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985 Regatta Drive in Sacramento is Now Pending with Bay Area Buyer
Without going into specifics about the offer for the home on 985 Regatta Drive, yesterday the buyer removed all contingencies and we opened escrow. I know, it is backwards to how homes are commonly sold in Sacramento, but we are not negotiating in a normal market. Usually in a Sacramento transaction, the buyer presents an offer, the seller accepts and we enter escrow. Then the seller has 7 days to deliver disclosures to the buyer, and the buyer typically pays her own closing costs.
It goes without saying that I work with Bay Area agents to make a transaction close. I do what it takes. They are not always easy to work with because some do not sell very many homes and have little experience. Some do not have a lockbox key so they can’t access the property without assistance. And some do not know how we do business in Sacramento, just like we don’t really know how they do business in the Bay Area. Our practices are very different.
When we received the original offer from the Bay Area buyer for 985 Regatta Drive, I had never seen anything like it. The buyer pretty much asked for the moon and the stars. It would have been easy to dismiss. However, there was plenty to like about the offer. It started out a little rocky, a bit of misunderstanding, probably on both sides. But I quickly tried to work with the agent, and we began negotiating.
That’s all it really was. Negotiating what we want, while they negotiated what they wanted, and we found a way to make it work. We negotiated the Request for Repair before we entered escrow. Turns out the home is in pretty good shape, and there wasn’t much to worry about. Of course, we paid for our own home inspection upfront, but that was a small price to pay to make the transaction work.
Realtors can’t let ego get in the way as a Sacramento listing agent. Our client’s needs should always come first.
Unfortunately, two other buyers who were so patient and waited for us to finish the lengthy negotiations now cannot buy the home. Because 985 Regatta Drive, Sacramento, CA 95833 is presently pending. If I can sell this remodeled home in South Natomas by overcoming challenges in this manner, imagine what I can do for you.
A Bad Renegotiation Strategy in Sacramento Real Estate
If you’re thinking about using a bad renegotiation strategy in Sacramento real estate, listing agents everywhere urge you to reconsider that tactic. That kind of game plan is hard enough to pull off in a normal real estate market, or even a buyer’s market. But our present market is a seller’s market in Sacramento. Apart from a bad renegotiation strategy being annoying as hell, it just doesn’t work. It backfires.
What am I talking about? The guys (mostly investors but not always) whose bad renegotiation strategy is to lock down a property and then try to lowball at the 11th hour. You wonder about this especially when the offer starts out low and then suddenly leapfrogs into the realm of possibility. That’s the first red flag. It makes me wonder what the buyer is possibly thinking by offering less than list price starting out. Dude, we generally get multiple offers, and if we don’t, we will if we wait.
You know, like, say, the listing is $700,000 for example, and the buyer submits an idiotic offer at $625,000. When you ask the buyer, what? Are you crazy? The sales price is $700,000, if you want it, pay $700,000. And the buyer immediately says OK, that’s a red flag.
Then, after a few weeks pass, after the inspections, which are all fairly minimal regarding findings, the buyer tosses a wrench into escrow. Usually it’s some stupid thing like the buyer wants to remodel. So the buyer submits an estimate for his remodeling costs and expects the seller to participate by funding those projects. That’s an insane proposition. It’s a bad renegotiation strategy.
Wahhhh, the buyer whines, why won’t you pay for my new pool?
I especially enjoy the buyers who tell their agents: What can it hurt to ask? Makes me want to wring their necks for not thinking. Just stop focusing on yourself and consider ramifications. It DOES hurt to ask. Big-time. It infuriates the seller. It makes the seller angry and unwilling to help the buyer do anything. When the seller says no, absolutely not, and don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out, the buyer moves on to his next victim.
Throw enough crap at the wall enough times, maybe something will stick, is the buyer’s rationale. What kind of reputable buyer’s agent wants to go through that agony? If a buyer’s intention all along is to try to finagle a lower price, that means the offer submitted was not a real offer. It probably breaches all of the good faith covenants in the contract. It’s a lousy way to try to buy real estate in Sacramento.
How to Determine if the Offer is a Solid Purchase Offer
All viable offers look like a solid purchase offer to a Sacramento Realtor.
First off, a Sacramento Realtor cannot predict a solid purchase offer. No way, no how. Yet that does not stop eager buyer’s agents from calling about pending sales to ask: how firm is that purchase offer? It’s not a question I can really answer. Do I know the buyer personally? No, I do not. Do I represent the buyer? No, I do not. Much of the time, I don’t know the buyer’s agent, either. We have 5,000 agents in our Board. Turnover is high. Many agents aren’t in the business long enough to renew their licenses, which is at the four-year mark.
On top of this, the buyer’s agent might not know the buyer, either. The buyer could be some dude who plucked an agent out of the blue because the agent advertised on a website that contains property listings, like Zillow, for example. Strangers working with strangers working with strangers . . ..
Basically, we have two types of purchase offers. The kind that close and the kind that do not. Both of these look exactly identical to each other. They each contain a strong preapproval letter, and the buyers have coughed up an earnest money deposit by wiring or writing a check to escrow. They have scratched a signature on an offer and are contractually bound.
Which is a solid purchase offer?
You won’t know until closing.
In our hot 2017 real estate market in Sacramento, most of the obviously flakey buyers do not make it into escrow. Given a choice between a badly written purchase offer, submitted without a preapproval letter and an offer that adheres to standards, sellers will take the offer that meets requirements and ignore the screwed up messes.
We received 9 offers the other day for a property and only 7 were viable. Of the 7, most likely one of those might not close. Is it our present escrow or is it one of the offers we did not accept? There is no way to discern. After 40+ years in the real estate business, I can spot a crummy offer a mile away, but I cannot determine which viable offer is a solid purchase offer. It is impossible.
I don’t care if the buyer’s agent promises us the moon. They can say their buyer strolled by this home every day as a child and fell in love, dreaming about the day it would be available for sale; implying they would give up their first born to buy this home, and they can cling to the mailbox, refusing to budge until closing, proclaiming their love by screaming into a forhorn for all the neighbors to hear, and I don’t care.
It doesn’t mean they will close escrow.
If your buyer wants to write a backup offer, just do it. But please don’t call me to ask if we have a solid purchase offer.
