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Brrr . . . Time to Work from Hawaii
Elizabeth Weintraub in Oakland holding mandarins to her ears for no good reason.
It was chilly in the Bay area over Thanksgiving, as evidenced by the photo of me with the mandarins in Oakland. Yet, as the cold snap heads into Sacramento and Christmas lights are springing up, it can mean only one thing for this Sacramento Realtor: it is time to work from Hawaii. Yup, due to state-of-the-art technology, I can list Sacramento real estate just as easily from my home office in Land Park as I can from a cabana on the ocean at Big Island, so I am off to Hawaii this morning.
After trying to stuff my snorkel gear into my smaller luggage, it dawned on me that not only would it fit oh-so-much better into my larger luggage, but because I’m not traipsing about the South Pacific this year and won’t have to maneuver my own luggage by myself at all, I can pack a much LARGER suitcase. Eureka. Packing is done. No rolling of clothes and sitting on my luggage, tugging on the zipper, ripping the skin off my fingers in doing so. Plop, plop, plop, all packed. Yup, time to work from Hawaii.
Then I realized I had not yet received an email from Hawaiian Airlines announcing the time to check in. That was odd. I went to the Hawaiian Airlines website to print my boarding pass, and it wouldn’t let me sign in. A banner noted the airline had unilaterally decided to change customer passwords. I chose a new password and tried again. Nope, they required more digits, more letters and a weird combination. I hate being told what to do. But if I wanted to sign in to Hawaiian and get my boarding pass, well, must conform. I’m pretty irritated with them by now, when the horrifying thought occurred to me what if the reason I didn’t get an email was because I booked a flight for 2016 and not 2015?
My ergonomic keyboard sometimes causes me to mistype because the 5 and 6 are within the same reach on the left, and no matter how long I’ve had this keyboard, I can’t adjust. I want to type a 6 with my right finger. It’s embedded in my brain. What if I royally screwed up? But my luck is pretty good, and no, I did not make a mistake. I found my reservation. What I did not realize was the airline had changed the departure time. I had chosen a leisurely time to depart, a time that would let me sleep in, but no, Hawaiian changed it, and now I have to be at the airport at 6 AM.
If that’s the worst thing, it’s OK. Because it’s time to work from Hawaii.
A Blessing in Disguise is Rarely a Mistake
There are all types of real estate clients in Sacramento who routinely make a mistake.
Except when I am predisposed, like at a movie theater or on a plane, I answer my phone. It’s rarely a mistake. I missed a call yesterday from a caller who rang twice while I was at Tower Theatre watching Brooklyn, the screenplay by Nick Hornby, about an Irish girl in 1952 (the year I was born) who moved to America. Touching, beautiful, sweet story about loss, love, discovery and strength, watching this young girl mature, blossom, develop confidence. When I got back to my home office, I considered calling back the no-message caller but instead decided to cut back the hydrangeas before it got dark and cover up the cactus garden. We were in for a freeze in Land Park.
Minutes after opening the back door my phone began to ring. Where did I leave it? I frantically searched, dashing from the kitchen into the family room, following the ringing sound and there it was, lying in the cat condo of all places along with my bluetooth. Hmmm. It was the same guy who had called twice earlier. He was very excited about the house he had just toured and expressed gratitude that I had forced him to go see the home without me.
What? Who was this? I let him talk. He obviously had called me by mistake because I had not talked with him earlier. I did not tell him to go see a home, and that’s not the sort of thing I would do anyway. I would never send a buyer over to a home without an agent present, that’s just poor customer service and laziness. He continued rambling that he wanted to sell his home in Fair Oaks. Sure, we can do that, I promised. I’m a top producer in Sacramento who gets top dollar. What’s the address? He gave it to me.
That’s when he said that he wanted me to also represent him to buy the home on Alex along with listing his own home because “it would make things easier.” No, not really, I countered. It’s just as much work to sell your home as it is to help you to buy a new home. Just because you’re the same person doesn’t mean it’s not twice the work. I knew where he was going with this, and just let him blab. He stumbled and seemed at a loss for words. “Well, it’s easier for ME,” he finally says. Why? Because you can call the same agent, is that it? Thinking to myself: he’s already called a different agent thrice and has no clue that I am not that agent. Yeah, yeah, that’s it, he says.
Then he rattled on about the price of the home on Alex. “You said there was some flexibility in that sales price,” he insisted. Well, no, I would not have ever said a thing like that. Because that would violate the Code of Ethics, and a listing agent can’t say such a thing to a potential buyer. This is when the caller probably started to realize that maybe he wasn’t talking to the listing agent. He said, it doesn’t matter because the listing agent is friends with the seller. Some friend to the seller that is, I ventured.
That’s when he hung up.
Buying an Ergonomic Task Chair for a Sacramento Realtor
A really good ergonomic task chair is also a work of art to admire.
How much would you spend on a task chair? When you’re a Sacramento Realtor like me who sells on average 100 homes a year and spends most of her time in front of the computer, an ergonomic task chair is important. My cat has chewed up one of the arms on my weathered chair, and I’m trying to find a new chair to order. This is Sacramento; it’s not like I can visit a high-end task chair store because there aren’t any. Further, people think that real estate agents work in an office, but most agents do not. We work at our home offices. We meet clients in the office, but not generally sellers. I go to my seller’s homes prior to taking a listing, and we often meet with buyers in the field. But the real work is done on a computer, in front of a screen, and typically in a task chair.
The problem I’m finding is many of the great ergonomic task chairs are fairly expensive, ranging from $500 all the way to $3,500 for an Eames. I am sold 100% on ergonomic features. For example, I make sure that I type on an ergonomic split keyboard. I use a mouse arm tied to my chair that keeps my arm level and a wrist guard for the wireless mouse. I sit up straight in my chair, well, most of the time. Both feet are on the floor. As a result, I don’t suffer from carpal tunnel or any of the other maladies people often suffer from who spend so much time in front of the computer.
I work about 12 hours a day and 7 days a week; only 2 hours of any given day are typically spent in the field with a seller listing her home and shooting photographs. My team members go out in the field to show homes to buyers, but the rest of our work is done by phone and computer. It’s not the glamorous life people imagine for real estate agents, I suspect.
When I get a phone call, I often get up and pace the floor so I can concentrate on the caller. When I was at the airport last week waiting for my flight to Minneapolis, I noticed a guy in the boarding area who did that — completely oblivious to everybody around him, phone plastered to his ear, waving his arms for emphasis as he spoke, wandering aimlessly — so I recognize the signs of an overachiever because I see this manner of focusing in myself.
If I were to sit in front of my computer to answer the phone, I would be tempted to respond to the myriad of emails that continue to arrive, irrespective of origination. Multi-tasking doesn’t tend to return excellent results. My clients deserve my complete focus. Yet, I still spend an inordinate amount of time in a task chair. Which has forced me to think about what I want in a task chair. My comfort level says a mid-back with lumbar support, adjustable height, plush seat, fixed arms for the mouse arm, and the arms can’t be wider than 2 1/2 inches in order to bolt, not tie, the mouse arm. I’m gravitating toward a Haworth Very chair. What do you think?
Who is Your Sacramento Real Estate Authority on the Internet?
Ocicats Pica and Tessa (sleeping) keep Realtor Elizabeth Weintraub company while she works.
Do you know the best way to search for Sacramento real estate information online? I suspect most people just stick a few keywords into Google and then click on the first link that pops up. I know for example that I receive a lot of phone calls from buyers, sellers and appraisers and even ordinary people trying to find owners of properties for a variety of odd reasons, because they find my website on Google. They call me because I am listed as a person, and it often looks like I could be the listing agent. They don’t realize that because I sell hundreds of homes as a top Sacramento Realtor, they’ll find me everywhere — and I can help and I do help so they lucked out in that event. Still, they often find this Realtor because it is confusing. That’s disconcerting.
It’s confusing to go to any of the popular online for-profit websites for homes in Sacramento and to try to find the listing agent. In many cases, it’s impossible. What you get are a list of agents who pay a lot of money to advertise on that website, many of whom are brand new to the business and, by advertising on Zillow and Trulia, for example, they hope to find buyers. They are not the listing agent, and they don’t know anything about the homes on whose pages they appear. And everybody knows you don’t know that but you.
Yet, unsuspecting buyers and sellers spot these agent’s photos and are able with a click of the mouse to send one or all an email, so they do. Most of the time, if the viewer is a seller, that seller will do more research; not so with buyers, though. The sellers often will check the California Bureau of Real Estate website to find out when the agent they are thinking about hiring obtained a California real estate license. You’d be amazed at how many agents on those websites have not held a real estate license longer than, say, 5 years.
Then, they will check out a Sacramento Realtor’s website. If it’s nothing but property searches, a templated website, they tend to pass it by. These potential clients are trying to conduct research, and they put more credence in Sacramento agent reviews on a third-party website than they do on the agent’s very own website, so this tells you what they think about the credibility of individuals. Incredulously, they will still click to email an agent who doesn’t know anything about the property.
It’s a good idea to look for authority when searching for a Sacramento Realtor, just as you would searching for medical advice, which I’m sure doctors love these days. I know you prescribed bed rest, but I read online that juju beans and jumping jacks will save me. There is so much bad information online along with the good. Why would anybody take medical advice from Joe’s Garage when they could visit the Mayo Clinic? When I ask my cats that question, who often sit on my desk while I’m working just to keep me company, they just give me that quizzical glance and go back to sleep. That’s their photo above.
When you search for Elizabeth Weintraub on Google, you’ll find almost 500,000 entries. Part of that is due to the fact that real estate agents all over the country take stuff I have written and they put this real estate information on their websites and they link back to my website. I don’t think your Sacramento real estate authority gets any better than that. You can betcha you’re not gonna find that kind of authority from any other Realtor in Sacramento.
Is That Sacramento Home for Rent or For Sale?
You’re not alone to ask is a Sacramento home for rent or for sale? © Big Stock Photo
Rarely a day goes by that I don’t receive a phone call from a potential tenant inquiring about a Sacramento home they believe is for rent when that home is really for sale. Is the home for rent or for sale? Never mind that there is a big honkin’ FOR SALE sign in the yard or they can find the home elsewhere online for sale. Part of the problem is the public tries to view homes on Trulia or Zillow when many of those are already sold or maybe they were never for sale in the first place, like a preforeclosure, so I can understand the confusion.
Crooks out of Nigeria or just about anywhere, really, download photographs from a website and then create their own FOR RENT advertising. It’s easy to do. Now they have created the question: is the home for rent or for sale? Just right-click on that photograph and you’ve stolen it. All photographs online are copyrighted by the photographer or website owner (unless indicated otherwise), and it’s theft to download and use a copyrighted photo. But it doesn’t stop dingbats from doing it. I see theft all the time blatant in blogs by other real estate agents: they just swipe a photo they like and never consider its origin or fair-use rights.
But it’s even worse when for sale photographs are swiped by crooks and used to deceive innocent people into handing over money. After the crooks download the photo and create the ad, they respond to potential tenants by concocting some cockamamie story and asking for money. If a home would rent for $2,000, they will advertise it for $800, and people think, Oh, my, what a steal, and they send money. They can kiss that money goodbye.
You can report the crooks to the authorities but cybercrime seems difficult to prosecute, especially when it’s for such a little amount. Just don’t get suckered into it.
If something seems too good to be true, it generally is too good to be true. I’ve never had a person ask is that home for rent or for sale when the home is for rent. The fact that you’re asking the question probably means the home is only for sale. Sacramento agents don’t want to waste time listing a home for sale if the owner is undecided as to whether she will rent it.
