Email Elizabethselling a home in sacramento
Outbuildings and Old Garages Might Be in FHA Repair Requirements
A prime example of an FHA repair requirement
I’ve got a real pickle coming up soon with a new listing in Sacramento because it’s likely to sell to a buyer obtaining an FHA loan. Why is that a pickle, you might wonder? Well, back when cash investors were quickly snapping up every home that came on the market, real estate agents didn’t much worry about FHA repair requirements, but that’s not the case anymore. FHA loans are a big deal now because the investors have pretty much left the market.
The investors who remain won’t pay market value. They hit prices hard. I’ve yet to see an offer lately from an investor at or above the list price. They are all trying to grind. It makes you want to say whoa, thanks for driving up the prices, now stop trying to drive them down. Most sellers would rather sell a home to an owner occupant anyway. They don’t want to change the demographics of their neighborhood by moving in tenants. They want a first-time home buyer to purchase their home and love it as much as they did. Homes are very emotional vehicles.
Selling to a first-time home buyer means dealing with FHA (or VA) appraisers and being on the lookout for the types of items that could cause FHA repair requirements noted on the appraisal as a condition to fund the loan. Sure, FHA has guidelines for its repair requirements, but it’s also largely left to the appraiser, and not every appraiser shares the same opinion nor interpretation of the guidelines. An item one appraiser will note, another might miss or overlook or just not care about. It can be the luck of the draw.
The time to discover whether a repair is called out is not a few days before closing, though. It’s much better to be proactive and take care of this stuff beforehand. One item I am seeing pop up more often on repair requirements is an old outbuilding. That old storage shed or garage in the back yard that nobody uses and is rotting in the sun? Huge problem today. It most likely needs to be demolished and removed.
While meeting with sellers in Sacramento yesterday, I walked the property line with them. They had talked with several other agents and discussed whether the fences needed repair as a few boards were old. Turns out the other real estate agents were so busy staring at the fences that not one had pointed out the dilapidated garage. This big white elephant sitting in front of their faces. This is a structure that several decades ago was accessed by a long driveway, which no longer exists. The driveway does not exist because the lot was split. Today, the new garage is attached to the home.
This means not only is there no access to this old garage, but a person can’t so much as squeeze a small bulldozer into the yard, There is no way to get into the back yard, even by removing a fence. And the building has to go. Hello sledgehammer and wheelbarrow. Yet, another reason why working with an experienced Sacramento real estate agent is a huge benefit to a sellers.
Using a Multiple Counter Offer to Sell a Home
Be still my eyes — C.A.R. is offering a two-hour webinar for real estate agents to explain how to use the new Multiple Counter Offer form. Two hours! One-fourth of a normal work day. How stupid do they think real estate agents are? Oh, wait. Duh. Don’t answer that. But two hours? Criminy. Come to think of it, I just used that form a couple weeks ago and had to point out to the buyer’s agent that it was indeed a multiple-counter offer situation, as that was not readily apparent, for some reason.
The agent didn’t realize it until I said I do not know how the second buyer will respond. I explained that he needed to know that it was entirely possible that his offer might different than the counter sent to the second buyer, because that’s how multiple-counter offers can work. As a REALTOR who works in Sacramento, I try very hard to be fair to all real estate agents, and not just because it’s required by the Code of Ethics.
It looks to me, though, that what C.A.R. basically did was take the counter offer out of the multiple-counter offer document and made the counter offer a standalone, leaving the multiple as a multiple. Yet, it’s still fill-in-the-blanks.
It’s not only buyer’s agents who are confused. Sellers also do not understand the power of the multiple-counter offer. It is one of the most remarkable documents we have in our arsenal for offer negotiation. If a seller in Sacramento, say, receives two purchase offers, a seller can issue a multiple-counter offer. The multiple-counter offer can be different to each buyer, depending on how the seller wants to work the negotiations.
Think about this for a minute and let it sink in. Nobody says that one of the offers is an offer the seller wants to accept. That second offer could even be a lowball. It could be written on a roll of toilet paper. The seller could even suspect that the lowballer wouldn’t take a counter offer if she threw in 2 round-trip tickets to the moon. Yet, that doesn’t prevent the seller from issuing a multiple-counter offer now, does it?
Once the listing agent explains to the buyer’s agent that there is no regulation that states each counter offer must be identical and that the listing agent does not know whether the second buyer will increase the offer, what do you think that first buyer will do? See, this is why sellers and buyers in Sacramento and Elk Grove love working with me.
The Lead Based Paint Disclosure for Sacramento Sellers
One of the (many) problems inherent in selling a home yourself as a for sale by owner is FSBOs typically don’t have the seller disclosures. All sellers in California are required to disclose certain conditions and information about a home. Most of the time, a seller never gives these things a second thought because her agent handles that for her by providing the forms. We are constantly, as Sacramento real estate agents, thinking about managing risk for our sellers and, by extension, ourselves.
I try to have that “disclosure talk” involving potential lawsuits with each and every one of my sellers. I must put the fear of god into them because of the way some respond. For example, yesterday, a seller sent me a series of emails about whether his home has or does not have lead-based paint. He couldn’t remember when he bought the home what the seller at that time had disclosed. He wanted to make sure he disclosed the same thing. I love sellers like him to pieces. They are conscientious.
The lead-based paint form is a federal form that is required for every California real estate transaction in which the home was built prior to 1978, and I use it for transactions involving newer homes as well. You never know where a person might buy lead-based paint. It’s still sold in some states.
The lead-based paint form states there might be lead-based paint in the home. It puts a buyer on notice that if a buyer is concerned, the buyer needs to further investigate. This might involve having the paint tested. There is also another law that says you can’t hire a painter to paint a home who doesn’t comply with lead-based paint removal procedures.
My seller wanted a yes or no answer. Should he say yes he has lead-based paint or should he say no, he does not. Not everything in life requires a yes or no answer. Some things simply need to be disclosed and a seller should disclose what a seller knows for certain to be true. My seller was pretty happy yesterday that he had a real estate agent. While we can’t fill out these forms for our sellers, we can direct and help them to make the right decisions.
Selling a Sacramento Home for a Family Member
Selling a home in Sacramento for a family member is not a possibility for this Sacramento real estate agent because I have no family in Sacramento — apart from my husband — whom, BTW, just informed me the other day that he is not really a family member according to Facebook, and that I should not have included him when I updated my list of family members in Facebook. WTH? See, this is why I don’t much care for Facebook.
I sometimes get referrals, though, from other agents who don’t want to work with a family member to sell a home or buy a home in Sacramento. It’s not so much that they don’t want to work with their relative as it is they don’t want problems to arise in the family over it. Anybody involved in an ordinary family will understand those dynamics.
For example, I would not sell my own sister’s home. I would not help her to do it herself as a for sale by owner. I would find her a top-notch producer to do it, try to make sure she stays out of trouble, if I can, but I will not interfere in her transaction. Some people might think that attitude is cruel, especially since I’ve been in the business for just about 40 years now and could be of great assistance, but they don’t know my sister and they aren’t in the real estate business.
I love my sister to pieces. I’d like it to stay that way. Plus, my personal feeling is family and business do not mix very well. It is very difficult to be impartial when it comes to family. A real estate agent has to hold fiduciary with a client, do what is best for that client, not what she thinks is best.
Further, imagine if a real estate agent with decades of experience feels it is not a good idea to represent a relative in a real estate transaction, the kind of a job a brand new agent with no experience might do?
Why Agent Feedback is Crucial to a Sacramento Agent
One of the services I provide for my sellers are listing updates with agent feedback. Nobody wants to list her home for sale in Sacramento and then hear nothing back whatsoever from her Sacramento real estate agent. A seller who never receives any communication from her agent might think her agent isn’t working on selling that listing, when little could be further from the truth. The agent could be working her tail off but just not pulling up any buyers. Some agents think if they have no news or no good news, then a seller doesn’t want to hear about it, but a seller wants to know everything.
Every night, before I leave my home office — way before my husband starts hollering at me to turn off the computer because dinner is ready — I check my home showings for the day. Each lockbox has a serial number engraved on it, which I register for each listing. As a result, I can lookup an online report to see who has accessed my Weintraub listings. The report tells me:
- The time the agent opened the lockbox to get the key
- The name of the agent’s broker
- The agent’s email address
- The agent’s office number
- The agent’s cellphone number
It’s also a helpful report if an agent has accessed a pending listing that should never, ever, be entered without express permission from the listing agent. Yet, some buyer’s agents will not bother to read MLS showing instructions or they figure the listing is vacant so it doesn’t matter. It does matter, and this Sacramento real estate agent will follow up to get agent feedback. My sellers deserve it. This is why in some areas of Sacramento where this kind of unauthorized activity is notorious, I might suggest a seller not allow a lockbox or I might remove it when the homes moves into pending status.
Every night I email agents for agent feedback to ask what their buyers thought of the home they toured that day. I offer my assistance. I try to find out if the agents have any questions or if their buyers have questions. I’m looking for positive and negative feedback, because my seller wants to hear all of it. And then I send the feedback to the my seller, even if it’s feedback I am afraid my seller might not want to hear.
Based on the agent feedback, we can make adjustments, if necessary, to the listing. It’s not always the sales price, either. You can bet that I will take a positive feature and run with the benefit when buyers gush over it. If there is a negative aspect, I’ll offer a solution.
If you want to buy or sell a home in Sacramento, call your Sacramento real estate agent, Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759, Lyon RE. Put 39 years of experience to work for you.
