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Tips for Buying a New Listing in Sacramento
Listen to your agent about making an offer on a new listing in Sacramento
Home buyers tend to pay a lot of attention to the days on market, which doesn’t always mean anything except when the home is a new listing in Sacramento. When the home is a new listing in Sacramento, the days on market, regardless of market conditions, beg for a different offer strategy. That strategy says if the price is fair, showings are high, and the buyer needs to buy that home, the best move is not to try to negotiate.
Buyer’s agents sometimes take a cavalier attitude. They say the buyer will learn a lesson when the buyer loses the house, and that’s why sometimes it takes more than one offer to buy a home. If the buyer refuses to take his or her agent’s advice, the agent will just look for the next house. It doesn’t always matter to the agent which house the buyer ends up buying — not like it does to the buyer — because the agent will get paid either way.
I am often amazed when a new listing in Sacramento is on the market for a few days, and the buyer tries to negotiate on the price, especially when the price is fair. It’s not always a multiple-offer situation that will kill the buyer’s offer. It’s not like the seller is sitting on an offer and shopping it, hoping to get a higher offer, like some buyers erroneously believe. The problem that arises is when the offer is less than satisfactory to the seller, and the seller prepares a counter offer. Whole different scenario.
Agents will sometimes suggest to the listing agent that the buyer is open to a counter offer, which they really should not do as it undermines fiduciary. But even so, the problem with a counter offer is that counter offers eat up precious time. They are not instant. It can take a seller 24 hours to sign a counter offer. Then, there could be a time delay with sending the counter to the buyer’s agent, and the buyer’s agent can take more time to deliver the counter to the buyer. It is not considered final until the listing agent receives the counter offer back fully executed.
During this time period, another offer could come arrive. By necessitating a counter offer, the buyer just opened a window of opportunity for another buyer to submit an offer. A better offer. Perhaps with more suitable financing, a bigger down payment and best, no hesitation to show the seller that the buyer really wants that home. The seller is free, prior to delivery, to withdraw the counter offer and, sometimes, that’s exactly what sellers do. And buyers have done it to themselves. Just food for thought the next time you spot a new listing in Sacramento that you might want to buy.
Ever Wonder Should We Sleep On It?
Should we sleep on it is a common question in real estate.
Lots of people struggle to make big decisions like buying a home and might wonder “should we sleep on it” before committing to the purchase. The reasons run the gamut but often can stem from fear. They don’t want to make the wrong decision. They hope that sleeping on it will turn their brain into a Magic 8 Ball and give them the answer: To buy a home or not to buy a home.
The problems with this kind of strategy are myriad. For starters, whether to buy a home is a decision a buyer should have made before ever going out to look at homes. If you’re looking at homes with a Sacramento Realtor and you don’t know if you want to buy a home, please just stop. Go to open houses on Sundays or look at homes for sale online that are not really for sale on some of those popular websites that buyers who don’t know any better go to.
Should we sleep on it, it turns out, is a good strategy for figuring out answers to a complex situation. Buying a home, however, is a fairly simple situation. You either want to buy a home or you do not want to buy a home. If you do want to buy a home and you find a home that you love, then you should buy it. If you do want to buy a home and you cannot find a home that you love, then do not buy a home until you do.
Don’t fall into the trap of feeling obligated. Every so often I’ll go shopping at Nordstrom, for example, and I can’t find a single outfit I like. Nothing speaks to me. Nothing fits right. And I might feel like I should make some sort of token purchase because I’ve invested all of this time trying on clothing and not finding anything, and that’s a stupid reaction. Don’t buy a home just because you’ve spent a long time trying to find a home to no avail. Instead, regroup and re-strategize with your buyer’s agent. Maybe you need to look in a different neighborhood or a different price range?
If you feel like you are “settling” for a home because you wonder should we sleep on it, then you probably are settling for less and should not buy that home. Sleeping on it has a way of opening that window of opportunity for the non-indecisive home buyer. You know, that other couple you spotted getting out of their agent’s car at the home showing.
Despite what your parental authorities told you when handing out all of those awards in grade school, you’re not that special or different from anybody else. Neither am I. Other buyers have the same hopes, dreams and fears that you do, and the same parameters. If you are attracted to a home, other buyers are, too. If you don’t buy it, they will, and when you wake up in the morning feeling refreshed, energized and fully committed, that home will be pending.
Sacramento Agents Display Patience for a First-Time Home Buyer
Many first-time home buyers find Sacramento Realtor Elizabeth Weintraub on their cellphone.
So many first-time home buyers in Sacramento find my name in Google when they are looking for property. All they have to do is put in a property address and much of the time, my website shows up. I’m not entirely certain how or why that happens, but I bet it’s because I am outrageously active online and have been in the real estate business forever. You can’t hardly click on a website about Sacramento homes for sale without finding my smiling face. It’s a tough choice for consumers, but not nearly as tough as some would make it.
Not nearly as tough either as, say, choosing the winners for the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2016. The way I read the nominees and how they vote, the members eligible to vote can choose to vote for only 3 non-performing nominees, two performing nominees and one dead person. This hardly seems fair when the two dead people up for nomination are George Harrison and Jimi Hendrix. Both were incredibly talented and made an enormous impact on the music industry through songwriting.
But you know who will probably win, the older guy will win. The one who has been around longer and with whom more people identify. Much as I love George Harrison, I really wish Jimi Hendrix would win. Not just because he’s part of that rock-stars-who-died-at-27 group but, like Paul Allen has publicly expressed, Jimi Hendrix holds a special place in my heart as well. Part of that appeal could be due to LSD, hard to say, and I don’t think Paul Allen would argue that point. Allen still has a museum display honoring Jimi Hendrix at the Experience Music Project, which my husband and I had visited in Seattle when it opened but has over the years morphed into something else called EMP.
Tough choice, that dead person category. Not so tough as to which agent to work with in Sacramento. A first-time home buyer called yesterday to ask about condos in the Pocket and what he thought was my listing. It had my name on it, he said. He could not remember where he saw the property except that it was online. I am so many places online that even I don’t know where all of my marketing is these days. It’s everywhere. Still, even though it wasn’t my listing, I offered to help. It was only a $100,000 condo, but if I didn’t help him, who would?
Not only was that condo in pending status since June — June? Hello? Nothing can be pending since June unless there is something very odd going on. It was originally pending short lender approval and since June pending? That’s unlikely. But I also noticed a withdrawn listing that was the same model. Now, we have several avenues to pursue and follow up for that buyer. At least he is on automatic listings now so whenever a new condo hits the market, he will get that listing, and we might be able to show him both of the other condos. One way or another, we will help this first-time home buyer buy a home and close escrow.
