Selling Sacramento Real Estate Without Internet

While this Sacramento real estate agent was on vacation in Alaska with limited Internet access, two real estate transactions blew up at closing — which is a rarity but seems to be more common lately. These would have blown up even if I was in Sacramento. Pending sales blowing up appears to be due to a mix of buyer remorse, uncertainty and severe underwriting guidelines. Fortunately, I was able to put both of these homes back into escrow almost immediately and at better terms, even from thousands of miles away.

I also sold another home in Elk Grove while I was cruising the Inside Passage. We had just left Skagway that evening and headed back to Juneau, a long stretch without Internet. I had anticipated this difficulty before I left, which is why my team members and assistant were on alert, jumping in to help answer questions and monitor listing activity. On top of that, I had set up my iPad as a Hotspot so if we did find cellphone coverage, I could receive wireless coverage through my laptop computer.

The only problem with the iPad is I should have named my iPad something other than Elizabeth Weintraub’s iPad. Like, maybe, Breaking Bad. Although we had only 35 travelers onboard the Alaskan Dream, many of them asked about it because it showed up in their wireless connections as a connectivity port. It kind of made me feel like the only rock pigeon dangling a slice of bread from my mouth, surrounded by starving, pecking pigeons.

My Hotspot only worked though if I was near a cellphone tower. As a backup, I also left my cellphone plugged in and turned to silent. That’s because I use two different cellphone carriers, so whichever was strongest would pick up the signal.

Sure enough, around 1 AM, while I was sound asleep, we cruised into Juneau to get diesel before continuing on to Glacier Bay. See, this is how I sell Sacramento real estate in my sleep. My husband set the alarm on his cellphone to wake me up. Eureka. Internet. I quickly uploaded the offer I had received to DocuSign, cc’d my assistant to send the executed offer on to the buyer’s agent, and crawled back into bed. Of course, it was hard going back to sleep with my brain on fire.