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Sacramento Home Buyers Need an Edge in Market
Sacramento home buyers won’t buy a home this spring without an agent.
Hey, all you Sacramento home buyers, are you ready for the spring market? This is going to be a tougher market than you’ve ever seen in your life to buy a house in Sacramento, but don’t let that little thought discourage you. Unless you’ve been working in real estate full-time with a ton of transactions under your belt, you probably are not prepared to meet the demands that this market is putting forth for you. It is not impossible to buy a house, but you better be working with an experienced buyer’s agent or you might not buy anything at all.
I talk to Sacramento home buyers who often call from a or sale sign or because they spot a home that sold two months ago on an unreliable website, and I try to explain to them that they need to align themselves with a Sacramento Realtor. It won’t be this agent because I don’t work with buyers, but my team members do, or they could pick an agent at another company. Whatever choice, they need to get hopping with an agent. They can’t do this alone. They won’t get a heads up on the best homes for sale, and by the time some of these DIY Sacramento home buyers hear about a home for sale, it will be in escrow.
We have 1,481 homes for sale in Sacramento County right now. This includes all condos and single-family homes. That is peanuts. It is miniscule. We have 1,687 pending (in escrow). It will take us about 3 weeks to sell every home instead of the more healthy 3 to 4 months. I don’t know if Sacramento home buyers skim over housing reports that say inventory is falling and they wrongly think the market is falling when it is not, it is going up. Or why they aren’t more concerned about haphazardly calling an agent here and there to try to buy a home. It won’t happen for them that way.
We used to have 10,000 homes for sale. That number is insane compared to today’s inventory. Yes, at the height of the market in August of 2005, we had over 10,000 homes for sale. We have way more Sacramento home buyers in the market at the moment than homes to sell. Almost every single listing of mine receives more than one offer, some 10 offers. But even so, don’t let THAT discourage you because with the right agent, you WILL buy a home.
So many transactions in Sacramento are negotiated between agents. If you don’t have an agent, you really don’t stand a chance. A buyer’s agent is paid by the seller, not by the buyer, so if you want a home, give us a ring. You can call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759, and I’ll pair you with the perfect agent on my team. Just don’t keep calling on homes that have already sold and be disappointed. Don’t keep kicking that can down the street.
If you’ve been writing offers and been unsuccessful, maybe it’s time to think about hiring a more aggressive and experienced buyer’s agent?
When Agents End Up Working With Crazy Buyers
Working with crazy buyers is part of Sacramento real estate.
I have to be careful when I am facetious. My humor leans toward dry. Because my general nature tends to present itself as a nice person, sometimes people don’t realize when I am insulting them. I suppose that could be interpreted as a good thing. I could say I feel sorry for an agent, and another would think I truly felt empathy — when what I meant was I’m sorry the agent is such an idiot. In that event, the other side of the street is a better place for that agent to walk upon than to chance an encounter with me.
Some agents are forced to work with crazy buyers; I get it. The market is tough on many agents. The limited inventory in the Sacramento real estate market makes some agents desperate for business. But if an agent chooses to work with a crazy client, that agent owes it to the rest of us to rein in that person. You don’t give a loopy dude 10 shots of bourbon and turn him loose with a six shooter unless you’re a sucker for punishment.
When an agent knows her client is a loose cannon, she doesn’t send her client unauthorized correspondence just to stir the water further. Because that end result is no transaction for her. Like the Soup Nazi. No soup for you. The seller doesn’t want to be in escrow with a nut job. Neither does the listing agent. There is also that problem of guilt by association.
Over the years of being a Sacramento Realtor and dealing with Sacramento real estate, I have come to be highly selective. I select the sellers I work with. I work only with people I like. If I can’t find something to like about a person, I don’t work with them. Further, I am especially critical of purchase offers. I scrutinize. My job is to make sure the seller closes escrow. That means going into escrow with a person who is likely to close.
One thing I do is ask buyers to do before looking at homes is to sign an agency disclosure. It’s required by California Civil Code prior to showing any real estate. Yet many agents never present an agency disclosure until weeks of showings have passed. If buyers struggle with signing that document, which is just a disclosure, that could be a red flag. It needs to be addressed.
Not every buyer is a serious buyer. Not every buyer today is committed to closing. We have crazy buyers in the market. For a million different reasons, buyers sign offers and never move forward. Agents should be able to pick out these types of clients and correct that behavior before they ever get to the offer stage.
The agents who can’t, well, they lose credibility. Not to mention, sales. Because they spend way too much time working with clients who are not really clients.
Negotiating Tip for Home Buyers in Sacramento
What a difference one number makes.
Everybody knows this negotiating tip for home buyers in Sacramento but many seem to encounter a temporary lapse of judgment when they are knee deep in the thick of things. It’s exciting to buy a home, to write an offer and to hope the seller takes it. I am seeing many home buyers so excited that they fall into the trap of thinking they need to try to get a deal when buying. To them, a “deal” is if they can pay less than list price, as though they are negotiating to buy an antique dining room table from a little old lady at an estate sale.
The problem with this kind of thinking is we are in the middle of one of the lowest inventory markets in recent history in Sacramento. There are very few homes on the market for sale. In Sacramento County alone, we have 1,841 homes for sale, and that includes condos. In comparison, in 2005 we had over 10,000. Many buyers. Very few homes. Seller’s market.
On top of this, say a home has been on the market for a few days. There is most likely no better negotiating tip for home buyers than to offer list price or better. If you offer less, you are not the only buyer, even though you might think you are. There is always another buyer lurking around the corner in this market, and that buyer will offer list price or better.
Think of it this way, 10 years from now, when you are still living in your perfect home that you bought because you listened to your buyer’s agent and offered the seller’s asking price, will you care that you paid what the home was worth? Most likely it won’t even cross your mind.
Further, if you give the seller an opportunity to counter your offer, and that listing agent is, say, Elizabeth Weintraub, well, I’m likely to scour that offer with a magnifying glass to figure out what other items the seller might want to counter. For example, if you ask for the title company and the seller is paying for it, you can bet that will probably generate a counter offer, just all by itself. Don’t sabotage the offer or take away the best negotiating tip for home buyers in Sacramento by showing how stubborn you can be.
Sacramento Home Buyers Can Buy Today and Move Before Christmas
Sacramento home buyers have enough time still to close before Christmas.
Sacramento home buyers have got to be driving up the insanity level of buyer’s agents. There seems to be an increase of activity in which buyers are submitting purchase offers and, upon acceptance, withdrawing those offers. I would almost be tempted to suggest that agents are not counseling nor vetting their buyers prior to writing an offer, but I know for a fact that is not the case in many situations. Just the other day a buyer canceled an existing escrow because the state-mandated natural hazard report disclosed the property is located in a flood zone, although the lender did not require flood insurance. Or, at least that was their story and they were sticking to it.
Most of Sacramento is located in a flood zone. And even if a property is not located in a flood zone, if Folsom Dam bursts, we’re all hosed downstream. Sacramento County is the most at-risk area for a flood in the entire country. Believe it, baby.
It is not the job of buyer’s agents to drag their clients kicking and screaming into escrow. I know some Sacramento home buyers think agents can be pushy but most of the agents I know truly want what is best for their clients. That attitude might be for somewhat selfish reasons because a happy client is a client who refers business to the agent. Unhappy clients push business away. Nobody in her right mind wants an unhappy client. Yet, it’s tough for agents right now.
It’s tough on sellers, too, when Sacramento home buyers fail to perform. Especially when sellers receive a full-price offer and the buyer cancels before the paperwork can make its way to escrow. I’ve had two of those types of situations yesterday, on two different listings. The buyers flaked out. Well, in one instance the buyer could not perform because the agent wrote the wrong kind of offer and made a mistake when she did her homework. The proper way to view that particular situation is: a problem averted down the road. We did not go into escrow as a result but at least we were not the dreaded “back on market” home listing.
With my ear to the ground — the good ear, not the one that I stuffed soda straws into when I was a kid and punctured my eardrum — I hear that almost half of the listings that are pending right now are blowing up. This means we are unlikely to see an uptick in closed sales for December. If it’s gotta happen in any month, December is a good month for a slow down because it’s seasonally a quieter time of the year.
There is still time to buy a home today and be settled by Christmas, though. Call the Elizabeth Weintraub Team at 916.233.6759.
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.
