Email Elizabethtips for real estate agents
Thoughts About Starting the Day in Sacramento Real Estate
There is only one email this Sacramento Realtor likes waking up to in the morning that can be better than a seller saying they want me to list their home and that’s an email containing a purchase offer from a qualified and excited home buyer. Other people, they get up and survey the gardens, observe birds in the water fountain, pet their critters, hug a spouse or partner, but I make a beeline for my computer because it’s time to write a blog.
Before I can get to the writing part, I need to clear out my emails and respond to all those who stockpiled over the night. See, a long time ago my wise husband suggested I turn off my computer and phone at 7 PM so we could enjoy a couple of Sacramento real estate-free hours together. It doesn’t mean that a thought about a transaction might not hit my brain in the middle of The Good Wife so he may need to pause the show while I share my new idea. He’s good natured about it, though. And yes, we have no disagreements over the remote.
I mull over work-related stuff all day. Especially when I’m driving as straight shots up the freeway provide me with a bit of space to contemplate. I don’t know how other real estate agents run their businesses, but mine is pretty much integrated into personal my life and intertwined. The systems I use allow some automation of processes but they all still require a personal touch. There is no way to get away from that attention to detail that is crucial in every sale, nor would I want to give that up because that’s part of what separates me from the competition and makes me successful.
There are mornings, like this one, when I can’t write my blog right away because I need to attend to my emails. They eat up a lot of time if they are important. I’m excited to be listing a home in Natomas today, another majestic beauty in Anatolia tomorrow, a pool home in Del Paso Manor probably on Friday, and quite possibly putting a different home in Natomas into escrow this afternoon. This is because I focus basically on two things: Preparing the listing correctly, which includes all of my marketing strategies, and then selling it.
No two transactions are ever the same. Selling real estate in Sacramento as a top producer is not for everybody due to the dedication it requires, but it’s worked out well for me over the years.
Sacramento Real Estate Agents Who Resist Change
Most people dislike change or the unfamiliar, especially certain Sacramento real estate agents, I’m guessing. A while back an agent got his knickers into a twist because I called him to find out why he left my lockbox open. It was pretty easy to figure out who did it because the SUPRA online system stores contact information, including time and date stamp; it tells me when any of my 70-some lockboxes are accessed.
At first, the agent denied the accusation. When pressed and presented with evidence, he became agitated and admitted he probably did leave it open but he had a good reason. (There is never a good reason to leave a lockbox open unauthorized.) His reason was he was confused. He had never showed a home which had 2 lockboxes, one for Supra to open to retrieve the code and the second for contractors, in which the key was stored. So, it was all the listing agent’s fault and not his. Ya gotta love the logic. Sometimes I use this system because it’s convenient for contractors: those people who do home staging, or maybe employees from pest companies, roof inspectors, home inspectors, handyman, what have you, who need access to the home.
It is also required by our MLS. Our MLS forces agents to use SUPRA lockboxes if an agent wants to advertise a listing as having a lockbox. Pretty clever, that MLS business alliance. In other words, a Sacramento real estate agent is not allowed to put on a contractor’s box and state the home is vacant with a lockbox and provide the code. It’s governed and stipulated that way at most associations. Otherwise, agents would buy contractor’s lockboxes because they cost roughly one-third the price of SUPRA lockboxes. They’ve got almost ten grand of my money — $10,000 that could have been invested in an aging barrel of Maker’s Mark, but no, I have lockboxes.
Although I like the SUPRA lockboxes because it allows me to follow up on listings and obtain buyer feedback after an agent shows a home I have listed. It provides greater security for my sellers because only agents can access those boxes. However, if contractors need to access the home, for example, I will also attach a contractor’s box to the property. It allows me to better devote my time to marketing the home, following up on showings and tracking open houses than standing on the front steps waiting for some guy to show up so I can open the door. Yet, two lockboxes are still very confusing for some buyer’s agents.
The biggest problem I see with buyer’s agents is not the fact that they can get confused over lockbox instructions, it’s that they don’t often read the entire MLS listing before taking action. They are so excited that their buyer wants to write an offer, they don’t always take the time to peruse confidential agent remarks or note the type of financing that is offered. They waste a lot of time writing offers that have little chance of acceptance because of this little quirk.
I wish I could digitally manipulate my listings. I would put big red arrows and circles that draw attention to specific information for agents, maybe include a few starbursts.
This morning I received an offer that was sent to the wrong agent last night. Three specific lines in the agent remarks state where and how to send the offer, yet they were overlooked. On top of this, the email from the agent said her buyer had seen the property and was very interested in owning it. Except the property is located in a gated community and there are no showings allowed. It’s enough to make one wonder if the buyer’s agent mixed up the address of the property and perhaps wrote the offer for the wrong home.
On top of this, it was an FHA offer, and the property is not listed with FHA terms and the seller cannot accept an FHA offer because an FHA offer is not allowed on that particular home. That was a lot of work for the agent to go through to write an offer, provide supporting documentation on behalf of the buyer, get the purchase offer signed and then deliver it to the wrong agent when there is no way the offer can even be countered.
All of which could have been prevented if the agent had just given that MLS listings one more glance before writing the offer. Are there attachments to the listings? Long gone are the days when all homes are listed with identical terms. Almost every listing is as unique as the sellers are unique.
My policy as a real estate agent is not to fight change, I embrace it.
