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Outbuildings and Old Garages Might Be in FHA Repair Requirements
A prime example of an FHA repair requirement
I’ve got a real pickle coming up soon with a new listing in Sacramento because it’s likely to sell to a buyer obtaining an FHA loan. Why is that a pickle, you might wonder? Well, back when cash investors were quickly snapping up every home that came on the market, real estate agents didn’t much worry about FHA repair requirements, but that’s not the case anymore. FHA loans are a big deal now because the investors have pretty much left the market.
The investors who remain won’t pay market value. They hit prices hard. I’ve yet to see an offer lately from an investor at or above the list price. They are all trying to grind. It makes you want to say whoa, thanks for driving up the prices, now stop trying to drive them down. Most sellers would rather sell a home to an owner occupant anyway. They don’t want to change the demographics of their neighborhood by moving in tenants. They want a first-time home buyer to purchase their home and love it as much as they did. Homes are very emotional vehicles.
Selling to a first-time home buyer means dealing with FHA (or VA) appraisers and being on the lookout for the types of items that could cause FHA repair requirements noted on the appraisal as a condition to fund the loan. Sure, FHA has guidelines for its repair requirements, but it’s also largely left to the appraiser, and not every appraiser shares the same opinion nor interpretation of the guidelines. An item one appraiser will note, another might miss or overlook or just not care about. It can be the luck of the draw.
The time to discover whether a repair is called out is not a few days before closing, though. It’s much better to be proactive and take care of this stuff beforehand. One item I am seeing pop up more often on repair requirements is an old outbuilding. That old storage shed or garage in the back yard that nobody uses and is rotting in the sun? Huge problem today. It most likely needs to be demolished and removed.
While meeting with sellers in Sacramento yesterday, I walked the property line with them. They had talked with several other agents and discussed whether the fences needed repair as a few boards were old. Turns out the other real estate agents were so busy staring at the fences that not one had pointed out the dilapidated garage. This big white elephant sitting in front of their faces. This is a structure that several decades ago was accessed by a long driveway, which no longer exists. The driveway does not exist because the lot was split. Today, the new garage is attached to the home.
This means not only is there no access to this old garage, but a person can’t so much as squeeze a small bulldozer into the yard, There is no way to get into the back yard, even by removing a fence. And the building has to go. Hello sledgehammer and wheelbarrow. Yet, another reason why working with an experienced Sacramento real estate agent is a huge benefit to a sellers.
Why Do Sacramento Homes Come Back on the Market?
Just because you spot a home in the Sacramento MetroList MLS with a “back on market” status does not mean there was something wrong with the property; yet, that assumption is the first premise that some buyer’s agents and their buyers attach themselves to. The problem with many back-on-market listings is the buyers (or the buyer’s agents) did not understand what they were doing when they wrote the purchase offer. It’s like they embarked on a wild bender and woke up face down in puke. OMG, what did I do, they wonder, I bought a house.
I try to follow the rules of MLS, and unlike some agents, I actually read the MLS manual. MLS rules state we listing agents have 3 days to change the status in MLS from Active to Pending. However, there is also the real world, and the real world says if I’ve got buyer’s agents showing my pending listing for 3 days straight when I knew it was pending and did not inform them, my name in the real estate community would turn to mud. It’s unethical to purposely not change the status in MLS and to misrepresent what’s going on.
The problem that arises is we might be led to believe that the buyer is steadfast and then we discover, no, there is a problem with the buyer. Meanwhile, the listing is sitting in pending status. When we put back the listing on the market, now everybody wants to know why, what went wrong — when it was the messed-up buyer or agent that was the problem.
In one instance, we moved a perfectly beautiful home in Elk Grove from its fresh active status to pending when an Elk Grove buyer with a criminal record hoodwinked the seller into accepting an offer. The buyer’s agent was absolutely steadfast that the buyer could perform until it turned out that the buyer, oops, had no money, no car and no job. Yet this home went back on the market, and it’s not the same.
In another instance, the buyers, with the buyer’s agent’s permission, wrote multiple offers to buy a home and ended up in contract on two homes at the same time. The buyer’s agent did not immediately notify the listing agent. Meanwhile, status changed from active to pending in MLS. A few days went by before the buyers bothered to decided which home they wanted to buy (ultimately the answer was neither). That buyer’s agent learned a hard lesson, but still, the seller’s home ended up in back-on-market status.
Recently, a seller accepted a contingent offer, meaning the buyer had a home to sell, and the buyer asked for, let’s say, 7 days to sell her home. Her agent noted the home was on the market and should quickly sell. Before advising my seller to accept the contingency to sell a home from the buyer, this Sacramento real estate agent checked the accuracy of the listed price, and it seemed very reasonable. The seller accepted the offer. We changed the status in MLS to pending.
Then, the buyer’s agent did a double take when when we asked for the contingency release within the specified time period. Turns out she did not correctly write the Contingency of Purchase. She made a huge mistake. She had meant to ask for a much longer time period, consisting of a few months. I guess now I have to add to my repertoire of insulting questions to ask buyer’s agents: Does your buyer understand what she signed?
This Sacramento spring market seems so squirrelly. It’s bad enough that I have to personally call banking institutions to verify funds on deposit (because the loan officers and buyer’s agents don’t always give a hoot), and interrogate the buyer’s agents as to whether the buyer wrote two offers. I don’t mean to insult anybody. But this back-on the-market business is damaging to sellers, and I have to look out for my seller’s interests. I might also change my policy now to leaving the status modifier in ACTIVE for a few days, just to make sure everybody is on the same page. If buyer’s agents want to know whether we have any offers, they’ll just have to find out the old-fashioned way.
Why This Sacramento Agent Carries a Display Key
There are days in Sacramento real estate when it seems like one just can’t use enough technology or have enough electronic gizmos at one’s disposal. The gift of magic always come with a price, though. Sometimes digital wonders don’t work. They can go haywire. Or, something else malfunctions. Like the other day when gmail went down and thousands of gmail users went bonkers.
As a Sacramento real estate agent, I maintain a half dozen email accounts through various service providers and online sites, yet I take great precautions that no one will ever find my email address online. I utilize a variety of devices to access the Internet, and I have more than a few ways to get online, which means short of an asteroid hitting the Earth and wiping out all communications, I can always reach out and touch someone.
This is why I don’t subscribe to an eKey through my cellphone. I don’t like putting all of my eggs into one basket. If it doesn’t work, I’m hosed. Agents need either an eKey or display key to access a Supra lockbox, which contain keys for showing a home. An agent on another website wrote a cute blog yesterday about playing an online game and in order to earn extra points, had set his cellphone clock ahead by 24 hours. Then, he tried to show homes to a busload of passengers and his eKey would not work.
Hey, a person can drop his cellphone into the toilet or she can flip it out the car window. What happens if the cell tower is down or a Sacramento agent is showing a home in the foothills without cellphone coverage? There are must too many variables. For me, it’s much safer to just subscribe to a display key and forget about using my cellphone to access a lockbox. That way, if I experience a little hiccup, I can call the Supra toll-free number and an extremely patient person will explain how to straighten a paperclip, stick it into the hole in the back to reset the display key, and all is well with the world.
To have it not work once is too many times. Yeah, it might cost a little bit more, but this Sacramento agent prefers to be safe than sorry.
Super Bowl Sunday 2014 and Sacramento Open Houses
Home buyers in Sacramento were out in droves over the weekend, attending open houses, touring new listings and writing offers. This was the one weekend in January to do it because we got a break in those football games. Granted, I am not a person who watches football. I am probably in the minority but football doesn’t interest me. Not even if I imagine the team players as short sale negotiators at various banks — oh look, Bank of America just swiped the ball from Green Tree, and Wells Fargo bashed PNC in the head. Nope, still doesn’t do it for me.
Next weekend, of course, will be Super Bowl Sunday 2014, and it’s just not a good weekend for an open house. Oh, sure, there are Super Bowl widows and widowers who will be out and about, but the bulk of Americans will be focused on who will win the Super Bowl. Big Super Bowl parties everywhere except at my house. I’m not even sure who is playing, I think Denver and . . . After we get past this next weekend, it should be clear sailing through spring into summer for Sacramento real estate.
A negotiator at SLS called me this morning to ask when we would record on a short sale scheduled for closing. I told her it would be tomorrow. But what TIME, she persisted, almost in a whiny voice. Well, Sacramento has 5 recording times — it will be one of those, I offered. One of those 5 times. Don’t know which one. She probably would have smacked me if we were sitting across the table from each other.
But then I’d throw a football into her face and break her nose.
Here is an Odor Free Litter Box Cats Actually Use
Jackson can make his own litter box.
Our cats are in for a real treat or, as my husband calls it, a true motivation for them to take a crap on the kitchen table. While I was in Serrano last week checking out a home a seller at the last minute now may or may not want to put on the market, I met a charming tenant and his equally captivating two cats. The cats use a different kind of litter box system than I’ve been exposed to, and unless you see it in action, you might not believe that it works.
It’s called Breeze. Have you heard of it? It’s an odor free litter box. No tracking of dust or clay, either.
The tenant showed me the litter boxes, the pellets and a special pad that lines the bottom tray. The pellets are made out of something foreign but they call it a natural mineral. The deal is you fill the box with the pellets and change the pad once a week by sliding out the tray and removing the pad. I’m a little unclear as to how the pad actually leaves the tray. It’s not something I’d want to pluck with my bare fingers, and I’m not sure if one could try to dump it into a garbage bag without perhaps leaking liquid in an undesirable place such as on my shoes, but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.
This odor free litter box system is made by Tidy Cat, which apparently is owned by Purina. My very first real job, because waitressing doesn’t count, was working as a secretary at Checkerboard Grain, a division of Ralston Purina, on the 4th floor of the Minneapolis Grain Exchange. They gave me the job because I answered the question of why do you want to work at Purina with: “My cats like Tender Vittles.” I have always had a soft spot in my heart for Ralston Purina. So, I thought I’d give the Breeze litterbox system a try.
This guy in Serrano — his house was odorless. There was no cat litter tracking dust anywhere. I cannot imagine a world without cat litter sprinklers on the floor, but I’d sure like to give it a try.
I did not buy enough boxes to properly make the transition, so I ordered two more systems from Petsmart with free shipping. You can’t just get one odor free litter box and see how it goes, like maybe you would with a first husband. You’ve got to make a real commitment. However, they are on sale, only $29.99, and you get the litterbox, pellets and four pads. Replacement pads are $1.50 each. I filled the first and only box that I have so far with the pellets. First thing our little kitten Tessa did was try to eat the pellets. She could not believe her good fortune: a smorgasbord of pellets laid out in a huge trough. None of the cats has yet to use the box, but the trick is to stop cleaning their existing boxes so they will be forced to use the pellets.
You can see this will be delightful for a few days. I’ll let you know how it progresses. Or, as my husband says, another fine mess you got us into. If this actually pans out, I will recommend Breeze to all of my clients when it comes time to put their cat-occupied homes on the market. Because selling a home where pets live can be tricky. The only downside is I can see myself in a back alley trading bitcoins for pellets when Breeze stops manufacturing them.
