Email Elizabethsacramento realtors
How Much Sacramento Agents Earn
How much Sacramento agents earn can fluctuate from year to year, based on the market.
A real estate agent’s salary, how much Sacramento agents earn in a year, can be a staggering amount of money or just enough to squeak by, and there doesn’t seem to be as much in the middle as you might think. Of course, there will always be those envious individuals who think agents make too much money for what we do, but those people don’t work in real estate and have little idea of what’s involved in the business. Rarely, though, do I meet a person who is concerned that I might not make enough money or end up with no commission on a transaction, and worries out loud about it like a client I met with last night in Midtown.
She was concerned it might take me 6 months or longer to sell her home in Midtown. Maybe it will. It’s a unique property. Maybe it won’t. It will take as long as it takes to find the right buyer. I promised to create a customized marketing plan for this seller. She didn’t want to me to spend a lot of time working on selling her home in Midtown and not get paid. You’ve got to adore people like this, even if that sort of thought process is unnecessary.
The thing is I don’t think about how much about how much money I earn. It is not my focus. Some wise person once said if you focus on your passion, the money will come. It is true. I love my job and don’t really envision my tasks and duties as work, per se. It’s just something I am driven to do. Attack my income, though, try to tell me I should cut my commission, and daggers fly. With precision. A person does not try to tell me I am not worth what I charge and still work with me. I run into people from time to time who want to cut off their noses to spite their faces. They are not my client base. They don’t know what they don’t know.
But I rarely run into a client who worries about how much Sacramento agents earn, concerned that we don’t make enough or won’t make any money. I explained to the seller in Midtown in part how I have been working on selling a home in Elk Grove now for almost a year and a half. Went into escrow yesterday. I don’t give up. Hey, I used to sell a lot of short sales, more than any other agent in a 7-county area over the last 10 years. Because I don’t focus on the money. I focus on my sellers. I make my sellers happy because of my job performance. The home in Elk Grove had issues that needed to be resolved, and some of those issues required time to pass. I stuck with it because I made a commitment.
They all eventually close. Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe not next month. But they will close. Every sale is unique. I’ve heard of agents who drop sellers and cancel listings because it involves too much work or they become disillusioned. They no longer believe in the process. Those agents are idiots.
I never worry about much Sacramento agents earn or my personal income. Depending on market conditions, my annual income can fluctuate. It never falls flat. I’m too busy selling Sacramento real estate. I can sell some homes in a week and another house could take a year or more of concentrated effort. It makes no difference to me.
How Sacramento Realtors Find Home Sellers and Buyers
Sacramento Realtors often turn to technology to find clients.
Sacramento Realtors, especially those just starting out, often struggle mightily to find clients. If a Realtor knows a lot of people in Sacramento, it helps. My standing joke is I moved here in 2002 and I still don’t know anybody, and I do very well, typically ranking in the top 10 agents in town. It’s true, though, I work with people I do not know. But if you have connections through school, work, church, friends and family, you’re pretty much golden to make a successful career in the Sacramento real estate business, even if you’re a lousy agent. That’s because people think every agent is competent when they obviously are not. People presume that merely possessing a real estate license somehow magically imparts years of knowledge when it does not.
I spoke with an agent this morning who has been knocking on doors. To each his own in this business, and I’m sure some agents find success doing that, but it seems rather creepy to me. To wander the streets, knocking on doors of strangers to ask if they want to sell their home. I just couldn’t do it. And you’re reading the words of a woman who, in 1970, scampered door-to-door in Colorado selling encyclopedias. I had memorized my 90-minute speech and delivered my one-act play with enormous enthusiasm. I made a few sales and realized that was not a career for me. I refused to become a Fuller Brush guy. Back to college. Yet, some agents enjoy knocking on the doors of strangers, and I don’t begrudge them that. Seems like a really hard way to find clients.
Sometimes agents look at Sacramento Realtors like me and believe we’ve earned our spot of glory because we’ve been in the business for so long that all of our clients are referrals. Maybe that’s true for some Realtors. Many of my clients are referrals but many are complete strangers who found me online. Remember, I’ve only been in Sacramento for 14 years. I jumped to the top of the charts by embracing the internet and I’ve remained at the top by performance. I keep my promises and I deliver.
My 40-some years in the business benefit my clients in ways they don’t even imagine.
In the early days, I handled a lot of “Floor Time,” meaning I went into the office, sat at a desk and answered calls from buyers who wanted to look at homes in Sacramento. We used to call that the “up desk” when I sold real estate in the late ’70s, early ’80s in Newport Beach. I also held open houses every single weekend. I answered my phone whenever it rang. But I also shared my vast real estate knowledge that I’ve acquired over the past four decades by writing articles and blogs and posting that information online. From those efforts I built and adore my Elizabeth Weintraub Team of smart, friendly and assertive agents who work with me and support our buyers while I focus on sellers.
Today, when my phone rings, it’s no different than a “floor” call in my early office days. It’s a person on the other end who needs information and assistance, and it’s my job to deliver it. I still answer my phone. It’s an opportunity. I don’t send people to voice mail and haughtily announce I’ll get back to them at a certain hour of the day. I take on new business as I drive, shop for cat food or pull weeds in the garden. Experienced and well known Sacramento Realtors like me still work 7 days a week. We just don’t walk the streets knocking on the doors of strangers.
Short of Having the Seller Present at the Home Inspection
If a home inspector doesn’t leave the home in the same condition as he found it, the buyer’s agent should.
It is certainly understandable, even though it is unadvisable, why you might find a seller present at the home inspection. That’s because there are certain types of tradespeople who traipse through a home without regard for care and consideration, and they don’t always return the home to its original condition after they finish with their inspections. Fortunately, this type of inconsiderate and unprofessional behavior is rare. But when it does occur, who is responsible? Directly, it’s the inspectors, but indirectly it’s the buyer’s agent who recommends and continues to endorse bozos.
I described a situation like this yesterday to my Elizabeth Weintraub Team member, Josh Amolsch. The inspectors, both a home inspector and a pest inspector, managed to leave a bit of a mess in my seller’s home. The buyer’s agent was present, of course. This goes beyond the usual comments I hear, such as the bed spread corner was turned up because prying eyes had been peeking under the bed. Oh, no, the audacity! Especially if there was a battery-operated item under there. Or a closet door was left ajar, or a bathroom light on, a towel on the floor. Small infractions but irritants all the same. No, this was much bigger such as the front door was left unlocked and the gate unsecured. In addition to a string of other issues.
That behavior makes a seller feel violated. It trickles downstream, too. Hope the buyers weren’t planning to ask for any favors.
Josh says he’s had a couple of occasions when driving away from a home that he has wondered if he turned off a light. Rather than wonder about it, though, he turns around, drives back and checks. Because that’s what a conscientious Sacramento Realtor would do.
Further, the seller is a professional in the trades himself. He goes to great lengths to show respect for the homes he works on. He is the kind of guy who wears booties or wipes his feet before entering a home. You can imagine his disappointment to come home from a weekend away and discover his front door unlocked, among a myriad of other events. He expects other professionals to treat his home in the same manner he treats his customers’ homes. He probably wonders if we allowed the seller present at the home inspection, none of this would have happened.
We Sacramento Realtors have it drummed into our heads to observe the condition of a home upon entering and to leave it the same way. If lights are on, we leave them on. If a door is locked, we lock it when we leave. We don’t do stupid, careless things like lock the garage door between the house and garage if the door is unlocked. We also don’t want the seller present at the home inspection — we want our buyers and their respective inspectors to enjoy free reign, to complete due diligence, and fully understand the product our buyers are purchasing.
But gosh, guys, to enjoy that benefit, you’ve got to leave the home the way you found it. Seize responsibility. Because regardless of how you might appear, we know your mother didn’t raise you in a barn.
Full Service for Sacramento Real Estate Clients Does Not Mean Everybody
Jackson, Tessa and Pica asleep on the desk of Realtor Elizabeth Weintraub
There are days I wonder how I ever find time to oversee my business and sell real estate, yet still manage to provide standard full service for our Sacramento real estate clients while juggling the chores of life. I just do it. Lately, it’s been a bit tricky because our diabetic cat, Pica, is struggling with sudden health issues. As a result, stoic Pica gets 3 antibiotic pills shot down his throat, a Pepcid, an anti-vomiting pill, Prozac, 2 Sam-E, and a 1/2 tablet of Prednisolone each day. This is in addition to his twice daily injections of insulin to treat his diabetes and his twice daily injections of fluids to prevent dehydration.
The fluids are administered by a long needle inserted under his skin and requires a lot of patience from the cat. On top of squirting full syringes filled with baby food down his throat because his appetite shut down, and trying different samples of wet cat food to entice him to eat. It’s a struggle. Before giving insulin now, we also have to test his blood sugar by stabbing his paw with a needle to draw blood. That’s a lot of medical attention, poking, prodding, for one cat to endure.
I almost feel like a full-time feline caretaker. You haven’t really lived until you’ve had to shove a thermometer up a cat’s butt. Speaking of sticking things up a butt, this reminds me of the supposed home buyers who call, demanding an immediate showing of a Sacramento home, when they aren’t planning to use us to write the offer because they have their own darned agent who is unavailable to show . . . and it is not our listing.
I tell you what. Why don’t you come over tonight and sort my recycled trash from organic? Oh, not your job description? OK, how about you wash my car? Maybe you would like to weed our gardens or lay fertilizer? That’s makes as much sense as expecting an agent offering full service for Sacramento real estate clients to do a job for which she is not your Realtor.
If you are our client, we move heaven and earth to accommodate you. Not our client; not our circus, not our monkey.
I stop whatever I’m doing when a client needs me and calls. Half dressed, I stop. In the middle of lunch, plate into the ‘frig. I answer the phone. My clients’ needs come first. My husband is used to this by now and nothing I do amazes him anymore. How I am able to offer full service for Sacramento real estate clients is because I work with clients who deserve the best. I don’t work with somebody else’s real estate client.
Although a buyer did call me a few days ago and asked us to write an offer for her. She had viewed the home with the listing agent but for some smart reason decided she deserved her own representation. We called that listing agent and we offered the agent a referral fee, because that’s the kind of Sacramento Realtors we are. We’re not out to steal anybody’s client. But first you have to be our client for us to offer full-service to you.
Our poor little Pica, the ocicat, gets the rest of my attention this week, well, aside from a couple of new listings. He is recovering and starting to pull through, which is excellent news. His temperature has been drastically reduced, and he’s starting to eat again. I don’t give up on him, and I most certainly do not give up on our clients.
Tips for Sacramento Realtors Who Meet With the Appraiser
Sacramento Realtors who meet with the appraiser are often disillusioned.
It only gets better from here on out, so here goes my first tip for Sacramento Realtors who meet with the appraiser: DON’T. The appraiser does not want to meet with the listing agent and most certainly is not interested in the buyer’s agent’s opinion about world politics, either. The appraiser is at the home to do a job that is best done without a yakking agent bending her or his ear. They’re just too polite to say it.
This is not to say that appraisers don’t appreciate information about the home that might not be evident from the tax rolls, MLS description or physical inspection because they do. If an agent or seller has access to crucial data that would make a difference in the appraisal, that information can be emailed to the appraiser or discussed over the phone. It won’t help to increase chances of a higher appraisal to deliver that document in person. I often engage in lengthy phone conversations with appraisers to ascertain their expertise in a given neighborhood and lend my advice but I would not show up on the front steps, back against the front door, arms splayed, to force a discussion.
Now, when I was younger and selling real estate in Orange County in the 1970s, I used to believe the hoopla and myth that it made sense to meet the appraiser. But those bellbottom-and-incense days are long gone and did not involve the appraisals laws we have today. Although I did spot bellbottoms with a twist, skinny thighs, at Nordstrom this spring. I won’t go so far as to say triple martinis and 3-hour lunches were not the norm or that some appraisers were crooked or on the take, but stuff was more relaxed during the Nixon-Ford-Carter era, let’s say. Yet, especially in Sacramento today, Sacramento Realtors who meet with the appraiser are often very disappointed that exuding their incredible charm, and that hand shaking, eyeballing and flitting about does not influence the appraisal value.
To give you an idea about how misled some agents are, there are buyer’s agents in Sacramento who believe it’s a good idea to send over to the listing agent the comparable sales, as they see it, along with a purchase offer. They have no clue how insulting they are, and what a bad impression they make. These are the guys who live in their own little fantasy drama where the world revolves around them and them only. The additional problem is they probably convinced their poor buyer to offer a price that won’t get them into escrow. And there’s often no changing those dual errors.
In real estate, there is stuff you hear that if it’s repeated enough times you might begin to believe. Then, there is the real world. The real world says Sacramento Realtors who meet with the appraiser are often wasting their time and, in fact, knowing some of them, they could be hurting their chances. Treating appraisers with respect is a much better path to follow. Allow the appraisers do their jobs in peace. Don’t invite trouble where trouble does not exist.
