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Elizabeth Weintraub
What Home Sellers Can Get Away With in a Sacramento Sellers Market
Sellers are in the driver’s seat in a Sacramento sellers market.
Our market has favored home sellers for such a long time that it’s hard to recall when it wasn’t a Sacramento sellers market. You know, like back in the days of short sales. Back when we had to beg buyers to please buy a home at this fabulous discount. Although the discount was not always there. It was tough. I also recall managing 75 listings at one time. Talk about being super organized. Paramount. Nowadays, I can sleep in another 3 or 4 hours in the morning.
I just adapt to the market at hand. As a sole listing agent (I work with buyers only through my team members), I have learned to offer a different menu to my sellers in a Sacramento sellers market. If I sense the seller does not want to fix up the home or put much work into preparing the home for sale, I don’t force the issue. Why? Because I will sell it and for top dollar.
My advice to sellers is to talk with an experienced Realtor who has closed enough transactions to properly advise. Everybody has an opinion. It’s not the opinion a seller needs; it’s the facts. In a Sacramento sellers market, a seller can get away with murder, sans the blood and gore. My sellers often look at me with a wide-eyed expression, as though they can’t quite believe their good luck. But they can.
If you have a home in a bad location, I will sell it. If your home is not updated, in the hands of the right agent, it will sell. What about a home that needs repairs like a fixer? Super hot commodity! Plenty of salivating flippers. Moreover, in case you’re wondering, your home won’t sell itself. Not at top dollar. But that’s what a top agent can do for you.
After a buyer completes a home inspection, most of my sellers never lift a finger to fix anything. It’s an AS IS sale, and I help them to enforce that purchase contract clause. Buyers’ agents can whine all they want, but no repairs. No credits. I don’t care what’s wrong. They can stuff their health and safety issues you know where. Because this is a Sacramento sellers market. If buyers give us any grief, we’ll find a way to raise the price, ha, ha, ha.
Further, if you’re a seller looking for an experienced listing agent to sell your home, call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759. Get a full-service Sacramento Realtor on your side. You’re likely to walk away with more money that way, say, over a discounter. Because the commission is not the determining factor in a transaction like the discounters expect you to believe. It’s hiring an agent who knows what you can get away with in a Sacramento sellers market. Put my 44 years of experience to work for you.
Success as a Real Estate Agent Depends on Your Uniqueness
Success as a real estate agent means being yourself.
My elevator speech about success as a real estate agent is not canned, nor do I consider it really an elevator speech. I can condense just about anything down to one or two sentences, though, so I tend to wing it. For example, when I go to a seller’s home for a listing appointment, I conduct much of my interaction based on reactions from the seller. No identical appointments. No canned presentations. Although I do complete my agent visual inspection during every first visit, and I take copious notes. Carrying a clipboard and writing notes is my method of operation. In fact, you can get into just about any private event by carrying a clipboard and making notes.
Now, you probably remember the saying about being yourself because everybody else is taken. When I first started writing a blog about 12 years ago — gosh, it’s been THAT long — it concerned me for all of 5 minutes about my reader’s perception. Blogging is about putting yourself out there. And that can be scary for some people. But I’ve never been overly guarded and once you hit your 40th birthday or so, suddenly you have given yourself permission to be yourself. I don’t know why it can take that long for most people but it does.
I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that my success as a real estate agent is based on my unique ability to service a listing better than any other agent. My investment in tools, resources, education and technology is immense. I strive to be the very best Sacramento agent I can be because that’s who I am. Why would I want to be anything or anybody else? My entire life has been based on doing things the way I want to do them. It gets results or I wouldn’t do it.
This means I don’t care how another agent conducts her business. It’s not any of my business. I constantly run into agents who want to give me advice and expect me to do things the way they do them. The reason I have success as a real estate agent is because I don’t follow that advice. Otherwise, I would be just like those agents, and I am not. In fact, my sellers have shared that other agents feel intimated by my success. They tell my sellers: don’t hire Elizabeth because she has too much business. She won’t take care of you. Because they couldn’t do it if they ran my business. But nobody is standing in my shoes but me. I take care of each client like they are my only client.
Sounds like sour grapes to me from the mouths of those other guys.
Everybody is unique. People worry too much about what other people think of them or how they appear. Nobody cares about you, really. They are too wrapped up in their world. I especially recall one fabulous Christmas during a solo vacation in Vanuatu at an expensive resort. The waitstaff seemed concerned about me dining alone. I waved my arms, “Look around, nobody is looking at me. They are looking at each other.”
I accept responsibility for my own actions, my own results, and enjoy spectacular statistics as a Sacramento Realtor. My sellers tend to make more money because of my efforts and they enjoy a smooth transaction. That will never change. There is no other Sacramento Realtor like Elizabeth Weintraub. So go be a maverick in your own career. My success as a real estate agent is no accident.
Overview of Sacramento Housing Market for January 2018
Sacramento housing market for January 2018.
January has barely left us, and the snapshot of the Sacramento housing market for January 2018 mirrors pretty much what I have been experiencing. Some of you know, of course, that I spent the months of December and January working from my house in Hawaii. Not on Hawaii real estate as some incorrectly assume. I am not licensed to sell real estate in Hawaii. No, no, no, I am a Sacramento Realtor, and I work on Sacramento real estate from our vacation house.
I do such a bang-up job of it that I placed as the #1 Agent at Lyon Real Estate for January, and I wasn’t even in town. To put this into perspective, we have around 1,000 agents at Lyon.
Our Sacramento housing market for January 2018 is still red hot. One of the ways I can tell is buyer’s agents are calling me to ask if I will share details of upcoming listings. Complete strangers out of the blue. Most of these agents I don’t even know, but they know who I am. They also know I answer my phone, and I’m always working. I tend to sell a couple of homes a week. And last week I completed 5 listing appointments. I have others in the pipeline waiting to go live in MLS. Buyers are out there.
I’ll put it to you this way. When I have a pending listing that is a bit difficult to sell and we also hold a back-up offer on that listing, it’s a hot market. It’s a hot market for sellers because, get this, we are still getting showings for that home. Why, you might task? Because that happens to be in the best interest of my sellers.
We had a slight uptick of inventory in the Sacramento housing market for January 2018 as compared to the same time last year. However, that surplus was wiped out almost double that amount by the pending sales. Our inventory for all residential properties in Sacramento County increased 9.4%; yet our pending sales in year-over-year comparisons jumped by 18.1%. The closed sales, which resulted from pending sales over November and December remained at seasonal numbers, about par.
If you’re wondering about the Sacramento housing market for January 2018 and whether this is a good time to sell, it doesn’t get much better than this. Well, it will be more frantic in April, I predict. But if you own a home that you want to sell which has any kind of drawback, put it on the market now! Today! Buyers will overlook bad locations, defects, even high prices . . . if only, if only they could buy a home today.
Call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759. Put 44 years of experience to work for you.
Used with permission from Trendgraphix, January 2018 Sacramento Housing Market Trends.
Presenting a Sacramento Home in the Best Positive Light
Every so often, I get an agent complaining that I am guilty of presenting a Sacramento home in the best positive light. They want to know about all the drawbacks and icky things about it. Some of them can’t even see the forest for the trees. They automatically call a house a dog or otherwise trash it because they feel it doesn’t measure up to their incredibly picky standards. Some say their buyers feel duped because I said the home was beautiful and the agent doesn’t think it’s beautiful.
You know what I say about that? I say they are probably those Sacramento real estate agents who drive around town like their kids live here. I hate that. You know what? Your kids don’t live in that neighborhood. In fact, our world is overpopulated as it is. What is wrong with you guys? Try to drive the speed limit, for crying out loud. There are those of us behind your vehicle who have to be somewhere on time. Ha! Go wear your helmets while riding a bike, why doncha?
Also, I say every home is beautiful. Just like every baby is beautiful, even the ugly fat babies. Show me a mother who thinks her kid is ugly. You can’t. No difference with buying a home. Every homeowner picked their home for one or more reasons. To that person, the home is beautiful. Our ultimate buyer will believe the home is beautiful, too. Have you ever heard a person say she hated her stinkin’ house but bought it anyway? Didn’t think so. Everybody knows their own poop doesn’t stink.
My job as a Sacramento listing agent is to find the buyer who loves the home I have to sell. It is presenting a Sacramento home in the best positive light. I can always find stunning features to describe, no matter how small or insignificant to a buyer’s agent. Further, I try to minimize any drawbacks or not-so-nice features. If I describe the home as beautiful, it is beautiful. Carole King would agree.
You betcha, spread the beauty around, is my motto. In fact, I bet you didn’t even know that the most effective word in a real estate description is the word beautiful. It makes my sellers happy because I acknowledge the positive features and admire their home. It makes buyers happy because I reaffirm what they already know. Presenting a Sacramento home in the best positive light is what marketing is about. There is no downside to this except the agents who persist in driving down a street like their kids live there and making the rest of us slow down for no good reason.
Your Chance to Buy an East Sacramento Listing Not Yet in MLS
This East Sacramento listing is not yet in MLS but open on Sunday.
Here is your chance in a lifetime to buy an East Sacramento listing not yet in MLS. We can’t put this new listing into MLS because we don’t have the photographs, which will be shot next Monday. But the seller says, hey, let’s give buyers a chance to buy this off-market East Sacramento listing not yet in MLS. Yes, you can buy this home before it ever goes into MLS. Which means, if you’re tired of fighting tooth and nail to buy a home, just tour, write a full-price offer and be prequalified. How easy peasy is THAT? Not sure it gets any better than that. Not to mention, you can eliminate the headache of competition.
Think about this for a minute: would you like a four bedroom, two bath, spacious East Sacramento home designed for a multi-generational family? Of course you do. You can certainly use the entire house yourself, if you like, but it offers so many other possibilities. Say, for example, you have teenagers, the kind you would like to lock up and throw away the key. Heh, heh. Or, maybe you just want a little breathing space between yourself and the kids. This house would work! Have you elderly family members who prefer not to climb stairs? The lower level is completely accessible through the garage without any stairs. Almost 2,500 total square feet, according to the tax records.
Further, the main level of this East Sacramento listing not yet in MLS features a beautifully remodeled space. Refinished original hardwood floors from 1937. A fireplace flanked by a built-in bookcase that takes up an entire wall. Plantation shutters, dual pane. Gorgeous new kitchen with shaker cabinets, granite counters, ceramic flooring, brand new stainless appliances, newer light fixtures, including not only a dining bar but also a breakfast nook. You will also discover a formal dining room. The master is extra large with a super big walk-in closet. The second bedroom on this level is also good sized.
Need more? With all the right touches, you will discover an amazingly beautiful bath on this level, very spa-like. You will appreciate the separate tub with ceramic surround next to the separate walk-in shower. Adding to expectations is a newer vanity with dual sinks and granite counter, light fixtures and faucets.
More delights, the lower level features plenty of windows and light. Many updates on this level, too. For starters, two more bedrooms downstairs, plus a full bath. What you might not expect is the huge family / entertainment room. Why, it could be a yoga studio or just a place to hang out, play pool and watch TV. There is a fireplace on this level, too, including access to the 2-car garage. Next to the garage is a covered carport, offering 3 parking spots. Or, you could use the carport for RV or to park a boat.
Hey, you know there is nothing on the market, right? Yes, very little inventory. Countered by high buyer demand. Plus, this home is unique and fits so many circumstances that you can make it into any kind of home you desire. Absolutely, you will love the stone exterior with metal siding, and a tile roof adds to the curb appeal. Why not see for yourself the beauty and desirability of this East Sacramento listing not yet in MLS?
Please, feel free to visit our Lyon Real Estate Open House Extravaganza on Sunday, February 11th, from 1:00 to 4:00 PM. Hosted by Barbara Dow from the Elizabeth Weintraub Team. Also, Sunday is a good day to visit McKinley Park, a hop, skip and a jump away.
Of course, 541 42nd Street, Sacramento, CA 95819, is offered exclusively by your East Sacramento Realtor, Elizabeth Weintraub and Lyon Real Estate at an affordable price of $675K. Don’t wait, call Elizabeth for more information at 916.233.6759.
