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Whose Listing Is It Anyway?
If a Sacramento real estate agent doesn’t spend much time online, the agent is kinda hosed in this business. Many agents and their sellers are unaware that a listing can show up on a popular website without the listing agent’s name or contact information. It happens every single day, as there are many homes for sale in Sacramento on the internet without the name of the listing agent or listing broker. This means not only does the listing agent remain unknown, but a potential buyer will probably call a buyer’s agent at a competing brokerage.
On the Elizabeth Weintraub website, through my MetroList-partner IDX feed, buyers can search every single listing among homes for sale in Sacramento. Every listing brokerage is identified in this listing feed because that’s the way our Sacramento MLS works. It complies with the law because it makes up its own rules. It’s pretty much the god of Sacramento real estate.
Try explaining this to an annoyed real estate agent who can’t figure out why my picture and contact information shows up on his listing. I regularly get those kind of calls. Agents need to monitor and work on their internet presence. I’ve been working online since 1991. It’s pretty much second nature to me. I go back to Bulletin Boards and squealing dial-up modems.
So, yeah, my listings enjoy great exposure. Put my name into Google and you’ll find almost 1,000,000 results. I challenge you to go to a website and not find one of my listings among the homes for sale in Sacramento. I plaster my listings everywhere and treat each as the individual piece of gold that it is.
At the same time, I provide every listing on all Sacramento homes for sale and beyond on my website. If you’re looking for Sacramento homes for sale, the website for Elizabeth Weintraub is the place to be.
You can call me at 916 233 6759. I answer my phone.
Pricing a Home in Sacramento Ahead of the Curve
Pricing a home in Sacramento ahead of the curve is the strategy a few select Sacramento real estate agents are offering to today’s sellers. It means pricing a home where you think the market is heading and not where the market is now. This strategy doesn’t work so well if the home is difficult to sell or is unique. It works well in areas of high demand where buyers are lined up the minute a home goes on the market — in places like Natomas, Elk Grove and Lincoln.
In Elk Grove today, you can pretty much walk the line of buyers with an order pad and pen, asking each what they will pay for this home in Elk Grove advertised at $185,000. Guy first in line might say $200,000. Tear off a ticket and write $200,000 on it. Woman behind him will smirk and promise she’ll pay $220,000. Tear off a ticket and write $225,000 on it. Couple behind both of them will trump those offers and, my goodness, they’ll pay $250,000. And so it goes. Throw your pad and pen in the air. Nobody has any regard as to whether the home will appraise when push comes to shove. They’re just thinking about their mortgage payment.
Why? Because every $10,000 increment at 3.5% interest equates to an additional $45 per month. If the home would appraise, a buyer could increase an offer by $50,000 and pay only an additional $225, less than, say, an HOA fee. Buyers don’t know how real estate works. They don’t understand that an appraiser will need to find solid comparable sales to justify a price that is $50,000 higher than any other home near it. And if they do understand, they are hoping that when the appraisal comes in less, the seller will lower her price.
A price ahead of the curve might be $225,000. Because in 30 to 45 days, there might be comparable sales at that price. Of course, you won’t get a ton of buyers. You probably won’t get multiple offers. None of that excitement. But you might get 2 offers, and one of those will be an offer you can take. All you need is that one offer from one committed and qualified buyer at a price that will close escrow. If you need more information on pricing a home in Sacramento, call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759.
Why Multiple Offers Are Wrong
It’s not that I don’t trust people; it’s that people can’t always be trusted. Which isn’t necessarily the same thing. When you’re a Sacramento real estate agent like me — and been in the business since kids wore bellbottoms — you see enough to question what seems odd to you. People take that as mistrust, but it’s just enough usually to put my radar on alert. It’s the reason I was accepted into law school in my younger years. I am naturally inquisitive. The oddball in any equation is often suspect for a reason.
Sure enough, the offer that stood apart from all of the other offers this weekend for that home in Elk Grove did not make it past a 24-hour period. It’s not that the purchase offer crumbled and fell, it’s that it was most likely falsely presented in the first place. A statement in MLS informed buyer’s agents that all offers would be reviewed on a certain day at a certain time. This put buyers on notice that all offers would be given an equal opportunity for presentation. Therefore, by extension, a buyer who was not willing to wait for a response by that certain day should not submit an offer. To submit an offer without an intent to wait could very well invalidate the good faith covenant inherent in purchase contracts.
Whether a buyer realizes it or not, a buyer can make only one offer for a home in Sacramento. Some agents will tell buyers that they can make as many offers as they want and those agents would not only be wrong but they could be subject to discipline. If a buyer does not have the financial means to purchase every home a buyer writes an offer to buy, the offers are not real. There are laws that prohibit writing pretend offers. Buyers writing multiple offers they can’t afford to all buy is a big, huge, no-no. It’s also unprofessional, and fiduciary could be called into question as well because who would advise a buyer to break the law?
Yet, that did not stop an agent and Elk Grove buyers from writing more than one offer for a home in Elk Grove, offering as a lame excuse the buyers did not want to wait. This intent was undisclosed. This agent does not work for Lyon Real Estate, thank goodness. I can’t tell you which company but it wasn’t Lyon. I love working with Lyon real estate agents. I know they have been trained and they are supervised. Any little problems that could ever pop up are handled in a prompt and efficient manner. We have great management and communication among our agents at Lyon Real Estate. I can always trust a Lyon agent to do the job correctly.
When agents don’t respond after being informed their buyer’s offer has been accepted, that’s the first sign something is amiss. I didn’t hear from this buyer’s agent for more than 24 hours. A full 24 hours was also enough time to negotiate another offer. Of course, unknown to me, the agent could have dropped dead from a heart attack and been found lying splattered in the street somewhere, but that’s a long shot, don’t you think?
In any case, I have 3 very happy buyers this morning who have a renewed chance to buy a home in Elk Grove. If you read yesterday’s blog, 35 offers for a home in Elk Grove, you’ll see my gut said we should have countered all four offers. That was my suggestion. It’s not that I don’t trust people; it’s that some prove unworthy of trust. Being cautious is always wise in my playbook.
One deal is not worth a reputation. The shame is some agents never learn that lesson.
How Long Will It Take to Sell My Home in Elk Grove?
Last week I talked to a seller who lives in the ZIP of 95757 in Elk Grove. I sell a lot of homes in that ZIP code, probably because so many of them are short sales, but some of them are not. It’s a desirable place to live, and some neighborhoods are located in a certain school district, which enforces the desirability of those subdivisions. This seller asked me how long it takes to sell homes in Elk Grove, and I told him we would be in escrow within 7 to 14 days, and probably closer to 3 to 7 days. His jaw dropped, but that reaction is expected because that’s what everybody does when this Elk Grove agent explains the market.
What’s going on in the market in Elk Grove and the Sacramento area in general is so wild and crazy that it’s difficult to believe. That’s in part because we’ve been depressed for so long. It’s like tying a circus elephant’s leg to a stake. The elephant eventually will give up moving, and you can remove the stake, and the elephant will stay there. It’s conditioned. And PETA will get after you for that. Yet in Elk Grove, homes are moving into pending very quickly and there are no consequences.
Unless you’re like this seller in Elk Grove I was talking to. When I showed him the pending sales to prove how quickly homes were selling, he looked at the numbers and snorted. He said the sellers were selling too quickly and for too little. Because he’s sold so many homes in his life that added up to the number 2, he knows for a fact the sellers in Elk Grove gave away money. Which is one way to look at it. Except they didn’t. They sold according to the market. They let the market dictate. And the market responded favorably for them.
Putting a home on the market for 30 days without accepting any of the dozens of offers you’ll receive is insanity. Because offer #29 isn’t going to be the highest offer. Neither is #30. Your highest offer will be among those received in the first 7 to 10 days. After three weeks, interest dies off. People begin to wonder what’s wrong.
My goal, as your Elk Grove listing agent, is to attract as many buyers as possible and let them bid for your home. In a seller’s market, like our present market in Elk Grove, a newer home in a popular subdivision priced between $200,000 and $300,000 will quickly sell. If your home is drop-dead gorgeous, buyers will be lined up down the block. An experienced Elk Grove agent can take one look at your home and tell you how quickly it will sell. Of course, selling is only the first step; you’ve got to get it closed and that’s another blog.
I will say this, if I were the owner of a food or ice cream truck, I would be driving around Elk Grove on the weekends.
