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Managing Buyer Repair Requests to Buy a Home in Elk Grove
Managing buyer repair requests is an art form. I can always spot that experienced buyer’s agent who invests the time to educate her buyers. It’s as plain as day. Some buyer’s agents simply take orders from their buyers. Don’t know why. Who is the professional and who is the client? I suspect some agents don’t know the answer to that question, so they allow their insecurities to bubble, to thrive and to rule. Agents don’t want to tell a buyer to back off or calm down or listen to reason, not in those words, of course. They want to be a buddy. And that’s the problem.
If an agent can’t find a way to explain to a client why the buyer’s chosen plan of action is harmful and a really bad idea, then how is a buyer’s agent representing that client? What kind of service is that? I tell you what it is. It’s called lip service, for some of you younger guys. Lip service is a disservice. Just like agreeing for the sake of harmony when the agent knows it is wrong. The best way to engage in managing buyer repair requests is to have a conversation with the buyer prior to inspections. To review other types of inspections and to prepare the buyer for the inevitable: The fact their dream home has things wrong with it and damages the seller might not fix.
This is never time “wasted” on behalf of the buyer’s agent. Yet so few set aside time to discuss aspects of the transaction with their clients.
I’ll give you a case in point. Yesterday, I closed a listing in Elk Grove. A sale which I sold twice and got paid once. Nobody likes to do that, albeit it is less work for me than the poor buyer’s agent who now has to hit the street to show more property or, worse, lost a client over it. In this scenario, a buyer’s agent begged me to show compassion toward his buyers. The agent made a plethora of promises he ultimately could not keep. When I hear from that agent in the future, I shall no longer hold a high opinion of that agent. The opposite. He lied. Repeatedly.
— Which is unacceptable in my book. Other agents say, hey, we all huff and puff and fluff, get over it. But, no. We all don’t huff and puff and fluff. —
After promising his buyer would purchase AS IS, he sent the sellers a 14-item request for repairs. It included things like replace all the fixtures and faucets in the house, replace the siding, install new windows. Crazy-ass stuff. The one thing he should have focused on was replacing the leaking water heater and he might have closed. Focusing on one major item is a sign of a smart agent. But no, they tend to get caught up in drama.
I tell sellers not to do repairs after they get a home inspection. But they take it personally. They actually want to fix broken things. It’s hard to get them to back off and wait for a request. Because what they think a buyer will want fixed and what a buyer really wants are two completely different viewpoints. No sense fixing stuff the buyer doesn’t care about. No two buyers are ever the same. After the existing buyers canceled, we found another buyer right away. Of course, this new buyer did not care at all about the home inspection. Just like I said. Those buyers had an agent who was adept at managing buyer repair requests.
Also, in this particular transaction, when our winning offer arrived, we already had a counter offer out to another buyer. That buyer was slow to respond. His agent did not appear overly motivated, either. While that counter offer was out and awaiting buyer approval, we received the offer we really wanted. Bay area buyer. Cash. $5K over. So we sent the second buyer a withdrawal of offer, withdrew that counter offer, and accepted the offer we preferred.
The sellers had already decided at that point to replace the water heater. It was expensive. Cost $1,400 to replace a 40-gallon water heater. Yikes. For that price, one may as well go tankless, but I digress. Last water heater I helped a seller replace was $750. Only a few years ago. However, these particular buyers had paid for a pest report. The first set of buyers did not. See? They don’t always get a pest. The pest showed $7,500 of Section 1 work, plus more for Section 2.
We had bumped up the sales price by $5,000, so we reduced it by $5,000, which made the sellers even. Even Steven. No pest work, and we closed with a cash offer. 9089 Paseo Grande Way, Elk Grove, CA 95758 closed escrow on September 12, 2018 at $339,999.
Sacramento Home Sellers Can Reject a Request for Repair
There are solid reasons some sellers in Sacramento might reject a Request for Repair.
I am not afraid to admit that as a top listing agent in Sacramento, I am sometimes regarded as being very hard on buyer’s agents when it comes to negotiating a Request for Repair. In part, it’s probably because those agents are used to dealing with listing agents who just want to close the transaction and get paid. They call those kinds of agents “easy to work with.” Getting paid is nice but it’s not my focus. If the sellers do not care if the transaction cancels, neither do I. Because I want what my sellers want. That’s my success formula. Not every seller will reject a request for repair, either. However, a seller is absolutely under zero obligation to accept.
The California Residential Purchase Agreement states the sale is sold AS IS. There is nothing in the purchase contract that says a seller must renegotiate the price, make any repairs or out of extreme generosity agree to hand the buyer cash at closing toward closing costs. Buyers are allowed to do inspections and perform due diligence for the buyer’s edification only. A home inspection report is not a license to ask for repairs.
One such buyer recently asked for 4 pages of repairs. Four pages! She listed nearly every item in the home inspection report and asked the seller to fix it, which was absolutely crazy insane. You never know what a buyer might demand during escrow. Buyers are just as likely to be mentally unbalanced as they are reasonable; they need guidance, which is why their agent is so important to the transaction. Yet, some agents are either unable or uncomfortable educating their buyers. Some buyers don’t listen to professional advice, either. They will listen to a co-worker or uncle who sold a home a while back and did things this way or that way, which means nothing, but they won’t accept advice from an agent who has sold hundreds of homes. Go figure.
Some buyers can also be unethical. They might make a full-price offer thinking once they have been in escrow for a few weeks, the seller will agree to a Request for Repair because the sellers do not want the buyer to cancel. Sellers resent this strategy. Especially when the buyer asks for things that were readily viewable during the initial showing. Sellers feel deceived. Like the buyers are trying to hold them hostage. But buyers don’t think about that. They tend to think about what they want, and what they want is not carrying a lot of weight in today’s Sacramento seller’s market.
It’s not uncommon for a Request for Repair to cause bitter feelings. Buyers might think, oh what’s the harm in asking, the seller might say yes, but that’s because they do not see the pettiness nor annoyance. They live in their own world. They would be wise to consider ramifications. For example, when I bought our house in Hawaii earlier this year, the living room vault was cracked at the seam. A previous earthquake had rattled the structure. We asked the sellers to repair it upfront as part of our purchase offer. The sellers appreciated that approach and we worked it out.
Later, when the home inspection revealed a few minor things, I asked the sellers to fix those things but I didn’t do it in a formal Request for Repair. I wanted to enlist the sellers’ cooperation, and let them know they didn’t have to do anything but since they were in Hawaii and we live in Sacramento, we would be grateful if they would. It was just an email to the listing agent. Very low key. The sellers fixed the stuff. Goodwill goes a long way.
But don’t be astonished if you send a Request for Repair and the seller says no.
If you would like to hire a top producer listing agent in Sacramento with 40+ years of experience, call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759.
When the Pest Inspector Finds Bones Under the House
These are not the pile of bones under the house but they are what we imagine.
Do you have bones under the house? If you haven’t adequately sealed your crawl space, all sorts of critters can get under your house in Sacramento because we have a ton of wildlife roaming about. You’ve got your possums in Sacramento, rats, squirrels, skunks and raccoons, all of which can invade the area under your raised foundation. Finding a pile of bones under the house was not what an agent expected yesterday to hear from the buyer’s pest inspector. He called it a human body, which totally freaked out the buyers.
Who wouldn’t be freaked? It sounds like something related to Sacramento’s notorious serial killer, Dorothea Puente, who was convicted in 1993 for killing a bunch of tenants at 1426 F Street and burying them in the yard. Much of our housing stock in the capital core area of Sacramento is older, built prior to 1940. Some homes are a hundred years old.
The pest inspector later changed his story and said it was a huge pile of bones under the house, not a skeleton or human body. Although, he had thought about calling the police, adding fuel to the buyer’s anxiety. One of the parties, I hear, crawled under the house and looked at the bones, and determined they were the kind you get from a butcher shop for your dog. Cellphone photos passed around.
After much discussion, the matter appeared settled. When I passed on this information to my seller, he related another horror story. During an escrow to sell his home in Central California, the pest inspector produced a large rat, which he conveniently found at the entrance to the attic and by some miracle had not yet decomposed. The pest company demanded $7,000 to replace all of the attic insulation and clean up the area. When the seller went to Yelp to check on the pest company, he discovered accusations of similar “discoveries.”
Who would imagine that a pest company would plant a rat? Where would they find such a critter? I guess it doesn’t astonish upon reflection. There are so many crooked people in the world.
I’m fairly certain this particular pest company did not plant the bones under the house. The previous tenants had two large dogs. Seems it is common for dogs to hide a stash of bones, and the coolness under the house in our hot Sacramento summers would be just the spot. Still, it would be unsettling for anybody to find bones under the house. You never know what a home inspection or pest inspection in Sacramento could reveal.
Dole Park Shop in Lanai City Led Sacramento Realtor to Sweetheart Rock
Sweetheart Rock
Salaried employees who don’t like their jobs, along with spouses married to workaholics, probably cannot understand why a business owner would go on vacation and take a computer to Lanai, Hawaii. They sit on that shuttle bus and mumble under their breath, that’s not a vacation, when a) nobody asked them, b) nobody was talking to them, and c) if the internet goes kaput at Four Seasons when the poor woman in the seat behind me got up expressly at 4 AM to get a little business completed before hopping the shuttle to Four Seasons Lodge, whose concern is it, really?
I love getting up early in Lanai to respond to emails about Sacramento real estate while listening to birds and watching waves roll to shore. It’s peaceful and quiet. It gives me a slightly different perspective about business. Challenges don’t seem so severe. Even when a buyer’s agent called yesterday to say a buyer was canceling escrow because she thought the house needed too much work, that’s OK, we’ll find another buyer. She is not the right buyer for this house.
Home inspections can scare the bejesus out of most home buyers. It’s hard for buyers to decipher what is CYA in a home inspection report and what is serious. And if it is serious, exactly how serious is it? Is the home siding off its foundation? If it’s not sliding off its foundation, it’s not that serious. Every home has defects. Recently I heard about a first-time home buyer who did not want to buy a home because it had been treated for termites. It had a pest completion on file, and the buyer rejected the home.
My heart goes out to buyer’s agents who have to deal with these anxious people one-on-one. Smoothing out their fears and helping them understand a home inspection is part of the home inspector’s job, but it certainly doesn’t hurt to have the buyer’s agent involved. The problem that arises is a) most buyer’s agents do not understand how a home is constructed nor how to fix things and b) there is too much legal liability, brokers don’t like their agents explaining how to hang a piece of Sheetrock.
Dole Park
The Four Seasons shuttle dropped me yesterday in Lanai City. That’s about 20 minutes from Manele Bay. Hopping off, I turned on my cellphone and eureka, there were Ingress portals all over. One of the portals lured me to its location and I discovered the Lanai City Post Office. I bought stamps for postcards I later found by wandering around some of the shops. A guy on the shuttle said you couldn’t tell the little houses were shops, but they looked very much like shops to me.
I met Mike Carroll at the Mike Carroll Gallery over by the Blue Ginger Cafe. His wife founded the Lanai Animal Rescue Center, the #1 tourist attraction in Lanai on TripAdvisor, no joke. They rescue stray and feral cats and try to find them permanent homes. I don’t have a car, so I didn’t go there but, then, I also briefly worked at the Sacramento SPCA as its marketing director when I first landed in Sacramento, so I am familiar with that kind of work.
Lunch at the Blue Ginger Cafe
Mike says it becomes art when it is framed. Before then, it is not art. His work is incredible, and he features other artists as well. I was mesmerized by the large paintings in the back that were sent to Mike by an artist in Montana. I have no wall space back in Land Park to hang work of that dimension, not to mention, I’ve never spent $20K for art; although I probably should. I don’t recall the name of this artist, but his technique is unusual — the way the light reflected while simultaneously penetrating the waves was captivating.
I spotted a sign at another shop that said: what happens in Manele Bay stays in Manele Bay, what happens in Lanai City makes it way around the square. Dole Park is a huge square comprised of several city blocks, adorned by towering Cook Island pines. There are many memorials, hence a lot of portals, park benches and a cultural center. I sat in the park and wrote postcards and yes, captured a few portals that included creating mind control fields all the way back to Manele Bay and earned my bronze badge in Ingress.
Four Seasons Lodge Koi Pond
On the way back to Four Seasons at Manele Bay, I stopped at Four Seasons Lodge up the hill. This resort features an attached golf course. The reason I could not find the View Restaurant at Manalay Bay Golf Course is because the golf course is a not located directly on the grounds. Not that I play golf, but I find golf courses alluringly beautiful. I might have to go back because I did not realize there is an orchid garden there, which I discovered by perusing things to do in Lanai on the internet.
At another shop, I talked with the owner about Lanai and she asked if I had been to Sweetheart Rock. She showed me a picture of it on a postcard. It is on the other side of a hill at Hulopo’e Beach Park. The reason I didn’t find it is because it is not a portal. I will need to rectify that and submit it to Ingress, as it would make a dandy portal. I did take a video, and I shot many photographs, one of which is on this page.
The story goes a warrior fell in love with a princess and brought her to Sweetheart Rock. She was so beautiful, he didn’t want other men to snatch her away, so he stuck her in a cave. Nice guy. One day a storm flooded out the cave while the warrior was away doing warrior things. When he returned, he found his princess had drowned. Devastated, he buried her there and then threw himself into the ocean to his death.
Sweetheart Rock is a place where you can sit for hours. Doing nothing. Just soaking it in. There was nobody there. Perfect solitude.
Dealing With Unreasonable Buyers After a Home Inspection
A home inspection is only for a buyer’s edification and not a license to ask for repairs after a home inspection, but what do buyers know? When it comes to advising clients in a real estate transaction, this Sacramento real estate agent is direct with her advice. There is no skirting around the issue. I try to present a balanced picture for clients, pros and cons of actions they could take or ignore, especially when it comes to the dreaded Request for Repairs, which are often a buyer’s response to a home inspection. I wish often that agents would provide a better education for their clients, but then that would involve recommending top-notch home inspectors at all times, and that’s just not a reality.
Sometimes, the buyers don’t want to hire the agent’s home inspector because they don’t trust their agent. Which is always a lovely situation. They might think their agent is likely to recommend some doofus home inspector who won’t do a thorough job or who will gloss over some stupid repair, which is idiotic thinking, but what are ya gonna do? You can’t easily change how a stubborn person thinks, especially if they won’t listen. Therefore, often what perpetrates a problematic request for repair is a home inspector’s bad home inspection report.
It’s not bad in the way that a buyer would think in that a home inspector was covering up an issue. To start with, home inspectors don’t cover up issues. They expose issues. The main problems are some that home inspectors expose issues that don’t exist or insist that items are broken / need repair when said whatchamacallits are perfectly fine.
One can also throw into that mix an agent who whips out a pad and starts writing down all of the buyer’s concerns without so much as lifting the pen from the page or discussing them. Being an order taker is not what a buyer’s agent is all about. I would shrivel up and die if I presented a Request for Repair to a listing agent like some of the documents I receive. Some of the requests are just a list of every defect from the home inspection. What that tells me is the buyer’s agent either has absolutely no guts or else no clue — either way it’s bad. Sometimes agents behave like they are order takers and not real estate agents.
Maybe they’re simply exhausted and worn down by the buyer? That can happen. But then the rest of us are stuck with explaining why the home inspector was wrong in the report and why we can’t perform the repair requested. Besides, sellers are not required to fix anything the buyer complains about. Every home in California is sold AS IS. But most sellers want the buyers happy with their new home, so we try to find a way to keep everybody on the path to closing.
I just wish buyers would select one or two major issues like most sensible buyers would do. But then, this is Sacramento real estate wherein expecting things to make sense could render one a crazy person. You know the definition of insanity, right?
