Email Elizabethhome sellers sacramento
Are Home Sellers Generous to Buyers?
Are home sellers generous to buyers? Well, it depends on many factors. Buyers often come in trying to negotiate a good deal. Of course, that is understandable, but it can sometimes backfire. Some sellers are very attached to their homes. The dreams of their lives are often wrapped up in the story of the house and what their dreams were.
I recently worked with a couple, and some buyers didn’t understand my sellers’ process. Some agents asked me if I was trying to talk buyers out of buying the home? I said no, but I am following my seller’s instructions. These sellers had their home on the market before, and often the reasons people did not buy it were evident as the features are listed on MLS. For example, three bedrooms and two baths. So when the buyer’s agents say they didn’t make an offer as they needed four bedrooms and three bathrooms, clearly the MLS says a three-bedroom. This is when a seller’s generosity often goes out of the window.
This seller couple decided that I needed to thoroughly screen each buyer by asking their agent’s many questions, before any appointments. The result was fewer buyers, but the quality of the buyers was much higher. The results were surprising, multiple offers. Here, I’m turning buyers away and then boom, multiples!
Let me get back to the generous question. When a seller is heavily emotionally invested in a property that they envisioned living in for the rest of their lives, it can be upsetting when they have to make a change for an employment opportunity., It is not EZ. A buyer came in and made an excellent offer. The other offer was good, but the first offer came from buyers who reminded the sellers of themselves in their younger years. The sellers are, in fact, very generous. They decided to give the buyers more time to close escrow and also give them a lot of expensive personal property. They also decided not to make multiple counter offers as they only wanted what was fair.
These sellers’ counter-offer was made up of items that benefited the buyer. In this case, the answers were clear Are home sellers generous towards buyers? More than you can imagine. If you want to bring out the best response from a seller, call Weintraub & Wallace Realtors with RE/MAX Gold. We can be reached at 916-233-6759.
— JaCi Wallace
The Remote Control Thorn from the Transfer Disclosure Statement
Before I share this amusing story with you about a transfer disclosure statement and remote controls for a garage door opener, let me preface it by saying this is not to single out any particular buyer’s agent in Sacramento because it could happen to anybody. You can’t examine my closed real estate transactions for the month and figure out who I am talking about because I have had a whole bunch of closings this February, but the story made me laugh, so you would probably like it.
To start with, I always advise my sellers when completing their transfer disclosure statement to think before they indicate how many remote controls they have in their possession for the garage door opener. I explain that they might want to put down one instead of two remotes, even if they own 2 remotes. The reason is often there is one person who is the last person in the house after it is sold. This person might go back to check on the house or pick up that last box of belongings, and when this person drives out of the garage and closes the garage door, this person tends to drive away with the remote control and not realize it.
It’s after escrow closes that this Sacramento real estate agent will often get a call from the buyer’s agent. The agent will demand that the seller provide restitution for the missing remote control because the transfer disclosure statement the seller signed promised 2 remote controls to the buyer and there is only one remote control. Most real estate agents I know do not want to deal with the issue of remote controls. We probably don’t even want to hear the words: remote control, yet we do. It’s like a thorn in our sides. That remote control thorn. It grows up out of cement all by itself without water or sunlight.
It all started with the closing last week of this particular home in Sacramento. First the buyer’s agent submitted a broker’s demand after closing asking for a higher commission split, although the commission was clearly shown in MLS. The agent said a speaker at the Sacramento Board of REALTORS meeting had recently explained that commission splits reflected in MLS are incorrect. That’s interesting. Because it is the commission in MLS that governs the transaction, so there is some sort of disconnect going on and confusion. That set me up for the question about remote controls.
The agent insisted that I had told her there were remote controls. Now, I know that I never talk about remote controls to buyer’s agents because, like I said, I do not much care for the remote control thorn. I don’t mention whether there are remotes, where the remotes would be kept, how many remotes the seller would own — I keep my mouth shut about remote controls.
I pulled out the transfer disclosure statement and looked at it. Sure enough, the box for remote controls was left unchecked. The line for the number of remote controls was left blank. The seller did not even disclose whether he had a remote control and, since he didn’t live in this house because it belonged to another family member, he probably did not have any remote controls nor any knowledge of their existence.
I sent the transfer disclosure statement to the buyer’s agent to show there were no remote controls conveyed with the property. The buyer’s agent sent me the AVID I had completed and insisted I noted there was a remote control. Under “garage and parking” I noted there was a garage door opener. I also said doors were stored in the rafters. No mention of a remote control. See, this is how miscommunication can happen in real estate. A garage door opener is not a remote control. It is a device secured to the ceiling that opens and closes the garage door when activated by a button attached to the wall or a remote control, but it is not a remote control.
