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Brilliant Real Estate Ideas for Sacramento Realtors
Often your best real estate ideas can come to you in a dream.
Some of my best real estate ideas come to me when I’m sleeping. They pop into my dreams. Which means some of my very best ideas are probably lurking in my subconscious. It beats having your best ideas come to you when you’re, oh, say, like Dudley Moore in that 1981 movie Arthur. His best ideas came to him when he was drunk. Probably because he was rarely sober. If you’ve never seen Arthur, you’re in for a treat.
A few nights ago I had a dream that I was holding an open house for that adorable family on Showtime’s Shameless. They live in this two-story wreck in south Chicago. I gathered the kids around me and assigned each one of them a room. When visitors came through the open house, the job of each kid was to stand in their appointed room and talk about the benefits of that room.
We rehearsed. Like a broken record, over and over. That’s a brilliant real estate tip, yes? Who better to sell a home than the people who actually live in it? Sell the benefits, not the features. The sun comes up in the morning through that window, so I don’t need an alarm clock.
Last night, though, I dreamed up a new wallpaper. You know how wallpaper has gone out of fashion? Well, I’ve got news for you, it’s coming back. Only edgier and with a bit more bite. My new wallpaper idea is to take the sections of your city’s free entertainment newspaper — the part with all the bands — neatly trim the edges, apply wallpaper paste and slap it up there. How cool is that? That real estate idea is worth millions.
Of course, with wallpaper, the pattern repeats. The unique thing about this phenomenal idea is the pattern does not repeat until maybe you get to last week’s paper or the week before that. But the pattern doesn’t have to repeat. You can write your own rules. And it’s free. Doesn’t cost ya a penny.
Back when I was a kid in my 40’s, I used to swipe posters from the halls of local venues and hang them on my living room wall. Now, I wish I had saved those posters because those fun days are gone; I can’t make myself stay up that late anymore. But this is the next best thing. Every kid in America will be clamoring for this rock-band wallpaper. I”m just joking, you know, about the real estate ideas.
While Elizabeth is in Cuba, we revisit older blogs published elsewhere.
Nationstar Bank Short Sale and Down Syndrome
I woke up this morning with a Nationstar short sale and Down Syndrome whirling around in my brain. I don’t know why. See, this is what being a Sacramento real estate agent does to you. I didn’t dream about Shameless — that Showtime series about my family when I was a kid. No, seriously, my father was not nearly as sweet nor endearing as William H. Macy’s character. Yet, I couldn’t help but wonder if that baby on Shameless with the Down Syndrome really has Down Syndrome. I don’t mean on the show; I mean in real life. Because that would be really tacky. The NDSS would be all over that.
Unless the baby could talk. Then, it might be a way to better understand those born with Down Syndrome, we could develop empathy and this would be considered acceptable. Except the kid can’t talk. But if the baby could talk, I bet he could speak more clearly and distinctly than a negotiator at Nationstar.
A kid at Nationstar told us yesterday that the bank will no longer let sellers pay for a natural hazard disclosure when selling as a short sale. They don’t want to see that crummy little $99 fee on the HUD anymore. Yes, they realize it is state law that a seller must give a copy of the natural hazard disclosure to the buyer. Yes, they realize it is also against state law for the seller to pay for a natural hazard disclosure out of the seller’s pocket because all fees must be paid through the short sale. California Civil Code 580e says the seller is not allowed to pay for anything.
So, on the one hand, you’ve got Section 1103 in the California Civil Code that says the natural hazard disclosure must be delivered to the buyer as part of the sale. On the other hand, the Civil Code says sellers can’t be required to contribute or the bank is breaking the law. And then you’ve got a group of managers at Nationstar Bank deciding it won’t allow the seller to pay this fee from the proceeds of sale.
I realize every $99 adds up. Hey, I sell real estate in Sacramento and not in Newport Beach or I’d be retired by now. But, really, Nationstar. My TC sent me a copy of the email from the negotiator who told us to read the California Civil Code again, although it still says the same thing it said the last time we read it. Nationstar might be making her go sit in the corner for lunch, but that’s not our M-O.
Here is part of that email: “There is nothing to check with my managers as they are the ones who told us to no longer accept the NHD on the HUD. Guidelines change all the time, you cannot expect things to always stay the same. Malyssa”
All over ninety-nine bucks.
Today, there are more than 400,000 individuals people with Down Syndrome living in the United States. I hope none of those people ever have to subject themselves to Nationstar.
