The Sacramento Short Sale Blog by Elizabeth Weintraub

This Sacramento Short Sale Agent is Now a Free Dog

Elizabeth Weintraub — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 15:38:04 +0000

Two things in this universe that mean the most to me (outside of family and pets) are my MLS access and my Display Key. For what seems like an eternity now, I’ve been using a token, some screwy little device that continually changes a series of 6 digits, which I have to enter into a security box as my final step to access MLS. When MetroList first came out with this token, I discovered that it was possible to sign on to MLS without it by entering an emergency security word.

Every time I signed on without the token, I’d get a warning at the bottom of the screen that this was a limited-time option. Yeah, right. I bet they say that to every agent. Except for the time when I really needed to get access and was denied. MetroList denied my access because I had used up all of my free entries. Ever since then, I carry my token everywhere.

I was delighted, of course, when MetroList announced it was doing away with the token dealie-bop and going to a password-protected security system. The only problem was they were doing it in alphabetical order by your last name. This was one of those times that I wish I had my maiden name back. I’m at the bottom of the alphabet.

I liked being in the B’s when I was in school. There are advantages to having a last name that starts with the letter B. You might think it’s better to be in the A’s, but it’s not. See, if you’re in the B’s, you can watch the A’s make mistakes, learn from those mistakes and be prepared when your name is called. The A’s are pioneers. Pioneers get arrows in their backs.

Being at the very bottom of the MetroList conversion system meant that this morning was the day I would get to enroll in the new system and become a free dog from that stupid little token. I could hardly wait to get out of bed. Today was a day to celebrate. Of course, I overslept. So, I was probably one of the last agents in Sacramento to choose an image, give it a name, select 3 password questions and answer them. I got a kick out of the onscreen notice that said MetroList does not remember your passwords and can’t give them to you. That tells me MetroList expects a lot of phone calls.

As for the display key, I canceled out my cellphone MLS account because the procedure to access the lockbox was ridiculous. I was required to use a FOB along with my cellphone to open a lockbox. It didn’t make sense to have to use 2 devices, not to mention, the BlackBerry BOLD didn’t seem to work with the eKey system unless I removed the battery and put it back in. Now, I have a new display key that looks like something George Jetson would use to monitor a baby crib.

I have discovered that it malfunctions as well. I used my display key over the weekend while listing a Sacramento short sale. It opened the box for the key, but it refused to unlock the shackle. There is a trick to it. When it doesn’t work, you can simply insert a straightened paperclip into the itty bitty hole, and the device will reset. That’s the problem with relying on technology. Technology doesn’t always work. The message for today is if you’re touring homes with a Sacramento agent, be sure to carry a paperclip with you, because the agent probably doesn’t have one.

Photo: Big Stock Photo

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Elizabeth Weintraub is an author, home buying columnist for The New York Times-owned About.com, a Land Park resident, and a Land Park real estate agent who specializes in older, classic homes in Land Park, Curtis Park, Midtown and East Sacramento. Weintraub is also a Sacramento Short Sale agent who lists and successfully sells short sales throughout Sacramento. Call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759. Put 35 years of real estate experience to work for you. DRE License # 00697006.

The Short Sale Savior, by Elizabeth Weintraub, available through bookstores everywhere and at Amazon.com.

Photo: Unless otherwise noted in this blog, the photo is copyrighted by Big Stock Photo and used with permission.

Buying a Short Sale Home is a Bit Like Buying Shoes at Macy’s

Elizabeth Weintraub — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 14:54:07 +0000

Buying a home these days is a little bit like buying a pair of shoes at Macy’s. After listing a Sacramento short sale in Del Paso Manor last week, I stopped at Macy’s in the Country Club shopping center on El Camino. Macy’s was having a shoe sale, and I needed a few pairs of flat, brown shoes. Figured I’d grab them before the spring colors arrived.

The store was mobbed with buyers. There was one sales clerk to serve them, and he had one arm. OK, his arm was in a sling, but still. I picked up eight pairs of shoes to try on; however, Macy’s had only one pair in a size 6. It had no inventory, just like our Sacramento real estate market. This was madness.

Its sale rack also had very few size 6 shoes. Most shoe stores put size 6 shoes on display, yet even the display shoes were size sevens or eights. I suppose Macy’s needs to continue paying the rent on the store even if it’s not producing any income.

This new Lincoln Crossing listing isn’t producing any income either because the tenant is moving out today. It’s available as a short sale, and there’s only one lender. It’s possible this home could get short sale approval in April and close escrow in May.

If you’re looking for a 2-story with more than 2,400 square feet and a big lot, this home is for you. The kitchen is open to the family room and overlooks the back yard. It has an island with tile and a breakfast nook. There is a formal dining area in the living room as well.

This KB home built in 2005 features 4 bedrooms, which include an enormous master suite, and 2 1/2 baths. The master bath has a sunken tub plus double sinks in the vanity. I measured the master suite, and it’s approximately 20 feet by 20 feet. You’ll find the other 3 bedrooms upstairs and laundry. Hurry, there’s not much like this home for sale in Lincoln Crossing.

838 Devonshire Lane, Lincoln, CA 95648, offered exclusively by Lyon Real Estate as a short sale at $219,000.

For more information, please call your Sacramento short sale agent, Elizabeth Weintraub, at 916 233 6759.

Photos: Elizabeth Weintraub

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The Short Sale Savior, by Elizabeth Weintraub, available through bookstores everywhere and at Amazon.com.

Del Paso Manor Short Sale Home Offered for $195,000

Elizabeth Weintraub — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 15:20:28 +0000

Last Friday, I put first-time home buyers for Del Paso Manor into escrow. I had been showing them homes in this area for several weeks because Del Paso Manor was their targeted neighborhood. Del Paso Manor has the features they wanted: a neighborhood where homeowners know each other and are friendly, plus it’s close to a park, schools, the Del Paso Country Club and the Country Club Shopping Center. Not to mention, Del Paso Manor is easily accessible from Highway 50 by going up Watt or Business 80 by driving down El Camino.

Yesterday, I took a new short sale listing in Del Paso Manor. This is a delightfully updated home built in 1950. It has mostly hardwood floors with a light-colored pretty laminate in the kitchen and bath. Each of the bedrooms is big. The seller selected the bedroom with the huge walk-in closet as the master suite, but I probably would have chosen the bedroom with access to and which overlooks the gigantic .253 acre back yard. The yard has many trees, among them a camellia, an orange tree and a crepe myrtle.

The home has newer central heat and air, a whole house fan and a tankless water heater, which means you will never run out of hot water, and a tankless water heater helps to save on your utility bills. You’ll also find a wood-burning fireplace in the living room, plus a mission-style stained glass front door. Each of the rooms except the bath has a solar skylight tube in the ceiling, which let in plenty of light. Laundry is located in the attached one-car garage.

If you need RV access, you’ve got it. The lot is very long, so there’s room for several boats as well. The back yard is perfect for dogs, and the seller has installed front and rear sprinklers for ease of watering.

2408 Roslyn Way, Sacramento, CA 95864 is offered exclusively by Lyon Real Estate as a short sale at $195,000.

Call your Sacramento short sale agent, Elizabeth Weintraub, for more information at 916 233 6759. This home will go into MLS on Tuesday, February 16, 2010, and will be available for Lyon Broker tour on Wednesday.

Photos: Elizabeth Weintraub

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The Short Sale Savior, by Elizabeth Weintraub, available through bookstores everywhere and at Amazon.com.

The Friday Before Valentine’s Day is Not the Best Time to Buy See’s Candy

Elizabeth Weintraub — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 15:11:39 +0000

I did a rare thing yesterday afternoon. I went to lunch with my husband. One of his freelance employers gave him a gift certificate to the L-Wine Lounge in Midtown Sacramento, so that’s where we headed. Unfortunately, the L-Wine Lounge is no longer serving lunch, probably due to the situation with our state furloughs in Sacramento. So, we walked over to Celestin’s Restaurant on K Street, which serves up fairly decent Caribbean and Cajun cuisine.

On the way, we passed 3 parking ticket payment machines. In all 3 instances, a person stood in front of the ticket dispenser reading the directions and looking puzzled. I could relate. The first time I used one of these new-fangled machines to get a parking ticket, I was so confused that I crumpled the actual ticket, threw it on the floor of my car and stuck the blank portion on my car window. Of course, I got a parking ticket. It’s a stupid system designed by an alien.

After lunch, I asked my husband if he would mind stopping at See’s Candy on J Street. Somebody sent me 2 gift certificates to See’s a while back. They were dated in December of 2008, and I’ve been carrying them around ever since. With my hand on the door handle to See’s, my cell rang. It was a listing agent, calling to say her sellers had accepted my buyer’s purchase offer without a counter offer. Eureka. OK, now I really craved chocolate. But first I had to call my client to let her know she got the home in Sacramento. She’s a first-time home buyer, and I knew how much this news would thrill her. So, I wasn’t paying attention when I opened the door.

Whoa, that store was packed. Wall-to-wall people. What are all these people doing at See’s Candy on a Friday afternoon? Duh, my husband reminded me, it’s the Friday before Valentine’s Day. I couldn’t even see the counter where all the chocolate-covered cherries were probably hiding for all the people in front of it. Instead, I grabbed a pound of dark chocolates, a pound of milk chocolates and headed for the check-out line.

See’s Candy was founded in 1921, the year my grandmother had turned 21. It was my grandmother’s favorite candy store. Whenever she came to visit me when I was a kid, she’d bring me a box of See’s Candy. She said it was the best candy in the world, right next to that peanut brittle she’d buy from those interstate truck stops in Nebraska. As we stood in line, I shared these thoughts with my husband. The woman in front of us turned around and said, “I agree with her; See’s Candy is the best in the world.”

Now, in case you think chocolate is fattening, let me share something with you. Each one-pound box of See’s Candy contains about 24 pieces. Two pieces equal about 160 calories. That means if you were to eat the entire box, you’d have consumed about 1,920 calories, which might sound like a lot until you figure that it takes 3,500 calories above your normal daily intake to gain one pound. Would you be willing to take on a half pound to eat an entire box of See’s Candy? Yeah, I think I might.

Photo: Big Stock Photo

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The Short Sale Savior, by Elizabeth Weintraub, available through bookstores everywhere and at Amazon.com.

Photo: Unless otherwise noted in this blog, the photo is copyrighted by Big Stock Photo and used with permission.

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When Does Short Sale Approval Arrive?

Elizabeth Weintraub — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 15:41:20 +0000

In an unexpected turn of events yesterday, I suddenly noticed that I have 9 Sacramento short sales in escrow. I usually don’t count or track my sales, I just put them into escrow. All of these short sales are pending. A pending short sale is different from an active contingent short sale. When a short sale moves into pending status, it means the bank has approved the short sale.

Every day is like Christmas for me lately; because receiving a short sale approval letter is exciting. I don’t care how many short sales I close over the years as a Sacramento short sale agent, I still get that thrilling sensation when I open my email to find an approval letter. It’s like a validation of my work. It’s also a document that means the buyer can move into that dream home, and the seller can walk away and get on with his or her life.

Waiting for short sale approval is like my wait as a kid for Christmas. See, my parents didn’t put up a Christmas tree weeks in advance like other kids’ parents. I suppose it was to save money because trees go on sale on Christmas Eve. My tree always arrived on Christmas Eve, making every Christmas a surprise for me. I knew that once it started snowing, Christmas wouldn’t be that far off. But I was too young to know on which day it would fall. All I knew was that some morning I would get up, stumble into the living room, rubbing my sleepy eyes, and discover that Santa Claus had come down the chimney the night before. And he brought the tree.

It was magical. The night before Christmas our living room looked like any other living room of 1950’s era. Green carpeting, green drapes, green walls, a green sofa, and a black-and-white TV. But on Christmas morning, the room was transformed. The scent of evergreen filled the room. Our tree reached the ceiling, topped by a shimmering star, decorated with an assortment of family heirloom ornaments, tinsel dangling from each branch. Under the tree, I’d watch our cat slurp water from the tree stand, and my eyes widened at the number of presents wrapped in glittering paper, curly-Q ribbon (which the cat had already chewed and hurled somewhere in the kitchen) with a tag that read: From Santa. Santa didn’t have a last name.

I get that same exhilarating feeling when my Sacramento short sales are approved. I rarely know when the letter will arrive. But like as a kid, knowing that when it starts to snow, Christmas is just around the corner, sometimes I get an inkling that approval is coming, like when the lender requests an updated HUD or sends out arm’s-length affidavits for signatures. Yet, often that short sale approval letter arrives completely unannounced and out-of-the-blue. So, while I can’t predict exactly when the banks will approve my short sales, I do know that approval is likely to come to those who wait.

Photo: Big Stock Photo

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The Short Sale Savior, by Elizabeth Weintraub, available through bookstores everywhere and at Amazon.com.

Photo: Unless otherwise noted in this blog, the photo is copyrighted by Big Stock Photo and used with permission.

How to Get an Edge Buying a Home in Land Park

Elizabeth Weintraub — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 16:42:21 +0000

One of the many reasons that buyers for homes in Land Park like to work with a Land Park agent like me — apart from my sheer brilliance, snarky sense of humor, fastidious attention to detail and all-out modesty — is because Lyon Real Estate routinely holds listings out of MLS for 72 hours. We offer these listings to our buyers before our competitors even know these Land Park homes are for sale. Yup, it’s true, Elizabeth Weintraub’s buyers often get first shot at buying a home in Land Park.

I walked through a soon-to-come new listing yesterday. This is an incredible home. I think it will sell for more than a million. I’ve worked on other homes for a million or more in Land Park, but none ever like this unique home. It’s a single story, on a huge lot with extreme square footage. The rooms are enormous, filled with vintage character, and the condition is pristine.

On my way to Land Park, I stopped by another new listing in Midtown that is not yet on the market. It’s a Craftsman Bungalow with boxed ceilings in its original condition. I have a buyer looking in that price range, so I pulled out my BlackBerry, shot photos and emailed the photos to her. In this Sacramento market, timing can be everything.

As I stood on the sidewalk, furiously pushing buttons to email those photographs, out of the corner of my eye I caught blops dropping on my car. Holy crap, pardon the pun, but a ton of birds were in the tree under which I had parked. My car was now dotted with many different shades of purple, red and black. Looked like it was beat up in a fight. All in the span of 15 minutes. Plus, after my Land Park visit, I had another appointment. There was no time left in my morning to wash the car.

Oh well, fortunately, clients don’t choose to work with me based on the condition of my car. I’ve learned over the years that in this business, ya gotta roll with the flow.

Photo: Adam Weintraub, finch in Land Park, January 2010

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The Short Sale Savior, by Elizabeth Weintraub, available through bookstores everywhere and at Amazon.com.

Gambling Addiction Can Qualify for a Short Sale Hardship

Elizabeth Weintraub — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 14:46:05 +0000

For a real estate agent, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM, as it’s referred to, is an important tool. If you’ve never read this book, it’s fascinating because it explains psychiatric diagnoses and goes into excruciating detail. The DSM-IV is not exactly bed-time reading, but I do admit to having read parts of the book in bed.

As a Sacramento short sale agent, I work with a ton of people. Let’s face it, much as I hate to say this, not all of them are without some sort of psychiatric disorder. I think real estate — and short sales in particular — can bring out the worst in people. It sort of comes with the territory. Lots of people are bipolar. I had one client a few years ago who experienced extreme mood swings. I learned to discuss business with her only in the morning, not at night. In the evening, she turned into a demonic creature from hell. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

The DSM was last revised in 1994 but today the American Psychiatric Association is unveiling a newly revised version, DSM-V. It’s probable that the revised DSM will include new diseases such as Internet Addiction. One of my favorites, Addiction to Gambling, is expected to be designated as a behavioral disorder. This is an important break through, far as I’m concerned.

Why? Because compulsive gambling can lead to foreclosure. Believe it or not, I had a short sale approved last year because a client was addicted to gambling. At first, the lender rejected the seller’s short sale. We submitted a revised hardship letter and financials, and the short sale was rejected a second time. I couldn’t figure out why. The seller had a bonafide hardship. Upon questioning the seller, the truth came out. The seller was afraid and perhaps a bit embarrassed to admit that he had a problem with gambling. His gambling had spiraled out of control.

A trustee’s sale was but a few days away. We had to act quickly. I looked over the client’s bank statements. Sure enough, there were a multitude of ATM withdrawals at an unidentified address. I ran the address in Google. The ATM turned out to be located inside a casino. This client had been draining his bank account and making cash advances on his VISA to support his gambling habit.

I underlined each withdrawal, printed out a copy of the casino’s address and sent an email with those attachments to the bank’s negotiator. The negotiator looked over the documents and then refuted my assertion. The negotiator insisted that gambling didn’t count as a hardship because the borrower could control those urges. You need a hardship to qualify for a short sale. I argued that gambling was a behavioral addiction and therefore qualified for a financial hardship. The short sale was approved. But only because the negotiator didn’t have a copy of the DSM-IV.

Photo: Big Stock Photo

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The Short Sale Savior, by Elizabeth Weintraub, available through bookstores everywhere and at Amazon.com.

Photo: Unless otherwise noted in this blog, the photo is copyrighted by Big Stock Photo and used with permission.

Bank of America Short Sales Provide Plenty of Fodder for Blogs

Elizabeth Weintraub — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:28:24 +0000

Agents often ask me: how is it that I can write a daily blog? They want to know if I sit at my computer staring at a blinking cursor and wondering what to write. I suppose they wonder if I ever get writer’s block. The answer to that question is in the negative, Spock. The thing that I struggle with on occasion is not that I have nothing to write about, it’s which topic or situation I want to tackle. There are so many to choose from. Stuff happens every day. A lot of stuff.

The truth is I just write. Sometimes, when I pick a subject, the blog doesn’t end up being about that topic at all. I go somewhere else with it. And you know what, that’s OK. It’s all right to make a U-turn in the middle of the road because I’m a real estate agent.

The way that I handle such a huge volume of real estate business, especially as a Sacramento short sale agent, is to be organized. I’m organized almost to a fault. For example, I rarely retire for the evening without filing away every single document that I’ve thrown on my desktop during the day. Each downloaded document has a destination. I don’t want to get up in the morning to be greeted by a computer desktop littered with files. It would make my head spin.

I like a fresh start to each day. I wake up wondering what fresh new hell lies in wait. What will I tackle next? I know that I am subject to the attention span of a cocker spaniel, so I generally deal with situations immediately; that way nothing is overlooked or misplaced.

For example, when I receive documents that require signatures from both the buyer and seller, I file those documents in a “holding doc” folder, which I check daily. It tells me immediately if I’ve received executed contracts. If not, I follow up. I maintain a listing tracker spreadsheet in Excel to monitor progress on my listings. Every buyer has a separate folder with the buyer’s name on it, not the property address, because all of my buyers are special individuals. I would never want them to be identified by the address of the home they are buying. They are people first, transactions second.

On the other hand, my short-sale seller folders are labeled with both the sellers’ names and address for fast tracking. I never know when a negotiator will call and I’ll need to immediately access the file. In fact, I was a little surprised yesterday when a Bank of America negotiator indicated that one particular short sale is about to be approved after working on this file for more than a year. Granted, it wasn’t entirely Bank of America’s fault. The first buyer had walked away sometime last fall upon short sale approval. But a new buyer immediately replaced the previous buyer, and the file was resubmitted in November. The new buyer says she’ll wait indefinitely for this home because it’s the exact model she wants.

Well, unless a replica comes on the market. Yeah, right. The person I feel for is the poor seller who has been waiting more than a year to put this horrible nightmare behind. For every 10 Sacramento short sales that close within a 90-day window, I’ll generally get a Bank of America short sale that seems to drag on and on. But I never give up because eventually they do close. I have a digital record of just about every single action that has occurred on this transaction, which is how I know that when approval arrives, it will have happened before 90 days. Bank of America is improving its timeline for short sales.

In fact, I’ll take all of the Sacramento Bank of America short sales that other agents don’t want. Once you know its systems, Equator and Titanium, a Bank of America short sale isn’t that much more difficult than any other short sale. They just require organization, a bit of patience, tenacity, persistence and the ability to laugh at yourself once in a while.

Photo: Big Stock Photo

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The Short Sale Savior, by Elizabeth Weintraub, available through bookstores everywhere and at Amazon.com.

Photo: Unless otherwise noted in this blog, the photo is copyrighted by Big Stock Photo and used with permission.

Jim-Denny’s Hamburgers is a Good Place to Go After a Funeral

Elizabeth Weintraub — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:31:50 +0000

Funerals make you hungry. Either that, or they make you cry. Last Saturday, I attended a funeral with my husband in downtown Sacramento. After the service, we went to Jim-Denny’s Hamburgers Chili for lunch. This is a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant that has been a 76-year tradition in Sacramento. We’ve been meaning to go there for years and, in fact, did stop by a few years ago but it was too crowded, so we left.

Now, if you go to a Catholic funeral, they generally feed you. But the funeral we went to was Lutheran. I actually have very little experience with funerals. I realized that fact when I reached my mid-30s. I don’t know how a person can be on this planet for 30-some years without going to a funeral, but I had managed it.

As a result, I reached out to my girlfriend who had more experience than me. I asked her to guide me through funeral etiquette. Clearly, somebody I knew would die soon, and I didn’t want to be caught off-guard. I thought it would be easier to attend a funeral for a person I did not know, so I picked a death notice out of the newspaper, circled the date of the funeral on my calendar and considered that my practice funeral.

Here are some of the things that I learned:

A death notice is generally an invitation in disguise to go to a funeral
You don’t have to wear black.
Stuff some tissues in your pocket.
If you don’t know the family, don’t sit with them.
It’s OK to cry.
It’s OK to sing, but not all by yourself.

I was pretty sure it’s not a good idea to leave your cellphone on, so when we walked into St. John’s Lutheran Church on Saturday, I turned my phone to “silent.” The cantor had a beautiful voice, and I was mesmerized. But not so much that I didn’t feel my cellphone vibrate. No, no, no, don’t touch it. Bzzt. Bzzt. But I couldn’t help myself. I looked around. We were sitting in an end pew. People would probably think I was praying with my head bowed. I did the unthinkable. I slowly slipped my cellphone out of my pocket and glanced at my email. Now, I’m probably going to hell for that.

But soon the guilt was overturned by the sense of hunger. Which is what led us to Jim-Denny’s Hamburgers Chili. Going there just seemed appropriate for some reason. This little restaurant is located on 12th Street between H and I Street. Here is a photo of the interior. It’s the size of a cable car and dates back to 1934. The signs on the wall advertise fancy ham, fancy hamburgers, back when anything better than ordinary was called fancy.

A handwritten sign next to the old wall phone warned customers that if they sit next to the phone and it rings, they must answer it and take an order. I was glad my husband had that seat. We arrived at 11:45, 15 minutes before lunch. Everybody at the counter, which is the only place to eat, were busy stuffing gigantic omelets into their mouths. The servings were humongous, along the lines of what you get at the Market Club in Land Park.

I ordered the 5-cent hamburger with raw onions, lettuce, tomatoes and no pickles. You can see it in the photo above. Well, you won’t see the onions because the waiter forgot to give them to me. He also put mustard on the bottom bun but the top bun was dry. My husband got the Superburger with bacon and requested no cheese. They gave him a burger with cheese.

The french fries were pretty good, though. Sliced very thin and crispy without being too crunchy. The fries reminded me of those served at the drugstore where I used to go after school in the 1960s. In fact, the hamburger brought back those memories, too. Pretty tasty food for a 12-year-old. But now that I’m an old goat, my taste buds have matured. I prefer thicker hamburgers, like the Waterboy Deluxe Burger, made from ground chuck. Perhaps I should have ordered the megaburger?

By the time we slid out of our seats, $20 poorer and a bit fatter than when we walked in the door, there were so many people standing behind us that I couldn’t reach my bag on the floor. I grabbed the handle and tugged it between the stools, almost knocking some guy in the face. That’s when I realized my cellphone was still turned to “silent.” Ah, the sweet bliss of no phone calls about my Sacramento short sales for two solid hours. It was back to business. If we go back to Jim-Denny’s, though, I will definitely order the megaburger.

I should also mention that the funeral was for a real estate agent who worked at my midtown office of Lyon Real Estate. I suspect he forgave me for looking at my cellphone. He was the type who would understand. He was a good egg and will be missed. You know, we just don’t have enough good eggs in this world.

Photos: Elizabeth Weintraub

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The Short Sale Savior, by Elizabeth Weintraub, available through bookstores everywhere and at Amazon.com.

Some Short Sale Promoters Push Folks to the Edge With Short Sale Spam

Homebuying is a Frustrating Process for Some Sacramento Home Buyers

Elizabeth Weintraub — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 16:56:47 +0000

Whenever I leave the comfort of my home-based office, I try to plan my driving route to incorporate stops along the way so I can maximize my time. For example, if I need to drop off dry cleaning, I’ll do it on my way to my midtown Lyon Real Estate office, rather than make a separate trip to the dry cleaners. That explains why I never have anything to wear.

Because I had to drive out the 99 freeway yesterday to put a lockbox on another Elk Grove short sale listing, I figured I’d stop at a few furniture stores on my way back to look at bedroom furniture. I’m still on a quest for a new bed and dresser. I know exactly what I want, the dimensions, type of color and finish, style, even down to the type of construction.

I walked into Signature, which took over the space on 55th that was previously occupied by Levitz. Like most furniture stores, the cheaper stuff is at the front, and the quality stuff is on display at the back. I found a halfway decent bedroom set at the very back and tracked down a salesperson to ask for the dimensions. He couldn’t tell me. His answer was, “If it doesn’t fit, I’ll take it back.” His focus was on selling me and he wasn’t listening.

Next, I went to Beck’s. Walked all the aisles and finally stopped a salesperson who walked right by me without making eye contact. She asked who greeted me at the front door. Why, nobody. I explained what I was looking for, and while she was very polite and nice, she didn’t know her product line.

Further up the road at American Furniture Galleries, a salesperson said hello when I walked in the door. He grabbed a tape measure so he could figure out the width of his dressers. I was surprised that he didn’t know the dimensions of his inventory. He showed me expresso finishes when I told him I wanted brown cherry. Finally, he handed me the tape measure and wandered off.

OK, so I’ll go downtown to Macy’s. The first salesperson did not know the difference between an Eastern King and a California King bed. He became frustrated and suggested I pick out what I wanted, and he’d write it up. I wanted to buy two pieces of furniture that would fit in a specific space along my wall. I spied another salesperson and approached him. I explained my dilemma. He listened. Showed me a set that would fit. Explained why it would fit. He even looked up compatible pieces that were discontinued on his computer.

All of this made me realize how frustrated some Sacramento home buyers must feel while they are out homebuying. Especially those buyers who know exactly what they want. Some real estate agents tell buyers to look at online listings and to let the agent know when a home suits their fancy. Are we guilty of throwing inventory at home buyers, expecting them to come back to us when they’re ready to buy and we’ll write it up? Are we order takers?

Or do we listen to our home buyers’ wants and needs and try to find that perfect home for them? Do we research the background and history of that home so our buyers can make an informed decision? Or do we tell them that after it closes, if they don’t like it, we’ll sell it again for them?

I have the ability to fine-tune MLS searches for my buyers. For example, if they want to look at homes in Land Park, in a very specific neighborhood, I can manually draw a map search for them based on street boundaries. I can narrow the search based on certain criteria, say, by sending only those listings within that neighborhood that have 2 baths, a fireplace and hardwood floors. If a buyer prefers a one-story home, I’m certainly not going to show the buyer two-story homes.

After I spend a few hours showing homes, I have extracted so much information from my buyers that if they haven’t found a home they like during our first tour, I now know exactly what type of home they want. I can see it in my mind and spot it when I find it in MLS. I search through inventory for them. I email my thoughts on new listings to my actively searching buyers. We talk. Interact. And they find their dream homes.

But, boy, do I feel sorry for them when they go furniture shopping.

Photo: Big Stock Photo

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The Short Sale Savior, by Elizabeth Weintraub, available through bookstores everywhere and at Amazon.com.

Photo: Unless otherwise noted in this blog, the photo is copyrighted by Big Stock Photo and used with permission.