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Sacramento Real Estate Agents Who Resist Change
Most people dislike change or the unfamiliar, especially certain Sacramento real estate agents, I’m guessing. A while back an agent got his knickers into a twist because I called him to find out why he left my lockbox open. It was pretty easy to figure out who did it because the SUPRA online system stores contact information, including time and date stamp; it tells me when any of my 70-some lockboxes are accessed.
At first, the agent denied the accusation. When pressed and presented with evidence, he became agitated and admitted he probably did leave it open but he had a good reason. (There is never a good reason to leave a lockbox open unauthorized.) His reason was he was confused. He had never showed a home which had 2 lockboxes, one for Supra to open to retrieve the code and the second for contractors, in which the key was stored. So, it was all the listing agent’s fault and not his. Ya gotta love the logic. Sometimes I use this system because it’s convenient for contractors: those people who do home staging, or maybe employees from pest companies, roof inspectors, home inspectors, handyman, what have you, who need access to the home.
It is also required by our MLS. Our MLS forces agents to use SUPRA lockboxes if an agent wants to advertise a listing as having a lockbox. Pretty clever, that MLS business alliance. In other words, a Sacramento real estate agent is not allowed to put on a contractor’s box and state the home is vacant with a lockbox and provide the code. It’s governed and stipulated that way at most associations. Otherwise, agents would buy contractor’s lockboxes because they cost roughly one-third the price of SUPRA lockboxes. They’ve got almost ten grand of my money — $10,000 that could have been invested in an aging barrel of Maker’s Mark, but no, I have lockboxes.
Although I like the SUPRA lockboxes because it allows me to follow up on listings and obtain buyer feedback after an agent shows a home I have listed. It provides greater security for my sellers because only agents can access those boxes. However, if contractors need to access the home, for example, I will also attach a contractor’s box to the property. It allows me to better devote my time to marketing the home, following up on showings and tracking open houses than standing on the front steps waiting for some guy to show up so I can open the door. Yet, two lockboxes are still very confusing for some buyer’s agents.
The biggest problem I see with buyer’s agents is not the fact that they can get confused over lockbox instructions, it’s that they don’t often read the entire MLS listing before taking action. They are so excited that their buyer wants to write an offer, they don’t always take the time to peruse confidential agent remarks or note the type of financing that is offered. They waste a lot of time writing offers that have little chance of acceptance because of this little quirk.
I wish I could digitally manipulate my listings. I would put big red arrows and circles that draw attention to specific information for agents, maybe include a few starbursts.
This morning I received an offer that was sent to the wrong agent last night. Three specific lines in the agent remarks state where and how to send the offer, yet they were overlooked. On top of this, the email from the agent said her buyer had seen the property and was very interested in owning it. Except the property is located in a gated community and there are no showings allowed. It’s enough to make one wonder if the buyer’s agent mixed up the address of the property and perhaps wrote the offer for the wrong home.
On top of this, it was an FHA offer, and the property is not listed with FHA terms and the seller cannot accept an FHA offer because an FHA offer is not allowed on that particular home. That was a lot of work for the agent to go through to write an offer, provide supporting documentation on behalf of the buyer, get the purchase offer signed and then deliver it to the wrong agent when there is no way the offer can even be countered.
All of which could have been prevented if the agent had just given that MLS listings one more glance before writing the offer. Are there attachments to the listings? Long gone are the days when all homes are listed with identical terms. Almost every listing is as unique as the sellers are unique.
My policy as a real estate agent is not to fight change, I embrace it.
Aloha Maui and Mahalo for My Summer Vacation
I know lots of successful people who never get away for a vacation, much less get to spend 10 days in the middle of the summer on Maui, and I am so incredibly grateful for the support of my team who allows this kind of escape. Sometimes luck is on your side. I can’t tell you anything of importance that happened, either. Because nothing happened. Except for the important part, the part where my friend and team member Barbara Dow and I have learned how to master the art of doing nothing. Aloha. It’s not easy.
You may scoff, but doing nothing is difficult. You might say give me a Budweiser and beach chair, and I’m good, but dollars to doughnuts after a few days of that and most people would go stark raving mad. It takes absolute concentration. Do you take off your sandals to run barefoot through burning sand or do you wear them part way and then leave them on the beach to be swept into the surf? How far out into the ocean is it safe to swim before a shark might eat you? Should you have lunch served on the lawn or on a restaurant terrace? These are the kinds of decisions we had to face every single day.
Fortunately, we are Sacramento real estate agents who make dozens of tough decisions all the time. We constantly guide our clients to make the correct decisions for themselves.
I feel like we are a solar battery that needs to get recharged every six months, no matter what. We will come home feeling completely rested and ready to face all of the exciting challenges that will surely face us over the next 6 months.
We might even sneak in one more stroll in the surf before our driver arrives to whisk us away to the airport. We have husbands and houses and pets and friends and careers waiting for us at home. But we’ll always have memories to treasure of 10 wonderful days perfecting the art of doing nothing in Maui. Aloha Maui.
Are Real Estate Appliances Included With the House?
A thorn in the side of many Sacramento real estate agents is when home sellers and buyers decide to include personal property such as a refrigerator, washer or dryer in the purchase contract and make the real estate appliances included with the house. Other buyers sometimes go after after furniture. A funny story: I was guilty myself once of asking the seller in the purchase contract to give me her dining room table, and she refused. Then, when we were up against closing, she suddenly discovered the table would not fit into her new home and desperately wanted to leave the table behind.
What made you think I wanted the table? I asked, completely spacing out that I had previously demanded it. I didn’t want the table. I asked for it so I would have something to give up in exchange for a better price. Her stinkin’ table was ugly, too. I would have had to pay somebody to drag it out of the house or post it on Craigslist as a free item to the first person to come get it.
Leaving the appliances behind or taking the appliances with you is a double-edged sword. You’d think a buyer would be happy, for example, to possess a free and working washer and dryer, but not everybody is thrilled if a seller leaves behind the washer and dryer. I had a home in Elk Grove close a few weeks ago in which those appliances were not addressed in the purchase contract and the seller left them for the buyers. The buyers made a big stink and didn’t appreciate the gift. Too bad, so sad, as we used to say as kids.
On the other hand, if a buyer seriously lusts after the refrigerator, it should be noted in the purchase contract by checking the box that the refrigerator stays unless, of course, the seller doesn’t want to leave it. Then it could become the contention point during negotiations. That seller might suddenly arch her back against the ‘frig, arms spread, palms down: uh uh, this is my cheesy poof. During multiple offers, if one offer demands the refrigerator and the other does not, the seller might gravitate toward the buyer who is willing to purchase her own danged refrigerator.
Every transaction is different. If the MLS listing notes that the refrigerator stays but the seller takes it, there is not much a buyer can do about it. A buyer cannot rely on MLS notes. The court says if you want that refrigerator, you better get the transfer of that refrigerator in writing. A refrigerator is personal property, it is not a fixture and it does not automatically convey with the house.
This is What Sacramento Real Estate Agents Work For
The public doesn’t really know why people choose a career in real estate and what Sacramento real estate agents work for. They see the financial rewards and sometimes that’s as far as they get with their thought process. They think the end result is that paycheck, and while money helps to pay the bills, it’s not the reason we sell Sacramento real estate. It’s not what we live for and work for.
Most Sacramento real estate agents, believe it or not, are really in the business to help people. We have a specialty, a knowledge, a skill set and experience to guide our buyers and sellers to a successful closing. There are those of us, we hate to say, who sometimes don’t perform, like the agent who was previously working with a buyer who just closed escrow this week with Barbara Dow from the Elizabeth Weintraub Team.
When the buyer called about this particular home, I asked if she was working with an agent, just like I always ask. She said yes, and continued to clarify before I could disconnect. I listened. Turns out she was pretty unhappy with her agent and felt very disappointed in her search for a home. She no longer wanted to work with that particular agent. She also had been watching the For Sale sign installation in the front yard of this particular listing, and said she was planning to sit in that yard until an agent drove by to show it to her. That’s determination.
I checked with my team members and Barbara was available to immediately show the home. She explained Agency and that we would probably receive multiple offers so the buyer needed to be very aggressive with her purchase offer. The sellers were thrilled and accepted the offer. They were happy. The buyer was happy. And the transaction closed early. The buyer wrote to Barbara after closing and said this (with personal information removed):
“You have been so awesome! You made this experience more perfect than I could have ever imagined! Seriously!!! Now I am going to brag that I have the best Realtor / Real Estate Agent (not sure what the preferred title is) EVER!!!
“I grew up thinking that happy dreams were for everyone else, but thankfully I’ve been learning . . . that I deserve happiness and happy dreams, too! Thank you for being a part of this with me. I couldn’t have asked for a better person to help me. I think that the thing I like best about you is that you are genuine, Barbara and . . . that is a quality that is not easy to find nowadays, so thank you for being YOU! And being so awesome at your job!!!”
This is what we work for. This is what matters in a real estate transaction. And it doesn’t get any better this.
The Sacramento Bee Masters Club Edition Arrives
The Sacramento Bee Masters Club edition came out today, but I know this primarily because I belong to that old fart’s group of individuals who still pick up the newspaper off the front porch. Our Sac Bee home subscriber numbers are dwindling, and it’s kind of sad to me to see an old institution like our daily newspaper in print slowly lose its life.
Crap, it was sad for me to see Ladies’ Home Journal bite the dust for home subscribers, and I would never read that magazine even if I was bored to tears at my doctor’s office reception, sitting there without cellphone reception. Watching time-honored institutions die is like watching little bits of my flesh get chipped away by the hammer and chisel of technology.
Print has its purpose. One of the problems with looking at the Sacramento Bee Masters Club edition online instead of holding the paper in your hands is you can’t draw devil horns on those grinning agents with the eye teeth exposed. You can’t put a mustache on that blonde grandma baring cleavage or draw horned-rimmed glasses on Mr. Surfer Dude. Who wants to look at photographs of a bunch of real estate agents in Sacramento online? I mean, outside of the ad department of the Sacramento Bee. Which didn’t do such a hot job with my online photo which, for some reason, is different from the print version.
All of the Sacramento region print publications have this racket going on with real estate agents and Masters Club. Let’s see, they ponder, who can we hit up for advertising dollars and make all of them pay for a wonderful opportunity? Because if an agent is in Masters Club and her photo isn’t there, the public will think she is not a member, so we’ve got ’em all by the balls, um, lady parts. You don’t get your photograph in any Masters Club edition of any newspaper or magazine unless you pay for that privilege. This is not a charity nor public service.
The Sacramento Bee “supports” Masters Club because agents pay the Sacramento Bee to do so.
Who’s got the money? It’s always who’s got the money. The people with the money are Sacramento real estate agents who sell at least 8 homes a year at $3.5 mil, say the advertising departments, and so they run after real estate agents and thrust their grubby little paws into agent pockets. I pay for most publications except for one that nobody else reads. Soon, though, this nonsense can stop. When the newspapers stop printing all together and the magazines shrivel up and die.
And that will be a time of sorrow.
So, even though I yipe about it, I pay for Masters Club print editions year after year.
