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Once Upon a Time There Were 3 Homes in Escrow
One would think it was an April Fool’s joke the way things seem to be going this morning in my Sacramento real estate business, but I can assure you that it’s entirely coincidental that 3 properties are going back on the market today pending rescission through absolutely no fault of the sellers. It’s those buyers. Once we had 3 homes in escrow and then not.
You would think buyers would have received the message by now that we have limited inventory in the marketplace, and they are pretty much lucky to be in escrow on any home. But with any strange market comes strange buyers as part of the mix. The problem is as a listing agent, we don’t meet the buyers face-to-face and we have no idea really whether they face mental challenges or are just drunk or stoned. The scenarios seem so similar at times.
I want to suggest hey, buyer’s agents, why not rifle through your buyer’s personal belongings to see if they have stashed illegal drugs in their coat pocket and better sniff that water bottle, does it contain vodka? Because I don’t see any other explanation for such absurdities. I know for some people it’s a lot of fun to be in escrow and picture what life would be like after closing, but for some of those people, it pains me to say, well, they can harbor no intention of closing. Some of them don’t realize it at the time, I’ll give them that much; but others are fully aware, they’re just playing in some other kids’ sandbox, one that the cat visited.
Just seems like a big case of buyer’s remorse sneaking into town on slipper-clad feet. Like that purple smoky haze cast as a curse by Maleficent over Storybrooke. Three perfectly good homes in escrow back on the market today. It’s unbelievable. Enough with the negative, let go of that — time to focus on the positive. These will sell again. They always do.
If you need a turnkey home in Elk Grove at $225,000, or a model home condo in West Sacramento by the Lighthouse Marina at $195,000, or a huge upgraded home with hardwood floors and a fabulous view in Natomas around $300,000, please give this Sacramento real estate agent a ring today at 916.233.6759. I’ll be more than happy to help you find that perfect home and slip you into backup position as we await the processing of the inevitable. No April Foolin’, I promise. When we put homes in escrow, they generally stick.
Notes on Decluttering a Cluttered Home Before Selling
We all tend to accumulate crap in our lives but the people who are selling cluttered homes have a tougher time preparing their home for sale. I’ve sold many homes for packrats and those suffering from an obsessive compulsive disorder, and I try to be compassionate because I realize it’s not their fault. It’s a disease. Besides, I am also focused on the job at hand. I realize I am not responsible for their mental condition, I’m simply responsible for selling their home. I don’t try to be a White Knight agent.
Who among us hasn’t collected crap, when you come right down to it? True story — when my husband and I moved to Sacramento, I carted off truckloads of crap, er, really nice stuff and donated it to charity. The crummier stuff I tossed. I had worked past the years of moving boxes of old bus transfers from the 1960s and telephone bills and other types of paper receipts that are absolutely worthless, which I had saved and forgotten to discard. They tell you to save stuff but don’t tell you when to toss it. I also had accumulated boxes in my attic filled to the gills with old curtains, drapes, bath towels, pots and pans, you name it, if I had bought it for a previous home, I had saved it.
This is why now when sellers ask me if they can take the drapes, my eyes get wide and say WHY, for the LOVE of God why? They won’t fit the windows in a new home. They will be too long or too short or the wrong color or the wrong material, and they will go into a box in your attic that you will move to the next house and the next house and the next house, so for crying out loud just don’t do it. Even if they do fit, you’ll decide you want new window coverings for some other goofy reason. Don’t even get me started on the people who plan to unattach and take their plantation shutters.
I also threw away boxes of old shoes. I suppose now it would give me great pleasure to paw through such a box but only for a moment as I held up a pair of rotting hippie moccasins to recall the last time I wore them and realize I could not (that’s what the ’60s do to ya), so what they hey, into the trash they go. I had to tug and pull two boxes of old shoes, they were so huge and heavy, outside for the trash collectors. Next thing I knew, people were knocking on my door in anger, waving shoes in my face, demanding to know how I had a right to throw away such precious things! You can’t win.
Then, when I got to California and moved into our new home, not everything would fit. As I unpacked, I realized what I should have realized back in Minnesota, and that is I did not need half of this crap. So even though I paid to ship it across the country, I still rented a 30-ton dumpster, put it in the street and filled it to the brim. Homeless people and scavengers had a field day.
I share this story in hopes that my clients and readers will be a bit more ruthless — poor Ruth, she gets all the blame — when trying to sell a cluttered home and will get rid of the crap upfront. Or, you can just call this Sacramento real estate agent, and I’ll guide you through getting that cluttered home prepared for sale.
Where To Get Legal Advice for Real Estate in Sacramento
Nary a day goes by when a client doesn’t ask me a legal question about real estate in Sacramento. They do not realize that I can get into a boatload of hot water and trouble up the ying-yang if I answer those kinds of questions and provide legal advice for real estate. Even when I say: hey, a Sacramento real estate agent is not allowed to give legal advice; I could lose my real estate license for practicing law, they will twist the question around and insist it’s not a legal question because they just want to know how other people have handled a similar legal technicality — which still makes it a legal question, regardless of whether they agree with my statement.
I say if you want to get conflicting opinions, ask a C.A.R. legal hotline lawyer. Those guys are paid, I suspect, on a flat-fee basis, and probably a minuscule flat-fee at that, to answer the phone which, because of that minuscule fee, I imagine, they often do not answer the phone. But one of them will eventually call back an agent to dispense real estate legal advice. In the few times that I have personally called a C.A.R. lawyer, the advice I received reminded me of an old Johnny Carson show, when he used to go on the street to ask questions of silly people in those Man on the Street interviews. In my experience, some of these lawyers seem to hold a weak grasp on real estate law, don’t understand how MLS works and tend to talk off the top of their heads, which I can get from my husband with a missing caveat: my husband will apply logic.
But one typically gets what one pays for in this world. C.A.R. legal hotline lawyers are free to dispense real estate legal advice to agents; they don’t submit written legal opinions. They simply provide free legal advice to agents in California. These free lawyers also probably feel like they aren’t paid enough to actually practice law but they’ll talk to an agent like we interrupted them while they were reading a comic book on the John. For all I do know, they take their cellphones with them into the stall before they accidentally flip them into the toilet. I bet cellphone providers sell a lot of insurance plans to free legal hotline lawyers. Heaven knows, too, that all-important phone call might come through from Domino’s Pizza. Gotta have your phone.
You might think I am unduly harsh on these professionals, but the advice they have dispensed to many agents has been completely wrong on so many levels that it has colored my opinion of them. It’s also possible that agents misunderstood or misconstrued. The point is that the C.A.R. lawyers are not held liable for poor advice because they’re not paid enough to be liable for the advice. And you know what that kind of advice is called? Lip service.
If I really need legal advice I can rely upon, I go to my company lawyers who are paid beaucoup bucks to protect the brokerage and, by extension in most instances, its agents. I respect these people and they know real estate law. If a client needs legal advice for real estate, I have a list of respected real estate lawyers in Sacramento whom they can call. I often point clients to California Civil Code, which explains many of the secrets in California real estate, but nothing can substitute for the advice of a lawyer — a real estate lawyer who provides professional assistance based on her own experience, associate practice, court case and real estate law. Don’t ask a Sacramento real estate agent.
And don’t blame C.A.R. either because our agent dues don’t begin to cover a legal hotline. C.A.R. is just a trade association.
Honesty Should Not Be Tough For Real Estate Agents
Agents need to be truthful when asked if they have shown a property to their buyers if, for no other reasons, than the California Bureau of Real Estate makes honesty a requirement for a license and the REALTOR Code of Ethics demands it. You would think being honesty for real estate agents is a no brainer but some apparently disagree. The dishonest sort tend to twist honesty into a pretzel and a format they recognize, something they can rationalize, but there really is no rationalizing the truth. You are or you aren’t. You did or you didn’t. You did not have sexual relations with that woman. You are not a crook. You’re just some whack job driving a white Bronco very slowly.
We all get it. We all wish it would stop.
Except, sometimes, the people who perpetrate and give life, meaning and clarity to the unfortunately descriptive word: asshole. This sort doesn’t give a crap.
The California Bureau of Real Estate created bare-bone requirements to become a Sacramento real estate agent. You must be 18 (you do not have to be a high school graduate), you must complete 3 real estate courses, and an applicant for a real estate license must be TRUTHFUL and HONEST. Right there, that requirement probably knocks out at least 1 person out of every 5, yet they still get a real estate license because if they are untruthful, do you think they will admit it? Ack.
In the REALTOR Code of Ethics, the very first article a REALTOR pledges is to treat all parties HONESTLY. Yes, honesty for real estate agents is a prerequisite.
Yet, when a listing agent asks a buyer’s agent who submitted an offer the sellers want to accept if the agent showed the property to the buyers and the agent responds, “Yes, she loved it,” when the agent did NOT show the property, well, what do you make of that? When presented with the facts such as maybe the sellers were home all day and did not possess a business card from that agent, only then might the buyer’s agent admit that the buyer did not actually view the inside. Inferring, btw, that the buyer was outside of the property with the agent, which probably did not happen, either.
It’s the writer’s instinct in me, I ask questions and probe.
Agents, you might be tempted to “fudge” the facts even if you don’t see it as outright lying, but please don’t. Dishonesty is against the law, it’s against the Code of Ethics, and sellers might ignore your buyer’s offer when they find out what you did. I will tell them. It’s in my fiduciary to disclose what I know to my sellers. Just be honest. Why is honesty for real estate agents so tough?
Sacramento Home Buyers Ask: Why Wasn’t My Offer Accepted?
It pains me when I see a purchase offer to buy a home arrive in my email and I instinctively realize the buyer will be asking her agent: why wasn’t my offer accepted? In the mind of many Sacramento home buyers, they did everything right. This particular home buyer found the home she wanted online all by herself — it fit her parameters exactly. She fell in love with the photographs and knew before she ever stepped foot inside that house that she wanted to buy that home.
Visiting the home in person solidified those feelings and thoughts. Yes, she should definitely buy that home. She is qualified and has her pre-approval letter that confirms it. The buyer may have provided proof of funds from her checking account. She has delivered an earnest money deposit with her offer. Everything is as it should be. All the stars are aligned, and this is her home. She even offered list price. She did exactly what was asked. All that’s left to do is to figure out where to put the sofa.
Ack. The seller accepted a different offer. Why didn’t she get this house? Why did the seller reject her offer? What is wrong with her Sacramento real estate agent? These are the thoughts running through the buyers’ mind. Do you want to know what the problem is?
First, it’s probably not the real estate agent. I imagine the real estate agent told the buyer that Sacramento is experiencing a limited inventory market, there is not much for sale, and there is intense competition, especially for entry-level homes in good condition. This means many Sacramento home buyers must write a better-than-normal offer. It could entail a higher price, paying more of the closing costs or giving the seller extra benefits, among other home buying offer tips.
I know that buyer’s agents explain this to their Sacramento home buyers. But somehow, that advice seems to fall on deaf ears or for some other reason the buyer does not agree nor understand. An agent can tell a buyer they need to offer more than $300,000 for that listing at $295,000, and some buyers will still ask, can I offer $250,000? These are not true buyers who say those sorts of things; these are people who are mentally deranged, which means yes, they are buyers from another universe and don’t operate in our world.
Working with a veteran real estate agent can also help improve a buyer’s chances of getting an offer accepted. Listing agents know the agents who perform and agents gain a reputation in this industry — good reason not to rely on your cousin’s aunt who happens to have a real estate license.
It’s generally one of three reasons why a buyer’s offer is not accepted: the buyer or the agent or both. Which is your reason? Because it’s not the Sacramento real estate market. We all must adjust to the market. If a buyer conforms to the market, the buyer will get her offer accepted.
