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Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures in Sacramento Real Estate
Do desperate times call for desperate measures?
Do desperate times call for desperate measures in Sacramento real estate? I’d like to believe otherwise but then I may as well make like an ostrich and stick my head in the sand. Except an ostrich would be likely to end up with a bunch of baby ostriches and I’d just mess up my makeup or lose an earring.
I realize it’s tough out there for home buyers right now. If they love a home, so will another . . . and another and another. That means some lucky sellers are receiving more than one offer for a home. Yet, this is absolutely a great time to buy a home because interest rates are positioned to rise on the horizon. On the downside, if a buyer’s offer contains anything out of the ordinary as compared to the other buyers — like maybe a contingency to sell an existing home — the buyer could be at a distinct disadvantage. To counteract this situation, some agents will write more than one offer for a buyer, even though it is frowned upon and could violate certain good faith contract laws.
The one thing an agent should not do, however, under any circumstances, is send two offers from the same buyer to the same Sacramento listing agent and, on top of it, include a note about how much the buyer LOVES the home. Ummm, which one does the buyer love? We don’t know. But I did receive 2 offers from an agent signed by the same buyers on two different listings. Guess the agent must have figured desperate times call for desperate measures; or, perhaps it temporarily slipped the agent’s mind that both listings are mine.
This is the same agent who called to ask how much the buyer had to offer to get the home. Well, the answer is I do not know. I am not the buyer, and I am not my seller. I can’t read my seller’s mind and, even if I did possess magical powers, I wouldn’t share that information. It’s privileged, covered under client fiduciary, in addition to it’s not fair to other agents. I need to treat all parties fairly. It’s in the Code of Ethics.
The agent moaned and said the agent would do it, and the agent’s general real estate practice is to often help other agents this way. Well, as a listing agent, the agent is only helping the agent who wins the offer, not all of the other agents. No point in explaining that as it’s not my place to educate; some agents would find it demeaning. But I did explain to the agent that we all work differently. My real estate business in Sacramento is undoubtedly unique compared to others. Some of us, apparently, adhere to desperate times call for desperate measures. I don’t tell agents how much to offer. That’s between agents and their buyers.
If you’re looking for an experienced agent to sell your home in the Sacramento Valley, call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759. Elizabeth consistently ranks in the top 1% of all Lyon and other agents.
Stuff That Older Realtors Don’t Have to Know But Probably Should
Every older REALTOR should know how to send and receive a text message
An agent yesterday offered as an excuse that he’s an “older Realtor,” and therefore cannot be held responsible for not responding to a text message because, get this, he doesn’t know how to text. He left me a voice mail after hours — which means after 7 in the evening — asking if he could view a home in West Sacramento. Unfortunately for him and his buyer, that home was moving into pending status. I didn’t want to disturb his beauty sleep at 6 AM when I received his voice mail, so I whipped off a text message. He called back because he never read the text message, even though he had to look at his phone to call me.
There are some things that an older Realtor needs to know and other stuff that we can let pass and forget about. For example, I freely admit that I do not understand nor can I possibly decipher, even by wild guesses, the international symbols for laundry. I have no idea what they mean, and it makes it very difficult for me to do laundry, which is one of the reasons I do not wash my own clothes. If left to me, my lame efforts would undoubtedly shrink or discolor. It would be a disaster.
I mean, I have eyeballs in my head, so if the laundry instructions are printed to read: cold water, I know what that means. Laundry symbols? Forgetta bout it. You tell me what a black triangle with cat’s whiskers is about. See, you don’t know either. How about a king’s crown with lines under it? There are different king’s crown symbols. Some have a line on either side, one has a short line in the middle, and yet other crowns feature one or three full underscores. Don’t get me started on the squares with varying numbers of eyeballs.
I can buy new underwear.
When it comes to television, I don’t pay any attention to the ratings because they are meaningless to me. Far as I’m concerned, the TV Parental Guidelines are too complicated and over-the-top. Also, because I am old enough to watch whatever I damn well want to watch and know enough that if I see the letters: FOX, it ain’t news. That one I can figure out. But VSL or Y7, a D or FV . . . no idea. I grew up in the era of PG and X. Translation: Good and even better. Now we have an entire alphabet to warn parents that maybe it’s not a good idea to expose their children to, like, oh, I dunno, suggestive dialogue. What does suggestive dialogue even mean? Would they ban: You know how to whistle, don’t you?
These are things that I do not need to know. As an older Realtor, I stay in touch with evolving technology and our changing world of Sacramento real estate. It’s how I win top agent awards at Lyon year to year. I study our purchase contracts and listing agreements when new revisions are released. I can quote paragraphs and often do. Every day I study the real estate market to spot new trends. Always analyzing and being the best Sacramento Realtor I can possibly be. This also means I text. My desktop computer, laptop, iPad and phone are all set up for text alerts.
Just don’t ask me to do laundry or decipher TV ratings for you. And don’t send your kids to my house to watch TV. Useless in that department. If you want to buy or sell a home in the Sacramento area, I’m your agent. You can text Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759.
Fired Up: Sacramento Real Estate Market and Ticketmaster
Call it March Madness if you like, but the Sacramento real estate market is on fire. It’s a seller’s market in full swing, especially in areas where demand is high and homes are in good condition. Certain homes that a year ago might have taken 6 months to sell are attracting dozens and dozens of open house guests, and multiple offers are the norm. Our pending sales are about to exceed the number of active listings, so if you’re on the fence about selling, let me assure you that today, right NOW, you should be on the market.
I observe stuff going on even when I’m horribly busy as a Sacramento REALTOR. For example, in the middle of talking to a buyer yesterday about making an offer on another home, I received an email from Ticketmaster. Didn’t look at the email until I hung up the phone and yowza, the email started out about inclement weather back East slowing response times for them, yet I realized that I have not recently bought any tickets through Ticketmaster. But I do have an account at Ticketmaster.
Reading further, I noticed that Ticketmaster had mixed up my account with a person who lived in Texas, and this woman was trying to buy Cirque du Soleil tickets. She had emailed Ticketmaster about a problem with her account, and Ticketmaster responded, along with her name, her phone number, the last four digits of her credit card number, the name of her credit card company, its toll-free phone number, and they mixed up all of this with my email account. They responded to me and not to her.
That’s pretty scary. I wonder how many other customers have mixed-up accounts at Ticketmaster.
The first thing I did was call the woman in Texas to let her know what happened on her voice mail and mentioned that I hoped nobody was stealing her identity. Next, I called Ticketmaster to report the problem. After running through an asinine system in which the automated operator can’t understand anything and placed on hold for 18 minutes, I finally got through to a person who could escalate this situation to a supervisor.
If you’ve recently ordered tickets through Ticketmaster, you might want to make sure you have actually received those tickets and all of the information is your account is accurate. Be on the lookout for anything suspicious.
Sacramento County, February 2015, Real Estate Market Trends
Moreover, if you’re thinking about selling your home in Sacramento or anywhere in our region, please call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759. I ranked in?the Top 3 Producers?at Lyon Real Estate for last month, even in a market of limited inventory and closed 9 listings. My listings sell and my sellers are ecstatic. Don’t go on the market in May or June when inventory is high and buyers might pass on your home, put your home on the market today! You can afford to hire the best, so don’t settle for less.
Trendgraphics for Sacramento County, February 2015
Sacramento Realtors Owe a Fiduciary Relationship to Clients
Protecting a client’s privacy and maintaining a fiduciary relationship are things some Sacramento Realtors most likely never think about but are necessary to do. As a Sacramento REALTOR we have to be continually “on guard” about questions we receive and how we respond to demands made by other people. Just because somebody asks a question does not mean we are required to answer it. I imagine the shared comradery and cooperation among real estate agents blurs certain lines that others may unknowingly cross, but I certainly try not to do it.
Every so often, though, we run across an agent with an agenda to supposedly protect her buyer that can be way out of line, and those agents can make demands that are unreasonable. For example, last year I sold a townhome for a seller near American River and helped her to buy a new home in Elk Grove. She is a professional who travels all over the world, and a very sweet, honest individual.
The buyer’s agent demanded a receipt for repairs that her buyer had requested, and the seller, out of the goodness of her heart, had agreed to undertake. My advice had been to reject the request for repairs, but the seller wanted to do it. We gave the buyer’s agent a copy of the receipt. The agent said she could not read it, even though the rest of us could. The buyer’s agent raised a tremendous ruckus over it and threatened to cancel the escrow while the seller was in Hong Kong and completely unavailable.
Honestly, part of me wanted to say go ahead and let your buyer cancel, you jerk, but, no, I owed a fiduciary to the seller to close. I take very seriously my fiduciary relationship with my sellers. Eventually, we were able to produce the original document for the buyer’s agent who, much to our dismay, was still unhappy with the receipt and continued to yelp she could not read it. At that point, the only thing we could advise the agent to do was to buy a pair of reading glasses.
The transaction closed.
In the spirit of cooperation, I often go out of my way to accommodate a buyer’s agent’s request; however, if that request is not in the contract and not in the seller’s best interest, the agent ain’t gonna get it. The agent can stomp his feet and parade up and down in front of my house carrying picket signs for all I care. Sometimes the answer is no, you are not entitled to know the answer. Giving parties to a real estate transaction answers to questions they are not entitled to know can lead to a potential lawsuit, especially if there is an adverse reaction. A Sacramento REALTOR should think before she speaks.
Practicing risk adversity is a good thing. It might not win popularity contests, but it elicits respect. And my clients love me for it.
The Seller Demand to Release Deposit Can Shake Up California Escrows
Seller Demand for Release of Deposit is new form
Many of the disputes and disagreements in an escrow seem to center around the buyer’s earnest money deposit and its release. Whenever a buyer cannot close for some reason — and there seems to be more and more of “those reasons” lately — the sellers tend to immediately eyeball the earnest money deposit and they expect to get it. If the seller has a right to the earnest money deposit, there is a new form generated late in 2014 by C.A.R. that can be delivered to the buyer called a C.A.R. Form SDRD, 11/14: Seller Demand to Release Deposit.
The Seller Demand to Release Deposit allows an escrow company, at the escrow company’s discretion, to release the deposit within 10 days to the sellers without the buyer’s cooperation or agreement.
The Seller Demand to Release Deposit illustrates and points to paragraph 14G of the residential purchase contract, which also states a party who refuses to cooperate can be fined a $1,000 penalty, according to Civil Code. I suppose this means if the buyer has no right to keep the deposit, but refuses to sign the release, not only can the escrow company release the money to the seller but the seller could sue the buyer in Small Claims Court for an additional $1,000. This is a pretty huge change over previous years because much of the purchase contract, up to this point, seems to favor the buyer in California, except for this portion.
Of course, the buyer’s deposit is generally only at risk if the buyer has released all of the contingencies and cannot perform or has been given a Notice to Buyer to Perform and fails to act. Let’s say a purchase contract expires because the buyer can’t close on time for some reason. The buyer can issue an Extension of Time Addendum but a seller does not have to agree. If the seller, say, refuses to sign an extension, the seller could most likely cancel the contract, after issuing a Demand to Close escrow, and then demand the deposit, providing it does not exceed Liquidated Damages.
In our limited inventory Sacramento real estate market, prices can rise and sellers might get a better price for the home if they put a home they sold in, say, a slow month like November, back on the market in February. This should be a wakeup call to buyer’s agents and their buyers when lenders can’t close on time and in accordance with the contract.
And of course, all parties should obtain legal advice and not rely on this Sacramento REALTOR’s observation because this REALTOR is not licensed to practice law.
