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Why Photos Matter for a Sacramento Home Listing
A client implied a while back that this Sacramento real estate agent has other sources of income primarily because I am a real estate broker. It occurred to me how little the public knows about the real estate profession. They talk to friends who feed them misinformation. Being a real estate broker means I am held to a higher standard of knowledge, which can result in a higher level of personal liability, actually. But it doesn’t equate to a higher commission check. I still work for Lyon Real Estate, which has its own broker.
Moreover, sometimes sellers think that we real estate agents have a magic wand for selling their home. That we are going to do something special, out-of-the-ordinary or spectacular like fly the Goodyear blimp over their home and drop ch-ch-ch-cherry bombs or give away a free BMW. They figure we know just what to say to make that buyer whip out the checkbook and write an earnest money deposit.
The truth is buyers do whatever the heck they want to do. And I’m seeing a lot of them pause and reflect before writing an offer, which is excellent news. Impulsive purchases can lead to buyer’s remorse and cold feet.
Last spring, I’d receive offers from buyers before I even noticed their agent had shown them the home. I try to check MLS every night to follow up on my listings. Now, I see offers coming in a few days after a showing. So, either buyers are looking at more homes before making an offer or they are taking their time to consider which home they want to buy.
When I put a home on the market, I like to tell myself that it’s my carefully crafted description of the home that is motivating a buyer to go see it. However, we all know it’s the photos. Because you can’t sell a home online. The only thing a listing agent is doing by putting a listing on the online is motivating a buyer to want to see that home. You can’t sell a home if you can’t get a buyer inside of it. Photos entice a buyer. Photos tell a story. Photos speak a 1000 words. Photos deliver a message. Photos matter for a Sacramento home listing.
When a seller lists with Elizabeth Weintraub, the seller also receives professional photography, shot with a Nikon and not a cellphone camera. I use PhotoShop to brighten and color correct. Sellers like my photos so much that they often ask me to make them a CD at closing, which I gladly do. I’d like to photograph your home, too! In fact, I’m off this morning to shoot a home in Elk Grove. Call me at 916 233 6759.
Sacramento Sellers Who Sell a Home Twice
Words a Sacramento home seller never wants to hear — and no, it’s not anything like we need to catch the Chihuahuas, but runs close — are: the buyer needs to cancel escrow. Especially at the last minute, when contingencies have been removed and everybody expects the loan to close. Part of the shock is the seller has already in her mind mentally closed escrow. She’s generally moved on and is just waiting for the check.
It’s jarring news to find out the buyer can’t close. It means a seller must sell a home twice. And why can’t the buyer close? Because the buyer can’t get the stinkin’ loan. The first thing sellers question when this happens is what about the preapproval letter? They believed the lender who said the buyer was qualified to buy a home, and I don’t blame sellers for feeling misled. Mortgage lenders don’t guarantee preapproval letters. But there’s more to it than that.
Sometimes, you don’t know that one of the parties has a lien filed against that person until the preliminary title report discloses a judgment. If there are two people buying the home, the lender generally removes one of those persons from title and proceeds with the remaining individual, providing the remaining individual has enough income to qualify.
Which reminds me, a teacher yesterday in Redding wrote and asked what piece of advice I would give first-time home buyers today. That piece of advice is: don’t buy a home for which you must rely on two incomes to meet the mortgage payment — because people split up, get divorced, become sick, die or lose jobs. Things don’t always stay the way they are.
That’s good advice for anybody to follow. But the really important thing I tell sellers is if the buyer does not qualify at the end and needs to cancel the escrow it could actually be a good thing! When I say this they look at me like I’m dense, this goofy, overly optimistic agent. However, it could mean that the seller will put her home back on the market and sell it for more money, perhaps even to a buyer with cash.
That’s exactly how it generally works out, too. It can be a good thing if the buyer cancels. And because I’ve closed over the years hundreds of short sales in Sacramento, this Sacramento real estate agent has unparalleled experience in selling a home twice.
Selling Sacramento Real Estate Without Internet
While this Sacramento real estate agent was on vacation in Alaska with limited Internet access, two real estate transactions blew up at closing — which is a rarity but seems to be more common lately. These would have blown up even if I was in Sacramento. Pending sales blowing up appears to be due to a mix of buyer remorse, uncertainty and severe underwriting guidelines. Fortunately, I was able to put both of these homes back into escrow almost immediately and at better terms, even from thousands of miles away.
I also sold another home in Elk Grove while I was cruising the Inside Passage. We had just left Skagway that evening and headed back to Juneau, a long stretch without Internet. I had anticipated this difficulty before I left, which is why my team members and assistant were on alert, jumping in to help answer questions and monitor listing activity. On top of that, I had set up my iPad as a Hotspot so if we did find cellphone coverage, I could receive wireless coverage through my laptop computer.
The only problem with the iPad is I should have named my iPad something other than Elizabeth Weintraub’s iPad. Like, maybe, Breaking Bad. Although we had only 35 travelers onboard the Alaskan Dream, many of them asked about it because it showed up in their wireless connections as a connectivity port. It kind of made me feel like the only rock pigeon dangling a slice of bread from my mouth, surrounded by starving, pecking pigeons.
My Hotspot only worked though if I was near a cellphone tower. As a backup, I also left my cellphone plugged in and turned to silent. That’s because I use two different cellphone carriers, so whichever was strongest would pick up the signal.
Sure enough, around 1 AM, while I was sound asleep, we cruised into Juneau to get diesel before continuing on to Glacier Bay. See, this is how I sell Sacramento real estate in my sleep. My husband set the alarm on his cellphone to wake me up. Eureka. Internet. I quickly uploaded the offer I had received to DocuSign, cc’d my assistant to send the executed offer on to the buyer’s agent, and crawled back into bed. Of course, it was hard going back to sleep with my brain on fire.
Disclosing Material Facts to a Sacramento Home Buyer
Buyers don’t care what you tell them as long as you tell them. That’s my opening statement when I hand home sellers a package of disclosures to complete. It’s the things you don’t tell a buyer that can come back to haunt you, not what you do say. If you don’t believe me, I suggest you Google: Snake Infested House in Idaho.
You take a neighborhood where I live and work as a Sacramento real estate agent like Land Park. Because I live in Land Park, I have intimate knowledge about the neighborhood, which agents who live outside of Land Park probably don’t know. If they don’t know, they can’t disclose those facts to a buyer. Although, it could probably be argued that they should know or should at least have asked questions of the seller.
On the front end of my marketing, I sell the delights of living in Land Park — the friendly neighbors, tree-canopied streets, fabulous restaurants, bike trails and our special attractions such as William Land Park, the Sacramento Zoo, Fairy Tale Town, the WPA Rock Garden, and Vic’s Ice Cream.
But there is also a downside — as there is with any neighborhood, I don’t care where you live. For example, I know which areas in Land Park routinely flood during a hard rain. I know where the feral cats, skunks, opossums and raccoons roam. Which streets get foot traffic and the origination of that traffic. When noise factors such as trains or freeways can be present. Parking ordinances. Which trees are protected. Selling homes in Land Park means more than what we used to call selling real estate in the old days: selling carpets and drapes. That used to be the definition of residential real estate sales in the 1970s. Except nowadays it’s more like selling hardwood flooring and plantation shutters.
The thing is after escrow closes, odds are something in that buyer’s new home will probably malfunction. And the minute it does, the buyer is likely to immediately jump to the conclusion that the seller knew about it and purposely withheld that information or concealed that defect. It’s human nature. We’re a suspicious bunch of people.
So, how do you bump up the odds that you won’t get sued after escrow closes? You hire an agent who can explain the inherent problems with some types of seller disclosures and can give you the right documents. You find a Land Park agent who knows the nuances of your neighborhood. I tell my sellers to disclose all material facts. If I know a material fact, I disclose it. I go into great detail about what a material fact is and why it’s important. I help sellers to recollect and disclose. We talk about the Transfer Disclosure Statement.
The other day a seller objected to a point I made in a disclosure. She wanted me to remove a sentence about the possibility that a neighbor’s dog might bark. No can do. The tenant told me the dog next door barked. I don’t know if the dog barks. The dog wasn’t barking in my presence. I noted that I did not hear the dog barking but the tenant said the dog barks. This disclosure doesn’t appear in my marketing materials. It appears on the agent visual inspection, on which I obtain the buyer’s signature, along with a pile of other documents after offer acceptance. I’m always thinking one step ahead of ways to protect my sellers yet conform to the law. That’s my job, and I take my job seriously.
The point is it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it. I don’t want my sellers ever ending up in court. Not if I can help it. And I can. If you’re looking for an agent in Sacramento to help you to buy or sell a home, call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916 233.6759.
While Elizabeth is on vacation, we are revisiting some of her favorite blogs.
The Seller Always Has the Final Word
Are listing agents prone to sabotaging their own real estate transactions? It’s easy to do. I almost did it. And I certainly know better. I almost forgot the seller always has the final word. Nobody is infallible in this business, you know. I’ve been in real estate in some form or another since the 1970s. Yet, I almost put my big, fat foot directly into my mouth last month and am sharing this story in hopes of preventing this mishap from happening to somebody else.
First, let me say that this listing was not a short sale.
In this particular transaction, the home was owned by the seller free and clear, meaning there was no loan involved. It had been in his family for decades, and the seller was the executor of the trust. There were 5 or 6 other relatives involved. The seller confided in me that he was tired of being responsible for the home and wanted to sell it as quickly as possible. We priced it at market value.
Shortly after the listing hit the market, an agent called me. Said he was interested in acquiring the property for his own portfolio. He also asked if I would represent him, and he shared with me how much he wanted to pay. When I heard his suggested lowball price, I immediately said, “Ah, I don’t think so. The seller will never take that.” I regretted those words 5 minutes later. What the? Why did I say that, I wondered? That was pretty stupid. It was stupid, and it was presumptuous. If the seller were French he’d slap my face twice with a glove. I know the seller always has the final word. What I think of the offer has no bearing on anything.
The fact is I do not know what the seller will do. I never know what anybody will do. Even if they tell me what they will do — swear up and down what they will do — I still don’t know what they will do because I am not them. My fiduciary responsibility is to look out for their best interests, not to dictate the terms of those interests. The seller always has the final word.
I sent the seller an email and told him about the verbal offer. “You can say yay or nay,” I offered. I did not say anything else. I didn’t push him to take the offer, issue a counter offer or to reject the offer. This was his decision. His family’s home, his decision. I simply stepped back.
We’re closing today.
While Elizabeth is on vacation, we are revisiting some of her favorite blogs.
