Email ElizabethHow to Decide Which House to Buy
My intentions yesterday were to list homes and not to necessarily encounter a great method for home buyers to decide which house to buy. As I sat in the kitchen of a home in Carmichael, I explained to the owners how buyers often make impulse decisions and purchase a home based on emotions. Which is why I do my darnedest to evoke an emotional attachment. My goal in marketing is to make buyers fall in love with the home.
Now, in the past, whenever I showed homes, I would ask buyers to rate the home on a scale of 1 to 10. With 10 being the highest and 1 being the lowest. This helps buyers remember which homes they viewed and whether they were good candidates. One of the sellers I spoke with yesterday mentioned she bought a home a few years back and came up with her own idea of rating. It was so clever and smart that I have to share this with you. In fact, I don’t know why every home buyer would not want to use this method.
If I understand her correctly, I believe the first thing a buyer would do is make a list of things that are not negotiable in the purchase of a new home. Starting with the most important item at the top and working your way down to the lesser items. Then, assign a rating number to each issue. For example, say you have 7 things on your list that describe the type of home you hope to buy. If you gave location the highest rating of 10, you are on the right track. Next to location might be number of bedrooms. Assign a value to that. And so on.
Then, when you believe you have found your dream home, you need to decide which house to buy. There might be another home on the list that fits all of your parameters. What you would do is add together all of your assigned values and divide by the number of non-negotiable items. This will give you a weighted average.
If you cannot decide which house to buy because you are madly in love with the first house, this method will show you which is a better choice for you. Because if the weighted averages of non-negotiable items is considerably larger for the second-choice house than the averages of the home that tugs on your heart strings, this is a way to see through the emotional pull. Who can argue with logic? OK, don’t answer. Because we all know who that person is.
Five Smart Homebuying Tips for Our Fall Sacramento Market
Are you looking for homebuying tips to buy a home in our fall Sacramento real estate market? As a potential home buyer, you are now in a wonderful position to buy a home. Some of you got too frustrated with the market and gave up. Maybe it’s time to give the market another look? Because our seller’s market is over. O.V.E.R. Except for a small handful of picture-perfect listings, you probably will not encounter multiple offers for a home you want to buy.
I could give you all the reasons why the market has changed, but not everyone is interested in how we got here or the stats. Most buyers just want to know what they need to do buy a home. They want to be aware of the types of benefits can get they out of today’s market.
Of course, if you are already working with the exclusive buyer’s agents on the Elizabeth Weintraub Team, then you’re covered. Your buyer’s agent is already informing you of the choices awaiting your decision. Here are my top 5 homebuying tips that you can confidently put to use when you’re ready to buy.
Homebuying Tips for Sacramento’s Fall Market
- Price. Most listings will contain a bit of room for negotiation. It might not be necessary to offer list price for the home, unless you are madly in love with it. You can probably offer less and still buy the home. Ask your agent to show you comparable sales. This means considering homes in the same condition, square footage, location and comparing the pricing. Look at apples versus apples and not apples versus oranges.
- Closing Costs. If you’re a first-time home buyer, you might be using every dime you have saved up to buy a home. With an FHA loan, your down payment can be 3.5% of the purchase price. We have conventional loans from 3% down. Does that leave you with enough money to pay closing costs? If not, don’t sweat it, as many sellers in this real estate market will agree to pay your closing costs for you, provided the sellers are content with the sales price offered.
- Repairs and Updates. Believe it or not, sellers want to work with you. If the home has no AC, for example, the seller might be willing to install new AC for you. Don’t be put off by carpeting because you can generally work out a way for it to make it vanish. Ask your buyer’s agent for ideas and help. We had a seller recently agree to install new granite counters at closing. Sellers generally will not fix or repair every single defect from a home inspection. But a major repair will most likely get fixed.
- Inspections. It is possible in our fall market that sellers might obtain inspections at their own expense. For example, it is more common now for the seller to pay for a pest report, and most buyers would ask for a completion certificate. This did not happen very often in a seller’s market but now that we are entering a more neutral market, sellers are more agreeable. They don’t want surprises that will blow up a transaction any more than you do.
- Time of Year. With our increased inventory in Sacramento, home buyers have more options now than ever. If you don’t like a particular house, don’t buy it. There will be another right around the corner. As we move toward the holidays, prices will become softer. This is a much better time to buy a home than spring, when you compete with a larger group of buyers. You have little competition now.
With all of these benefits, buyers are finally in a position to feel really good about buying a home. The only question left lingering is whether it’s better to buy now or wait until spring. Apart from the increased competition in spring, you will also see interest rates rise. The Feds have already raised the rates, and they are inching toward 5%. Buy now before you get roped into a higher interest rate mortgage because this much is pretty certain. Interest rates are not coming back down.
To get started, all you have to do is call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759.
How to Order Small Dumpster Junk Removal in Sacramento
Until I read an agent’s blog in San Diego, I did not realize we had small dumpster junk removal in Sacramento. Probably because the last time I rented a large dumpster, that rental cost me $300 in 2002. I shudder to think what those prices would be today, probably $500 or more. However, I can say thank goodness we live where we do in Land Park because my junk removal program now consists on dragging said item to the curb. Within an hour — I don’t care what kind of crap I stick in the street — it’s gone. I’d like to think a deserving family is cooking on our old Weber grill but the likelihood it is an entrepreneur. Probably re-homing items for a fee, would be my guess. Flipping trash. But maybe not. And in any case, what difference does it make? The point is I saved myself from having to rent a dumpster.
However, maybe you do not live in a neighborhood where you can stick an old sofa in the street and watch it vanish before your eyes. If so, then this service might be for you. Or, maybe you have stuff nobody wants like cement blocks or construction debris. It serves a definite market that needs trash hauling. Not surprising, our small dumpster junk removal in Sacramento is a service offered by Waste Management.
Questions? Let’s start with the basics. The small dumpster junk removal bag is called a Bagster. Pretty clever name for it, don’t you agree? How much trash does it hold? About 3 cubic yards, and you can get rid of just about anything. There is a limit on construction waste material that is heavy, but you can read all the fine print at Waste Management.
First you buy the bag itself, which is $29.95, if you purchase the Bagster at Amazon. There are other retailers but why not just go to Amazon? Unlike Home Depot, which supports the MAGA regime. I will never shop at Home Depot again and only patronize Lowes today. In fact, I hired Lowes as general contractor for our whole house remodel in Kona, Hawaii. So kiss those dollars goodbye, Home Depot. But I digress. The point is first get the bag and then set up collection through Waste Management.
As long as you set up your collection service online, the fee is $179 for the first bag and the company offers a discounted price for additional bags. The small dumpster junk removal in Sacramento is not available in every city or area. For example, you can’t use this program in West Sacramento. But most of the main areas in Sacramento are covered, including Fair Oaks and Carmichael.
Hope you have found this information helpful and a good solution for getting rid of smaller containers of trash. I’ll be sure to share this with my sellers because every home could use a bit less clutter before selling.
The End of Our Cactus Garden in Land Park
Nothing lasts forever, and most certainly not our cactus garden in Land Park. We put the cactus garden in long before it became trendy and cool to utilize drought-tolerant landscaping. The previous owners of our home had built the pergola and spa, which we removed a few years ago. We elected to install garden beds instead.
There used to be two 40-foot beech trees in a deck attached to the larger deck in the photo below. But one of those fell over on our house during the winter storm of January 2008. I never much cared for that second level deck anyway, so I tore it out with my own two hands.
The cactus garden was created by our landscaper, Kevin Morisawa. I met Kevin when I sold his home on 35th in South Land Park and sold him another. He was just taking over his father’s landscaping business at the time. Although he charged more than our existing gardeners, and much to the dismay of our neighbors, we changed gardeners. Hey, they could get their lawns cut on Friday like I do if they had listened to me, heh, heh.
Everybody around here likes their lawns done on the same day so we don’t have to put up with alternating days of noise pollution from blowers and mowers.
Over the years, however, the cactus garden bloomed with the most beautifully colored flowers. The problem with the garden was it did not stay like the photo above. This photo was taken in 2010, about two years after we planted the garden. Now, imagine each of those plants growing to ten times their size. Even the crepe myrtle tree seems tiny as compared to today’s height. However, removing the spa from our home was one of the better ideas I’ve had. When I looked back at the fact I had not used the spa for a long time, years and years, it made no sense to keep heating and cleaning it.
The photo above was show in the spring of 2016. For some reason, I have no photos of the disaster just before we ripped it out. Which, of course, I did not do. Our landscapers did that awful job of terminating the cactus garden in Land Park.
Kevin and his team of trimmers thinned out the crepe myrtle to allow sunlight to hit the dirt below it. Someday, maybe next week, we will have a lawn back. Yeah, I know. It would be more green to keep it a cactus garden. However, I do not have the time to manage this type of endeavor and grass is so much easier. Our cactus garden in Land Park has come to its end. I’ll post a photo after we get the area finished!
Photos from Farm to Fork Festival in Sacramento
Because this Sacramento Realtor had only one open house on Saturday in Arden Manor, it seemed fitting to take the afternoon off to attend the Farm to Fork Festival in Sacramento. September has many events around Farm to Fork, which is Sacramento’s new slogan. Forget City of Trees. Farm to Fork brings in more money, so Sacramento is going with Farm to Fork.
Here is a photo my husband shot of me at the Farm to Fork Festival in Sacramento. That thing that looks like a high tech helicopter behind me is actually a machine used in the fields for harvesting. Its cockpit is like your own private studio. Downright comfortable. Only thing it’s missing is a big screen TV in the window.
Unsure what this booth was about but it was labeled Rosemont High School Culinary Arts. This kid looks to me to be about 7 but all high schoolers seem that age to me, so I am the wrong person to comment. Although, I do not know why he is wearing a mask over his eyes. Looks like he is cutting up pasta noodles.
There wasn’t much food available at Farm to Fork unless you count the food trucks. Apples. Milk. Berries. And I don’t count the food trucks because the lines are way too long. In fact, the lines were way too long for almost everything. Fortunately, I found a short line before I starved to death and was able to score really BIG brats with onions and yellow mustard. Which I promptly dribbled down the front of my shirt. Will that stain come out or will I end up disposing of the garment? And then we met these incredible cute dogs. This guy in the photo has been making friends all day long due to those adorable pups.
And who doesn’t love a pig? Especially a pig who looks just like Arnold from Green Acres and snorts at all the appropriate moments. This pig almost ate the pants legs off a guy who was standing too close to the rail. He was oblivious that the pig was chewing on him. That’s when I realized, oh, yes, they serve beer at the Farm to Fork Festival in Sacramento. Except the lines for that were too long as well, so we opted for a craft cocktail in a can. Which seemed weird but beats standing in line.
Here, near the exit and past the 80-member brass band which seemed to take the crowd by storm, was a demonstration for table setting. I’m not sure what she was talking about specifically but I stopped because table setting display competitions at the Minnesota State Fair, for example, were always terribly interesting when I was a kid. I love setting tables. The creativity involved, evoking the senses, mix of materials, colors, fabrics, flowers, arrangements. This woman was doing something with carrots.
You can’t have a Farm to Fork Festival in Sacramento without animals. Soon as I spotted the little kids running around with plastic cows, I wanted one. Perhaps that’s because I never got a plastic cow on my first grade field trip to the farm. We got off the bus. I got a whiff of the farm and promptly threw up. They stuck me back on the bus, and I did not get to see the dairy farm nor the cows. Yup, city kid. But we found the display where you could win a plastic cow and my husband scored!
Sorry we are experiencing system issues. Please try again.
