What Sacramento Buyer’s Agents Want to Know

As a listing agent in Sacramento, I hear almost immediately from a lot of buyer’s agents when any of my new listings hit the market. Ding, ding, ding, my phone rings, one call after another. Especially if the listing is priced well and a turnkey home. The first thing agents want to know is if it’s still available, even if it’s only been in MLS for 30 minutes. That’s not as unusual as it may sound because my photos look enticing, the marketing verbiage is attractive and, in our competitive market in Sacramento, sometimes buyers don’t view the home before writing an offer. With digital online signing services such as DocuSign, buyers can quickly sign an offer within minutes for submission.

Of course, I check the Supra lockbox online showings to determine if the agent representing the buyer has entered the house. But that doesn’t tell me if the buyer was with the agent at the time. The buyer could live in San Francisco for all I know, but I can get a clue from the address on the buyer’s preapproval letter or earnest money deposit check. I can also just ask the agent. This is part of the information I pass on to my sellers as together we analyze the purchase offers.

The second thing buyer’s agents want to know is how much their buyer must offer to buy the home, on top of how many offers we have received. I will answer the third question but not the second, unless the seller instructs me to do it. And since it’s not really in the seller’s interest to disclose how high a buyer needs to go, few sellers will give me the go-ahead, yet buyer’s agents will still ask about it. They need to study the comparable sales and act accordingly; do their job.

Buyer’s agents will say: My buyers really wants to buy this house, so tell me how much they have to pay to get it. Well, I don’t know because it’s not my house. That’s the seller’s decision, and the seller probably doesn’t even know. If there is financing, the home needs to appraise. Moreover, if I tell that buyer’s agent how much everybody else offered, then I have to go back to all of those other agents and tell them how much the other buyers have offered. I can’t treat one agent with preference over another agent. They wouldn’t like it if the tables were turned and it was done to them. I am a REALTOR, which means I have to abide by the Code of Ethics, and I must treat all parties fairly.

It’s not just a made-up code that nobody follows.