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Sacramento Agent to Agent Referral: Who Ya Gonna Call?
This agent to agent referral in Sacramento is a new occurrence for me. I mean, I have a small group of agents I consider if I ever need to refer a seller to somebody else. Which is rare. At times, there are some sellers we elect not to work with. But we would not refer those to a friend. Maybe a referral to an agent we don’t much care for. I spotted one of those agents today who listed a rejected listing. You know, the pushy, aggressive, so rude, how do they ever stay in business kind of agents. If I had thought of that agent when we rejected the seller, I would have referred the seller in that direction. However, the seller found the agent the seller deserved. Without any help from me. How win-win.
On the other hand, I have a good friend, an experienced agent, to whom I might refer a client who needs more than I have to give. Usually, these clients are extremely high maintenance. It is always about what the client deserves. But I have never called an agent I did not know out of the blue and offer up a Sacramento agent to agent referral. Lo and behold, that happened to me in reverse last week. An agent I did not know offered me a client who needs a change of pace. It’s a neighborhood I know well, and the home is a little bit challenging, but I thrive on challenges.
At first blush, I had to ask myself the hard question. The hard question was: am I getting this referral based on my solid reputation or was the agent handing the referral over because of an axe to grind. Like, was I the agent’s foe? I am a competitor, after all, but no, the answer to that was no. The agent wanted the best Sacramento Realtor for the job, and thought of me. Very flattering.
Cannot believe my suspicious nature wondered if this was a set up, LOL. It makes me feel good to know the agent has confidence in me to perform. The agent also wants what is best for the client. I don’t mind taking over somebody else’s listing. Not unusual for me to often end up listing homes that previously did not sell for some reason.
I figure out what it takes to sell that home, and then I do it. Therefore, I am very grateful for Sacramento agent to agent referrals, and I hope to avail myself to more.
Timing on Market is Key With Sacramento Listings
Timing on market in Sacramento can help to generate excitement and higher offers.
Part of the problem I am facing as a top listing agent in Sacramento, odd as this might sound, is with timing on market; I can’t keep any listings in inventory. Soon as I put a home on the market, we get a bunch of offers and it sells. I honestly don’t think I’ve had a listing stay in active status longer than a week lately. I compare it to the days when I used to put together large dinner parties. I could spend 3 days on my feet, chopping, cooking, creating a Chinese feast and, within 20 minutes, the food is devoured and gone.
Everybody has this impression that I have a whole bunch of listings when I might have 2 or 3 active listings all together. This is a far cry from the days when I handled 75 listings at once, back in the days of short sales when it could take 6 months to a year to close. In those days, the listings piled up. I was generally at my computer at 5 AM. Now that I am taking a couple of new listings a week on average, it’s almost like I’m on vacation. I have plenty of time to invest in taking care of my clients.
I’m working through the Memorial Day weekend, too, but many other agents are not. Buyers are taking a break from looking at homes, too. There is a spectacular new listing in Curtis Park ready for the market, but why would I advise a seller to put it on the market over Memorial Day? I would not. Because I want what is best for my seller and the highest price. I do not want days on market accumulating due to low demand on a holiday weekend. The odds are the home will sell by the first Lyon open house extravaganza in June.
Timing on market is key. If we went on the market today, when fewer buyers are looking, we could very easily a) not expose ourselves to the largest pool possible of buyers (which drives demand and price) and b) our days on market by next week would be 10. By just holding back a little bit, we can come on the market with a huge explosion!
Besides, everybody will be back at work Tuesday morning and wishing they were not. They will be looking at homes online, you can betcha. And here will be this brand new listing, shiny and happy and ready to buy. Not some dated thing that had the tires kicked by lookie loos over the weekend. But I am a huge proponent for timing on market. I’m not one of those agents who throw everything into MLS, whenever, without thought, in hopes something will stick for a fast buck.
My sellers deserve better. They deserve a prepared marketing plan with a purpose, and a Sacramento Realtor who cares about them.
The Best Sacramento Listing Agent Asks Questions Like This
It’s a sorry state of affairs in this real estate market when a Sacramento listing agent holding a pending offer questions another agent with a pending listing to inquire if her sellers are in contract with the same buyers. Yada, yada, yeah, it’s confidential information but agents can still confirm the fact. I’m just saying it’s sad that an agent nowadays is put in the position of having to ask the question in the first place. It’s part of doing a fiduciary for the seller.
Sure, most transactions are straightforward and everybody is honest and ethical. Unless they are not. I’ve run across so many screwball escrows lately that my head is practically spinning. There was the guy who tried to buy a home and actually finagled his way into a contract when he had no money, no job and a police record. Then, there were the many buyers who wrote multiple offers all at the same time, locked down the properties and then subsequently canceled them all. Not to mention the cash buyers whom, at the last minute, developed cold feet.
There are so many ways that working with an experienced agent in Sacramento can pay off for a seller that I can’t even count them. Because of the volume of business that I do, I see a tremendous amount of purchase offers pass through my computer every year. I pay close and careful attention to each one of them, too.
Somebody asked me the other day, a seller whose home I’m listing next month, if I was too busy for her. I don’t know if she got that idea from a competing listing agent or if she came up with it on her own, but I am never too busy, and that’s the secret to my success. I don’t take on more listings than I can handle. Like I replied to this seller, a while back I was handling 70 to 75 listings at a time and doing a damn fine job if I say so myself. My clients agree, too. Today, my active Sacramento home listings number closer to 25, because the market is much slower.
The thing is I use my 40 years of experience to help my sellers. That’s an inherent quality they can’t buy or easily find elsewhere. My clients expect me to go beyond the norm. If I receive paperwork that makes me ask questions because I spot a red flag, you can bet I will get to the bottom of it. I see that action as part of my job and in good conscience I cannot let these types of questions go unanswered.
About Agents Who Swipe Sacramento Listings
It’s hard, at times, to tell if a person is joking around or not when you receive an email. I am not a big of fan of smiley faces, but against my better judgment, I am also guilty of slipping them into emails. That’s because not everybody gets a wry sense of humor. And sometimes I’m so busy that I literally don’t have time to make sure my parenthesis is facing the right way. It’s easy to type a frowny face by mistake. I’m so happy that you sent me a photo of your adorable baby. Frowny face.
We can all make mistakes, honest mistakes. We’re only human. But what about the people who deliberately set out to deceive and then claim they made a mistake? Or worse, don’t rectify it? And those people are Sacramento real estate agents? I ask myself if I should report them. On the one hand, I pretty much leave other agents alone and don’t turn them in, even when I spot blatant, unethical behavior. I’m not the ethics police. I also don’t have time for it.
Whether to report a violation is one thing, but another aspect is whether one should one talk about it in public. If it’s information the public should probably know, I say, yes, even if it tends to taint the profession. Other agents may disagree and say what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.
So, I’m just gonna tell you what happened. Without naming the website, I tried to manually post a new listing but the site told me the home was already claimed. Not surprising; it was listed before. I clicked on the details and noticed the home was listed for sale by an agent other than the previous listing agent. But it had the old listing number attached to it.
I called the seller to find out if she had any knowledge of this agent. Nope. The seller called the agent. Immediately, the agent dove into bait and switch mode. The seller made it clear that it was her home she was calling about and she was not a buyer. The agent mumbled something about this being a very confusing situation and promised to remove it.
A few days went by, and the listing was still published under that agent’s name. Hmmm. I wondered how many other Sacramento listings were swiped and misrepresented.
Usually, people who would do unethical things do other unethical things. That agent had a couple of pages filled with some other agent’s listings. I ran the first 5 addresses in MLS. Not one belonged to that agent. What a good idea, the agent might have thought. I know how to get buyers to call me. I’ll just swipe a bunch of listings, who cares if they’re even for sale or not, and post them on a website as my own. Brilliant. No, it’s stupid. And it’s unethical.
I finally notified the staff at that website, and several people responded. It’s difficult to regulate, they say. Well, how about you make the poster check a box that says, “If this listing doesn’t belong to me, I authorize you to charge my credit card a $1,000.” I heard giggles. They must have liked that idea. And the website removed the listing.
Why should the public care? Because the Internet is unregulated. It’s difficult to trust some of what you read. You should not rely on information found on websites that download data directly from MLS. Ask your agent about it. And use a smiley face in your request.
While Elizabeth is on vacation, we are revisiting her favorite blogs from previous years.
