Email Elizabethsacramento listing agent
Should a Listing Have a Pending Sale Sign?
Should a listing have a pending sale sign in the yard? It depends. We have a Sacramento listing that recently had five offers. We are pending sale and have two back up offers. One of these two buyers signed a back up addendum and a multiple counter offer form. This buyer is ready to go into a sales contract if the first offer fails for any reason. In this case, the seller wants a pending sale sign in the front yard as soon as possible. The home sold in 5 days, so sellers are thrilled and want the neighbors to know how fast it sold.
So in contrast, if we did not have multiple offers, the answer to, should a listing have a pending sale sign in the front yard, is no. We get calls daily from people driving by our listings. If a pending sale sign were in the yard, they would never call us as inquiring minds want to know. In essence, a pending sale sign stops the phone from ringing.
A friend of mine, Realtor Kim Pacini-Hauch, had a large property for sale on the river. A gentleman had flown into town for business. He was driving out along the river on the Garden Highway one sunny afternoon. He saw her for sale sign and called her. She drove out immediately to show it to him as he was flying out at 8:00 PM. She wrote a contract on the house and sold it on the spot. It was $3,725,000. He told her he was not looking online had just been driving an area he thought was beautiful. Without a for sale sign, or if the property had a pending sale sign, he would not have called either way.
The moral of the story is if pending sale sign were posted in the yard, he would not have called Kim. A back up offer is always warranted. If the property had been a pending sale, she would have shown it. As we say in Sacramento Real Estate, ” it is never over until it is over,” so sellers should always take a back up offer.
If you would like to have a pending sale sign placed in your yard, call us today Weintraub & Wallace at RE/MAX Gold, 916-233-6759.
— JaCi Wallace
Selling a House Three Times to Get Paid Once
Undoubtedly, when I am selling a house 3 times to get paid once, I am doing it solely for the benefit of the seller. Other agents seem to intensely dislike that kind of attitude. They are used to listings agents who rollover and do whatever it takes to close a transaction. It confuses them when they discover that I am not one of those agents who will rollover.
For starters, I care deeply about my fiduciary relationship to the seller and doing what is best for the seller. How do I do that? Well, here’s a hint for ya, I don’t count my chickens before they hatch because even if they never hatch, I don’t care. I care solely about making my sellers happy. It’s a recipe, albeit a weird one for many, but it’s a successful recipe for me. I don’t really know how to better explain it than if you take yourself out of the equation and try to do only what is best for a seller (I know, strange concept), as an agent you will win in the end. And so does the seller. I won’t go so far as to say win-win because that’s not really a concept I subscribe to, and I used to be married to the guy who coined that phrase. In real estate, generally one side, seller or buyer, fares better than the other. That’s the reality.
When I first sold the fixer home I wasn’t planning on selling a house 3 times to get paid once, but it happens. It happens more often than you might think. Because I generally advise my sellers to just say NO to opportunists. It’s hard to tell who is an opportunist and who is serious when presented with an offer.
The first buyers for this particular fixer home in Sacramento appeared to enter the contract in good faith. But when we were scheduled to close in a few days, and the buyer’s agent called in the middle of the day, it was only bad news. I happened to be at my neighbor’s house in Hawaii when I saw the call come across my Apple Watch.
This is only bad news, I whispered to my neighbor, but I gotta answer. Sure enough, within a few seconds, the buyer’s agent launched into: we did our due diligence and we found a lot of problems . . .
I’ve been through this so many times. I cut her off at the chase. The home is sold AS IS, and if your buyer doesn’t want to continue with the transaction under the present terms of the contract, send us a cancellation. The agent on the other end of my Apple Watch could not believe what I said. She didn’t know I’ve heard it all before.
This is the ploy to ask for repairs or a price reduction. Not gonna happen. My seller agreed. I knew he would.
Don’t you want to know what the buyer found? She asked.
No, we don’t.
If I know what he found, I’ll have to disclose it to the next buyer. Also, it doesn’t matter. The home is sold AS IS. If the buyer doesn’t like the house in its AS IS condition, don’t let the door hit ya in the butt. I don’t care about the buyer’s reason for canceling. I care about getting the seller the money the seller deserves. I was not wrong on the sales price.
This is a perfect example of an agent who expected the listing agent to “hold the deal together,” and I won’t do it. To hold it together is to cost the seller money. I know full well I can sell it again, Sam, to somebody else. This is where experience pays off. So while agents might not understand the concept of selling a house 3 times to get paid once because they feel their time is “more valuable” or whatever, they are probably not top producers.
Enter next buyer. This buyer also goes into contract quickly. I drill the buyer’s agent. Are you sure they know what they are buying? Do you know for a fact they can handle the repairs? Well, long story short, regardless, the agent did not know a thing about the buyers as they also canceled. Criminy. OK, third time’s a charm.
Sometimes sellers get really upset when two escrows cancel. They think it’s not time to sell or the listing agent could have done something differently. Well, yes, we could do something differently, we could throw the seller under the bus. But we don’t. We have no control over buyers. None at all.
So when the third buyer came along, the seller was prepared and ready. At least they did not try to renegotiate. I really dislike the stupid strategy of buyers who think, oh, let’s just get into contract, and then when a couple weeks go by, we’ll renegotiate. We’ll find something to grind the seller over.
Nope. Not on my watch. And that’s how sometimes I end up selling a house 3 times to get paid once. I am honest with my clients. If I think making a concession is a good idea, I’ll say so. But if I think they can sell to a better buyer, I will say that, too.
We closed on January 4th. At list price.
Unfortunately, I’m kind of a dying breed in Sacramento real estate. I hope somebody else will raise the bar after me; after my time is up.
Use Neutral Colors When Home Selling in Sacramento
A reader from The Balance homebuying website wrote yesterday. She was clear that she had written to me previously and seemed a bit perplexed that I had not yet answered her inquiry, which I had not received. She had a “very important question.” She and her husband had been engaged in “repeated discussions” regarding the color of the walls for their mother’s home. They were preparing the home for sale and could not agree on which colors constitute neutral colors when home selling. She did not understand the word “neutral.”
At first blush, one might wonder how a person could be confused. But the more I thought about it, it’s not so unusual for some individuals, especially those from other cultures, to be perplexed about color. Many Americans live in a white-bread world. No color at all. But other cultures are awash in color and relish color. Color is treated as a daily substance. It’s water for the thirsty, spiritual for the soul and serenity for sleep. Color brings the world alive.
However, when you are selling a home, neutral is the recommended choice of color, especially for walls and flooring. It evokes no emotion and does not detract from the home’s features. It presents a clean slate, a home you can move into immediately and decorate to preference. It’s a light beige, a sheer coffee-cream, sandy fair-skinned brown, boring pale tan, much like the photo above, or even a soft gray, which is trendy. Above all, it is not white.
Case in point, when my husband and I bought our home in Land Park 17 years ago, the whole house screamed for color accents. It was white. The previous owners did not use neutral colors when home selling. In the photo above, it’s not how I would stage a home for sale, but it does show the recommended color for walls. Since we are not selling, our master suite now has bamboo flooring, dual-pane windows with neutral blinds, and the walls are painted my favorite cat-puke-green color, with a slightly lighter shade on the ceiling. Not everybody’s cup of tea, but it works for us.
However, if we expect to maximize profit potential on resale, eventually we will need to embrace neutral colors when home selling.
Should You Tell Sellers When Agents Are Sending an Offer?
In my real estate practice, I feel sellers prefer to be kept informed, even if something never happens. Because a Sacramento listing agent can certainly throw out a disclaimer. Like, listen, Mrs. Seller, don’t get all excited but this agent says he is sending an offer. In some ways, I know you want to hear everything, and in other ways, maybe not. So you let me know what you want to hear.
The problem with deciding to tell sellers when agents are sending an offer is the offer might never materialize. That is the downside. If the seller gets her hopes up because she hears an offer is forth-coming but never arrives, it can be disappointing. Managing seller reactions and maintaining client happiness in a transaction is an art.
Of course, I pretty much tell my sellers everything. Whether to tell sellers when agents are sending an offer depends on the situation. I can think of a few situations in which this news might not be welcome. Not only that, but when it doesn’t materialize, often the buyer’s agents don’t inform the listing agent. Perhaps their thought process is the listing agent will figure it out when no offers shows up.
What they don’t realize, I imagine, is we don’t remember every buyer’s agent who says they are sending an offer. At least I do not. I figure I’ll get it or I won’t. But I do pass along the information to the sellers.
Every so often, I will work with a seller who asks me to stop sending feedback after showings, too. Because the feedback tends to be redundant and it might not be pleasant to read. I guess I have the opposite problem of other agents if sellers ask me to stop sending them so much information. Would much rather over communicate than under communicate.
What do you think? Should we tell sellers when agents are sending an offer?
Following up on Buyer Leads Before a Listing Hits MLS
You can bet one of my priorities for a new listing is following up on buyer leads. Just because I refuse to work directly with a buyer in dual agency doesn’t mean I won’t follow up or talk to buyers. Of course, buyers are free to choose any agent they want, and hopefully they will pick a professional agent with many closings under her or his belt. But I will also work with Uncle Joe’s cousin if that’s what it takes, knowing I’ll end up doing that agent’s job as well as mine, and it’s OK. Whatever it takes to sell a house is my method of operation. No prima donna here. I take more of a pragmatic view that as long as it leads to closing . . .
Yesterday was no exception. The ink isn’t inked yet on a new listing, yet I already had 2 different sets of buyers. Wasn’t planning on following up on buyer leads yesterday, but they were there in my face. One buyer was a neighbor next door. She approached me when I was attaching the lockbox to say how deeply disheartened she is that her friends are moving away. It was 11 AM and she was in her robe and slippers, but so what.
Since I wasn’t wearing a jacket — because I raced out of the house like we live in Hawaii — I shivered. Let her know if there was any trouble of any sort or questions arose, she could call me. My cell would be embedded on the sign rider in the yard. Then I dashed back inside to warm up as the photographer shot photos. A few minutes later, the neighbor knocked on the front door. Still in robe and slippers. Wanted to know how she could get a loan. Best guy in the business is Dan Tharp at Guild Mortgage. I brought up his contact info and got ready to hit “share contact.”
I’ll get a paper and pencil, the neighbor says. Just give me your cell number, I say, and I’ll forward you Dan’s contact information. A few minutes later, my cell phone rang. It was the neighbor. Hello, may I speak to Dan Tharp? she asked. I explain she can tap the contact icon in my text message to her, and it will download the contact information to her phone. Hey, not everybody knows these things.
Later, Dan tells me they had a good talk, and she seems to qualify for a loan. Although, an hour later, she decided against the loan process. But that’s OK. I go with the flow. It was a day to be following up on buyer leads. The sellers had another friend on the cul-de-sac who knew of an interested relative. Actually, I had tracked down and texted, emailed and called that relative’s agent the day before. However, the agent could not get around to calling me until the following day. Will it work out? I have no idea, but I follow up on buyer leads because it’s my job.
Leave no stone unturned. That’s what a Sacramento listing agent does. It wouldn’t be the first time I sold a listing to a neighbor, and it won’t be the last.
