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Tips for Selling Tenant Occupied Homes in Natomas
Very few tenants are happy to hear the lease won’t be renewed in Natomas.
If a Sacramento Realtor in Natomas knows her neighborhood, she can often guess how quickly that home will sell. I have noticed that certain neighborhoods are taking their own shapes and directions now that the housing bubble has popped in Natomas, and I have gained a sense of why some homes in Natomas might take longer to sell or whether they will fly off the market. But even though I might know instinctively how a transaction will progress, it is still not an excuse not to be completely prepared for the market. As I continually say, half of the hard work is done in advance to listing a home.
For example, let’s talk about a home in Natomas that closed yesterday. These particular sellers called me around the middle of July to talk about selling a home, which was presently occupied by a tenant and managed by an excellent property manager I’ve done business with in the past. The thing about tenants is you never know which way it will go, they will either cooperate or they won’t. But when you are working with a top-notch property manager, the property management company will send the correct legal paperwork to the tenant to explain the process, and that often gets the tenant on board.
So does being nice to the tenant and making her beds. Hey, I do what I have to do. She left me a key under a pot in the back yard, which I promptly confiscated. All of the beds were a mess. She knew I would be taking photos, but you’ve got to remember that tenants don’t always care about the listing agent’s objectives when they are suddenly notified their lease won’t be renewed and, oh, btw, that means you have 30 days to find somewhere else to move. They have other pressing matters on their minds, like where their children will go to school and whether they will find another roof over their heads in our super tight rental market in Sacramento. I get it. Tenants don’t care what we agents have to do when selling rental homes in Sacramento.
Without grumbling, I made the beds. Picked up the house, straightened out the bathroom towels, put the load of laundry on the floor so I could shoot the cabinets in the laundry room. To get to this point, took me about a month. A month of work I don’t get paid for until it closes.
We went on the market August 21. I could write a book about how to sell a home in one day, even though it really takes a month or more. On August 22nd, we received a cash offer for less than list price. Why is it cash buyers tend to think their offer is stronger because it is cash? It can close faster, but it is not necessarily stronger. I’ve had transactions in which the cash buyers suddenly developed severe needs elsewhere for the cash and they canceled. I sent the offer to the seller and suggested they counter back at list price. Come on, 24 hours on the market and the buyer can’t offer list?
The buyer agreed to pay list price. This is what a seller gets with a full-service Realtor. We also made the sale AS IS. Those sellers who sometimes pass by the more experienced agents in favor of a discount agent who will charge less have no idea how much money they are losing in their transaction due to limited vision; they just don’t know any better. I made sure we had no drama in this transaction. We closed a month later. No repairs, no concessions, the tenant moved out of the home in Natomas on time. Happy sellers.
Why Bay Area Investors Should Hire a Local Sacramento Agent
When the seller from San Jose called this Sacramento real estate agent, he wanted to handle the sale of his duplex in Sacramento the way an agent would deal with such an investment property in the Bay Area. It was more familiar to him and familiarity breeds comfort. But it wasn’t in his best interest to do things that way. Not only that, but it was a stupid idea that would cost him money. I had to explain that top listing agents don’t work like that in Sacramento.
Some listing agents would not discuss options under those circumstances, they would just take the listing and be done with it, happy as a clam to have another listing. Not this agent; I will bring up reasons why it might be better for the client to consider a different method and conduct the sale the way we sell real estate locally. My seller was thrilled that he listened to my advice. We just sold his investment property for the highest price any property in that area has sold for recently!
Even though one of the challenges was the neighborhood. There are neighborhoods that can present unique problems. I see out-of-area investors who are unfamiliar with neighborhoods either buy real estate in the “wrong” areas or they overpay, paying a price that they believe is based on the comps yet not for that particular pocket of homes. If the agent representing the client doesn’t possess localized knowledge, well, it can end up hurting the client. But lots of Bay Area investors use Bay Area real estate agents to buy investment property and their inquiries litter my email, which is just fine when it’s my listing.
I sold two listings like that recently to Bay Area investors who were represented by Bay Area agents. Of course, if I have any specific knowledge about the property, I am required by law to disclose it to the buyers. But I am not required to suggest to Bay Area investors that they should hire a local Sacramento agent to buy. No sirree. My personal thoughts about whether it’s a good idea to buy or not to buy don’t enter the equation because I’m not their buyer’s agent. It is my job as a listing agent in Sacramento to sell that property for the seller and to attract the highest price, so that’s precisely what I do.
I advertise my listings in Sacramento to Bay Area buyer’s agents all the time. I want their buyers to come to Sacramento and buy homes. What luck — so do my sellers! We sometimes focus on Bay Area investors because Bay Area investors tend to pay more than anybody else and ask fewer questions. I often sell investment property that is owned by Bay area investors directly to other Bay area investors. Why not Sacramento investors? Because Sacramento investors seem more shrewd these days. As a group, they typically refuse to pay list price even if list is market and, in fact, they often expect a discount based on their good looks.
The good news is it’s still a seller’s market in Sacramento. As long as sellers are reasonable, sellers can call the shots. If you want to sell your investment property in Sacramento, come over and sit down next to Elizabeth Weintraub.
