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Elizabeth Weintraub
Private Tour Photos Mauna Loa Observatory Hawai’i
Elizabeth Weintraub and Aidan Colton at Mauna Loa Observatory
For years I have wanted to tour the Mauna Loa Observatory and yesterday we finally had the chance. Although not really open to the public, it is possible to request a private tour, which we arranged several weeks prior to coming to Hawaii. The Mauna Loa Observatory is one of 6 atmospheric baseline stations under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). I should point out that President Trump wants to cut funding by 30% to this important federal organization. Probably because it is based in science, which our President does not believe is real.
You might ask what do they do at the Mauna Loa Observatory? They monitor and record atmospheric changes through constant measurements of greenhouse gases, which include carbon dioxide, aerosols, nitrous oxide, stratospheric ozone, solar radiation, among other compounds. The chart that tracks annual carbon dioxide in our atmosphere begins in the 1950s, with a line that starts at the left and rises to the right at slightly more than a 45-degree angle. Which is disturbing.
Are you aware that the ozone layer still has a giant hole in it at the South Pole? It can fix itself if we stop contributing to releasing CFCs. The Montreal Protocol in 1987 banned things like aerosol propellants, i.e. shaving cream and hairspray, to try to stop the destruction.
They do more cool things at the Mauna Loa Observatory, too. In addition to studying carbon cycles, there are different groups who study stuff like ozone, solar radiation, aerosol and halocarbons.
We got to enter the small observatory dome on the premises. Aidan Colton, an atmospheric scientist on staff at the Mauna Loa Observatory and tour coordinator, manually rotated the dome. He showed us how the opening can be controlled manually as well. Across the way is the microwave antennae facing Mauna Kea. It was a strange feeling to be above the clouds yet attached to earth.
Let me tell you, if you decide to take this tour, forget what you have heard about the Mauna Loa Observatory Road. It is completely paved. Sure, you’ve got your death markers every few miles or so for people who met their fate driving faster than 20 MPH or skateboarding down the road, hard to say. It features blind curves as well, which adds to the excitement and adventure of getting to your destination. It’s the journey.
The elevation at Mauna Loa Observatory exceeds 11,000 feet. Some people can get altitude sickness. A smart person noted elevation marks on the road’s pavement. The elevation changes are evident in the landscaping, like mini climates on some of the Galapagos Islands. It’s hard not to notice different climate zones as you climb. First, there is vegetation and trees. Then different layers from various eruptions. Mauna Loa, the largest volcano in the world, has erupted 33 times that we know of, the last time in 1984.
Noting the various lava flows is fascinating. I began to think of the structure and integrity as food. Some flows are reminiscent of brown sugar. Another area looked like dark chocolate chunks, followed by semi-sweet mini pieces of chocolate. As though a giant Caterpillar backhoe dug up nature except the earth herself created this. Pseudo Irish Burren. Red sugar sprinkles over white bark candy. It’s absolutely gorgeous, still, pristine, not a sound but the wind, the sort of experience that can make one choke up in the presence of its raw beauty.
Below are many photos of our journey to visit Mauna Loa Observatory. I hope you enjoy them. And, my commercial, if you’re ever in need of a Sacramento Realtor, I am a top producer who consistently ranks among the top 10 agents in town with 43 years in the business. Call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759, Lyon Real Estate.
Are Double-Ending Listing Agents Bad News for Sacramento Sellers?
Double ending listing agents tend to cost the seller money.
Double-ending listing agents have been around since I started in the business in the early 1970s. They are still in the business today. Whether they will survive the real estate shake-up in the future, like 10 to 15 years from now, is doubtful. The reason I think they’ll eventually vanish is because they are a bad idea to start with. Time will only make them worse. I also believe sellers are becoming more sophisticated. They are wising up.
Although, at least in Sacramento, double-ending listing agents happens fewer times than one might think. It’s just not all that common.
There are unscrupulous double-ending listing agents who do everything in their power, generally at their seller’s detriment, to ensure they will get both sides of the commission. They do it so innocently that most sellers never even know what’s going on.
When I look at a listing and see the following things, it’s fairly obvious to me the listing agent is trying to double-end the transaction. For example, there are almost no photographs. No photographs means buyers will call the listing agent to get more information, and then the listing agent can represent them. Or, the listing will not allow a buyer’s agent to call the seller for showings. The listing will state: call listing agent. Then the listing agent will not answer the phone when Coldwell Banker lights up. Or the agent will only return voicemail from buyers. Or, the agent makes showings very difficult, like only between 3 and 4 PM on a Thursday.
If you think this isn’t going on in Sacramento real estate, I’ve got some swamp land in Florida to sell you.
Naive sellers might think they are getting a good deal if their double-ending listing agents also represents the buyer. Even if I ask: if you were suing your husband for divorce and demanding alimony, would you use your husband’s lawyer? If your son was on trial for murder, would you hire the prosecuting lawyer as your own? Dual agency is not a good idea.
Some double-ending listing agents offer a discount, too, when they take both sides of the commission. Are sellers getting a break or are they getting taken to the cleaners? The smart sellers reject this notion of dual agency. They figure out that hiring a top-notch listing agent who only represents their interests is the way to go, and instead of making money, they lose money by hiring a discount agent intent on double ending.
When you see a big price drop or a home that sold for a lot less than the list price, often it’s the transaction in which the agent represented both the buyer and seller.
That’s why buyers call me all the time and beg me to work with them. They expect me to throw my sellers under the bus when my intentions are the opposite. I intend to maximize my seller’s profit, not reduce it for my own personal gain. To do otherwise is dishonest. To expect me to be dishonest is insulting.
There is a reason discount agents don’t get paid the same as others. You take top listing agents whose average sales ratio might be 103%, meaning they sell their listings for 3% more than list price, and all of that hogwash about double-ending saving money goes right out the window. Double-ending listing agents tend to cost money. But it’s every seller’s right to choose lousy service and bad representation if that’s what they want. It’s a free country.
Kona Natural Energy Laboratory Tours Amaze and Astound
Makai Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion Plant near Kona airport, Hawaii
If you do nothing else while on vacation in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, make sure you take at least one Natural Energy Laboratory Tour. It is really incredible. You’ll find a variety of tours to choose from, and all sorts of adventures await. You will see and learn things that seem impossible to ordinary mortals. It’s enough to make you want to go back to school to become a marine biologist or some other kind of scientist instead of maybe a Sacramento Realtor.
When the OTEC project was completed a couple years ago, I recall reading about it and feeling like science fiction has met finally met reality and the future is now. It’s a renewable and sustainable way to convert sea water into energy, utilizing science, that thing Donald Trump doesn’t believe in, science. The Makai Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion plant cost only $2 million to build. There is an entire park built around the Makai OTEC plant called the HOST Park, which stands for Hawaii Ocean Science and Technology.
This is also where you can buy Kona lobsters. They grow Maine lobsters here at the park, along with a large variety of other shellfish and seafood. They also do a lot of algae energy research and production from biofuels to food supplements.
Scientists at Octopus Farm in Kailua-Kona study octopus, with Makai OTEC in distance.
Many of the tubs in the photo above at the Octopus Farm support a live octopus for study. They are under one year of age. The scientists would like to find a way to provide a sustainable resource of octopus due to overfishing and killing of these magnificent creatures. Like my husband says, octopus are smarter than many people he has worked with. Certainly smarter than real estate agents, and I can say that being in the profession.
Octopus are friendly, inquisitive and extremely smart.
You can put your hand into the water and let them wrap around your fingers. After you meet an octopus in person, I don’t know if you could ever eat an octopus again. It seems too cruel to kill such an intelligent creature when there are much dumber species one could consume instead. Even The Beatles knew about an Octopus’s Garden, and how these remarkable cephalopods tend to rearrange their environment to suit themselves.
One of two monk seals in the wild of Kailua-Kona, Hawaii.
When our guide, Candee, and CEO of the nonprofit from Friends of the Natural Energy Laboratory, asked if we would like to see a monk seal in the wild, I did not believe we would find one. I thought maybe it was an excuse to stroll along the beach, climb over a bit of lava and hope to spot a monk seal. After all, there are only two monk seals who live in Kailua-Kona in the Pacific Ocean.
Hawaiian monk seal in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, in the wild.
I was very surprised to stumble upon this cove and find a monk seal. The Hawaiian monk seal is endangered. In the park, we were able to visit the Marine Mammal Center Ke Kai Ola as part of our tour. This place rescues and rehabilitates monk seals and releases them back into the wild. They say a monk seal needs to live to be at least 5 years old before the female can mate, but getting them to that age is a challenge.
Monk seals swallow fishermen’s hooks and face all sorts of dangers as a baby. The mother doesn’t stay with the monk seals for very long after birth and they either make it in the wild or they die.
When a Sacramento Buyer Cancels Escrow it Opens the Door
Another door can open when a Sacramento buyer cancels escrow.
When a Sacramento buyer cancels escrow, it can be hard on everybody all around. I’ve recently had to resell three homes due to buyers who ultimately did not perform. In one case, the buyer had wanted to buy a different home but the seller of that home had chosen a better offer, so the buyer lost out. When that seller lost her buyer, her agent notified our buyer, and enticed that buyer to cancel and buy the home the buyer wanted in the first place.
It worked out for that particular buyer but my poor sellers, living in a mobile home in the middle of South Dakota and praying for a closing, are distressed. That listing is back on the market. Buyers don’t care much about the ramifications of the hurricane they leave behind.
In another escrow, the buyer decided the sales price was too high halfway through. We had several appraisals, one of which exceeded the sales price, but the buyer refused to close. The buyer’s agent was so certain it was closing, we thought it was OK to remove the home staging. We had to re-stage. Fortunately, we found another buyer who liked the home enough to step up to the table. But it delayed closing for another 30 days.
The escrow that just closed yesterday was a shining example of what happens when a Sacramento buyer cancels escrow. The buyer’s agent had stopped all communication. Both my TC and I emailed, called and sent text messages almost daily, and the agent simply ignored all communication attempts. Finally, after dragging it out, sending a Demand to Close escrow, the agent finally called to say her buyer can’t get the loan.
My seller was furious. After he calmed down, he offered to pay me extra to get him a higher sales price. That in itself would be called a net listing. It means if a seller wants, say, $300,000 and I bring him an offer of $350,000, I make $50,000. Which is ridiculous. I get paid enough. It’s called a commission. I rejected the seller’s offer and simply found him another buyer.
We had an FHA appraisal at our sales price. The buyer’s agent knew this, and his buyer was FHA, still he wrote the offer for more than the sales price. It won’t appraise for more. An FHA appraisal is assigned a case number and the next buyer will get the same appraisal. Instead, I suggested the seller counter with the buyer paying the difference in hard cold cash, in addition to making the sale strictly AS IS.
The buyer sent a request for repair and we countered with Notice to Buyer to Perform to remove inspection contingencies. The buyer realized the error of his ways and backed off. We closed yesterday.
When I called the seller to confirm our recording, he was ecstatic. All of a sudden, having gone through two escrows was no big deal. Hey, I sold the house twice and was paid only once. But that comes with the territory. When a Sacramento buyer cancels escrow, it means we don’t abandon our sellers because of it and they should not abandon their listing agent either. It’s a two-way street.
In the end, my buyer received another $3,000 for his property for waiting another 30 days to close. Although he was unhappy at the time with the buyer who could not close, the next buyer paid even more. As long as he is happy, I am happy.
Expecting the Unexpected is Easier Said Than Done in Hawaii
The mongoose is an invasive species in Hawaii.
Expecting the unexpected is something I try to avoid due to careful planning and organization of my life, but you can’t really live well this way. One pretty much needs to expect the unexpected in order to prepare for it. In the case of my Sacramento real estate practice, for example, this ability, predicting future problems and avoiding them, is very handy for my clients. It is also rather rare for me to get freaked out over something, especially when I’ve witnessed so many oddities in life. Still, there are things that freak me out.
Weird things that make me laugh at my reaction to them. For example, yesterday an internet lead followed up with me and called. She apologized profusely for taking so long to return my phone call. She rambled on and on about how she had picked me exclusively to represent her because I’ve been in the business since 1974. She was impressed by my online reviews. She really wanted to meet with me to discuss selling a home in Orangevale. I was her agent.
From what I recall, her property turned out to be a mobile home unsecured to a permanent foundation, so, not real property. Second, she stated in her email the structures on the property were old, dilapidated yet she believed the acreage was worth at least $800,000. Except I could not find any documentation to support this theory. She wanted to meet with me on Monday. When I disclosed Monday is not possible because I am in Hawaii, she did not ask when I would return. I expressed my confusion over her estimate of value, explaining the comps show her property is worth $250K or so. She cut me off and hung up.
I was not expecting the unexpected to happen. Although it was for the best, I tell myself. But the thing is even delusional people can be educated. I have patience. I will take time to explain the reality of Sacramento real estate to people because I realize they don’t really know what I know. I find when people understand the facts, often their opinion is altered. My job is not to avoid ignorance, it’s to transform it.
Within minutes of this phone call, I suddenly noticed a squirrel on our patio. Right by the sliding door, looking at me. This was unexpected. It was even stranger because my brain shifted, and I realized this was not a squirrel. It was a mongoose, an invasive species to Hawaii. I have never seen a mongoose that up close and personal, and certainly not in my yard. I was not expecting the unexpected.
Although, I don’t know why. Another example: I hired a housecleaning service to come in and tidy up things before we arrived at our house in Hawaii. Dust. Vacuum. Clear out any geckos. I do not want to find another dead baby gecko, like I did just before I left in June. It was rolled up on its back with its little gecko legs in the air and had been hiding under the toaster. Those baby geckos are so small they can slide under closed doors. When they don’t find food, they die.
Then, I removed a clock from our wall to relocate it to a different spot. I had bought a hand-painted scroll from Bali to hang over the bronze buddha resting on a stand because the clock in that spot seemed unnatural. What? Inside the back of the clock was a baby gecko. I managed to drop the clock without breaking it, and called my husband, official gecko remover. Shared my technique of quickly covering the gecko with an empty yogurt carton, only because I had already broken a glass doing that, and then slowly sliding a wok spatula under the carton and carting all outside. Problem solved.
I picked up the clock again and examined the back of it to assess whether I had broken any part of it. Holy shit. Another gecko! Another baby gecko! This time the clock flew across the living room and onto the ceramic floor, while the baby gecko flew in the opposite direction of our bedroom. My husband tried to stomp on it but it slid under a bamboo transition piece. You never know what you will see or where you will see it in Hawaii. You’ve gotta expect the unexpected at all times.
