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Do Realtors in the City of Davis Prefer Dual Agency?
Do Realtors in the City of Davis prefer dual agency?
Realtors in the City of Davis called this real estate broker continuously yesterday. It was difficult to keep up with the phone calls, text messages and emails as I entered into a “no service” zone at a U. C. Davis Medical Center. That was kind of like the Twilight Zone. Eerily quiet. No zing, ping, snap, twinkle, or loud Louie-Louie song breakout while I sat in the waiting room. The doctors were 3 hours behind yesterday. Usually they are right on the button when I show up for my annual SI joint injection appointment. Yes, when you get to be an older real estate broker like me, sometimes you need an injection to keep the old body moving along another year.
The Realtors in the City of Davis were relentless. I figured it would be either me or my client, so it was better to make me the source of these telephone calls. That’s part of my job as a Realtor, to be the buffer. You see, once a listing is canceled or withdrawn from MLS, agents come out of the woodwork. In their excitement, some of those real estate agents don’t even notice that the listing has gone back on the market as a new listing. They still call the seller to beg for the chance to list the home. From their point of view, why not? Here’s a guy who wanted to sell and didn’t, for whatever reason. But still . . .
On the other hand, if a listing goes into Temporary Off Market status, the agents are prohibited from hounding, er, pursuing, the seller. The back story is I have a former client in Davis who wants to sell a home in Davis, and he asked me to list it in May with the hopes of going on the market at the end of June or early July, after a few repairs and sprucing up efforts. As things sometimes go, the projected on-market date was pushed further out a few days ago. MLS regulations are a listing can stay in off-market status for a maximum of 60 days. We would not be ready to go on the market by the end of July, so we were forced to take action on this particular listing.
To put the listing into TOM status requires going “active” in MLS for a few minutes and then off market. I asked the seller to sign a Modification of Terms reflecting this technicality. However, the Realtors in the City of Davis went crazy over this. One of the Realtors left me voice mails that referred twice to this “strange listing,” with a peculiar tone in her voice. I didn’t understand. Then, another Davis Realtor called and asked if this was one of those “games” that Realtors in the City of Davis apparently play or he thought they did. Due to no entiendo, I asked for clarification. What “game” is played by Realtors in the City of Davis, I asked?
I’m certainly not playing a game. Oh, you know, the Davis Realtor explained. You put the home on the market, take it off the market and then buyers call you directly (so you double-end the transaction). That had not occurred to me, probably because it is unethical. Anybody who knows me knows that is not how I operate. In fact, I prefer single representation. But apparently, in the close-knit community of Realtors in the City of Davis, real estate is, let’s say, different.
A Short Sale Home in Fair Oaks with Two Loans Closed Fast
As I drove away from my closed listing of a short sale home in Fair Oaks yesterday, I wondered why I picked up the Supra lockbox. It’s not like I can use the lockbox for anything ever again now that MetroList has rescinded its agreement to allow us to continue using our Supra lockboxes until they die. I had more than 70 lockboxes and did not exchange them all in the rip-off 2 for 1 Supra lockbox exchange because MetroList promised we could keep them. Which means now I have about 40 lockboxes rolling around in my trunk that are useless because MetroList backpedaled.
Well, I do know why I picked it up. I retrieved my lockbox because I owed it to the new buyer of that home in Fair Oaks to retrieve. Because I have a responsibility to my profession. We, Fair Oaks Realtors don’t go around leaving our personal property attached to homes in Fair Oaks, even if it’s useless to us. I wonder, though, how many agents will just leave their lockboxes? You know how some agents are.
Homeowners can thank MetroList for all those abandoned lockboxes that I predict will be happening throughout Sacramento.
The home in Fair Oaks that just closed was a short sale I had listed in MLS on May 15th. It was a Fannie Mae short sale; Seterus was the servicer for Fannie Mae, and I’ve closed hundreds of short sales since 2006, which means I have knowledge other agents do not. One of the things I know about Fannie Mae is it does not want to see any offer prior to 5 days on the market, with at least 2 of those days the weekend. Makes sense, Fannie Mae expects decent exposure on the market, no side deals. I also have an account at Fannie Mae’s portal that keeps me up-to-date on new rules and where I expedite my short sales.
We had multiple offers, too, and chose the buyer most likely to wait for approval, which is the buyer whose agent is cooperative and submits the offer the way we need it submitted for approval. You’d be amazed how many agents contest what is actually in their best interest and their client’s best interest, but what can I say?
Come August 15th, 3 months later, we had closed escrow, and there were two loans on this short sale. I also hear agents say they don’t want to deal with two loans on a short sale, probably because they’ve had bad experiences. They haven’t worked with me. I do many short sales with two loans. It’s really no big deal.
I’d say 90 days from listing to moving out of the short sale home in Fair Oaks is a fairly decent approval process. I didn’t see the buyer yesterday or I would have thanked him personally for going into escrow with us. My seller is thrilled beyond being thrilled, and extremely relieved, and that’s the most important thing to me.
P.S. Look out for those chickens in Fair Oaks.
Where Do Buyers Find Homes for Sale in Sacramento?
Where do you find homes for sale in Sacramento online? Which website is best for listings? We’ve got website wars going on in which the Realtor dot com website is advertising that it has more homes than the popular Zillow and Trulia, and it does, but it seems to me that Realtor dot com lost its effectiveness years ago, back when it controlled the entire market. From where I sit, Realtor dot com had its chance and blew it. It’s a long road to retrieve the power it once possessed.
Some might argue it’s because it let its monopoly go to its head and invariably some other business gained a foothold and isn’t letting go. I have no idea. I just know that most of the home buyers I talk to do not use Realtor dot com to search for homes for sale in Sacramento.
The best place to get your homes for sale in Sacramento is from your own Sacramento Realtor. That’s because Realtors have online access directly to the mothership, our MetroList. You can get listings from a public website via MetroList MLS but it won’t be as detailed or customized as you can get from your own agent. Plus, some of its information in the listings are cut off, like my name, Elizabeth A. Weintraub, for crying out loud, because certain MetroList fields are not designed to handle very many characters. I’ve put MetroList on notice; it doesn’t change.
You also can’t find a Realtor at Realtor dot com. Well, you can, but it will take you forever. For starters, fill in Sacramento for the search field city and Realtor dot com will tell you there are 2,027 Realtors in Sacramento. Then, hit the search button and Realtor dot com will bring up 3,438 Realtors. Does Realtor dot com know how many Realtors are in Sacramento? Can you rely on the homes for sale search link if it can’t get one simple search field right? Not to mention, many of the random names and links that appeared when I tried to search were entries without a photo of the Realtor. Not very enticing.
Zillow and Trulia have the pizazz, and no matter what a Sacramento Realtor tells a buyer and no matter how many private emails a Realtor sends, a buyer’s curiosity will almost always win out. They can’t help themselves. They have a computer or an iPad or a mobile device and they will search for homes online with or without an agent. They might hope there could be that one **special** home that is not listed in the emails from their agent. There might be. Especially among the Coming Soon homes in Zillow.
But eventually, those Coming Soon homes will go online and they’ll get the listing from their own agent. Because most homes for sale in Sacramento generally end up in MetroList.
Every so often I’ll get a Sign Call. This is when a buyer passes by a home for sale in Sacramento, spots my real estate sign and calls me. I have so much information on that sign, and so many ways to get instant data without calling that I’m always astounded when buyers call. They can access a virtual tour by texting a code from the sign, or taking a photo of the QR code or by calling an 800 number. They can call the big honkin’ telephone number of the closest Lyon Real Estate office, prominently displayed. They can call the first agent listed on the sign rider, which is one of my Elizabeth Weintraub Team members, always ready to show homes. And, then, they can call me, the listing agent. I’m like the bottom of the barrel.
I wonder why they aren’t looking online. I wonder if they are working with a Realtor. They ask me for the sales price and I ask if they’re looking for a home. They say no, they are not. I share the sales price with them and then they ask for the square footage. I ask if they want to sell a home, and they say no, they do not. Then they ask for the number of bedrooms. Finally, after I am drilled with a series of these types of questions I ask why, why do they want to know? What possible difference could it make in their lives to find out the number of bedrooms in some home when they are not a buyer nor a seller, and apparently don’t know anybody who is?
Alternative to Short Sale to Sell an Underwater Home in Sacramento
Be aware that not every underwater home is a short sale.
When a seller deposits cash to close an underwater home, that’s what makes a short sale not a short sale. I realize this can baffle some real estate agents in Sacramento because an anonymous agent attempted to file a complaint about my listing to Metrolist, claiming it was disguised as an equity sale. This confused MetroList as well because they could clearly see that my listing was an active listing and not a short sale. Everybody understood except the anonymous agent who apparently could not fathom how a seller could bring in money to close a transaction.
When is a short sale not a short sale? I guess in that agent’s mind if the home was underwater it had to be a short sale; but from where I sit, sellers bring in cash to close more often than you would think. Not every seller of an underwater home wants to do a short sale. Some wish to avoid a short sale and the accompanying derogatory credit by bridging the gap in cash.
This is how it works. Say we have a home that is worth $300,000 but the seller owes $330,000. If the home sells for $300,000, the seller is $30,000 short, plus the seller is short another $21,000 to $22,000 for closing costs and commissions. In this example, a seller can deposit about $52,000 into escrow, which pays all of the costs of sale, including the mortgage payoff, and it is not a short sale.
It is an alternative to a short sale. It is called a regular sale. The seller is adding cash in-lieu-of requesting a short sale. It will not affect the seller’s credit rating, and the seller can buy a new home the same day. Some sellers choose to sell a home in this manner. So, agents should not automatically assume that when a mortgage balance in the tax rolls seems larger than the sales price that the home is a short sale — and don’t rush to file reports with MetroList because it makes the reporting agent look like an idiot.
Trust that many of us in Sacramento real estate really do know what we are doing when we list a home and sell it. Thank goodness this home closed escrow this week. Both of the sellers appear relieved to have unloaded the property without resorting to a short sale. This alternative to a short sale does not fit everybody but for some sellers, it’s the perfect choice.
How to be Creative When Your Technology Fails to Work
There is really only one given that is absolutely true about modern technology and that is when it stops working — and it will stop working at some point or it is not modern technology — how do you get through the misery? And don’t start in about the starving kids in China or the refugee immigrants without cellphones; I know all about the raving lunatics 30,000 feet in the air who explode because they can’t get an internet connection 100% of the time. Stuff is meant not to work now and then. If it worked all of the time, you would call that magic.
It’s not what happens to you or how frustrating it seems when technology breaks, it’s how you deal with it. I know how a Sacramento REALTOR, for example, might feel about her brand new, fancy-schmancy iBox with bluetooth going on the blink. The thought could cross her mind that she is saddled with a piece of crap, not to mention a leased piece of crap, but she probably should not verbalize those words to the people who worked so incredibly hard to bring this piece of new technology to MetroList subscribers. Sometimes, Bluetooth technology does not work.
One has a choice in these situations. Unfortunately, one of those choices is now attached to a railing of a home in Land Park where it could possibly remain until hell freezes over, but on the other side of the coin, there is a point where one should find an alternative. One can stand there entering a code into her display key over and over, and get the same result (defined as insanity), which is the iBox is not reading the display key. It doesn’t read Bluetooth from a cellphone, either. One could leave all of those boxes in her car and just use her old lockboxes, her reliable infrared lockboxes and, in fact, such a lockbox is now nestled next to the big honkin’ fancy-schmancy iBox.
We also have to make decisions when, say, our Internet service goes wonky. Surewest is now something else, some alphabet letters, and it wasn’t working correctly this morning. I needed to turn my iPad into a hotspot and connect it to my laptop to write this blog. But it’s an alternative I have and when I need it, I absolutely need it. Plan B, can’t beat it.
I could be moaning and groaning and yelling at my ISP, but that is a self defeatist attitude. It irritates those who talk to me, and it can completely ruin my day, so I don’t do it. I just get on with my work. Well, I did call my ISP and put in a ticket request, and I did ask my Board to pick up the lifeless iBox but if none of that happens, life continues.
You agents, give some thought to how you might use those new fancy-schmancy iBoxes. You might not want to put one on a listing that is miles away from your immediate vicinity.
