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Elizabeth Weintraub
Get a Real Estate License To Buy A home
This post below, A Real Estate License Won’t Help You to Buy a Home was written in 2012 by my partner Elizabeth Weintraub and is still very relative today. Because the market is strong, every Tom, Dick and Harry wants to get a real estate license. Enjoy.
Some people in California think it’s a good idea to get a real estate license just in case they ever want to buy a home in Sacramento. Because if you have a real estate license, then you can collect a commission, which is reflected as a percentage amount of the sales price. All commissions are negotiable and generally paid by the listing broker to the selling broker, so while you might think this could amount to a lot of money, it’s generally not by the time it reaches the buyer’s agent pocket. Not in the overall scheme of things.
Yet, almost one in every 35 people in California has a real estate license. It’s hard to turn around at a party in Sacramento and not spill the drink of a Sacramento real estate agent. Snort as you may, not every person who holds a real estate license should be holding a cocktail much less trying to earn a living from said license, but that doesn’t stop them from getting drunk and / or practicing real estate.
On top of this, we’ve also got the agents who want to represent themselves to buy a home in Sacramento. Especially agents from the Bay Area. You know what they say about that, right? A fool for a client. I look at my own situation. I’ve been in the real estate business for more than 35 years, so I’m not exactly a rookie. I like to think I know what I’m doing. But if I were buying a home out of my area, I would hire a local expert. The few thousand I would earn (and I use the word “earn” loosely) to represent myself is not worth the tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, I could lose.
Besides, my expectations are very high. I’m a high maintenance client. I would not want to work for myself. Some people might call me a pain in the ass. I expect exceptional service. Nope, I’d much rather hire a buyer’s agent and make unreasonable demands of her. That’s part of the service an exceptional real estate agent provides — client management.
If you want to buy a home call Wallace & Weintraub Realtors, with RE/MAX Gold we will help you to save time a call us today at 916-233-6759.
Elizabeth Weintraub
Chocolate Tour at Kokoleka Lani Cacao Farm in Kona
We missed the tour of the cacao farm in Kona last week because I used the wrong GPS and was halfway the wrong way when I figured it out. But the owners were nice enough to reschedule us for the following week. The cacao farm in Kona was fascinating and inspiring. Above is a photo of me holding a pod I just cracked in one blow with the raw seeds inside.
Of course, I immediately shot a photo of a cacao pod and sent it to my husband, asking if he knew what it was. That’s because he is in California while I am in Hawaii. Although, we did tour the Vanillerie together not too long ago, and I imagine he would really enjoy this particular tour as well.
His reply to me was “deformed papaya?” Followed by “hand grenade in disguise.” Then he wanted to know if I had found this pod on our property, as there is an entire area down the hill that I have not yet explored due to improper shoes at my disposal.
Greg Colton, co-owner of the Kokoleka Lani Cacao Farm, planted more than 2,000 cacao trees. They have many locations, and the chocolate they make is different depending on where it was grown. Each microclimate on Big Island is unique, and we have 8 basic climate zones.
After the tour, we cracked open our cacao pods, which we cut off ourselves from the tree. Inside are raw cacao nuts. At the moment, I have a plate of them on my kitchen counter, covered with wet paper towels, waiting to sprout. They need a canopy, like a madre de cacao, to provide filtered light, and we have perfect conditions on the lower side of our home in Kona.
Don’t plant one of everything, is sound advice for gardeners in Hawaii. It’s just so danged hard to choose.
At the end of the cacao tour in Kona, we sampled a wide variety of freshly made chocolate. Which a visitor can also buy in the gift shop. Each variety was slightly different. Our guide asked for a show of hands regarding favorites and hands shot up at random, making it very clear that tastes are personal.
You can find chocolate tours in Kona that cost more than a Ben Franklin, or you can sign up at Event Brite for $25. See the Puna Chocolate Company for more information on its Cacao Farm Tour in Kona. They are located just past the Central Bark Dog Park in Kona, by the Water Plant off the highway.
How to Catch a Pig in Kona
Never imagined I would need to learn how to catch a pig in Kona, but that monumental occasion has now presented itself. It is part of living in “the country,” even though our new house is only a couple of miles from our previously very urban house in Hawaii. Instead of a .05 acre lot in The Pines, we now own a house on a half acre up Hualalai. And it abuts to private agricultural land, which supports horses, cows and, unfortunately, the wild boars of Hawaii.
When I first noticed a pig had torn up on the lawn on the south side of our property, I shored up the hog wire fence and hoped for the best. The pigs still managed to squeeze on through, albeit a smaller hole. Naturally, I shored it up again, with tighter spacing on the stakes. So, they found a new place. Now I know why my neighbor installed expensive wrought iron fencing around his property.
Also, in my quest for figuring out how to catch a pig in Kona, I turned to the internet for answers. Eureka, but then I found a former Council Member had access to a list he maintained of pig trappers in Kona. I contacted the office of our new Council Member Valerie T. Poindexter, and Sunshine emailed me the list. There are 29 pig trappers on that list but not all of them are located in Kailua-Kona.
I also watched a few videos. There is one YouTube video of a guy in Cambodia making a snare out of a Y-shaped piece of wood and rope. Watched it several times. Seemed simple enough to make a snare, but I do not excel at rope tying. Sacramento real estate, yes, but not rope tying. No sailor bones in me. No knots, no roping.
Fortunately, a person whose name I cannot give you stepped in to help, only under the circumstances of identity protection and that I do not tell anybody that he installed a pig trap in my yard. It a mutual gratification situation. I want to catch a pig in Kona and get rid of it. He wants the pig because Kailua pigmeat is darn tasty!
Which means as long as his freezer is not full, he is game to catch a pig in Kona for me.
Last night, I woke at 12:30 AM. Our cats were at the bedroom jalousie window. This is about 6 feet from my bed and I’ve never had the pigs wake me up before. Slept right through the munching from earlier times. I peeked out the window and spied 3 black humps in the yard, just standing there. Wanted to say, hey, go eat all of the corn and molasses I bought for you. Couldn’t turn on the lights to take a photo because they’d run away.
So I just went back to bed. They did not enter the trap last night. But tonight could very well be another story. Aloha.
Double Ending the Short Sale vs Giving the Seller Highest and Best Shouldn’t Be a Dilemma
This article titled: Double Ending the Short Sale vs Giving the Seller Highest and Best Shouldn’t Be a Dilemma, was written by Elizabeth for another publication back in the sorry years. Enjoy. — JaCi Wallace
Many Sacramento listing agents are receiving multiple offers, and not just on REOs or short sales. Any attractively priced, well appointed home in a desirable Sacramento location is likely to draw the attention of more than one buyer. The listing agent plays an important role toward helping the seller figure out which offer to accept because the highest offer isn’t always the best offer.
On top of that, sometimes the listing agent will bring his or her own buyer to the table. In that case, the agent is operating in dual agency but it does not relieve the agent from protecting the seller’s interests.
Take, for example, California taxation on debt forgiveness. Although the federal government will not tax mortgage debt forgiveness on an owner-occupied dwelling in 2009, the state of California is no longer exempt. The exemption expired Dec. 31, 2008. That means it is extremely important for a short sale listing agent to get the seller the highest price. A higher price equals less debt forgiveness. The lower the short fall, the lower the tax.
Yesterday an agent emailed to say she was about to write an offer on one of my Sacramento short sale listings. I told the agent that a buyer had expressed interest in writing an all-cash, full-price offer, so she would need to beat that offer. Fortunately, the buyer hadn’t yet contacted me directly to write the offer, so I had no fiduciary relationship to the buyer. Giving the seller highest and best as a listing agent means exactly that.
The thing is I don’t know if most agents would sabotage the chance to double-end their own deals just to net the seller more money, but that wasn’t my first thought. I was focused on getting the seller the highest price. After I clicked “send,” I watched my chances of earning twice the commission slip silently away. I thought about it before I clicked the send button, so it’s not like it just dawned on me, yet it was the right thing to do. I don’t think we can ever go wrong in this business by listening to our conscience and doing the ethical thing.
Having been on the other end as a buyer’s agent, I’m wondering how many agents would agree with me. Giving the seller highest and best is what we do.
Call us today Weintraub & Wallace Realtors at RE/MAX Gold. We can be reached at 916-233-6759.
How Lockboxes Work
As we recently posted an interesting blog on a lockbox key, where the Realtor takes keys after showing a listing, this article written by Elizabeth seemed appropriate. Enjoy– JaCi Wallace
If you’ve ever wondered about the history of lockboxes, they go back to days long ago forgotten. But the newest lockboxes work digitally. They will record who comes and goes into your home, so you know which agents have had access and when.
Some sellers wonder if lockboxes are necessary, if they work and whether they provide security. The answer is a resounding yes to all of those questions. Moreover, without a lockbox, buyers might never see your home. Especially in buyer’s markets, when inventory is high, you want to provide the easiest and most convenient way for buyers to see your home.
The biggest stumbling block some agents face is figuring out where to find the lockbox. Is it on the gate, behind a bush on the gas meter or on the garage? Smart listing agents include comments in the agent section in MLS that tell agents where to find the lockbox.
Read more about How Lockboxes Work.
Call Weintraub & Wallace Realtors with RE/MAX GOLD. We can be reached at 916-233-6759.
