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The Tale of Multiple Offers for a Home in Rancho Cordova
My goal is for ecstatic clients after selling a home in Rancho Cordova.
When I first inspected the home in Rancho Cordova that I was about to list, I instinctively knew I could make this the type of home that would fall into multiple-offer territory. That’s what 40-plus years in the real estate business and thousands of transactions gives you. You can explain this to sellers, but they don’t always believe you because how could this Sacramento Realtor standing in their living room be able to accurately predict how fast the home will sell and to what kind of buyer? Experience matters.
To attract multiple offers, I tend to shun bluntness because some buyers won’t make an offer if they know it will be a battle, and we generally want every interested buyer to make an offer. I don’t often advertise the fact in MLS, as general practice. Yet, I do network with agents. One of my very favorite real estate agents called when this home hit the market. She was working with a buyer and hoped to submit an offer; reiterated over and over how this home in Rancho Cordova was perfect for her buyer.
Well, it didn’t happen. My friend didn’t show the home in Rancho Cordova. During the dozen or so offers we received, my friend called to say her buyer had jumped ship. Simply abandoned her out of the blue. The buyer instead selected an agent from the Bay Area. Since the buyer was no longer working with my friend, my friend told me all about the buyer, her hopes, dreams, desires, and I now possessed an extremely accurate profile of this particular buyer. Information I could use during multiple offers.
It’s a small world in Sacramento real estate.
I advised my seller to counter only two offers. The rest were not even close to the sales price this home sold for, which was 10% over list price. How can you work in real estate in Sacramento and not know this is a seller’s market? This market reminds me of fishing for mackerel in Maine. You dangle your dropper lines with a bunch of mackerel flies over the edge of the boat, like this home in Rancho Cordova, and a half dozen mackerel will jump on the hooks. We pushed that buyer to increase her offer, to bridge an appraisal, to buy the home in its AS IS condition and to make the offer contingent on finding a replacement home.
It was open season. My fiduciary is to the seller.
As a result, the sellers bought a new home and closed concurrently with the sale of their home in Rancho Cordova. The buyer even gave these sweet people a few days to move. I had helped my sellers to make a few minor repairs and to employ my home staging tips prior to going on the market. They were amazed with the fabulous results. Even though there were outstanding repairs, our strategy came from a position of strength and experience. Because experience matters in your listing agent.
If you’d like to sell a home in Rancho Cordova or anywhere in Sacramento Valley, call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759. You can also search for Rancho Cordova homes.
A Negotiation Tactic for Sacramento Realtors Dealing With Unreasonable Demands
Sellers deserve a Sacramento Realtor who is fearless with strong negotiation skills.
Whenever I am faced with a dilemma, the way this Sacramento Realtor works her way out of it — as hokey as this might sound to some of you — is to consider my fiduciary duty to the client first. Forget what I might think or what the other parties might want, which negotiation tactic is best for my seller? The answer is almost always crystal clear at that point. That’s a little secret I pass along from me to you. It keeps things more simple when focused.
Notice I didn’t say it makes my job easier because much of the time it doesn’t. The negotiation that is best for the seller almost always involves extra work and it can be complicated. Not only that, but I can’t go around making unilateral decisions without my client’s acknowledgement and permission. It’s not my house nor my transaction. That’s a good point to remember. As a Sacramento Realtor, you can’t get too wrapped up in somebody else’s situation that you start to make decisions for them. Because that would be bad.
It can be a fine line to walk. To want to protect your client and negotiate what is best while at the same time not making the decisions for your client. It’s in the approach though. I’ll give you an example that happened a few days ago on a home that just closed escrow on Friday.
The buyer’s agent has had terrible experiences in the past with tenants, which might have clouded his judgment somewhat. Although this home was not tenant occupied, he felt the family who lived there acted like tenants, and that was enough, probably through transference, for his buyer to submit a Request for Repair asking for the squeaky front door to be unsqueaked and a minor hole in the closet patched. The buyer asked for a few other things, including shampooing the carpet, and he tried to force the family to move prior to closing.
While we were pondering how to respond to this unreasonable request at the 11th hour, the agent hit me with an email to say he also decided they would prefer to close escrow on Monday and not on Friday. Our purchase contract stipulated a closing on Friday. The seller was about ready to agree to credit a small amount of money to the buyer to compensate for his anguish over the squeaky front door until the buyer’s agent came up with an additional demand.
At that point, the seller rejected the Request for Repair outright. In addition, I mentioned to the seller we should submit a Demand to Close Escrow because the buyer appeared to require a kick in the seat of his pants. She wasn’t sure what that meant, I suspect, but she agreed to the negotiation. You really can’t renegotiate a contract, I explained to the buyer’s agent, without an agreement from the seller, and while I could not speak for the seller, I had a suspicion she would cancel the contract if they tried.
The best way to cancel a contract is to first send a Demand to Close. The buyer’s agent forced us to produce it. That negotiation tactic was the best protection for the seller. The seller has less to lose than the buyers, I pointed out. Now the home would be vacant, making it easier to show, which means we would get more showings and, in our tight market, probably a higher offer. Yeah, let’s go back on the market.
Painful to say, but the right negotiation for the seller.
We closed escrow on Friday on time. No Request for Repair, either.
When a Sacramento Realtor focuses on the negotiation that is best for her seller and takes herself out of the situation, the solution is apparent.
Are You Struggling to Buy a Home in Sacramento?
Team Weintraub is kicking butt and taking names this month. We always do well in Sacramento real estate, but it’s refreshing and even more exciting to excel in a market that is tougher than nails at the moment. It’s super hard to buy a home in Sacramento during a seller’s market. Especially when we have so many buyers vying for the same listings. But the Elizabeth Weintraub Team seems to possess the knack, the expertise and, honestly, just the good fortune, I suspect, to be winning multiple-offer situations.
Part of this could be because we know what is important to sellers and we give it to them via the offers we write for our buyers. We know how to satisfy what sellers want. The reason we know this little fact is because I personally list and sell a ton of homes in the Sacramento area, and I freely share seller expectations with my Team Weintraub members. When you know what sellers want, you know how to write a purchase offer that will give the buyer an edge over all of the other buyers. Plus, everybody knows we perform on our word. We are accountable for our actions.
It also helps to know what a strong listing agent expects, and it starts with a clean offer. No missing pieces, I’s dotted, initials in place, earnest money deposit, proof of funds, and a preapproval letter — not from some fly-by-night place. I swear, the other day I hear from a mortgage broker that his buyer who is about to close escrow has had a short sale a short time ago and now can’t qualify for a conventional loan. Well, I’ve got news for ya buddy, the buyer never could qualify for a conventional loan under those circumstances and that question should have been asked in the interview / application process and, if it was, you should have known Freddie Mac would require seasoning on those gift funds. Ack.
The offer should also be submitted to the listing agent within the time frame for acceptance. Some agents openly invite multiple offers by specifying a time for offer presentation in MLS, but that’s not a practice this Sacramento Realtor endorses because it turns off some agents and buyers. Not everybody is competitive nor enjoys competition like some of us, and I’m not naming any particular name here like myself; but the point is I don’t want to discourage any buyers from writing an offer on my listings. Besides, nothing looks goofier than touting all offers will be presented on Sunday and here it is two weeks later and the home is still for sale.
Every first-time home buyer has a chance to buy a home in Sacramento, even in a multiple-offer situation. The mindset is not to think about all of the other offers and focus solely on what you are able to do. If you want to buy a home and to align yourself with an experienced real estate team like the Elizabeth Weintraub Team, then give us a jingle at 916.233.6759.
