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If You Aren’t Ready to Buy a Home in Sacramento
Don’t be afraid to tell a real estate agent why you are calling.
When a person calls a Sacramento real estate agent about buying a home, there are basically two things that agent wants to hear. Either the person is ready to buy a home in Sacramento or the person is not ready to buy a home. Either one is OK. We are not answering a phone solely to make a sale and push a buyer into making a decision that perhaps a buyer is not yet ready to make. But it’s helpful for us to know what the buyer hopes to accomplish by talking with us.
We are not standing behind a desk at an office, monitoring a candy dish for those who walk in. Most of the time, when a buyer calls a real estate agent, we are busy selling real estate. We are with a client showing homes, writing purchase contracts, shooting photographs, driving out the W X Freeway on our way to a listing appointment. We could also be walking the dog, comparing cold cuts at Taylor’s Market or picking up our car from Midtown Autoworks after an oil change.
We don’t work retail. We work from our cellphones.
I’m one of those agents who tries to answer her phone, which seems to blow away many callers. I have to admit that, yes, they have reached a real live person, which astonishes them. If a buyer wants to buy a home in Sacramento, I am ready to help. But if it’s so surprising that an agent would answer her phone, when buyers do reach voice mail and leave a message, why don’t these same buyers answer their phones or return the calls agents leave for them?
Probably because they are not yet ready to buy. Many are “just looking.” Just looking seems to be a phrase for describing curiosity. Technology makes it easy to contact a Sacramento real estate agent. If a buyer is simply curious about a sales price or some other aspect of a home she has just driven by, it’s OK to say so when calling. Just say: I am not ready to buy a home in Sacramento.
She can also search the web from her Smartphone and get the answer just like she finds out which is the top downloaded song from iTunes and the present weight of Kardashian’s beehive butt.
Because so many callers forget or are afraid to mention that they are not really buyers, this becomes the reason many agents don’t answer their cellphones and send all unknown calls to voicemail. But I can’t help myself, when my phone rings, I tend to answer it.
50 Shades of Grey and the Real Estate Purchase Contract
Our California residential purchase agreement is not an iron-clad purchase contract.
Sacramento real estate agents primarily use purchase contracts developed by C.A.R. as agreements to buy a home in Sacramento. It seems that with every new case law, generally originated by some disgruntled buyer, the contracts are revised. There are also obvious revisions because the language is often confusing. In an attempt to be clear and speak with a human voice, lawyers can sometimes royally mess up legal contracts because they lose sight of their audience and get all hung up on courts and judges.
For this reason, no purchase contract is typically not without a way to sue somebody over something. There is no black-and-white language in a purchase contract, regardless of what a person might be led to believe. A person can read one paragraph that defines a situation, seems to set the boundaries, and then a second paragraph can bring that first paragraph into question. By the time you reach paragraph 27, the 14th paragraph might appear ambiguous. It’s one of the reasons we have an 8-page California Residential Purchase Agreement and Joint Escrow Instructions (revised April 2013), coupled with its sister, the two-page Buyer’s Inspection Advisory (revised October 2002).
I look at that and I think what? C.A.R. could not come up with one single revision for the Buyer’s Inspection Advisory over the past 12 years? Here, C.A.R., have another glass of grappa. Also, when I started in real estate (you kids get offa my lawn), we had a choice between a one-page or a two-page contract. In fact, at one point, I created my own purchase contracts and professionally printed printed my brokerage’s purchase contracts in 3-part NCR — which at that time seemed like a brilliant move but was probably one of the dumber things I have done in my life. Hey, I was in my early 20s, so I had an excuse for my ignorance, not to mention, the 1970s was like one long LSD adventure.
I am astonished that buyers today sign this paperwork without engaging in a minor heart attack. It would almost be better in some ways if an agent just put blinders over a buyer’s eyes, stuck a pen in her hand and directed her to draw squiggles as her signature. Don’t read, just sign, would be the message. Yet, we encourage our buyers to read the real estate purchase contract and they don’t understand a darn thing in it.
Don’t even get me started on ZIPforms and why there is no field for the ZIP Code, of all things. I have brought this matter up to ZIPforms, but it has not been changed. Nobody else probably cares but I realize it’s a problem because of short sales. The bank negotiators do not like the fact there are no ZIP codes carried forth from page to page. Why don’t the C.A.R. lawyers spend time looking at this situation and fixing it? They should also fix the listing agreement fields so subsequent addendums match.
Bottom line, if a buyer or seller wants to challenge a portion of the purchase contract, a smart lawyer will find a way to do it. There is nothing black-and-white about our legal system. It’s more like 50 Shades of Grey . . . in more ways than one. But don’t ask your Sacramento real estate agent to define the real estate purchase contract because we don’t practice law.
Waiting Periods Are Over for Buying After a Short Sale
You might be able to immediately buy a home right after closing a short sale
Having personally helped hundreds of sellers in distress close Sacramento short sales — to the tune of more than $65 million since 2006 — and put the entire horrid nightmare behind them, I often hear first-hand a seller swear she will never buy another home ever again. I caution with a grin, “Oh, I wouldn’t be so certain about that if I were you.” Those are often famous last words. If that were true and we all had long memories, women would never get pregnant a second time.
Believe it or not, there is joy and pain in a short sale. Over time, the pain and frustration from the short sale dissipates. Not only that, but the minute a short sale closes escrow, there is a huge sense of relief that suddenly appears out of nowhere. It’s almost as though the clouds stopped raining and tulips instantly bloomed in technicolor. You can hear angels sing. At least that’s what my sellers tell me.
Today, many short sale sellers are returning to buy a home after closing short sales. How soon can you buy after a short sale? The good news is if you have 25% to put down, you can buy immediately. Further, if you have completed a HAFA short sale without a Notice of Default nor late payments from the summer of 2013 forward — and if the lender reported your short payoff correctly as PAID IN FULL — you should be able to buy immediately under any financing program, including FHA with minimum down.
But FHA also has implemented its own Back to Work program for sellers who have “Paid in Full for Less Than Agreed” reported on their credit reports and who experienced an economic event, which allows a repurchase within one year. That’s pretty incredible as compared to the lengthy waiting times from the past. It used to be 7 years, then 5, then 3 years, (2 under Fannie Mae).
See, with time, lenders finally come around. I suspect they had to eventually because short sale sellers are not like foreclosure recipients. Short sale sellers are responsible people who struggled to do the right thing. They have a conscience, generally, and do unto others as they would have them do unto them. That’s a special breed. And these people deserve a second chance. I’m thrilled to see home loans available for them, without a big scarlet S hanging around their necks.
If you would like more information about buying again after a short sale, call Dan Tharp at Guild Mortgage, 916.257.1470 or email him at dtharp@comstockmortgage.com. Then, call this Sacramento real estate agent, and we’ll get you started on looking at homes to buy: Elizabeth Weintraub, 916.233.6759.
The Consequences When Buyers Write Multiple Offers
When sellers discover that a buyer’s agent had allegedly written multiple offers for Sacramento home buyers — both of which were accepted — it can be normal for sellers to want to express outrage and direct those feelings toward the buyers. Because the buyers should not play games, the sellers might say. The sellers might feel deceived, believe the buyers are dishonest, when all the buyers are really doing is following the ill advice of their buyer’s agent.
Some brokerages in Sacramento recommend this practice, I hear. I can’t believe that any reputable real estate brokerage would advise their agents to write multiple offers for buyers but I don’t know what goes on inside every brokerage in town. I know what Lyon Real Estate lawyers advise, and that is: don’t write multiple offers. They say there is a good faith covenant inherent in the residential purchase agreement that could be breached if a buyer can’t afford to own both homes and tries to simultaneously purchase.
Now, if a buyer came to me and said, for example, that the wife wants to buy one home but the husband has his eyes on another home, I would never in a million years tell those buyers to write offers on both homes and then decide later. Yet, that is what can happen in Sacramento. Nope, I would say go home and sleep on it and if you lose both homes because somebody else steps in while you’re deciding, that’s the way life is. Or, write an offer on the home you like best right now.
But that’s just how this Sacramento real estate agent operates. I try to give my sellers the best advice available and, at my age and experience level, I better be right. My reputation and credibility are at stake, not to mention, buyers who write multiple offers could get sued by an irate and damaged seller. It will happen someday. Mark my words, and then buyers will be crying at their agent and asking why, why did you tell me to do this?
Hope the agent’s E&O is paid up.
Working With Tenants To Sell a Rental Home in Sacramento
Not every tenant ends up being a nightmare or terrible problem when selling a rental home in the Sacramento region. In fact, some tenants can be a huge blessing in disguise. I often prefer to have tenants in the home if at all possible for several reasons. First, I don’t worry nearly as much about vandalism when the when I’m selling a rental home is that occupied. Second, having furniture in the marketing photos makes the home seem more alive and it shows better.
Sure, you hear horror stories about tenants who refuse to move upon sale or those who believe the world revolves around them and the out-and-out jerks. These types can cause problems by lying about the condition of the home to prospective buyers, refusing to show the property at the times they promised and not picking up after themselves when buyers do come through. As a Sacramento real estate agent, I’ve dealt with uncooperative tenants of rental homes who bolted the door from the inside, turned the pit bulls loose and then slipped a note under the door threatening physical bodily harm if agents entered.
Fortunately, most of the tenants I work with are very accommodating. Part of that reason is because I treat them with respect. It might be my Sacramento listing and the seller’s property, but the house is the tenant’s home. I am grateful when a tenant grants me the privilege of entrance so I can take photographs of the interior, and I verbally share that sentiment. I say please and thank you. I acknowledge graciousness. And I go to great lengths to protect the tenant’s privacy.
See, I think when you deal with other people the way you would like to be treated, they generally respond in kind. If a real estate agent starts out on the wrong foot, making false assumptions and behaving as though she is at odds, on the opposite side of the fence, tenants might not want to cooperate. They might even retaliate.
I often ask sellers to give the tenants a small financial incentive to cooperate with showings. After all, what’s in it for the tenant? Tenants are generally inconvenienced, they don’t stand to make any profit when the home is sold, and let’s face it, some real estate agents can be very pushy. You know it and I know it. I try to save the tenants from that kind of obtrusive and sometimes abrasive invasion.
Just being nice to people can go a long ways. There is no reason, even in the face of adversity and unwarranted criticism, to act otherwise. If you want to sell a rental home in Sacramento, call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759.
