A Listing Agent Explains All Home Selling Steps

Sacramento real estate clients rely on their agents to explain what’s going on in a transaction and the next home selling steps, even if the clients appear knowledgable. Because an agent never wants to disappoint a client or fail to keep a client informed. Even at the risk of being overly simplistic, it’s important to communicate and inform. I realize that agents don’t want to insult their clients, but clients are insulted if they don’t understand, take your pick.

Not to mention, every home seller has her own perceptions about how she believes things work.

Earlier this week for example I was talking to a seller about putting a sign rider on the post outside that says: Don’t Disturb Occupant. I often put up sign riders like this on vacant homes to try to dissuade the thugs who break into them, but I also use those riders for occupied homes in some areas. The seller said she didn’t need that sign rider because if anybody approached her doorstep with evil intentions she would shoot them. This astonished me, mostly because the seller was old enough to be my great grandmother. I asked if she had a gun. Her response was yes, everybody has guns.

Well, no, I don’t own a gun.

Regardless of how many homes this seller might have sold in her life or how much she might know about home selling in Sacramento, I still explained every step of the transaction to her; fully cognizant that I may need to repeat the steps later on. I try to imagine what is likely to happen in a real estate sale and then I share that knowledge with my sellers.

One of the worst things that could happen to me as a real estate agent is to have a seller wonder what comes next and not know.

Well, I guess I could be shot.