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Formula to Exceed Client Expectations in Sacramento Real Estate
Whenever I am a customer, I pay attention to those who exceed client expectations. Mostly because that is my personal goal in every Sacramento real estate transaction. While many agents can perform an adequate job, how many achieve stellar reviews from an ecstatic client? I like my clients to believe I have outperformed and gone above and beyond. Granted, I could bribe them, I suppose, but what’s the fun in that? Nope, honest reviews from thrilled clients is where it’s at.
I thought about how to exceed client expectations when I came back from taking a friend to Kaiser in Honolulu for a colonoscopy. The workers from Lowes were at our house when I left, tearing out the kitchen cabinets. Part of my instructions was for them to leave the microwave on top of my desk. After all, apart from the grill, it’s my main cooking apparatus. Especially since the kitchen would be demolished.
When I walked into the house, everything in the kitchen was gone. The master bath was also gutted. As I had requested, the microwave was on top of my desk. But it was just dropped there. It wasn’t plugged in. The clock wasn’t set. It wasn’t immediately useable.
Not that I expected the guys from Lowes to do this, but after they swept up after themselves and left the house relatively clean, I had nothing to complain about. However, the thought did occur to me how much more thrilled I would have been had the workers anticipated me finding the microwave and my reaction.
How hard would it have been to find a way to plug it in and set the clock? Those two little things would have meant they cared about my reaction and happiness. They didn’t just perform a job. They want a step further. Except they did not.
For my own real estate business in Sacramento, I want to exceed client expectations. And the way you do that is to anticipate what the client would like. How a client will react. What a client will think. And then you can do so much better.
Can I List With Another Agent If My House Does Not Sell?
Only out of the heads of sellers comes a question like can I list with another agent if my house does not sell? I seem to be hit with a lot of odd questions lately. Another seller yesterday enthusiastically mentioned that she found a tenant to rent her house (meaning she does need to sell now) and would I prepare all of the legal paperwork for free? She was very worried about getting sued by the tenant. Because tenants have all of these god awful rights now.
Holy shit! Am I a fairy godmother?
Last time I looked in the mirror, I saw a Sacramento Realtor looking back at myself. Realtors get paid commission when they sell a house. We don’t work on rental properties. And we do NOT prepare legal documents without a law degree. Maybe she’d like me to prepare her family’s will, too, while I’m at it. But I said none of those things, ‘cuz why. What I said was you are so lucky we have a property management company!
The seller who asked can I list with another agent if my house doesn’t sell wasn’t really paying much attention to how his question would be received. Now, another agent might have answered that question with a response that says absolutely and let it go. They do nobody any favors with that approach.
But not me, because I feel a desire to educate and enlighten. Yes, I will go there.
I explained that if his house doesn’t sell, another agent won’t be able to help him, especially not when he’s already hired one of the best agents in Sacramento. If his house doesn’t sell, it will be because buyers no longer want to pay what it is worth or the market has tanked. It will have nothing to do with me.
He responded by disclosing he’s been burned in the past. See, call me out on stating the obvious, but isn’t that purpose of hiring a top producer? So you won’t get burned? Damn those scum-ball agents messing it up for the rest of us. I promise automatic cancellation for all of my sellers if any are ever so upset they want to cancel the listing, which has never happened. Knock on wood, LOL.
I just told him he’s safe because in my 40+ years of selling real estate, not one client EVER accused me of burning them. But I am not unsympathetic regarding his former situation. Further, it’s sad that sellers have to ask this kind of question to start with.
But that’s what we are up against it. Former bad experiences that clients survived with some agent who screwed them over. Well, that kind of lowlife agent is not me.
Flurry of Thanksgiving Holiday Sales in Sacramento
Just when you think Thanksgiving is only about under-cooked turkeys, we have a sudden flurry of Thanksgiving holiday sales in Sacramento. I joke about the under-cooked turkey because my husband bought an organic turkey this year, and I’m not sure it was done all the way. We used a thermometer, and it registered 175, but when we tested it a second time, it dropped below 165. It becomes tempting not to trust the device.
The last time I did not trust a device was in 1988, out on my boat in Maine, in the early morning fog, when the guy I was married to at the time refused to trust the compass. His intuition told him to head left toward shore, unless he was completely turned around. I could have ended up in England by relying on his intuition. It was terrifying.
I trust gadgets.
But my husband and I didn’t trust the turkey thermometer.
We also roasted a smaller turkey. 18 pounds. That threw me off in calculations, too. I’m used to 24+ pound turkeys, to feed a big crowd. It’s been more than a decade since I prepared a turkey. Further, have you any idea how much organic turkeys cost? I surely did not. $4.00 a pound. I recall those newspaper ads at 29 cents a pound. You kids get offa my lawn.
Almost as insane as our Thanksgiving holiday sales. I sold two of our listings, and my team members did all right, too. Usually this time of year is slow. Buyers were feeling optimistic over the holidays.
I’m ready, of course, to get back into the rhythm of the islands for the holidays. Because I sell Sacramento real estate in the winter from Hawaii. But I have a feeling that the Thanksgiving holiday sales might very well carry over into December. May as well. Not much else going on.
Well, I did pick up this protea magnifica today, after my long flight to Kona. Such a sweet fall floral arrangement. I’m giving it to our neighbors in Hawaii who watch our house when we’re gone.
The Changing World of Sacramento Real Estate for Buyers
The changing world of Sacramento real estate for buyers tends to baffle many buyers. That’s because many buyers do not understand the real estate business. They think they do but they do not know how agents operate. On top of that, many agents work differently. Some might work on a salary under supervision. Others are like the Wild, Wild West, and might not even be a Realtor nor subscribe to the Code of Ethics. We enjoy basic real estate practices, but not every agent is trained, either. Further, some buyers think they can work with every buyer’s agent out there, and others don’t want to work with any buyer’s agent because they think the listing agent will represent them, nope, wrong. Many listing agents refuse dual agency.
My phone was fairly active yesterday fielding calls from buyers. Because of the changing world of Sacramento Real Estate for buyers, I make sure we are all on the same page. When a buyer calls and asks us to show them the home, I make it very clear that they cannot hire another agent. If they plan to hire an agent to write the offer, then they need to ask that agent to show them the home. If that agent can’t do it, they need to ask that agent to find them an associate to show the listing.
I sometimes get the guys who ask me if the seller will, say, take an offer with a 30% discount. I just stare at my phone. As though I can’t believe those words are coming from the other side of our connection. I repeat the list price. Over and over until they stop asking me to guess what the seller will take. Because I don’t know and, if I did, I wouldn’t say anyway. Just stop asking that question, please. Especially when the home has been listed less than one day, for crying out loud.
Long gone are the days in the changing world of Sacramento real estate for buyers that a listing agent shows the home. In fact, in most instances, the listing agent is not the open house agent. The open house host is typically a buyer’s agent, ready, willing and able to represent the buyer and write an offer. Buyer’s agents hold open houses to find buyers in the following manner: 1) to buy that property or 2) to buy another property. Our first choice is that the buyer purchase the home that is open, of course.
Buyer’s agents work with buyers. Listing agents work with sellers. Every so often you will find an agent who swings both ways and tries to wear two hats, but more and more agents are specializing. In 10 years or so from now, I doubt you’ll find many agents left in the business who represent both parties. The main reason to work with both buyers and sellers is because agents don’t have enough of either type to work with. They need to make more money, so they try working both sides of the street. But when an agent specializes, that agent tends to become highly efficient and successful.
I tell buyers straight up if one of our agents shows them the home, that particular agent will represent them. That means the showing agent will be the buyer’s own agent. If they don’t want that kind of relationship — and it is an option — then they need to find an agent. Because agents don’t show property without compensation. Agents show homes because they plan to represent the buyer. Since some of us work strictly with sellers, buyers need to find an agent. It can be an agent from the Elizabeth Weintraub Team or it can be an agent at another company. But find their own agent they must.
A Handy Dandy Counter Offer Tip from Elizabeth Weintraub
For years, I have employed a counter offer tip that works so well that I just now am getting around to sharing it. I often share tips I have picked up over my 40-some years in real estate because I hope to help others. Due to the nature of Sacramento real estate, we agents are often so busy, we don’t stop to ponder some of the wonderful ideas we come up with. We just do them. Or, maybe I’m just talking about myself. Whether you use this tip yourself or you ask your agent to employ it, I guarantee it will save you from major headaches. Thinking ahead is one of the things I try to do. Because stopping problems before they start is my method of operation.
All it takes is one time that an offer gets screwed up before you might come up with this idea yourself.
See, the deal with a counter offer is it tends to change many of the terms of the purchase offer. Now, let’s say escrow or worse, the mortgage loan officer, forgets to read the counter offer (it happens!) and issues docs based on the original offer. If that happens, everybody has a problem, Houston. Further, the Sacramento appraiser could appraise the home at a lower price. Because appraisers tend to appraise at the sales price. To do otherwise is to turn in a non-conforming appraisal, and nobody wants that.
Naturally, one way to help counter that problem, pardon the pun on my counter offer tip, is to upload all documents to DocuSign in order: counter offer first, followed by purchase contract, addendum and accompanying docs. Then, after the offer is signed, download all of the documents into one PDF file. That way the counter offer can’t get lost and will always be the first document. Of course, to do this, you need to get the counter offer agreed upon first. Before signing the offer.
However, that is not my main counter offer tip. My main tip is to go one step further. In the purchase offer itself, I enter a text box for myself to complete when I sign the offer. The text boxes are positioned next to every term in the purchase contract that has changed in the counter offer. This means if the sales price was changed, for example, there are two spots to change on the first page of the purchase contract that contain the sales price. In both spots, I position a text box. When I sign, I enter verbiage in the text box that reads: see counter offer.
It helps escrow with the allocation of costs, too, especially if who pays what has changed in the counter offer. I insert those boxes throughout so there can be no excuse — no real excuse, anyway, for screwing it up.
I hope you have enjoyed my handy dandy counter offer tip and will find a way to save yourself future heartache.
