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Elizabeth Weintraub
Kona Maka’eo Walking Path and Community Garden
We found a sign at the Maka’eo Walking Path noting if we walked around the path 3 times, we’d surpass 2 miles of steps for the day. Oh, man, what did we do before we counted our steps and distances? Didn’t we just walk, by putting one foot in front of the other without any goal to reach a certain number of steps before the end of the day? How did we ever make it through the day back in those dark ages without this knowledge?
Apple knows. In fact, there is a way to turn off the STAND or BREATHE function on my Apple Watch but I’m too lazy to look for it. So, instead little irritations build. Further, I am irritated that it started with 5,000 steps and then lord knows who proclaimed, no, we must do 10,000 steps a day. Screw those people. And Apple, too. Don’t let your watch tell you what to do. Resist.
Reminds me of the story about running into Patricia Clarkson at Safeway in Kona and mistaking her for Cyndi Lauper.
If you are looking for a relaxing stroll without being forced to count your steps or maybe you want to run or jog, the Maka’eo Walking Path offers all of those options. The day we were there last week, it was fairly warm, middle of the afternoon, and not very many people on the paved path at all.
We spotted large numbers of mongooses runningamuck. Feral cats live in this community garden, too, but we didn’t see any.
It is a little difficult to find if you don’t know where the Maka’eo Walking Path is located, and GPS is not a lot of help. So here are my directions. Drive down Kuakini until it ends by the Old Pavillion. Park there. On the mauka side of the road, walk beyond the store with the sign that warns: no skateboarding, no camping, no loitering, no NOTHING, at the canoe place. Go north a little bit further past the skateboard park and you will find the Maka’eo Walking Path.
This is an Australian Fire Tree, which I believe I’ve also discovered in Golden Gate Park, except this is in Kona. There are many sections devoted to certain types of plants and cared for by individuals as well as non-profit organizations. Not as many flowers were in bloom this time of year, though.
We have been searching for a tall lipstick palm for our front yard since our gardener Charlie removed our pathetic dwarf avocado. His irrigation friend Alistaire seemed to think the avocado tree was diseased. The tips of the leaves had all turned brown, and this has been going for on years. Our local celebrity gardener Barbara Bolton said it might be because we watered it too much, and that 10 minutes a day every other day is too much.
Who knows why the avocado tree responded so negatively to the sun and sea air of our yard in Hawaii? Charlie found a front-yard replacement plant, a lipstick palm at Lowes, but he claimed $200 was too much to pay for a 4-foot palm. He assures us we could find at least a 7-foot lipstick palm for around $300.
These palms in the Maka’eo Walking Path are not lipstick palms, and I don’t think they are bottle palms, either. They could very well be Madagascar palms, originating from Madagascar, an island off the coast of southern Africa. Otherwise known as dragon trees.
11 Months to Sell a Home in Davis, CA
Not since the days of short sales that pretty much ended 8 years ago, I have never encountered such a difficult time to sell a home in Davis, CA. The sellers and I met in early March of last year; they were referred to me. Very nice people, and I sincerely wanted to help them receive top dollar for their home. Of course, part of the problem was they were certain they could get more for the home than I suggested.
Fortunately, they owned the home free and clear, and had invested, according to the seller, a few hundred thousand. They remodeled the kitchen, added a permitted sunroom and updated the back yard. The sellers really wanted to try a higher sales price based on their upgrades, and I agreed to give it a shot. Another agent might have refused the listing under those circumstances, but not this Sacramento Realtor.
My feeling is if I like the sellers, we get along, their happiness is of primary importance to me. We can argue all day about the price, but in the end, it is the seller who chooses. Not only that, but the City of Davis needs to complete an inspection, and the inspection for this house reflected about a dozen permit violations.
We went on the market in early April and began working on clearing the problems to gain the occupancy certificate. Many showings ensued and we held many open houses, but no offers.
One of the things I do for my clients is send buyer feedback. All of the feedback complained about the dark kitchen, the dark granite counters, they didn’t care for the sunroom and they didn’t like the back yard, plus many complained about the layout. Finally, the sellers agreed to lower the price.
Then agents in Davis began calling to inquire: what’s the deal with this Davis house? As I typically do when days on market seem lengthy, we pulled a new MLS number with a new listing to attract more attention. Plus, when we reset the days on market, it makes the listing more inviting to buyers.
Shortly after that, we received an offer and went into escrow. But the appraisal came in low. The buyers had already removed inspection contingencies, and the seller readily agreed to sell at the new appraised value. However, as soon as the sellers agreed to lower the price, the buyers decided it wasn’t low enough. They wanted to renegotiate instead. Who knows what makes people think this way?
These are the situations where a seller might wonder if it’s worth suing the buyers, but they really just wanted to sell a home in Davis. We cut the buyers loose.
Next set of buyers didn’t make it very far in escrow. I don’t even recall what their objection was or why they canceled. My job is to keep up the sellers’ spirits and to perform. I promised that I would find another buyer, a real buyer, a buyer who loves their home and will close escrow. But it would take one more price reduction, and the sellers agreed.
Sure enough, after we adjusted the price to where it should have been in the first place, we received a fast offer. We went into escrow about a week before Christmas. If this home had been priced where it needed to be last April, we would have received multiple offers. But the sellers did not want to do it at that time. Most agents would not work this hard to sell a home in Davis, but I will do it. Sometimes the only way to make sure a seller understands the market is to show it to them through the eyes of a lengthy listing. That is OK with me.
Because I will work on that house until it sells. I do not abandon my sellers nor get frustrated with them. Mrs. Seller told me yesterday that she was very pleased with my patience and upbeat attitude when we would speak. Mr. Seller said I was always calm, and was his rock throughout the sale process.
I was determined to sell a home in Davis in the timeframe that best suited my sellers. Not in the timeframe that best suited me. So while I sat dripping wet on the beach at Kahulu’u after snorkeling yesterday, I paused to think about these sellers, and how sincerely happy I am their home closed escrow on Friday, January 18th! We sold to real buyers this time, just like I promised.
The Vanillerie Tour in Kona Ends With Ice Cream
My friends at the Kona Haven Coffee group mentioned The Vanillerie tour in Kona a few weeks back, and I had forgotten about it. They were a little vague about where the place was located, saying it was past the turnoff for Costco. But after I read the reviews online among the list of things to do in Kona, I thought my husband would enjoy it during his stay.
At the beginning of the tour, Steve began the narration. We learned he has lived in Kona for 14 years and came here from Washington. It seems everybody we meet in Kona, if they were not born here, count their years like rings on a tree, and some with great pride. It’s always an announcement or a question about how long one has lived in Kona.
The people we bought our house from said residents are slow to warm to newcomers, always concerned they will make a close friend and then that friend will go back to the Mainland. With people my age, the greater concern is your new friend will DIE from OLD age. Honestly!
The Vanillerie tour in Kona starts with an introduction to the vanilla bean, which is actually an orchid. Not many people know this. Or if they knew it at one time, it’s escaped their now mature memory banks, or got shoved behind a bunch of boxes in the attic as information that has no bearing on your life when you live in, say, Minneapolis.
We discovered during the Vanillerie tour that vanilla beans need filtered and shaded light in a warm, humid area. What kind of weather is better than Kona? They must also be pollinated, which at the Vanillerie is done by hand. After you pick the beans, which takes about 3 years to mature, they are still alive, and they must be killed. Which they do with heat.
Then the vanilla beans go through a curing process, which involves sweating and drying.
As you can see on these trays, the vanilla beans on top are drying. The pieces in the containers below the top row are cut up with plans to make them into a vanilla powder.
After the Vanillerie tour in Kona, we returned to the gift shop, the building we first entered, to enjoy vanilla ice cream. They also sell vanilla extract and kits to make your own vanilla extract from vanilla beans. Just add alcohol, how easy is that?
Or you can buy a variety of vanilla products like scented candles or vanilla hand lotion. A little goes a long way with the hand lotion. I dribbled a teaspoon on my hands and tried to wipe off the excess on my husband, but he was having none of my shenanigans.
The tour is only $15 and well worth the visit. The reception area with the picnic tables can be transformed into a place for group lunches, celebrations or weddings.
The Vanillerie, 73-4301 Laui St, Kailua-Kona, Island of Hawaii, HI 96740-9010. 808.331.8535. 10 AM to 4 PM, 3 tours a day.
Mahai’lua Beach at Kekaha Kai State Park
You have to really want to visit Mahai’lua Beach to drive down the road to get there. To say the road is unimproved is to put it mildly. In fact, there is a sign about halfway down the road that warns you are entering an unimproved road, just in case you didn’t know. However, the road to the unimproved road is also unimproved, so it makes you wonder how much worse can it get.
Wasn’t bad in my Subaru SUV, but some of the people who care about their suspension (or maybe their kidneys) had turned around and headed back to the highway. It’s about a 15-minute drive, averaging somewhere between 5 and 10 miles per hour. But who is in a hurry? This is Hawaii! You’ll get to Mahai’lua Beach. Eventually.
Mahai’lua Beach is long and wide, with beautiful sand. This is not the most beautiful beach in the Kekaha Kai State Park. There is another beach, but it is a longer walk. From the parking lot, it is about a 1/2 mile walk to the beach, through a gate to a path.
Beyond that beach, you need to navigate another 1/2 mile over lava beds and lava rock to reach the most beautiful beach, known as Makalawena Beach. Best white sand beach in West Hawaii. But we did not reach that beach since it was already mid afternoon, and the walk in hot sun over lava did not appeal to my husband. But we will go there another day.
Waves were high and surf was up the day we were at Makai’lui Beach. We could watch the surfers way off in the distance patiently wait for the best waves. On occasion, there were sets of waves rolling on top of each other. I almost jumped in the water with all of my clothes on but then I realized after the beach, we had to stop at Wal-Mart to exchange a propane tank.
The sun must have made me dizzy because as I stood in line at Wal-Mart to pay for an exchange, I could have sworn the clerk kept talking about cocaine to the guy in front of me. I was thinking, hey, can’t she see I’m standing right here? She shouldn’t be discussing a cocaine transaction in the middle of the store.
When I shared this interaction with my husband, he began to parody JJ Cale’s song, Cocaine: if you want to grill meat, you’ve got to take her out, propane.
This is the same Hawaiian monk seal that we spotted in the small lagoon during our tour a few years ago of the Kona Natural Energy Laboratory. We have only two Hawaiian monk seals on the Big Island, and we found both of them this week at Mahai’lua Beach.
Fortunately, there are volunteers who put up signs and rope off the areas to keep tourists and beachgoers away from the Hawaiian monk seals. The monk seals are an endangered species and endemic to the islands, meaning they are found no place else in the world.
It is also possible to hike about 7 miles south to reach Kua Bay, another popular yet secluded location for a beach. At least Kua Bay is a place you can drive on a paved surface to reach.
Successor Trustee Sellers Thrilled They Picked Right Agent
These successor trustee sellers did not know which agent to hire but they knew they wanted an experienced Sacramento Realtor. So, they went to a referral service that refers top producers in exchange for a piece of the action from the agent. This particular company sends seller’s information to a bunch of top producers and they let the agents fight it out to get the business.
As a top listing agent in Sacramento, I charge more than just about any other agent, because I’ve never lowered my commission from 40 years ago. It’s been the same amount. However, I am also confident I am worth the standard commission rate and so are my clients. They know better than to shop for an agent based on commission. We all charge about the same anyway; and they wanted the very best.
It also helped that I checked out the property before I contacted these successor trustee sellers. Even knowing that sellers often go with the very first agent who contacts them, I take my time to verify that I really want the listing. That means looking up the history of past sales and studying the specifics for red flags. This way I speak with authority when I talk to the sellers.
Upon checking, the public records showed no sales since 1989, and different sellers were in title than the names I had from the referral source. Due to experience, I guessed quite accurately that it was a successor trustee sale, as I do so many of them.
When I sent a quick email to the successor trustee sellers, I asked if this was a possible successor trustee sale. They called and asked me to come over. Said nobody else had figured out that this was not really their home or how they came in possession to sell it. I was the only agent who took the time to do my homework first before I chased a listing.
Every single listing I take is important and special to me. Few agents are as focused or dedicated to the sellers as I am. Sometimes I hear agents tell sellers that Elizabeth Weintraub can’t possibly do a good job because she sells so many homes, and they can do a better job because they sell so few. Which is the stupidest thing I’ve heard since Trump began tweeting.
Quantity does not equate to bad quality, just the opposite. The reason I sell so many homes is because I make each seller feel like they are my only client. I am devoted to their transaction and offer this service because I am organized, efficient and driven by my sincere passion for real estate.
Upon meeting the successor trustee sellers, I immediately felt a connection, and I think they did, too, because they hired me on the spot. I recall standing in the dining room with them and looking at what appeared to be wet spots around a window, which stained the wallpaper. The sellers asked me what I thought. They were puzzled because water intrusion had not happened. Funny enough there was a crochet curtain draped over the top and down the sides as a topper. It looked like the owner had removed the topper to wash it and hung it back up wet.
Which is exactly what had happened.
I gave the sellers the name of my handyman to remove the wallpaper from that wall and paint it. Then I suggested they call my carpet cleaning guy, who is obsessed with making carpeting look new again. Initially, I thought we would market it as a fixer since it needed updates. But after spending time in the home, I suggested a different strategy to maximize profit potential, and sure enough, that strategy worked.
We closed escrow at list price, $674,950. Which was also a very aggressive price, and we sold the home in four days. 2023 Lux Court, Carmichael, CA 95608 closed escrow on January 14, 2019.
