A 3-Lockbox Friday for This Sacramento Agent

This Sacramento real estate agent should be adding 3 more homes to the inventory in the Sacramento area on Monday. It’s a small contribution to our sorry state of affairs in the Sacramento real estate market. We have fewer than 1,500 homes for sale in Sacramento at the moment, which is miniscule and does not meet the demand. This means when a potential seller calls to say he or she wants to put a home on the market, this Sacramento agent does her best to accommodate without delay.

I was driving back from Elk Grove where I have a lot of listings when I got the call to Rocklin. I seem to list and sell an unusually high number of homes in Elk Grove, even though I do not live there. I live in Land Park. Probably because so many are short sales in Elk Grove, and I am the best Sacramento REALTOR to handle short sales. Yet, a few that are not short sales are creeping into my listings. I closed a regular home in Elk Grove that comped out at the top around $245,000, and with one-eye closed and clenched teeth we pushed the limit to meet the rising pending demand to $259,000, yet it sold for all cash at $280,000.

Buyers are desperate to buy a home today. It’s hard to pick a sales price because it’s hard to predict how high a buyer might decide to go or how far out an appraiser will go to appraise. I realize sellers think us listing agents can pull rabbits of hats, but we can’t always predict what buyers will do. We can only guess. If your home is marketed correctly, the market will take you where you want to go. You don’t want to be too high because buyers will wonder what’s wrong with your home when you reduce. You don’t want to be too low because buyers might wonder upfront what’s wrong. You want to be priced just right, like Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

Which brings me to my 3 lockboxes from yesterday. One lockbox went on a home in Elk Grove that will be a short sale. Another lockbox went on a home in Elk Grove that will be a traditional sale, and the home is absolutely gorgeous. Don’t call me about it because you’ll get your chance to buy it along with everybody else next week. I don’t make side deals or give special considerations to my friends. I’m not that kind of listing agent. Don’t offer to let me write the deal in the hopes I will compromise my ethics and tell the seller to take your offer, because I don’t do that, either. Yada, yada, that’s not what you meant, yeah, right!

Another lockbox went on a home in Rocklin, which will be a short sale. It will need some work, and homes that need work are often a struggle with the short sale bank because the banks often refuse to acknowledge the homes need work. Or, maybe those darn BPO agents just don’t go inside. Hard to say, but it will be challenge, yet not a challenge that I can’t overcome.

Elk Grove in the morning. Rocklin in the afternoon. Back to Elk Grove in late afternoon. That was a lot of driving yesterday for a Sacramento agent who lives in Land Park. I love this business.