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A Few Words About Targeted Marketing
Regardless of what anybody says, I don’t believe that people like to be sold to, much less manipulated by advertisers. I read a spokesperson’s comment for either Facebook or Google — don’t recall which, they are so similar these days since both want to control the world — who said that people want their advertising better targeted to themselves. Yeah, right. People don’t want targeted advertising, you stupid jerk, get your head out of your butt.
Sure, it’s worse when the advertising doesn’t fit your parameters whatsoever, but it’s still highly irritating when the advertiser is trying to manipulate and trick you into buying a product you have no need for at all. And that covers most useless crap that is sold today and pretty much explains advertising, targeted or not.
I get emails from companies trying to sell me industrial plumbing supplies, meant for commercial buildings. That’s as welcome as an ad for baby food or birth control. People ask why I don’t carry loyalty cards, and the reason is I don’t want nor appreciate targeted marketing. I also don’t care if things I regularly buy are on sale because I’ll buy it locally to put money back into the neighborhood, regardless of price.
Many older buyers are like me. Younger buyers are much different. In fact, Honda, the car manufacturer, can’t reach its targeted audience anymore, which is young people, because kids don’t watch TV or read newspapers in print. As a result, Honda has decided to sponsor music concerts, which isn’t nearly as annoying.
But I still walk around with a big fat bullseye imprinted on my forehead simply because I am a real estate agent and a high profile agent in Sacramento at that. It means that mortgage lenders and other real estate companies continually use targeted marketing, calling to set up a special coffee date. I never met up for coffee when I was dating, for chrissakes. I made the guys meet me wherever I went, Home Depot to buy a weed wacker, getting my oil changed, whatever. Online companies call because they can’t find my email anywhere. Go ahead, you try to find my email; it’s not out there.
Anybody is free to send me an email through a variety of portals, but if it’s advertising or spam it is deleted before my eyes skim past the subject line. I really miss the days of when slamming down a phone carried a message. Clicking off by tapping the disconnect button doesn’t have the same satisfaction. There is a downside to it, though. The other day a guy called who sounded just like a telemarketer. After I asked: please don’t call me again, and when the phone was about to go dead, just before it disconnected I heard him cry, no, wait, wait, I’m an agent.
Fortunately, I have redial and CallerID.
If you’re looking to buy a home in Sacramento, you can contact the Elizabeth Weintraub Team. We won’t pressure you or try to sell a home to you. We are providers of new listings as soon as they hit the market — as a real estate agent is your best and only real source to receive current homes for sale in Sacramento. If you want to tour a home, you can let us know.
A Solution for Home Buyers Facing a Contingency Release Deadline
A Sacramento real estate agent who represents sellers is generally vigilant about following the terms of the purchase contract and asking buyers for a contingency release upon the specified dates. Unless otherwise altered, buyers typically agree to release inspection contingencies, loan and appraisal contingencies by the 17th day. The listing agent is sometimes viewed as an ogre or a downright meanie if her seller asks the buyer to perform in accordance with the contract.
It’s not unusual after a request for contingency release for this listing agent to receive from the buyer’s agent a tirade of blistering words, mish-mashed together in a denunciatory nature, sounding as though the buyer’s agent is angry but lacks an ability to grasp the right words to get the point across. Sort of reminds me of Daffy Duck sputtering you’re despicable. The buyer’s agent generally ends the diatribe with the supposed justification of: I’m just protecting my buyer.
One can’t help but wonder that if an agent is protecting the buyer, why is the agent advising the buyer to breach the contract?
As a standard of practice and care for my clients, we send buyer’s agents an email notice as a courtesy the day before a contingency release is coming up. We ask politely to send us the CR form and remind the agent that a contingency needs to be released. In some cases, you’d think we asked them to strip naked and dance in the streets. Shield the eyes. Some agents have never heard of the contingency release. Some prefer to explode over it. Fortunately, most buyer’s agents respond in an appropriate manner. But some don’t.
If we don’t receive a contingency release, though, the next step is to ask our sellers if they want to issue a Notice to the Buyer to Perform. This gives the buyers 2 days to produce the document or the seller may have the right to cancel the transaction. Will the seller cancel if the buyer doesn’t perform? Some sellers will cancel the purchase contract faster than you can say sore losers shouldn’t talk to the press after losing at Belmont Stakes — especially if the sellers have backup buyers willing to pay more.
The biggest issue is generally not the inspection contingency that generates the reluctance, it’s releasing the loan contingency. Not to mention, there’s a whole ‘nother discussion as to whether a Small Claims Court judge would even award an earnest money deposit to a seller, but buyers and their agents don’t know that. The simple solution is if a buyer needs more time — due to the way loans are scrutinized with all the delays going on in today’s market — then the buyer, through her buyer’s agent, can ask to extend the contingency through an Extension of Time addendum.
It’s not the listing agent’s job, however, to tell the buyer’s agent what to do or how to protect the agent’s buyer. An Extension of Time (ETA), if agreed to by all parties, can extend a particular contingency period in the purchase contract. Stay in contract. Don’t breach it, don’t let it expire, stay in contract.
What John Wayne, Newport Beach and Arrested Development Share in Common
Back when I used to live in Newport Beach, California, and sell real estate in that Orange County mecca, during the 1970s-1980s — I hate to add, before many of my clients were born — John Wayne was a pretty big deal; probably still is. I am presently reading John Wayne: the Life and Legend, by Scott Eyman. I can see some of you saying, John Who? When I cruised by Lido Isle in my Bayliner, out-of-town guests would ask me to point out his house where Pilar Wayne at the time lived. They named the Orange County Airport after him and put up a 9-foot bronze statue, although the Duke was six-three-point five. It was this statue that got me into a lot of hot water.
Mostly because I had the gall to poke fun at its politics by suggesting they place the statue at the entrance to the harbor where seagulls could poop on it, instead of sticking it up at the airport where it now resides. I believe that was a piece I wrote as a freelancer for the Daily Pilot, a newspaper in Newport Beach. All holy hell broke loose over that. John Wayne was a person larger-than-life and one of the few celebrities we had in Newport Beach back then, besides Joey Bishop.
The same thing happened when I contributed an article to the Orange County Register about selling real estate. I thought it was hilarious, suggesting that most real estate agents were actually unemployed, but the Board of REALTORS in Newport Harbor would have banned me for life if they could. No sense of humor, these people.
If you asked people outside of the area where Newport Beach was located back then, they probably could not tell you and, if they could somehow pinpoint it on a map, they were confused by the fact it faced south. If you lived there, people thought you were filthy rich, even if you weren’t. It was a fairly conservative climate, to put it mildly, except for some of the people who lived near the beach.
As a person who would not belong to any club that wanted her as a member, for a few years I belonged to the Balboa Bay Club, if you can believe that. I served on the Kentucky Derby Day committee one year, before my best friend Betty passed away, even though I had nothing of substance to contribute and little in common with anybody except Betty. This was when publisher Bob Page approached me about writing a social column about the BBC, which I rejected.
Having lived on the Balboa Peninsula makes watching Arrested Development all that more amusing for me. Especially the scenes filmed at the Balboa Pier and Fun Zone. My favorite activities did not involve eating frozen bananas, but fell more along the lines of playing skeeball and riding the ferris wheel. It’s probably one of the reasons I never get tired today of biking over to Old Sacramento. Although we are missing essential elements such as the ocean and the bay, we do have the river. Two rivers. And we don’t have a statue of John Wayne anywhere.
Buying a New Home in Land Park Sacramento
When I talk with people I haven’t talked with for years, they often ask if I am living in the same home in Land Park, as though the first thing they would do if they were selling 100 homes in Sacramento year after year would be to buy a new home. Not because I need a new home, mind you, but because I could. They ask I suppose because my existing home is not a mansion nor an estate, and that’s what they would buy. It’s just a plain ol’ single level home, around 2,000 square feet in Land Park.
It’s not located on a premiere winding street in Land Park and there is no view of William Land Park. There is no second or third floor. No marble floors with floor-to-ceiling columns. No four-car garage. No pool in the back yard. There is nothing all that remarkable about our home in Land Park. It suits our needs, and we’re happy with it.
But people are still astonished that we haven’t traded up or built our own mini-mansion because it’s something that most other people would do, I guess. I think buying a larger home is one of those items on a list when people play what one would do if one won the lottery. A larger home means more to clean, higher taxes and more crap that could go wrong. But that’s me. I’m also over 60 and less inclined to move again. My husband echoes that sentiment.
Fortunately, my clients often think differently and they might move every 5 to 7 years. I met with clients a few days ago who buy homes dirt cheap, remodel them and move up. It’s called buy, fix up and sell. There’s nothing wrong with that approach and, in fact, it’s a method I used myself over the years. We all have our different dreams and things we reach for. And that’s OK.
I dream of travel. I love to see new places, encounter different cultures, meet new people who can’t understand anything I say and vice versa (and I’m not just talking about the South). This morning I received a digital version of the Four Seasons magazine and was sidetracked for a while, reading about gourmet street food in Singapore, Budapest theatres and how to get a free night in Langkawi.
But a new place among Land Park homes for sale is not on the horizon for us. Our present home is just fine, even though we’ve lived here forever. If you’re looking to buy or sell a home in Land Park, please call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759. I know just about every inch of my leafy neighborhood.
Is Your MetroList Rapattoni Client Portal Broken?
Tech Support at Rapattoni report the Rapattoni client portal is broken and is not working correctly all over the country — not just in Sacramento. Listings vanish before our client’s eyes. That doesn’t make us feel any better to know we are not alone with a broken client portal. Not every real estate agent has a problem, either, with the client portal from Rapattoni; it’s sporadic. For example, this Sacramento real estate agent doesn’t have that problem. I set up client portals to test the issue and they worked for me, but one of my team members continually struggles. He’s a young, techie guy, too, just in case any readers are wondering about the ever-ubiquitous operator error.
We called MetroList, which didn’t seem to be aware of the problem until we talked with Rapattoni. The Support team at Rapattoni confirmed that client portals are not working for other real estate agents as well. It’s odd that it works for some and not all, but that seems to be the case. My team member was also able to show the Support employee at Rapattoni how to duplicate the issue of vanishing listings.
A broken client portal is very frustrating for our real estate clients. They don’t have the kind of patience that Rapattoni possesses. They want their client portals to work, and they want them to work today. There seems to be no definitive deadline as to when Rapattoni will fix the problem.
I can’t send clients to iHomefinder searches because those are broken now, too.
MetroList is a monopoly. We Sacramento real estate agents are forced to rely on and exclusively use MetroList. There is no other system we can use. It’s not like we can call up Apple and ask them to fix the Rapattoni problem. We can’t go to Google to complain. We’re pretty much stuck with it. And since it doesn’t seem to affect a large number of agents, our priority level is low.
But I’d still rather talk to MetroList than listen to a Sacramento home buyer rant and rave because he’s already bought a home and wants to know why my team members at Lyon Real Estate closed down his client portal access. Because, dude, you already bought a house, that’s why. You’re in escrow. Looking at homes to buy is over. Standard real estate practice 101. You want to screw around online, hang out on Zillow or Trulia and look at shit that’s not for sale. You’re not singled out.
And neither are we. We continue to wait week after week for Rapatonni to resolve the broken client portal issue. Until then, we will probably drive to your home to hand deliver listings if that’s what it takes. We go that extra mile. That’s just the kind of Sacramento real estate agents we are.
