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The Reasons Realtors Get Paid So Much
There are many valid reasons Realtors get paid so much.
For those who wonder about the reasons Realtors get paid so much, I’ve got news for you. For starters, they don’t. According to NAR most Realtors earn around $45,000 a year. Is that a lot of money to you? Further, you’ve got good Realtors and bad Realtors, just like any other profession. I hate to break it to you, but that dentist who is sticking a drill bit in your mouth? He’s that snotty-nose kid who used to sit behind you in third grade, kicking your chair. Although his grade point average throughout grade school was a lousy D-minus, he grew up and got a license to practice dentistry. And now he’s your dentist. Or your Realtor.
The really good Realtors make a shitload of money. Because they have knowledge. You’re paying for their knowledge and expertise on every single transaction. The more transactions a Sacramento Realtor closes, for example, the more she is worth. Any mistakes along the way she never repeats. She has answers to questions you don’t even know to ask. Because she has paid the price to earn a reputation for excellence.
She has held open houses in 115-degree heat sans air conditioning while you were relaxing at home in the pool. She has hauled buyers from hell and back to show homes while you napped. She has trudged in 6-inch heels through filthy foreclosures unsafe for human occupancy while you shopped for back-to-school clothes at Macy’s. She has endured crazy rants from lunatics who had no business listing a home while you licked the bottom of your ice cream bowl. She has chased cats in her bare feet who bolted from a home showing in pouring rain while you taught your dog to shake. She has saved transactions from canceling, pulled rabbits out of a hat and pounded lenders into funding while you gazed at the evening stars from your front porch.
Excessive soap suds can make a dishwasher overflow.
She gets paid for what she knows. No matter what you think you know about real estate, you do not know what a Sacramento Realtor who has been in the business for more than 40 years knows. This really hit home to me the other day when our dishwasher overflowed. I could not find the source of the problem. I called an appliance repair guy who checked it out, charged me $80 and said somebody (not me) had inadvertently put a dish or glass into the dishwasher with dish soap on it. Probably the cats. The dishwashing cycle churned so many suds it overflowed and seeped through the door.
Do you know how to eliminate excessive amounts of soap suds? I didn’t know. You pour cooking oil into the dishwasher, 1/4 cup or so, and voila. The suds vanish. It cost me $80 to learn that. Money well spent. Same reasons Realtors get paid so much.
There is a secret to loosen an aerator when it refuses to turn.
Another expensive lesson. I could not remove the screen from a faucet in our master bath. I tried turning it counterclockwise with my hands. I tried a pliers. I asked my husband to give it a go. The aerator seemed clogged. Our water pressure was low. I called a plumber. He charged $75 for a home visit. Would you like to know the secret to cleaning a faucet screen when the aerator refuses to turn? When a pliers doesn’t work, there is an answer. You squeeze the aerator while simultaneously turning the faucet. I did not know that. Cost $75. Money well spent. Same reasons Realtors get paid so much.
I met with a potential sellers a few days ago. His wife has self-diagnosed a neurological disorder. I suggested she go to the doctor, but these guys don’t trust doctors, they think doctors make too much money and that doctors don’t know everything because, hey, we have the internet. You’ve got good doctors and bad doctors. I hate to say this, but doctors do know stuff that we don’t know. I’ve researched symptoms, been completely convinced I had some weird disease, and it was nothing remotely similar to my research and, yet, a doctor fixed my ailment. Money well spent. Same reasons Realtors get paid so much.
I would not hesitate one second to visit a doctor if something was wrong. I am paying that doctor for her years of medical school, training and knowledge acquired on the job, for her expertise. There is a place where people go who think they know everything and don’t need qualified professionals. I think it’s called Fox News.
Of course, the trick is to hire a good Realtor with top-notch reviews and decades of experience. Realtors like me get paid for our insight and offer negotiation skills. You can call a full-service Realtor like Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759. Or, you can call a discount agent and also get what you pay for.
The Life of a Top Sacramento Listing Specialist
This top Sacramento listing specialist sells many homes in Sacramento.
Today is not a day that I feel like a top Sacramento listing specialist. Yet, the thing about being in the real estate business since the 1970s is I have developed thick skin, weathered many storms, survived plenty of heartache. Throw into that mix of regular real estate activity, the hundreds of short sales that I’ve personally negotiated and sold over the past 10 years alone, and you have the recipe for a very patient person. I attend to my job every single day, whether I feel like it or not, because that’s why I remain a top Sacramento listing specialist. Regardless of what is happening in my personal life, I get sucked into Sacramento real estate, as it’s easy to focus on somebody else’s problems for a change.
Sometimes I get overly involved in real estate to the extent I forget to eat. It’s why it took me more than a year to buy a new car because I kept running into roadblocks with the purchase I thought I was making. I don’t devote a lot of time to personal things because once it’s planned, on the schedule, those things take care of themselves. Then, last April as I pulled my creaky bones out of my 5-year-old Porsche it dawned on me the reason I don’t have a new car is because of me. I needed to stop looking for the easy path, schedule time at the dealership and just go buy a new Sacramento Realtor car. Once I put my mind to it, it happened.
In case you’re wondering, to be a top Sacramento listing specialist, organization is key. My clients occupy much of my time. Not every real estate agent in Sacramento is willing to devote so much of her time to her clients. In fact, most agents believe in balancing life and work. That doesn’t work for me. It’s a good thing I enjoy what I do and that I find the humor in most situations. Like this agent last week who said he was sending us an offer. No offer arrived. On Monday, he promised again to send an offer. Tuesday, same thing. Wednesday, still no offer but it was coming. How much, I asked? List price, he said. We already had multiple offers.
By Thursday, we received an offer from a different buyer, which the seller liked and accepted. The non-performing agent emailed an update: still working on the offer, so I had to break the bad news. He responded that his offer was now XYZ, over list. Implying if we had only waited. He could say whatever he wanted. He could say his offer was a bazillion dollars and he has a miracle cure for feline diabetes.
I focus on work because then I don’t have to think about the losing battle we’re encountering with our diabetic cat Pica. It is so expensive to take your cat to the vet these days. I don’t know how people on strict budgets can afford to take care of cats. $500 there, $300 here, another $400. That was just last week. His pancreatitis medications are interfering with his insulin. What was in balance is out of balance. We’ve changed his medications, his diet, put him on an opioid and are approaching the final decision every pet owner makes at one time or another. He thanked us last night by pooping on our jeans and urinating on as many flat surfaces as he can find. The results of his urinalysis culture can’t come back fast enough.
To top it off, yesterday I received an envelope from the IRS. Very hopeful it was my refund check for my 2014 return that we’ve revised twice. There was a mistake in the calculation regarding a retirement account contribution. The IRS hounded me, treated me like a common criminal demanding payment, making threats. It was wild. Under duress, I paid the ransom, even though I didn’t owe it. Supposedly my tax guy later straightened it out, after spending hours on the phone with the IRS and he billed us for those hours. I opened the IRS envelope. It was a letter saying the excess contribution is not eligible for an abatement, yet there was no excess contribution. Ack. This top Sacramento listing specialist routinely spots this kind of behavior in short sales. It’s like common sense flew right out the window.
I would much rather focus on my work. This is what a top Sacramento listing specialist does. She lists homes, she sells them. She works with her team members. She becomes more resilient with age. We all do. Otherwise, how can we account for moving forward with our lives after losing so many people we loved? We deal with it when it happens. You can’t really prepare for the uncertainty of death. It’s part of the circle of life.
Everything is intertwined. I saw an advertisement that offered a newsletter with a “desubscribe” button in my email today. That was a cute way to put it. And it reminded me of a forgotten book, more of a report, the first of many, that I wrote in 1983 for Impact Publishing: Definancing Real Estate. That was 33 years ago. Impact had hired my ex-husband to write the material, but he never got around to it, so I spearheaded the project and produced the content. After all, I knew more about definancing than he. It’s available at the UCLA Library. And here I am today, a top Sacramento listing specialist, still selling real estate and writing about it.
How Important is the Condition of a Home When Selling?
Wonder if these sellers know they are painting a wall two different colors?
Asking an experienced Sacramento Realtor about the condition of a home when selling is a smart move. I see so many sellers jump right in on their own, without seeking advice, and making repairs that do not need to be made, which means they are throwing money out the window. Oh, they might backtrack a little and mumble that’s what they wanted to do for the buyers so it doesn’t matter, but it does matter if they could have spent the money on say, oh, maybe a vacation in Hawaii, and they don’t have a money tree growing in their back yard like I do in my yard. You should see it. Incredible. Pops out 100 bills like clockwork.
Facetiousness aside, the first thing that many people wonder about is the condition of a home when selling. Some sellers will say, oh, let’s just sell it AS IS. And you know what? That’s OK. I am not about to impose my sentiment about turnkey homes because it doesn’t apply. On top of that, not everybody is a flipper, even if they spend hours and hours absorbing every episode of that variety on HGTV, that 24-hour eye candy. The fact is flipping takes experience, being in touch with what buyers want and not what you want. Buying materials at wholesale. Finding cheap labor. And then you can still chop down that money tree.
Sellers in Rancho Cordova had asked my thoughts about fixing up their home. I suggested the readily apparent issues that could be easily rectified and produce maximum benefit. They had little precious time, a family of tiny tots, so my suggestions to them were different than what I suggested for a seller in Davis when asked about the condition of a home when selling. The seller in Davis has more time, more resources, but still, we’re not flipping the house.
Of course, having been involved in buying and flipping homes for years and doing all of the work myself, with my own two little hands, it gives me a different perspective. I know how long it takes to perform certain jobs, for example. That information is invaluable to a seller who is doing some of the work herself. I had asked my sellers in Rancho Cordova to paint over a kitchen window, touch-up a ceiling by the entry, paint bedroom doors, wash the front door, install a new closet door in the hallway and remove a living room rug. The house was transformed! We received about a dozen offers.
Even the sellers were amazed. The downside is sometimes they decide not to sell when they sell how beautiful their home can appear. I’ve had that happen before. Providing advice about fixing up the condition of a home when selling is part of my full-service that I provide to my own sellers. I’ve got more than 40 years of experience, and I’m generally spot on. But don’t expect to receive this advice for free. Sellers need to be a client of Elizabeth Weintraub to receive this type of assistance.
Each plan is always tailor-made for my sellers and for the market conditions at hand. We’re in a market now in which the condition of a home when selling is not as important as it was a couple of years ago. But there are still little things that provide a big punch. This is a hot seller’s market. If you want to capitalize, call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759.
Why This Sacramento Internet Realtor is on Fire
This Sacramento Internet Realtor responds to sellers and buyers who find her online.
When you ask agents where business comes from, very few, if any, will say from efforts as a Sacramento Internet Realtor, which is exactly where a large bulk of my Sacramento real estate business originates. I have been online since 1991. The internet is not a scary place for me, and my website is mobile friendly for all mobile users. I love and respect internet real estate business. Which is probably why I am a successful Sacramento Internet Realtor.
I adopted the internet early in my life, 25 years ago; it’s why people find me everywhere online. I recall the bulletin boards, which I bet many millennials today have never heard of. I used dial-up modems, which is akin to walking 10 miles to school in the snow, barefoot, uphill. At the moment, I utilize several computers, an iPad and an iPhone to keep me connected.
I also understand the secret of the Internet. The secret is to respond immediately. That’s what people want. I respond immediately because, if I didn’t, I’d probably forget by the time the next inquiry arrived. You know, I’m almost 64. Been at real estate for 40+ years.
Automobile dealers understand the internet is the way consumers shop. Most dealers support an entire internet division who do nothing but talk to car buyers originating from an internet query. Yet, real estate agents have been slow to adopt the internet. They say they want to depend solely on referrals or they prefer ringing doorbells of strangers to ask if they are thinking about buying or selling. It’s strange, but true. I also hear agents say internet leads are worthless crap. They are so wrong about that.
This Sacramento Internet Realtor Cares About YOU
See, I realize that people who send an email or text message to ask about buying a home or selling a home probably want to buy a home or sell a home. They are real people with real needs. And guess what? I am a Sacramento Internet Realtor who will respond and fulfill their desires. It’s why I sell over $30 million a year in a city like Sacramento — where the median sales price is around $280,000.
Every so often, there are those buyers, for example, who might be unemployed or have bad credit but you know what? They still want to buy a home. There is hope for them. Not right now, of course, but a year or two down the road, they will be ready, and the Elizabeth Weintraub Team will be here to serve. Our preferred mortgage lender will prepare these buyers for home ownership. The interesting part is almost 30% of our internet leads end up in escrow with us as compared to 2% to 3% for other agents.
We must be doing something right. If you’d like to talk about real estate, you can email, text or call this Sacramento Internet Realtor. My team and I obviously love to work with you, and our track record supports that statement. My cell is 916.233.6759.
How Much is My Home Worth in Sacramento Will Shock You
You will be shocked to learn how much is my home worth today.
If you’re wondering how much is my home worth in Sacramento, prepare to be shocked. Could you use an extra $200,000 of equity right now? All the market reports in the world won’t prepare you for the actual value of your own home until you talk with a seasoned Sacramento Realtor. Even Zillow won’t give you a solid number, as the estimates on Zillow are only that, an estimate and, there is no actual website available online that will give you all of the information you seek. Realtors pull data from a number of sources, and we are specialists in many areas of Sacramento.
We have the missing pieces you need.
It’s no secret that during the crash years of 2005 to 2011, I worked with more short sale sellers than any other agent in the area. But then that period ended. I still handle a few short sales here and there, but for the most part, short sales in Sacramento are basically over. Today I specialize in real estate in four counties, ranging from entry-level homes to luxury homes, designing individual marketing strategies for each of my sellers, paying enormous attention to detail, which returns maximum profits to my clients. My team members show homes, and I work with sellers. It’s a winning combination!
Earlier in the week, I ran across a folder from 2012 filled with potential short sale clients who, for one reason or another, elected not to do a short sale. They were sellers who were underwater. That was four years ago. I began looking up the market values of their homes, because it seemed to me they were not underwater anymore. I was absolutely correct. Every single one of these potential sellers now have equity, some have acquired more than $200,000 of equity since that time!
Discovering How Much is My Home Worth
What a shock to examine how much is my home worth and discover it’s not what you thought. People get busy with their lives and are not aware of how much their home has gone up value. It happens even to Realtors. I know an agent who woke up one morning in Minneapolis, realized her home had tripled in value over the past 5 years, and decided it was time to grab the money and get out of that frozen tundra. You might think the same way. You might also think if you’re not planning to sell, what does it matter how much your home is worth?
It matters because if you knew that number, you might decide to sell. To change your life. To upgrade to a larger home, downsize to a smaller home or get the hell outta dodge, whatever. Call me. Call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759, and I’ll be happy to answer the question of how much is my home worth. Could you use an extra $200,000 of equity right now?
