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What Sacramento Listing Agents Know for Certain
Sacramento listing agents often joke that all we have to do is go out of town for the weekend to get offers rolling in, and this last weekend trip from Sacramento to see Aimee Mann was no exception. I managed to put another two transactions into escrow for Monday morning. It’s always a good way to start the week. It seems to complete the circle of life of Sacramento real estate, meaning new escrows on Monday, new listings on Thursday and closings on Friday.
Lest anybody who reads this thinks that the circle of life of Sacramento real estate is an easy feat to pull off, let me be clear that this market is a lot tougher for Sacramento listing agents than previous years. It seems like there is a lot more work involved. A few years ago we might get one or two offers, take the best one, and call it a day. Today, if a seller wants market value, we might end up negotiating 5 to 7 offers over the term of 30 days or longer. The first offer doesn’t always work out.
Sacramento listing agents can’t be 100% certain that a buyer will perform no matter what we do. The listing agent can call the lender directly and interrogate but that’s no guarantee. The buyer’s agent can swear up and down that the buyer will close, but that’s no assurance, either. Half the time the agents don’t even know the buyers, they met them briefly at an open house, at the bar or maybe during “floor time” — perhaps bumped into them at the grocery store.
Then I get the buyer’s agents who want to know what my sellers will do. Heck, I don’t know. I’m not inside their head. I’m just the Sacramento listing agent who knows if the buyers sign an offer at the list price, we’ll take it. Don’t call and ask what will my sellers do because I don’t know. No other listing agent likely knows, either, if you want to know the truth.
And if we do have an inkling, we’re not allowed to tell ya.
If You Don’t Write a Purchase Offer You’ll Never Know
While some Sacramento real estate agents view other agent inquiries about their listings as annoying, perhaps irritating, I actually welcome a chat with a buyer’s agent who is working with a qualified and eager home buyer — because it could lead to a purchase offer. My focus is selling my listings, so the next best thing to talking to an actual buyer is talking to the buyer’s agent. See, I don’t mind talking on the phone, as I have a lot of practice talking on the phone.
I’ve been yakking on the phone since I was old enough to drag around a Northwestern Bell dial telephone by its cord in one hand while sucking my thumb on the other. We didn’t have any pacifiers when I was growing up in the 1950s, and we had to substitute our own body parts.
Which brings me to a phone conversation I had several days ago when I made an emergency stop at a gas station somewhere in Citrus Heights. Apart from making a beeline to Nordstrom in Rocklin from my home in Land Park, about the only other place I drive is to seller’s homes to put them on the market. This means I fill up my car maybe once or twice a month. But I’ve been doing a lot more driving this week and noticed my gas gauge was dangerously low. My car tells me when I’m about to run out of fuel with a cute in-dash message about being mindful of how far I have left to drive. It’s so polite. Those Italians.
As I was climbing out of my car and grabbing my VISA card, my bluetooth began to jangle slightly with the sound of faraway chimes, like I’m standing on a hillside in Ireland listening to the wind blow across the burren. No ringy-dingy for me. I answer and it’s an agent calling about one of my listings. She wanted to know if my seller would entertain a lowball offer. Now, see, that’s being polite. That’s encouraging cooperation between agents. That’s not just emailing an insulting purchase offer out of the blue, it’s calling to discuss first. Professional.
I’m staring at the gas pump while I’m listening to the agent talk. This is why I don’t fill up my car at foreign gas stations away from Land Park. I prefer the familiar, like I imagine most people do. I saw three paragraphs of white text printed on the pump, explaining how to pump gas. WTH? My eyes frantically scanned the pump for something simple such as:
- insert card
- select grade
- pump gas
But it wasn’t there. I realized I could not comprehend the text nor attempt to read it while I was in the midst of an engrossing conversation about my listing. How can a Shell gas station make pumping gas so danged difficult? Well, perhaps it’s the same as any other gas station, and it wants my ZIP code. I inserted the card, pressed my 5-digit code into the keypad and selected the button for gas. Everything seemed OK, stuck the hose pump into my car and nothing happened when I pressed the lever. What?
Around the other side of the pump I spotted a younger guy sporting a 10-gallon hat filling up his pickup. I asked if there was some kind of trick, no, not the agent, I assured her. Now I was having 2 conversations and neither were productive. I grabbed my bag, locked the car and marched into the tiny Shell station office stuffed to the gills with bags of potato chips, beef jerky and Pepsi. What am I doing wrong at the pump? I asked the clerk, waving my VISA card at her.
Then I glanced at the card in my hand. It was my Health Saving Account VISA, which is a debit card. The buyer’s agent is still talking to me about her clients. We’re discussing the comparable sales. You know, I don’t really know what my sellers will do with that kind of purchase offer, I explain, but there is certainly one way to find out, and that’s to write the purchase offer. I don’t make decisions for my clients, and we need a place to start negotiations, and this spot might very well be it. It’s a sure rejection if you never write the purchase offer, what do you have to lose?
This story ends with the sellers and the agent’s buyers coming to an agreement a few days later and going into escrow. This is what happens when agents get out of the way and don’t let their own personal opinions shade a transaction but instead facilitate and represent their clients’ best interests.
And I’m sticking my Health Savings Account card into a different slot in my wallet, not to be confused with my regular VISA. Because you can’t buy gas with a Health Savings Account VISA. I also suspect that clerks who have to deal with the public really dislike customers yakking on their cell, but when you’re a Sacramento real estate agent, you never know when a buyer will call.
5 Ways to Get Your Sacramento Purchase Offer Rejected
We have weeks in Sacramento real estate during which I stare at my offer tracking sheets to count the number of offers that are excellent examples of how not to write a purchase offer to buy a home in Sacramento, also known as how to get your purchase offer rejected. You see, one of the benefits of working with the Elizabeth Weintraub Team is that I provide useful information to my own team members. I often advise my team how other listing agents look at purchase offers — because I know how I look at them — and offer tips about what NOT to do. How not to get an offer rejected. Which is why so many of my team member’s purchase offers are accepted.
Because when an agent is working with a buyer as a buyer’s agent, often the focus is directly on that buyer. The buyer’s agent can be so wrapped up in what her buyer wants and in trying to fulfill those requirements that an agent can forget how her or his actions and words appear to the parties who can make or break that Sacramento home purchase.
- The first rule is do not argue with the listing agent. I don’t care if that listing agent is dumber than a bag of rocks, don’t argue. There is a big difference between arguments and negotiation. Don’t try to explain a “cash offer” for example to the listing agent as there is hardly a Sacramento real estate agent alive today who doesn’t know the advantages of cash over financing, even though it is always all cash in the end.
- The second rule is don’t insult the seller. If you think the house appears cluttered or dirty, for example, don’t demand that the seller “wash the floors” and take all personal items with them. Our California purchase contract already addresses debris. Wash the floors? Seriously? And how does one wash carpeting? Tear it off the floor and toss it into the washing machine?
- The third rule is send all of the documentation that is necessary in order to submit a purchase offer. And, for heaven’s sakes, try to submit this paperwork in one file in the manner specified in the multiple listing. If the paperwork is incomplete, the purchase offer is incomplete.
- The fourth rule is don’t submit a lowball offer when the seller has received multiple offers. You would think this would be such an obvious rule, but gah, it is not. I suspect some agents do this anyway to “teach a lesson” to their buyers so hopefully on the next purchase offer the buyers will be more reasonable.
- The fifth rule is don’t submit a lowball offer while also breaking rules 1 through 4. This is worse than 3 strikes and you’re out. Why do you think the sellers would want to consider your lowball offer that insults them, makes unreasonable demands and is incomplete?
It’s tough in some Sacramento neighborhoods right now to buy a nice home. Don’t make it so much harder on yourself than it needs to be.
Will a Sacramento Seller Sell for Less than List Price?
Buyer’s agents in Sacramento continually hear the question from buyers which, they in turn, pass along to the Sacramento listing agent: Will the seller sell for less? It’s not always phrased in those exact terms, but that’s what everybody wants to know. And that’s the one thing they cannot know and will never know unless they write an offer. For starters, no listing agent worth her salt is about to disclose to anybody for any reason how much her sellers will take to sell that home.
You might wonder why not. Because the listing agent has a legal fiduciary duty to the seller of confidentiality. The list price is the sales price. Period. If the seller prefers a range of value, then the sales price will be listed as a range of value indicated by a big ol’ V that nobody understands so nobody does it. Second, the listing agent doesn’t know what her seller will do because the listing agent is not the seller. She doesn’t own the home, and she can’t make decisions for the seller.
Every so often, I receive an email from a buyer’s agent that lays out all of the reasons why that agent’s buyers are such spectacular human beings and why they deserve to get an incredible break on the sales price — primarily because they are looking at a home the buyers cannot afford to buy. In my mind, of course, I wonder how that is my problem and what that has to do with me, Al Franken? I mean, why doesn’t the agent show her buyers the types of homes that her buyers can afford to buy? Why is she showing her buyers homes that are too expensive for her buyers?
You know why she’s performing such an unproductive service maneuver? Because she doesn’t want to take a chance that her buyers will dump her and run off to some other real estate agent in Sacramento. She wants to make her buyers happy. She wants to do what her buyers ask of her, like any agent. But somewhere along the line, an agent needs to educate her buyers. Explain the market, how pending sales are moving, supply comparable sales and provide education. Buyers are not real estate agents. That’s why they hire an experienced real estate agent: to guide, assist and help them to buy a home.
When an agent sets aside her professional self-worth in a feeble attempt to keep unreasonable clients happy, she loses credibility with those clients, which in turn makes clients miserable. It’s not a win-win.
Further, when a buyer is pre-approved to buy a maximum amount, buyers should look at homes priced below that maximum amount. At homes they have a chance in hell of buying. Buyers should not ask their agents to show them homes that are listed higher than that price point unless those homes have lingered on the market and are stale, overpriced. You don’t ask to see a brand new listing and expect to a seller to accept a lowball and sell for less. It doesn’t work that way. Well, maybe it does on HGTV, but not in the real world of Sacramento real estate.
Why Condition Matters When Selling Sacramento Real Estate
Condition of property is one of the big three elements when selling Sacramento real estate— or any home in the Sacramento seven-county region — but it’s often overlooked or dismissed by sellers. They get used to their house the way it is. They might say something like, “Oh, we’ll let the buyer take care of that issue.” Unless the house is pretty much a tear down, or needs such extensive work that we call it a fixer home, a home buyer will not do those repairs / corrective work. End of story. Only an investor will buy that kind of home today. And investors aren’t paying full price this spring.
The three key elements for selling a home in Sacramento are:
- Location
- Condition
- Price
You can have a great price at market value that would apply to a turnkey home in a fabulous sought-after neighborhood, and it still won’t sell because the home is not fixed up. You can have a great price for a good location and a home in move-in condition, and the home won’t sell if it’s located in a bad place like under a freeway or next-door to an apartment building.
If the home needs major work, you should just do the work before putting that home on the market or else adjust the sales price accordingly. If the home is located in a bad location, your sales price also has has to come down and be adjusted for that location. You can’t get top dollar for a beautiful home in a bad location. You can’t get top dollar for a fixer home regardless of its great location.
These are the rules of real estate. I don’t make them up. These rules are not something this Sacramento real estate agent has plucked out of thin air or can bend at will but that’s the way some people react to the news.
The only way you’re getting top market value for your home is if that home has a great location and is in top condition. You need all three elements to command the top of the market, even in a seller’s market.
Buyers want a turnkey home in a good location, and they don’t want to do any work. If you’ve got ugly carpet, you need to replace it or be prepared to be hit with a lowball offer that will far exceed the cost of replacing that carpet.
