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Tips When Selling a Home and Reviewing Offers on a Future Date
Although I am pretty much against reviewing offers on a future date when selling a home in Sacramento, there are circumstances when it makes sense. Sometimes I see listings that read “we will look at all offers next Friday.” Then Friday comes and goes and there are no offers. Now everybody knows that seller’s angle. They have the seller’s number. Exposed hand dealt. And sellers might pay for that arrogance.
The other drawback to reviewing offers on a future date is the fact sellers will eliminate buyers from trying to buy their home. From the seller’s point of view, if a buyer is interested, it doesn’t matter. But that’s because sellers often try to judge the situation from a seller’s point of view instead of a buyer’s point of view. They say to themselves, “well, if I were a buyer, I wouldn’t care.” But they don’t know that to be fact. They simply wish it to be fact.
Buyers do not like multiple offers. No buyer hopes a million other buyers will bid on the same house. In fact, some buyers openly state if there will be multiple offers, they want no part of those negotiations. The stress is too much. Further, they feel pressured into making decisions they don’t want to make, like paying more for the house. Some feel overpaying is a fool’s job. Even though those that overpay often end up with the house and those who do not, cannot buy a house like that.
On top of which, overpaying is subjective and time sensitive. If other buyers are willing to pay more, it defines market value. If it’s market value, then a buyer is not overpaying. If the value is higher than appraised value, in a year or so, it won’t be. And bottom line, somebody will buy the house, why can’t it be a buyer who doesn’t particularly enjoy multiple offers?
Reviewing offers on a future date makes sense if it’s pretty much iron clad that demand will be high. If the property is gorgeous enough to warrant it. On the other side, it also makes sense when selling fixer homes. Two extremes. Polar opposites. It’s even easier to attract top dollar when pricing a home at that sweet spot. Then a seller can sit back and collect offers without feeling pressured. It leaves no doubt lingering in the seller’s mind that she could have left any money on the table. Investors don’t whine much about reviewing offers on a future date.
Can You Buy a 3 Bedroom Home in Sacramento Under $250K?
If you’re hoping to buy a 3 bedroom home in Sacramento for less than $250,000, I have a tremendous opportunity for you. Pretty as a picture, this darling dollhouse features care-free vinyl siding, and a huge back yard. Only an out-of-state move for the sellers makes this home available for sale. You will love the location, too, right off El Camino and just a bit east of I-80, near the Sacramento Board of Realtors (and that home improvement store I won’t name because of its political affiliations).
Do you like the furniture? Ultra modern furniture can be yours. The seller of this 3 bedroom home in Sacramento is more than willing to negotiate to leave or sell some of the furniture at buyer’s option. If you’re just starting out on your own, you could probably use a sofa or a spare dinette set right?
Take in this beautiful kitchen! Ceramic floor, gorgeous custom backsplash and newer stainless appliances, all of which can stay if you include them in the purchase offer at no consideration. Yes, you can ask for and receive the refrigerator, too.
Don’t you adore the flooring? It looks like real wood or maybe even tiger bamboo, but it is a good quality laminate. The intimate dining room offers a pass-through window into the kitchen as well. Plus, you get a ceiling fan.
Comfy master suite fits a king size bed and a full size Smart TV. It also features the laminate floors that look just like real wood. This 3 bedroom home in Sacramento also has two full baths, although only one bath is noted in the county records. It’s almost 1,200 square feet, according to the last appraiser’s measurements, which we have not verified.
A bonus structure has utilities and can be used as a home office, a separate workout space, hobby room or just storage. One of the bedrooms is a converted garage, so there is no garage but room exists for 2 cars in the driveway.
2512 Anna Way, Sacramento, CA 95821 is offered exclusively by Elizabeth Weintraub at Lyon Real Estate at $249K. Why not come to our open house on Sunday from 2:00 to 4:00 PM and see this gem for yourself? Hosted by the invincible Josh Almosch from the Elizabeth Weintraub Team. You can view the virtual tour here and then call Elizabeth Weintraub to schedule a private showing at 916.233.6759.
The information in this advertisement, including, but not limited to, square footage and/or acreage, has been provided by various sources which may include the Seller, the Multiple Listing Service or other sources. Lyon Real Estate has not and will not investigate or verify the accuracy of this information. Prospective buyers are advised to conduct their own investigation of the Property and this advertised information utilizing appropriate professionals before purchasing this Property.
When Is It Time to Reduce the Price of Your Sacramento Home?
If you ask some listing agents when is it time to reduce the price of a listing, they will say never. Agents are famous for repeating a home should be priced right to start with. But sometimes it is not possible to price the home correctly. For a large variety of reasons. It could be seller expectations, condition, location, upgrades or lack thereof, or an unusual way a buyer reacts over a small undetected defect. Or, market shifts. Or a fluke comp happened and sold only due to luck of the draw.
I could keep going with what I’ve observed over the past 40-some years in real estate.
Obviously, if we’re selling a suburban tract home — any Mediterranean stucco style built within the last 20 years — it’s fairly easy to price. We can find exact model matches or close enough for government work, heh, heh. But not every home is easy. And some homes take 6 months to sell regardless of the price.
Further, unlike many agents, I rarely refuse to market a potentially overpriced listing. I seriously try to maximize seller profit potential. Sometimes comparable sales will support a higher price as well yet we can’t always accurately judge buyer reactions. However, if an agent has done everything humanely possible to attract an offer and no offers are the result, then it is time to reduce the price.
Below is my estimated timeline for price reductions on average to sell homes in Sacramento. Again, though, it’s not cast in stone. It is all dependent on the area and how long it takes on average to sell the homes there. Especially since all real estate is hyper local.
Within 21 days, if there are no offers, it is time to reduce the price or at least begin a conversation about it.
Definitely again at the 30-day mark. time to reanalyze market competition, especially if the seller did not reduce the price at Day 21.
Every 30 days thereafter.
Another strategy is to decide whether you should reduce the price or reset the days on market, coupled with a price reduction. If we reset the days on market, even though cummulative appears, a price reduction is not always evident. Sometimes you want buyers to notice the price reduction and sometimes you want buyers to instead get excited over a brand new listing. Or both.
Can a Seller Withdraw a Counter Offer Before its Deadline?
The following story of can a seller withdraw a counter offer before its deadline happened recently in Sacramento. It goes like this. Seller put a home in Elk Grove on the market just before Thanksgiving. On December 31, the seller takes the home off the market and cancels the listing. On January 1, the home comes back on the market as a new listing at a new price. This is a way to reset the days on market and get a new MLS number. We do this to revitalize a listing and generate more excitement.
I should note this is not my listing. The story involves the buyer for this home in Elk Grove and how can a seller withdraw a counter offer. This home was listed by another agent. The price was apparently too high because it did not sell. Sometime in February, the agent put the home into “temporary off market” status or TOM, as agents refer to it. Sellers are supposed to give approval for a TOM status but not every agent asks.
In March, the listing came back on the market and then a few days later expired, and then extended. Toward the end of April, the home’s price dropped again substantially, where it sat for another month. Finally, buyers came along, represented by an agent, and made an offer. The sellers countered that offer. The buyers signed the seller’s counter offer.
This is when we had a seller withdraw a counter offer. The important thing to remember in this unfortunate chain of events is the timing. Before the agent sent the counter offer to the listing agent, the listing agent texted that the sellers had rescinded the counter offer. A few moments later, the agent sent another text to say the sellers no longer want to sell. The listing has been withdrawn from MLS.
The agent asked how can a seller withdraw a counter offer when my buyer has signed it? See, the deal is if the buyer’s agent had returned the counter offer prior to receipt of the text rescinding it, the seller would have been in contract. But for whatever reason, the accepted counter offer was not delivered to the buyer’s agent before the listing agent withdrew the counter.
I see this story play out time and time again. Often what happens is even worse than this story, though. Often what happens is another offer arrives while we are waiting for the buyer’s agent to send back the counter. In those instances, we immediately pull that counter offer before the deadline. Buyers who don’t act fast enough lose.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that just because a counter offer is in front of you that you hold the cards. The clock is ticking, and you don’t.
Photo of Vika Gerassimenko at Yosemite
Are You Wondering What Grows in Sacramento Gardens in May?
Shasta Daisy grows in Sacramento gardens
Wondering what grows in Sacramento gardens this spring? Unlike other parts of the country — like where my family lives in Minneapolis — we can start planting in late April or early May without much concern. When I was a kid growing up in Minnesota, the logic was do not plant anything before Memorial Day. It was a matter of do you feel lucky? Well do ya, punk? Because if not, the likelihood was soon as you slip that tender tomato plant into the garden, it will snow like crazy and your plants will croak.
That is very unlikely to happen in Sacramento. We might complain about the super hot summers, meaning I complain about the heat, a lot, but still, it beats freezing off my tush in Minnesota. There are days I think, perhaps when I retire I will spend long lazy days in the garden, but that’s not happening while I’m still selling Sacramento real estate. Real estate pretty much rules my life: I put in 12-hour days, 7 days a week. You can’t be a top producer Sacramento Realtor without putting in the hours.
My husband puts in 8 hours a day, 5 days a week at his job, and even he has difficulty finding time to garden. Although, our front yard looks pretty decent, but we didn’t do it. Nope, I simply keep telling our gardeners to make it look like somebody gives a crap. But don’t get too close to our front door because spiders and creepy bugs have taken over the front porch. I generally go in the back door so I don’t have to see it. My husband comes in the front, but he doesn’t care.
Now that you know what avid gardeners we are and how dedicated we are to the process, let me show you some of our recent plantings this year. Below are lots of new plants that I’ve found which grows in Sacramento gardens and are often native to our dry Mediterranean-like climate.
Do you like the Shasta Daisy above? Staring intently into the center of the flower tends to transform the image into a kaleidoscope of sorts. It’s about alpha brain waves, making me feel like my brain is spinning out of control. Like dropping acid or watching the Twilight Zone.
Bougainvillea grows in Sacramento gardens.
This bougainvillea reminds me of living in Newport Beach in southern California. When I first moved to Orange County in 1976, I had a lot of bougainvillea growing over the fence in my yard. It seemed so exotic to me. Some people are astonished to learn that there are small tiny flowers inside the petals of a bougainvillea. From a distance, all you see is the vibrant petal colors. We keep ours in a large pot up against a white sunny wall.
Pink striped double dianthus grows in Sacramento gardens.
There are over 300 varieties of this type of carnation. And they are perennials. This means they come back year after year. I find this type of carnation grows in Sacramento gardens very well, but since weeds form too quickly in beds, I put them in pots. They winter over and bloom again in the spring.
Purple Verbena Bonariensis grows in Sacramento gardens
These purple verbena are supposed to grow about four feet, but not in our Sacramento gardens. Heck no, these tall stems grow 8 to 10 feet high. I do not know why. They tolerate a lot of heat and do not need much water. They are a perfect plant for me to neglect. Further, they come back every year and produce a million tiny purple flowers.
Here we have a view of where the flower pots live on our back deck. I positioned them to receive a bit of overflow from the sprinklers so I don’t have to ever water them. Because if they need to rely on me for watering, they will surely die an agonizing and pitiful death. Pretty much the same could be said for my husband’s attentiveness to watering, but I won’t say it because he wouldn’t like it. Sweetie, just skip over this part.
I tried to get a good photograph of the cactus in the frog planter, but it wasn’t turning out. So I put myself into the picture.
You can see how much wind we had yesterday in Sacramento. No need for a garden windsock when you’ve got my hair to tell the whole story. For a lot of people who live in Sacramento, we survive spring winds, especially days like this, by taking Flonase or other medication. I never had allergies when I lived in southern California or other places around the country. Just in Sacramento, and only over the past 10 years or so.
Lettuce grows in Sacramento gardens
This pot has a stem in the center that holds water. The idea is the lettuce will receive a continual source of hydration to keep it growing in the hot sun. This way we can pick it when we get hungry. The only trouble with this idea, the way I see it, is I can pluck and consume almost the entire pot in one salad. Perhaps I will need to be patient and see how much bigger the lettuce grows.
Cucumber grows in Sacramento gardens
At least that’s my guess as to what this is: a cucumber. I didn’t plant it, obviously. This is my husband’s work. And look at how he has positioned the drip line extension to approach the stem of this plant in just the right spot! See? That’s extra care right there! And this is also the time when I suspect my husband will text me to say, ha, ha, ha, that is not a cucumber. It is a squash. If that happens, so be it. I am not ashamed to not know what I did not plant.
Tomatoes grow in Sacramento gardens
There is a reason Sacramento has a nickname of Sac-o-tomato. This tomato plant has flowers already. It used to live in my flower garden until I asked my husband to transplant it elsewhere, over by the jasmine.
Problem with this particular garden bed is it is covered in wild onions and weeds. You can see a few of them struggling to survive next to the plant. If I’m really fortunate over Memorial Day weekend, we might set aside a bit of time to weed. Somehow, though, I don’t think that’s gonna happen, just given our propensity for predilection, there is always something else that needs our attention.
