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Elizabeth Weintraub
Window Lengthens to Buy Again After a Sacramento Short Sale
Coinciding with the dropping rate of short sales in Sacramento, Fannie Mae has announced it will not allow a buyer with a short sale on his record to buy another home for four years, beginning August 15th, 2014. The waiting period to buy again after a short sale used to be 2 years. This means is you’re a home buyer seeking conventional financing who completed a short sale less than 4 years ago, you need to enter into a purchase contract to buy a home before August 15th. That’s only about a month from now. You’ve got to get cracking.
A few years ago, it was not unusual to see almost 3 out of 4 of the homes on the market for sale as a short sale or a foreclosure. Not so today. Today, the real estate market in Sacramento has shifted and fewer than 10% of the homes for sale are short sales. That’s a dramatic drop and shift in the marketplace.
If you are selling a home as a short sale, it means fewer buyers will want to buy your home when 90% of the other homes for sale are not a short sale and do not involve approval from one or more short sale lenders. Unless you’ve got an extraordinary home in high demand, like a 4,800 square-foot mansion in The Rivers that I just put into escrow or an entry-level home below $200,000, you might wait a while to sell your home as a short sale.
But the sellers who have already sold as a short sale and now want to buy again after a short sale could get locked out of the marketplace for a while if they don’t buy before August 15th. FHA loans still carry a 3-year waiting period, but Fannie Mae for conventional loans, without extenuating circumstances, well, you have to wait 4 years if you don’t act within the next 30 days.
If you have 20% down and want to buy a home within 2 years of your short sale closing, now is the time to buy a home in Sacramento. You can call Elizabeth Weintraub, the best Sacramento short sale agent in the Sacramento valley, at 916.233.6759 for more information.
The Magical Touch in Sacramento Real Estate
I realize this might sound a little touchy-feelie, but if you want to acquire the magical touch in Sacramento real estate, you’ve got to let things be and not give them so much negative energy. It seems like I am constantly taking my client’s temperature. Resting my hand on their foreheads to see if they feel hot or cold and then trying to make things OK. Because selling or buying real estate can be very stressful.
If my clients begin to feel stressed, I encourage them to call me. I welcome their frustrations. They can tell me exactly how they feel, and I will extract the anxiety and release it. I don’t absorb it because that would turn me into a lunatic. I think that’s part of what makes a Sacramento agent a really good real estate agent, when an agent can go out of her way to help to alleviate her client’s fears and dissolve the pain. Suffering is bad enough without suffering at will.
There is enough suffering in the world without people purposely creating more unhappiness for themselves. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t always get what you want, and sometimes you don’t even get what you need. But if you try to let go and focus on positive outcomes, things have a way of working themselves out.
I’ve seen the results of this first hand. Some new problem will crop up and immediately the people involved tend to think the worst. They create the most horrible image and play that image like a movie over and over in their heads to reinforce just how awful it really could become. But the thing is none of that might happen at all. Given the choice of believing things will work out and taking steps to make it happen or freaking out and condemning everything in your path, which will give you the result you deserve? Both of them, I guess.
So, the question is what do you deserve? I believe you deserve the magical touch in Sacramento real estate. That’s what we do.
Back from Maui and Aloha Time
At least I was wise enough to schedule my in-person appearances a day after my return from Maui Aloha time, because no sane person should stare at me at this point except for my husband. My hair is a wild mess, and my face looks like a pillow was glued to it. It is really difficult coming back to Sacramento after a long trip to the islands in the first place because you’re not only coming off Aloha time, like some long drug-induced trip, but the time change is enough to knock one off her feet.
I’d sort of like to say excuse me while I go back to bed, but being a Sacramento real estate agent means I must go to work. I have listings to sell, offers to negotiate, clients to update and new listing appointments to establish. Just thinking about all of that stuff is beginning to energize my brain. I’m excited to be back to work.
You know how I can make that transition from Aloha to Hello Real Estate? Because I have another vacation on the horizon for this winter. I will work like a dog for the next 5 months so I can take time off over the holidays. This winter I will stay at a few of the smaller Hawaiian islands, Molokai on my way home and Lanai on my way out. In between the two will be a couple of weeks at a small island in the country of Vanuatu.
So when people in the know ask how I can be in the real estate business going on 40 years and remain such a happy go-lucky individual, especially after putting up with the frustrations, challenges and let’s call them fabulous opportunities for growth to learn how to calm down the occasional group of screeching monkeys, it’s because of goal setting. Without goal setting, I’d be drifting aimlessly in an un-personed lifeboat like that guy in the Life of Pi, hoping for trade winds to blow my craft toward land.
And that’s just not me.
Photo: Barbara Dow at the Grand Wailea in Maui, by Elizabeth Weintraub
Aloha Maui and Mahalo for My Summer Vacation
I know lots of successful people who never get away for a vacation, much less get to spend 10 days in the middle of the summer on Maui, and I am so incredibly grateful for the support of my team who allows this kind of escape. Sometimes luck is on your side. I can’t tell you anything of importance that happened, either. Because nothing happened. Except for the important part, the part where my friend and team member Barbara Dow and I have learned how to master the art of doing nothing. Aloha. It’s not easy.
You may scoff, but doing nothing is difficult. You might say give me a Budweiser and beach chair, and I’m good, but dollars to doughnuts after a few days of that and most people would go stark raving mad. It takes absolute concentration. Do you take off your sandals to run barefoot through burning sand or do you wear them part way and then leave them on the beach to be swept into the surf? How far out into the ocean is it safe to swim before a shark might eat you? Should you have lunch served on the lawn or on a restaurant terrace? These are the kinds of decisions we had to face every single day.
Fortunately, we are Sacramento real estate agents who make dozens of tough decisions all the time. We constantly guide our clients to make the correct decisions for themselves.
I feel like we are a solar battery that needs to get recharged every six months, no matter what. We will come home feeling completely rested and ready to face all of the exciting challenges that will surely face us over the next 6 months.
We might even sneak in one more stroll in the surf before our driver arrives to whisk us away to the airport. We have husbands and houses and pets and friends and careers waiting for us at home. But we’ll always have memories to treasure of 10 wonderful days perfecting the art of doing nothing in Maui. Aloha Maui.
No Shortage of Restaurants at Wailea Resorts
A nice benefit to vacationing in Wailea is the large number of restaurants at one’s disposal located within walking distance (or stumbling, depending on your beverage selections, I suspect). In fact, if you’re running late because of your horribly hectic schedule, shuffling nail appointments or massages around beach lounging time, there is a hotel shuttle service that provides free transportation at The Fairmont Kea Lani.
Between 5 hotels, each with 2 to 3 restaurants, there are also a number of other eateries ready to serve the ubiquitous $31 to $50 entrees that are conveniently located in the complex known as The Shops at Wailea. I am guessing there are about 25 restaurants near our hotel, and with only 10 nights in Maui, my only regret is we can’t dine at each.
Having so many dining options at our disposal also carries a sort of inherent responsibility to get cleaned up and put on decent attire, suitable for going out. Maybe wash your hair. At least when we dine at home, we can sit at the table in our muddy t-shirts with disheveled hair and nobody makes us wash our hands.
To an awful dinner last night I had to send back at the Marriott Mala, I wore a black shirt with white lettering I had found at Nordstrom that stirred up the crowd. When I wear that shirt, strangers approach out of the blue and ask what it means. Now that I think about it, it’s men who ask for an explanation. Which is probably why they sell the shirt to women. It says: Eat your lettuce and be sad. The sales clerk at Nordstrom thought it was a little bit mean but not mean enough not to be funny, and I agree.
I guess tonight we will enjoy our last meal at Humuhumu at the Grand Wailea, which is where Oprah Winfrey threw a birthday celebration gala. They word on the island is she spent $27 million on that event. Just a bit of trivia to make you feel better about yourself.
Photo: Elizabeth at Marriott in Maui by Barbara Dow
