Email Elizabeth
Elizabeth Weintraub
News About Breast Lump and Porn Ransom on the Same Day
First, please know that the breast lump my doctor found last month was nothing more than a fatty deposit. May as well get right to the point about that. Just when I was imagining how wonderful life would be if I wasn’t hauling around these low hanging mangoes. You guys, most of you don’t deal with aging breasts, so you don’t know how irritating it can be. They are always in the way. Require additional support. And when you get older, it’s a lose-lose proposition. Bras are uncomfortable, but so are globs of fat sticking to your ribs. Can’t win.
Which reminds me, I am reading the last book by Donald Hall: A Carnival of Losses: Notes Nearing Ninety. Light-hearted reading, like you know you’re old when somebody mentions an event 2 years in the future and looks embarrassed. Or, the fact it gets hard to walk once you’re in your 80s. Who knew? I better start walking more and not taking that function for granted because that little fact of life could vanish. Once I finish with this book, I go back in time to read Hall’s Essays After Eighty.
Finally, I can prepare for the inevitable. You know, a real world view of getting old. Unlike Diane Keaton’s obsession with her thinning hair in Let’s Just Say It Wasn’t Pretty, this brings aging down to a more worrisome level.
However, before I got the news from my doctor that the breast lump was nothing to worry about, I had one more thing pop up on my plate. My husband drove me to the diagnostic appointment. The appointment involved more imaging, plus an ultrasound. Neither the nurse nor the doctor could find any evidence of a lump other than a fatty deposit. Rats. Dashed my hopes of googling how to reattach nipples after removing breasts.
That was my intent when I got home if the verdict was breast cancer.
Instead, I got to perform an even more distasteful act. Imagine you were me, standing in the exam room next to the machine that smashes your breast flat as a pancake while you try not to cry. When I glance at my Apple watch and spot an email. It begins with a porn ransom note, admitting the writer knows my password and has swiped all of my contacts. His plan, if I don’t pay him in bitcoins, is to release a porn video he somehow assembled to all of my contacts. You know what I say? I say go for it, dude. Send me that porn video. Right now. And send it to all my friends, too. Alert the media!
You just can’t make up this crap.
But what the porn ransom note made me do was go back through all of my password accounts. This crook probably picked up a bunch of emails and passwords from some corporate breach. That password was one of my very first passwords from the late 1990s. It was on a lot of websites that no longer exist. It took more than 5 solid hours to change my passwords on pages upon pages of websites, something I should have done 20 years ago. Also, ran Malware software on my computer.
For about 15 minutes at UC Davis, I had something else to think about instead of my breast lump and its consequences. My husband quickly copied and googled the text. If only one victim a week paid the ransom, that’s a good living for the hacker. Turned out none of it was anything at all. Funny how life turns out that way.
If you haven’t changed passwords for a few years, you probably should.
Sacramento Agent to Agent Referral: Who Ya Gonna Call?
This agent to agent referral in Sacramento is a new occurrence for me. I mean, I have a small group of agents I consider if I ever need to refer a seller to somebody else. Which is rare. At times, there are some sellers we elect not to work with. But we would not refer those to a friend. Maybe a referral to an agent we don’t much care for. I spotted one of those agents today who listed a rejected listing. You know, the pushy, aggressive, so rude, how do they ever stay in business kind of agents. If I had thought of that agent when we rejected the seller, I would have referred the seller in that direction. However, the seller found the agent the seller deserved. Without any help from me. How win-win.
On the other hand, I have a good friend, an experienced agent, to whom I might refer a client who needs more than I have to give. Usually, these clients are extremely high maintenance. It is always about what the client deserves. But I have never called an agent I did not know out of the blue and offer up a Sacramento agent to agent referral. Lo and behold, that happened to me in reverse last week. An agent I did not know offered me a client who needs a change of pace. It’s a neighborhood I know well, and the home is a little bit challenging, but I thrive on challenges.
At first blush, I had to ask myself the hard question. The hard question was: am I getting this referral based on my solid reputation or was the agent handing the referral over because of an axe to grind. Like, was I the agent’s foe? I am a competitor, after all, but no, the answer to that was no. The agent wanted the best Sacramento Realtor for the job, and thought of me. Very flattering.
Cannot believe my suspicious nature wondered if this was a set up, LOL. It makes me feel good to know the agent has confidence in me to perform. The agent also wants what is best for the client. I don’t mind taking over somebody else’s listing. Not unusual for me to often end up listing homes that previously did not sell for some reason.
I figure out what it takes to sell that home, and then I do it. Therefore, I am very grateful for Sacramento agent to agent referrals, and I hope to avail myself to more.
Search Your Home Sale History Before Listing in Sacramento
Today I want to share a tidbit about a way to search your home sale history before listing your Sacramento home. You might consider this a bit over-the-top analytical, but it’s important information that many listing agents overlook. I mean, let’s face it, in this town, many agents are so elated just to take a listing that they don’t spend a lot of time looking at the home sale history or otherwise scrutinizing the data available to them. Many agents just run the comps in a half-mile radius and get on with the show.
But that home sale history can prepare a seller for the actual home selling experience. You know what they say about history, right? It repeats itself. Not always verbatim but close enough for government work, as I like to kid about.
What is home sale history, you might ask? It is the information available to your Sacramento listing agent in MLS about previous sales of the same property. Two of the important items in that home sale history are 1) the date the home had previously been listed and 2) how long it took that home to sell. You need to examine both aspects of that history because a home that closed escrow in December has much lower demand than a home selling in May, for example.
However, if a home was listed during the height of our Sacramento home selling season in the spring, and the days on market exceed several months, it might mean it will take your home that long to sell today. Of course, for me it is easier because I remember what each of our decades and years were like in real estate history. It’s all there in my rear view mirror. That’s an advantage to hiring an agent with decades of experience.
In fact, in a conversation with a seller yesterday about what a pain it was for him to sell a rental home in 1987, I was able to shed a bit of light on why. Because that was the year following the 1986 Tax Reform Act, which limited passive write-offs for investors. Put a huge damper on the investment market in California.
I try to set my seller’s expectations when taking a listing if the home sale history shows a bunch of previous sales, all within 2 to 3 months of listing. That’s important information for a seller (and her agent) to know. It could be something as simple as the seller owns a unique home that doesn’t fit parameters from most of the traditional homebuyers of today. Which just means the home might take longer to sell.
It could also mean the home was not updated. Naturally, if the home with a long sale history of many months to sell is now remodeled, it will most likely sell faster. I could go on and on. There are dozens of conclusions a Sacramento listing agent can draw from studying the home sale history. Ask your agent to share that information. It’s readily available in MLS under the “history” tab.
Big Uptick in Sacramento County Housing Report for June 2018
Wow, look at that big jump in housing inventory for our Sacramento County housing report for June 2018. What you don’t see in that uphill climb from spring is the fact our inventory has increased almost 30% when compared to June of 2017. But the kicker is it does not equate to more homes selling. Why? Well, a lot of it seems to be junk. Also, would-be sellers, eager to capitalize on the seller’s market by dumping homes on the market at unrealistic prices, would be another reason.
The really big news is the continual uptick of pending sales. It’s little bit like dating. First, you go to the dating app and swipe left (or is it right? I dunno) and pick out prospects from those best dressed and well presented. Then, after a few dates, you pretty much know which way it is heading. Is there a commitment? Maybe. You decide to spend the weekend together. But how many actually make it all the way to moving into one household? After the makeup is off and you grow a bit older together. The closed sales might begin to level off somewhat once the optimism has faded, is all I’m saying.
In fact, the closed sales are pretty much the same for June as they were for May. Even though it’s a slight dip, not much change there in reality.
Another interesting tidbit is when you examine the trends in pending and sold homes from May of last year to December of 2017, both pretty much steadily decline. So I think the question to ask about this Sacramento County housing report for June 2018 is whether our trend for pending and solds will continue to escalate come July or will those numbers begin to decline? The solds are down only by 3% over last month. It could go either way.
Our activity since January of this year has been positive. More listings, more pendings and more sales. As compared to the same time period last year, that is. However, it doesn’t appear to me that demand is keeping pace with inventory. More inventory, in other words, isn’t helping.
But for those of you not working professionally in the Sacramento real estate field, your question about the Sacramento County housing report for June 2018 is should you sell a home in Sacramento or should you buy a home . . . or do both? The answer to that question is absolutely yes. The benefits are selling while the market is hot and buying before interest rates further increase.
Our median sales price remains the same as May at $375,000. We have 1 1/2 months of remaining inventory, which still makes this a seller’s market in Sacramento. Although, I do see the pushback from buyers happening. Pie-in-the-sky prices are no longer a reality.
Why Would Elizabeth Weintraub Want to List That Home in Sacramento?
Nobody ever asks themselves, why would Elizabeth Weintraub want to list that home in Sacramento? That’s because most sellers figure all listing agents want to list every house they can get their grubby little paws on. But that would not be true about this Sacramento listing agent. There are listings I don’t want to take. For starters, I don’t want to list a home if the seller doesn’t need my help or won’t listen to my advice. If a seller believes she already knows exactly how to sell a house, she doesn’t need a listing specialist. She might need a stiff drink, but not a specialist.
Further, I work with the complete package. Every listing is customized. Every sellers’ needs and wants are different. Getting on the market is one thing but closing escrow is totally something else. Selling for top dollar, leaving no chunks of change on the table is what most sellers want, but my service goes beyond that. Everything about my client’s sale is personal to me. I’m very hands on.
Why would Elizabeth Weintraub want to list that home in Sacramento? Another reason is because it will sell and I can sell it. That’s what I do. List homes and close sales. If I can’t sell it, I do not want to list that home in Sacramento. You can bet I look at days on market from previous listings. Most of our archives go back at least 15 years. I remember every market from the last 15 years. I can tell when I look at the history if there was a problem due to the type of market at that time. If not, the house has a problem.
If I can pinpoint that problem and fix it, then I will want to list that home. That’s not to say I do not enjoy a challenge, because I most certainly do. If I really like the sellers and we have a meeting of the minds, then I will list even the worst house on the block, the hardest house in the world to sell. If I feel the sellers are disrespectful, no amount of money would entice me to take that listing.
I have a no-asshole rule. People know if they exhibit those types of tendencies. It’s not like I can come right out and ask a prospective seller over the phone, hey, are you an asshole? They would probably hang up. Although it’s not a bad question. Because sometimes, no matter how good my a-hole radar is, I can’t always tell right away. There have been situations I’ve had doubts about but they turned out to be OK. And others where I felt it was workable, which turned out not to be.
Since I am all out of our listings right now, I’ve been thinking about all the new appointments I have this week. Yup, I’ve sold my entire inventory. That hasn’t happened to me in 7 years. But even having no inventory at the moment does not mean I would consent to work with . . . you’ve already figured this one out . . . the asshole. So there you have it. Why would Elizabeth Weintraub want to list that home in Sacramento? Because she’s crazy good at it and likes you.
