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Elizabeth Weintraub
Why is Land Park a Great Neighborhood?
What makes a good neighborhood a great neighborhood in Land Park? That question crossed my mind for two reasons. First, I was reading a blog written by an agent friend from Benicia about the topic of great neighborhoods. I read through her blog and into the responses. Somebody remarked that a good neighborhood is a place where people don’t mow lawns at 7 AM or sing along top volume to G-L-O-R-I-A at midnight and don’t run over your cat, and then it dawned on me, right at the point where I was thinking: hey, I completely agree with this poster, yeah, right on, that the person who wrote the comment was me. And that particular blog was written last year.
Which just made me laugh out loud. This Sacramento real estate agent gets around online, I guess.
Second, I think about when I retire, even though that’s a ways off and I don’t know where to retire, and I wonder about giving up the benefits we enjoy from living in Land Park. We all should appreciate the here and now while the here and now is here. I noticed that while watching Californication, the episode at Hank’s house when Becca tells him she’s getting married, which looks like that balcony scene was filmed in a beach community, maybe Venice or Malibu, in southern California. What I couldn’t help but notice was how close the houses are, tumbled on top of each other (which I had forgotten) and that most people left their windows open.
Being that close to the water means tourists, too. Traffic and noise. I used to live at 1234 Balboa Boulevard in Newport Beach in the 1970s, the decade in which I was first licensed to sell real estate. This was smack dab on the beach peninsula, extreme noise, traffic all day past my humble abode, but I never noticed it. Young people screaming, hootering and hollering, drinking and smoking pot and what-have-you, running amuck, carrying on, playing records too loudly, and this was just the noise from inside my apartment.
While I yearn to return to the beach life, I also realize that I will never afford a $10 million retreat on the water, which means anything less equates to putting up with a bit of noise. We don’t have noise in Land Park. It’s really quiet. No cars hardly drive down my street. There are no children squealing or shrieking around my house. My neighbors in Land Park are respectful and keep to themselves. Friendly enough when they need to be but mostly private. I like it this way.
Sometimes, when we leave the windows open at night, we can hear slight traffic way off in the distance or the fireworks from Raley’s field. With the windows closed, though, I don’t even notice the morning sprinklers which, due to the drought, is only twice a week now. I appreciate the silence. I especially love the fruit from my next door neighbor’s cherry tree as much as he enjoys the tomatoes from our garden. If you’re looking for a friendly but quiet neighborhood, you won’t find much better than Land Park.
You can view existing vintage homes in Land Park here or active listings of homes for sale in Land Park here.
What Were You Thinking?
One phrase you’ll probably never hear this Sacramento real estate agent mutter is: What was I thinking? Because a) I generally know what I am thinking and b) it’s usually right, because I’ve worked through a process to arrive at a reasonable conclusion. One of the biggest problems I’ve encountered in the real estate industry is that so many people do not think. They react. They do. They participate. They take action. Words fast fall out of their mouths, like some drunken orgy, but they don’t think.
I’ve encountered agents whom I want to grab by the shoulders and shake. We have all had that experience. I’m not alone. We want to scream: What were you thinking? But it doesn’t matter because it was the wrong thing. Sometimes, it’s a horribly wrong thing.
What is wrong with thinking twice? Or three times? Or asking yourself: what are the consequences if I choose option A over B? Are there other choices I have yet to contemplate that might better fit the situation at hand? How will others react to me? Am I doing the right thing?
You know who often does the wrong thing? Individuals who think only about themselves. People who believe the world revolves around them and they are the most important item in it. They focus on narcissism and call it self help. They run around in circles unsupervised, like a chicken with its head cut off.
And this is why most real estate agents are not successful. To be successful you have to think about other people, how other people react, and what is truly best for your clients over what is best for yourself. Because what is best for your clients is always always always what is best for you.
The answer to what were you thinking is you were not. I wish we could teach people how to think and reason. That used to be what schools were for and why we read books. #Whatwereyouthinking? You weren’t.
We All Need Somebody to Pick On
You know, it occurred to me that those lyrics in Let it Bleed could be easily twisted Yankovic-style to: we all need somebody to pick on. It’s an American pastime. America is one of those places where people like to make fun of other people who are not like themselves. I suppose it’s a way that people can feel better about their own lot in life. There’s always somebody who is worse off in some way you can pick on. Ask Cat Stevens.
I was watching Cat Stevens last night, aka Yusef Islam, get inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I never quite got over Cat Stevens leaving the music industry in the 1970s. Almost all of his songs, I could play on guitar and his lyrics were memorized by heart. It was painful for me personally when he abandoned his fans, as silly as that might sound to some of you. I also pretty much stopped listening to new music about that time. No Cat Stevens, screw it.
I was also too busy selling real estate and dealing with all of the drama in my life during the 1980s to care about any new bands. So, as a result, I pretty much missed that era, which according to Yours Truly I didn’t miss much — although my husband, who graduated high school 11 years after me, would disagree. We often argue about my view point, that being that the 1980s was a huge vast wasteland of big hair and nonsense. It wasn’t until the early 1990s that my taste in music was restored, and I was able to move past the music of the 1960s and 1970s to embrace new musicians.
As he stood on the stage to accept his award, Stevens made a joke about how he was better off than some of the others in the crowd. That was a true statement. But it also made some people hit their heads on the tables laughing. It was funny but it was sad. In contrast, there’s always somebody worse off. My mother used to talk about the starving children in China whenever I complained as a kid about her meal choices.
It made me think about a conversation I had with my sister earlier in the day. We noted how difficult it is to gauge how much another person weighs, especially extremely overweight people. She was astonished to discover that hefty people she thought had weighed like 500 pounds were really only 280 or 300 pounds.
Then, I came up with an idea for a new television show: America’s Got Fat. Contestant’s could appear kind of like on The Dating Game, hidden behind a screen, and the skinny little rails who make up the panel of judges behind the microphones could guess how much the contestants weighed based on answers to questions. I bet it would be a big hit. Everybody knows somebody who is fatter than they are, and people seem to love to pick on the obese. Then the winner could go on a diet, supervised by one of the judges.
I can’t tell how much people weigh. It doesn’t matter to me; although I did just reach my goal of losing 25 pounds myself over the past 3 months, just in time for my upcoming trip to Maui. My reward for a successful first half of 2014 and overcoming the challenges associated with my career as a top Sacramento real estate agent. It is kind of nice that Cat Stevens came back, don’t you think?
A Hard to Sell Duplex in Land Park Closes Escrow
This blog is about selling a hard-to-sell duplex in Land Park, not far from my real estate office and my home. Now, one of the reasons that readers come back to my Sacramento real estate blog again and again is because I share stories and lessons I’ve learned in real estate. Even though I’ve been in the business for decades, I still learn something new with each transaction and through each closing, which is what keeps the real estate business exciting and interesting for this agent. This duplex in Land Park is one of those stories.
I just closed this duplex, which wasn’t quite located in Land Park proper, although it is situated in the same ZIP of 95818. I started working on this property a year ago to the very day it closed. This reflects patience and dedication on the part of this Sacramento real estate agent. It was a difficult property to sell. For many reasons.
There was nothing wrong with the property itself, though. In fact, it was a dream listing, if one isolated all of the other factors. It was better than a regular duplex in that it was not constructed up-and-down or side-by-side. The units were not attached to each other at all, which greatly increased the rentability factor. They were standalone, contemporary houses. In great condition.
Location was an issue because the property is under the W X Freeway. That means a duplex located in a desirable area of Midtown, for example, on a quiet street, would sell for more money than a duplex, say, under the freeway. And the sellers initially expected the same price as other duplexes in the area, regardless of location. Top that off with the fact they probably paid too much when they bought it as they are not from Sacramento, plus bought at the top of the market . . . and, well, it’s a recipe for a long struggle.
It’s hard to tell a client they made a mistake years ago. Nobody wants to hear that. Especially a seller who hopes to get top dollar today. I did mention I thought they overpaid even for market conditions at that time, but also explained it was water under the bridge now, realizing my words were probably not fully sinking in. I can’t go back in time to change that original purchase, and harping on a poor financial decision years ago at this point would have been hurtful. I’m not a hurtful person although I do stick to honesty.
Besides, I really liked the sellers. They are sincere, nice people. They are the kind of people who drove hours to Sacramento to meet with me personally because they wanted to shake my hand and look me in the eyeballs. I sell many homes for people I never meet, and that’s OK, too, but some people forge a special connection in person. These guys had worked with other agents in Sacramento and seemed very happy they found me.
Every week or so, I would send them a market update, showing that most duplex buyers either wanted to buy a duplex in Land Park or Midtown in a better area or buy a duplex for less money. Hey, facts are facts. I don’t hide them. But I also continued to plug away for them and pushed for their price. I advised the sellers to raise the rents, which helped tremendously with the cash-on-cash return for an investor. Buyers laugh when you tell them how much they could get in rent if the rent is not already being paid at that amount. You’ve got to show buyers, not tell buyers. I sent buyer feedback from agents.
We found buyers, finally. They came to look at the duplex last winter around Christmas before the rents were increased. These Sacramento investors did not write an offer until June. By then the cash flow was much more appealing. All of a sudden, a few days before closing, the buyers changed their minds and were about to cancel. Their buyer’s agent helped his clients get over cold feet and we closed on Friday. Patience paid off. It took a year, but this agent never gave up.
How to Sell a House With a Bad Roof Without a Loss
Just because your home has a bad roof is no reason not to put it on the market in Sacramento right now, because this Sacramento real estate agent can sell your house with a bad roof without a loss to you. Believe it. I can get a brand new roof installed for you. No fuss, no muss, no upfront cost. Overcoming challenges and working around issues is one of my specialties. You don’t have to pay for this roof out of your pocket, either. There is no credit inquiry. You can have bad credit or no credit.
How does this miraculous thing happen? It happens because I have established relationships with roofing companies who know that when I list a home for sale, that house will sell. These roofing owners have confidence in me and my abilities to sell homes in Sacramento, not to mention, my track record speaks volumes. I don’t sell one house every 4 months like most agents — I close an escrow on average every 4 days.
The cost for your brand new roof will be paid from the proceeds of sale at closing. The roofing companies will wait to get paid. It doesn’t cost you anything extra, either. You’re not paying for the zero interest, and you’re not even signing an agreement. The bidding process is competitive. You are free to discuss costs and get other bids yourself as well.
It doesn’t get any better than this. It’s just one out of many services I offer my sellers that other real estate agents probably haven’t even thought about. If you have a bad roof, I’ll take care of it.
I just closed on a home in Carmichael a few days ago that had a bad roof. It was a trust sale, and the executor had never lived in the home. The roof was at its end of life, and there was quite a bit of dry-rot that I could view from the ground. The seller did not want to put any extra work into the home and preferred to sell AS IS. However, an AS IS sale would cost him a lot MORE than the cost to replace the roof. It actually saved him a lot of money to replace the roof during the sales process. Buyers don’t know how much a roof costs. Buyers might want to ding the seller’s price by $40,000 to $50,000 sometimes, when it costs less than $10,000 to replace an average roof.
Plus, now we could market the home in Carmichael as having a brand new roof! The roof over a buyer’s head is very important. A roof over your head is a reason to buy a home. If the roof is in excellent condition, it can protect everything else in the home. Not the very least of which, for a seller, a new roof protects the seller’s bottom-line profit. If your home was built prior to 1990, you probably need a new roof. Call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916 233 6759 for help in selling your house, bad roof or not.
