Why Sacramento Real Estate Agents Get All the Good Deals

Agents get the good deals that home buyers pass up.

Do you know why so many of the good deals seem to go to real estate agents? I’ll tell you why. It’s not because agents are stealing all the good deals. It’s because they recognize a good deal when they spot it. When one is working in the real estate business day after day and year after year, I don’t care how unfocused you are, eventually some of it rubs off and sticks with you. So many of my long-term listings that other buyers and investors pass by because the properties need work, end up sold to a Sacramento Realtor. It’s sorta becoming par for the course. In fact, I’ve thought about buying a few myself but that would be a conflict of interest.

A few years back I had a short sale home in Carmichael to sell that was completely trashed. The seller just picked up his briefcase and walked out, leaving all of the furniture and his personal belongings. Same situation for a short sale home in Galt, now that I pause to reflect, and both sold about the same time. That home in Carmichael, though, nobody would buy, even though it was only $100,000 and the bank had approved the short sale. We were apart by $5,000 and the investor bit the dust. Finally, a real estate agent picked it up, fixed it up and flipped that home for about $300,000.

Investors and other buyers today seem to pause at the sales price and then offer less for no apparent reason. They act like they’re bartering for a trinket at a Tijuana flea market, saying things like I’ll give you $350,000 for a home listed at $395,000. It makes me want to retort: Tell you what, why don’t we raise the price to $450,000 and then you can offer $395,000? They don’t understand that it’s not make-me-an-offer season in Sacramento, and many homes are generally priced right where they should be. If list price and market value are synonymous, why would an investor get a break?

Homes that need work often linger on the market because they are not what most first-time home buyers want to purchase. Although many fixer upper prices are already reduced to reflect the work required, most home buyers desire turn-key, ready to move into, and they don’t want to tackle any work. If a home needs a roof, for example, they can’t seem to figure out that a roof might cost about $10,000, and they can finance that roof through an Energy Efficient Mortgage (which takes one day to install) and, when they are finished, they will own a home with a brand new roof, and the sales price is still a bargain.

I sold a home like that in Elk Grove to another real estate agent last year, and I’ll most likely do it again this year. That’s because agents see the value. They know the neighborhoods. They don’t automatically assume longer days on market means the price is too high because that’s not always true and they know it. But then they also work with first-time home buyers, so they understand the disconnect going on. Buyers don’t often spot the good deals but agents do.