut-breasted Mannikins (Longchura Castaneothorox) above. They were brought to Bora Bora from Australia and are not endemic. To the right are Red-Vented Bulbul (Pycnonotus Cafer). One of the bird sites lists the bulbul as one of the top 100 most invasive species as it has established itself in the wild not only in South Pacific islands but all the way to Dubai.
That bird on the roof just flew off and landed on another roof down the way. It is definitely a Chestnut-Breasted Mannikin. Whew.
Why, No, You Can’t Buy That Sacramento Home
Tell a person she can’t have something, and she wants it even more. Just seems to be human nature. The way things work. If Sacramento home buyers are interested in a home, all you have to say is they might not be able to buy it, and they break out in a sweat. I imagine their hearts begin to beat rather fast. I mean, I know that feeling. I am not immune to not always getting what I want.
There’s a restaurant in Chicago that I feel compelled to visit, and there are no reservations available in November when I will be there. It serves 23 courses for dinner. The only way to get a reservation at this restaurant is to hope a table opening pops up through Facebook. There’s a chance my husband and I won’t be able to go this restaurant. That will be a little bit disappointing, but it’s not the end of the world. You know why? Because there are other restaurants in Chicago and, like my mother used to say, think about the starving children in China!
OK, that didn’t help at all. But you get my drift.
Not having any inventory in the Sacramento real estate market is driving some home buyers nuts. They can’t stand it. I know because as a busy Sacramento real estate agent, I manage a lot of listings — more than some brokerages –and I get calls all day long about homes that are pending. Pending as in ready to close escrow. Solid offers from committed buyers, yet all of these callers want to know if the present buyer might change his or her mind. People might be off their rockers, but they’re not crazy enough to back out of a transaction when there is nothing else to buy.
All of the normal things a Sacramento real estate agent usually worries about are no longer much of a concern in this market. Home inspection? Spittooey. No problem. Long as the home is still standing and supported by four walls and a roof, they’ll take it. No seller concession? Who cares? Not today’s home buyers. You want a contingency release? Where do we sign? This is a fabulous real estate market for a seller and her listing agent! It’s not so hot for home buyers but it’s unusual, to say the least, to be on the other side of the fence for a change.
It Takes a Village to Close a Sacramento Escrow
Pia is stressed at the vet.
Welcome to home buying stress. Anybody who is buying a home in Sacramento today is stressed out. I don’t care who you are. There is no way to buy a home and not be stressed about it, so don’t feel alone. Even if you’re lucky enough to have beat out all of the competition and get your purchase offer accepted, you still need to get through underwriting. Lenders are much more strict than they were 5 years ago, more restrictive than a year ago or last month, it seems. Just because your lender says you’re fully approved does not mean you will get a loan.
I’m not trying to give you one more thing to worry about but getting approved by underwriting is a concern. I had one seller cancel an escrow a few months back because the buyer asked for too many extensions. It wasn’t even a short sale, it was a home with equity in Elk Grove. No matter what the buyer did, she could not close her loan. The reason she could not close her loan was because the IRS was backlogged. She needed her tax returns from the IRS. She couldn’t get them. My seller got tired of waiting and canceled. I didn’t blame her.
Another buyer in Lincoln could not close on her approved short sale. Something happened to her financial situation so the USDA loan she was trying to get was no longer a reality. She could not afford the FHA loan under its program terms, so she ended up losing the house. She lost her earnest money deposit, too, if I recall correctly, or maybe they are still fighting over it. My seller sold to another buyer who could perform.
Just last night, a Roseville buyer found out her “fully approved loan” did not pass underwriting. She needs to now haul in her parents to be cosigners, which means escrow will be delayed. All I can say is thank goodness this escrow is not a short sale and we don’t have to beg and plead with a short sale bank for a short sale extension that we may or may not receive. My seller expected to close this week, and now she will have to wait another couple of weeks or start with over with a new buyer. Oy.
My cat Pia is feeling very stressed. In fact, I had to rush her to Davis last night for an emergency vet visit. We are not ruling out a urinary tract infection but it could just be stress. She is stressed for a number of reasons. The vet says my work stress might affect my cat. Working as a Sacramento real estate agent can be stressful, even if it’s suppressed. Who knew stress could transfer to your pets? She is also very upset because I sold the dining room table, not to mention, her buddy, my husband, has been unavailable to her. Her environment has changed. Cats hate environmental changes.
The real estate environment has changed in Sacramento. This is not your mother’s residential resale market. It’s a world with wacky mortgage and appraisal guidelines, extreme competition, not only from other home buyers but from cash investors; and very few homes for sale. Better hope you have a good real estate team on your side. Believe me, it takes a village to close escrow these days. I won’t sugarcoat it for you. But the Elizabeth Weintraub Team will do everything in our power to get your escrow closed.
How to Buy a Pending Home in Sacramento
Sometimes, a Sacramento home buyer is in the right place at the right time. Or, better put, sometimes their Sacramento REALTOR is in the right place at the right time, and that means having her finger on the pulse of MLS. You’d be amazed at how few times during the day any given real estate agent gazes upon MLS, but that’s where one will find all of the action. Ya gotta cruise the news. If you think you can’t buy a pending home in Sacramento, think again.
Say, for example, that you are a Sacramento listing agent, and you’ve got a buyer who isn’t exactly cooperating. You might think: oh, who would do that in a seller’s market? A person like that would have to have a screw loose. But you would be surprised. Maybe it’s the buyer’s agent who has stopped responding to emails or phone calls. You might be astonished at how many agents struggle with communication issues or simply ignore attempts to reach them. There might be a contractual obligation that needs discussing such as putting an earnest money deposit into escrow, and maybe that hasn’t happened. That’s a warning sign a contract is about to be canceled and you might be able to buy a pending home in Sacramento. Or, maybe the buyer needs to release contingencies, and his 17 days has come and gone. Another warning sign. If you’re that listing agent, how would you get the word out to buyers that a listing might be coming back on the market soon?
Personally, I favor those big lights in the sky myself. Those honkin’ beams. Our days in Sacramento are getting shorter. Maybe with a bat insignia, like Batman. But I don’t have any of those. Can’t remotely run a scroll across the bottom of anybody’s iPhone like a CNN ticker tape. So the next thing that’s available is to do two things:
- If the purchase offer was more than the list price, raise the price in MLS and
- Slip “bring backups” next to the pending status in MLS.
It’s like going fishing. (Increased sales prices tend to gather more attention in MLS than a price decrease.) Minutes after that’s done, low and behold, this Sacramento REALTOR got a bite. I received an email from an inquiring buyer’s agent. She had shown a particular home in Sacramento to the buyer, and the buyer was very disappointed when it suddenly went into pending status, like they’re all doing right now. The buyer wrote an offer as a backup offer. Tip: To write a backup offer a seller can legally sign, one needs to submit a document that puts the offer into backup.
The seller signed the backup offer and issued a Notice to Perform to the buyer’s agent. The buyer failed to perform, so strings were cut and the new buyer slipped into place without this home ever going back on the market. So, if you are a Sacramento home buyer you might ask your buyer’s agent to glance over at MLS inventory several times during the day to see if there are any homes in pending status in which the seller wants a backup offer. This just might be your lucky day to buy a pending home in Sacramento.
