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Elizabeth Weintraub
The Direction a Sacramento Home Faces
When I counsel home buyers for Land Park, one of the questions I typically ask is which direction they prefer their Sacramento home to face. It’s a facet of home buying they might not have previously considered. Then it hits them, yes, the direction a home faces is a preference. The direction of their new home is a choice, a selection. The orientation of real estate is important.
In the northern hemisphere, southern exposure gets the most sun, when the sun moves from east to west. But the way the streets are laid out in Sacramento, especially in the core areas close to downtown such as Midtown, Land Park and Curtis Park, many streets run east and west. This means most of the homes in Land Park face north or south.
However, in East Sacramento, many streets run north and south, so those homes typically face east or west. If your Sacramento home faces east or north, the front part of your home will receive the morning sun and the back yard will be hit by the hot afternoon sun.
One of my Land Park neighbors behind me wants to rebuild a shared fence. Her dog has a habit of jumping over the fence. Well, that and the fact the fence is falling down. It doesn’t matter much to me since that fence is located behind our garage. But the type of fence matters to my husband because he maintains several raised-bed vegetable gardens back there.
The neighbor asked if it would be all right to build a fence higher than six-feet, and I gave her the go-ahead. Then my husband had a chat with her, because he was worried that an additional foot of fencing would block part of the sun from his garden. He suggested she top it off with chicken wire. When she shared that bit of information with me, I couldn’t help but laugh. I suspect my neighbor was a bit horrified by that suggestion. Chicken wire isn’t exactly visually appealing. I think lattice would look better.
However, my husband is right about one thing. (Quick, call out the media.) A higher fence on a southern property line would throw shadows on that part of the yard. So, if you’re looking at homes in Land Park, consider which way the sun moves. You may prefer to buy a Sacramento home where the master suite is shaded in the afternoon, with a sunny morning breakfast nook. Or, you may prefer a back yard with a northern exposure, especially if you do a lot of late afternoon entertaining. But look out for those neighbors who tell you to put up chicken wire.
While Elizabeth is on vacation, we are revisiting her favorite blogs from previous years.
Art is in the Eye of the Beholder and Her Pocketbook
The Collectibles Guide and Miniatures Guide at About.com would literally kill me for saying this, but who buys all this crap? I imagine these mail-order houses probably hold private contests for artists to see who can come up with the gaudiest most awful-looking piece of trash. I bet they award prizes for the tackiest design in collectibles. I mean, what else could explain this phenomenon?
You can’t pick up a Parade insert in the Sunday newspaper without finding a full-page ad for some tasteless trinket or a limited edition Elvis Presley inspiration pressed into velvet and passed off as collectibles.
I used to think the baby angel on a motorcycle wearing a leather jacket was my favorite, but yesterday, The Bradford Editions reached a new low that exceeded my wildest imagination.
Let me see if I can describe this accurately enough for you to picture this newest little gem. It’s a foot-high crystal snowman with extended arms made from bell-shaped glass, wearing metallic mittens, matching scarf and a top hat that resembles a dinner plate topped by a diamond ring and finished with a crystal bowl.
But wait, there’s more, inside the body of the snowman is a tiny little Bavarian village with houses, a church, pond, walking bridge and 12 itty bitty villagers, all dusted with snow. If that’s not enough to flip your switch, the exterior base has a miniature holiday train that actually moves around the snowman. And the whole thing lights up. The glass also has swirls and gilded touches, and for good measure, the artists threw in a miniature lantern suspended by a diamond-looking tennis bracelet around the snowman’s right mitten.
And it’s only a $100. I bet The Bradford Editions makes hundreds of thousands of dollars on this cheeky masterpiece. I’m sorry if I have offended Thomas Kinkade aficionados and doubly sorry if you wake up one morning to find this holiday spirit-filled inspiration on your doorstep, but somebody has to step forward here and just say no to this stuff.
While Elizabeth is on vacation, we are revisiting her favorite blogs published in previous years.
A Title Insurance Background Helps a Sacramento Real Estate Agent
Most people don’t know that this Sacramento real estate agent got her start in real estate in the early 1970s as a title searcher at First American Title. After a few years of standing for hours in 6-inch heels at the courthouse (without A/C) and hoisting up those heavy Grantor and Grantee books on the counter, I changed career paths and eventually became a Certified Escrow Officer. This meant using carbon paper to type from scratch escrow instructions, preparing grant deeds and explaining truth-in-lending statements to buyers — much the same duties an escrow officer handles today, sans the typewriter.
Back then I handled about 60 escrows a month. Ordering beneficiary demands, obtaining pest completions and appraisals. Since I worked in Southern California, which handles escrows differently than Northern California, much of the work in an escrow was and still is completed upfront. Sellers and buyers came to my office to sign escrow instructions shortly after contract acceptance.
My days were filled with phone calls and face-to-face interaction with customers. That meant I generally didn’t get any actual work done during business hours, so I would stay late to catch up on the paperwork. It seemed to me back then that I was doing all of the work in a real estate transaction by helping agents structure owner financing and earning a pittance of what real estate agents made. So, I switched careers in 1979 and became a real estate agent in southern California, and later a Sacramento real estate agent.
Now that I’m handling a huge volume of paperwork as a Sacramento real estate agent, though, I’m finding that my days are about the same as they were 30-some years ago. That title and escrow background has been helpful because I learned how to be organized. Because the vast amount of paperwork that is required in any given transaction for an agent today is enormous.
I wonder how other agents deal with all the paperwork without an escrow background? I suppose they hire an assistant. I won’t go down that path, though, because I feel the need to personally touch every document myself. I know, it’s anal and crazy. My transaction coordinator handles the disclosures, but I still look at them.
For example, I read every preliminary title report and appraisal for my buyers. I caught a cloud on title last week and called the title company. Turned out the back portion of an alley was never properly conveyed to the present sellers. Without a deed from that owner of record, my buyer would not receive the proper conveyance. Fortunately, the title company has now taken steps to obtain a quitclaim deed from that former seller but only because one of the present sellers knew that person.
Otherwise, we could have been up a creek. But, let me tell you, being a Sacramento real estate agent beats standing in high heels at the courthouse.
While Elizabeth is on vacation, we are revisiting her favorite blogs from previous years.
Is it the Size and Length That Matters?
A seller whose listing I canceled accused me anonymously on a website of sending snippy emails. She has no idea what she’s talking about. I mean, does she realize how hard it is to type on your cellphone when you’re in the middle of sex? Do you? No? Well, you try it, then. First, in the middle of all this heavy breathing and clawing of your partner’s back, you’ve got to make sure you scroll to “reply” and don’t accidentally hit “forward” instead .
I hate it when I hit forward by mistake and start typing in the forward-to box instead of the text box. Because then you have to cancel the message, and my phone always asks me if I am sure that I want to do that. That makes me stop to think, do I? Do I really want to cancel this message? Or, will I delete it from my phone if I do? Where do deleted messages go on my phone? These are thoughts I’d rather not have but they could save your butt someday.
Unless your butt is naked and in the air in the middle of sex. At that point, I don’t want to ponder canceling my message, but for a seller in the middle of a crisis, I would. My clients are very important to me. Even those clients with whom I have had a listing for only 24 hours before they went off the deep end. Most clients wait at least a couple of weeks before they have a mental breakdown. But for those who lose it early in the process, my heart goes out to them because they have truly special needs. I try to answer every client’s question with care and promptness.
So, while my husband is screaming YES YES YES, I’m typing a reply as to why we can’t take the address out of MLS without deleting the listing. Now, I know you might be thinking why didn’t I just talk to my phone instead of typing? Two reasons. First is my phone cannot spell MLS even though it’s in my dictionary because MLS is a word I frequently use. In fact, the way I say it makes it come out as profanity. It’s bad enough my email is snippy, I don’t want to offend a client with a profane word, especially a loose-cannon client.
Second, there’s another innocent person involved here, my husband. He puts up with enough as it is, poor guy. Not to mention, it takes raw talent to respond to emails in the middle of sex. I don’t believe I deserve that bad press. But my husband is a smart person. His advice is: don’t poke the hornet’s nest. He’s right. There is no need to point out the error of this client’s ways. Somebody else is sure to do it for her along her journey through life. It doesn’t have to be me. I don’t have to be the bad Sacramento real estate agent. I just need to spell things correctly and get on with my life.
While Elizabeth is on vacation, we are revisiting her favorite blogs from previous years.
HGTV: Cancel This Escrow
I’d like to see a new show on the cable network HGTV called “Cancel This Escrow.” They could film three different buyers during the escrow period — after the contract is signed but before the deal closes — and viewers could guess which one of them is likely to have cold feet and cancel this escrow. I mean, all three of them could threaten to walk away from a home closing, but only one of them actually will. Then we could listen to their excuses for buyer’s remorse and reasons to cancel this escrow:
- The palm tree tree in the back yard doesn’t have any flowers.
- The garage floor has four quarters divided by cracks.
- This house is painted brown, yuk.
- The street isn’t wide enough.
- One of the electrical outlets doesn’t work.
- It doesn’t have a built-in microwave.
- There’s no exhaust fan in the bathroom.
- I don’t like the way the light reflects on the ceiling fan blades.
- The garage door springs are missing a safety latch.
- Somebody left an empty can of paint on the roof.
While Elizabeth is on vacation, we are revisiting her favorite blogs from previous years.
