Email ElizabethHome Buyers Not Looking for Home Improvement Projects
Just because you and I may love tackling home improvement projects does not mean everybody shares our point of view. Especially not first-time home buyers in Sacramento or, for that matter, even move-up buyers. Today’s home buyers want move-in ready homes. They do not want to make repairs. Gone are the days of buying a resale home in average condition. There are two instances under which a buyer would purchase a home in average condition. Either the home is priced way below market value, making it an absolute steal, or wait . . . there is no second reason.
Trying to sell your home without making repairs is like inviting guests for dinner and expecting them to bring their own food and cook it, too.
I was thinking about this as I drove yesterday to Rosemont. The traffic on Highway 50 is always a bit rough on that stretch of freeway between downtown and Watt, but yesterday I spotted a hearse. When I saw it, the first thought in my head was not party-time! Nor did I wonder how many people we can stuff into it. Hearses were very popular as a vehicle for private citizens when I was a kid. We painted them psychedelic colors and drove them around like they were a limo. People lived in them, too, and held wild parties. But no, this hearse made me feel respectful of the cargo it may have carried. A different point of view than my initial instincts.
Also, the hearse was in the lane next to the fast lane. I guess there was no reason for it to be in the fast lane. Who is in such a rush in a hearse? Nobody, that’s who. In fact, I would feel rather uneasy watching a hearse exceed the speed limit in the fast lane. Wouldn’t you?
Sometimes sellers are in a big rush, too. They can’t wait to put their home on the market, even though it might need work. If it needs work or updates, then sellers should complete those tasks before putting their home on the market. You will not get top dollar for a home that needs work. I talked with sellers last night who said a bath might need work, but they want to let the buyers use their own vision for that job. I had to explain that buyers are not looking for home improvement projects. Buyers would rather pass on a property and will buy another home that doesn’t need any work.
The mindset today seems to be they just want the work done. They will pay a bit more for a remodeled house but they want it to be perfect. No major flaws or defects. No home improvement projects.
In fact, I visited with several sellers this past week. Two of them are not sellers. They think they are selling their homes, but they aren’t. I can tell just by chatting with people. I’ll be visiting new sets of sellers next week and helping them to fix up their homes prior to selling. If you’re thinking about it, give me a jingle at 916.233.6759. Put 40 years of experience to work for you.
Amazing Home in a Gated Community in Arden Manor Sacramento
Are you a first-time home buyer hoping to find an amazing home in a gated community in Arden Manor at an affordable price? Look no further. Homes in the Villaggio gated complex do not come up for sale very often. All around this neighborhood, you see so much new construction. Developers are building $750K to $900K homes in Arden Manor. When the seller bought this home in 2005, it offered a gated community in the middle of an older, established neighborhood. Today, that community is revitalized with many remodeled homes and quite a number of upper-end luxury homes. This is an excellent opportunity from an investment or long-term hold point of view. You will love the price, too.
The first thing you should consider when buying a home in a gated community in Arden Manor is parking. You don’t have to be rocket scientist to figure out the garage is a one-car. However, look at that space in front of the front door. What is that? I’ll tell you what that is. It’s a carport. And then over on the left-side of the house is a bricked yard with space for two more cars. Yes, you can park a minimum of four cars at this home. More, when we figure out how to stack them on top of each other.
You can’t see the home in this photo because this is shot from the street (Jonas). The home is located all the way at the end on the right, nestled in the evergreens. It’s a very private location. Not only that, but it’s one of the largest lots in the subdivision. The last two homes on the right are set back from the street with a much larger area of street in front. Nobody has verified this, but the seller thinks the property line for each of the houses runs to the middle of the street. If that is true, that definitely makes her particular lot much bigger than the others at .0933, according to the Sacramento County Tax Assessor. That could be wrong, though. Although most of the other lots are .06.
Check out the entertainment space. This room is around the corner from the sheltered entrance. Beautiful oversized ceramic with variances add drama to the travertine around the fireplace. The owner of this home has impeccable taste, wouldn’t you agree? Look at those oversized Hershey’s Kisses on the floor in front of the fireplace. Perfect accessory, no?
If you haven’t guessed it by now, the first floor of this home is for entertaining. There is a half bath around the corner by the entrance, but the rest of the layout is kitchen and family room. Of course, the cabinets are a beautiful maple, and all of the black appliances stay. Over on the left is the area the former owners used as a dining space, but our seller prefers a table in the middle. What do you think? Middle like this? Or dining area in the corner?
Last year the seller painted to keep everything fresh. All of the rooms are the same color for consistency. You will find three bedrooms and two full baths upstairs. The seller uses one of the bedrooms as a TV room and it offers a balcony as well. This is a photo of the master bedroom at the back of the home. You will love the master bath, complete with a separate shower and a soaking tub.
Plenty of time in the day to relax outside. There are many areas around the perimeter of the home to curl up and read a book, due to its remote location. Much of the exterior was remodeled by the seller, including the pergola, patio surround and walkways. It’s a place you really need to see in person because it’s even better than the photos. Why not come to our open houses on Saturday and Sunday, both from 11 AM to 1 PM, September 29th and 30th? If you can’t wait, here is the virtual tour.
2729 Via Villaggio, Sacramento, CA 95864 is offered exclusively by Elizabeth Weintraub and Lyon Real Estate at $365K. Call Elizabeth at 916.233.6759 for more information.
The information in this advertisement, including, but not limited to, square footage and/or acreage, has been provided by various sources which may include the Seller, the Multiple Listing Service or other sources. Lyon Real Estate has not and will not investigate or verify the accuracy of this information. Prospective buyers are advised to conduct their own investigation of the Property and this advertised information utilizing appropriate professionals before purchasing this Property.
How to Sell Your House in the Fall Sacramento Market
If you’re looking for tips to sell your house in the fall Sacramento market, you’ve come to the right blog. I routinely sell a couple of homes a week on average so I manage a wide range of transactions. This gives me a unique perspective of the housing market in Sacramento. Because believe you me, I have been sailing high on the seller’s market in Sacramento for the past 7 years. It’s a little bit of a bummer to watch the tables turning, but that’s the cycle of life and of real estate. Gone is the “seller’s way or the highway.” New is: how can we help the buyer to purchase this home?
Does this mean multiple offers are a thing of the past? That’s what sellers want to know. The truth is there will always be multiple offers for beautiful and stunning homes or for severely underpriced homes. There will be no multiple offers anymore for the stuff that is in between. We have a lot of stuff, much inventory on hand that lies between gorgeous and cheap. That land known as average run-of-the-mill homes at a decent price. Or, otherwise referred to as: ain’t gonna sell come hell or high water. Because buyers today do not want an average home at a decent price.
In fact, I would say there is a huge disconnect between how sellers and buyers view the market. For starters, buyers are not crawling all over each other anymore to buy a home. They don’t want to overpay and are a bit uneasy purchasing. They will check with everybody within earshot for advice. To capture today’s home buyers your home needs to almost be perfect. This means no leaky roofs, busted water heaters, no black mold in the bathrooms, nor peeling and separating laminate floors, and certainly no creepy carpeting.
Sellers, if you want to sell your house in the fall Sacramento market, be ready to negotiate on price. It doesn’t matter too much your sales price. It can be right on the nose or lower than the comps. Whatever it is, if there is one little drawback to the house, you can bet a buyer will hit that price. That means if your home is worth $415,000, for example, and you want to sell at $415,000, it needs to be perfect. If it’s not perfect, a buyer might offer $395K. And after the home and pest inspection, the buyer will want more money or repairs. Buyers are driving sales.
If you’re not prepared to negotiate and give in to buyers, then your home should be in brand new condition. Completely remodeled, new appliances, flooring, paint and lighting. We don’t write the rules of Sacramento real estate, so don’t kill the messenger. This is just the way it is in our present real estate market. You either work within the confines of the market or you can just not sell your house. Your listing agent is not a magician. She can’t manufacture demand that does not exist.
Just a quick run in MLS shows over 3,374 residential listings in Sacramento County. That’s a big uptick from our August 2018 Sacramento Housing Report. Although, we’ve had that kind of inventory in 2014, when we had more buyers. Now, only 1,594 sales have closed over the past 30 days, and a mere 1,188 are pending. We are slowing down instead of going like gangbusters as we have in previous Septembers.
I met with sellers yesterday who need to do a bit of work before selling. They have a list of projects from me. If they don’t do the work, then they need to drop their expectations on price by about $30,000 to $40,000. There is no way around this. It’s not like a seller can simply wait a few months for the market to improve. The market is not about to improve for sellers so no amount of waiting will pay off. Don’t kick yourself that you didn’t sell early spring. Spring has come and gone and next spring won’t be as pretty. Don’t lament the past. Deal with the here and now.
If you were waiting for the perfect time to sell your house, when all the stars were aligned, anytime within the past 7 years would have been a good time. However, if you want to maximize profit potential today, the best way to sell your house in the fall Sacramento market is to rely on the advice and negotiation skills from a strong listing agent. Since I fit that bill, I offer my services to you. You can call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759 and put 40+ years of experience to work for you.
Sacramento Appraiser Sends Unprofessional Tweets, Raises Ruckus
You would think if you were a Sacramento appraiser trying to get noticed online, that a guy like that would be more careful about what he says and how he says it. It started last spring over a home in Carmichael I had briefly listed, which had been the unintentional topic of many alt-right news reports. The Tweets from the Sacramento appraiser eventually made it to the Sac Bee online news. Due to the orchestrating of bringing proprietary information not meant for public consumption to the public by the appraiser. In other words, look as though this Sacramento appraiser made it his business to Tweet about a member-only status in MLS with the intention of purposely igniting the alt-right.
And ignite the alt-right he did. Whether he is an official Trump supporter is only a hypothesis mentioned by others, but this person seems to show a lot of empathy for that group. Yet it seems that his ability to poke his nose into situations that are not his business know no bounds. He obviously flagged the property in question in MLS and when a status change showed up, he Tweeted about it in such a manner that the seller says he caused her mental anguish and physical pain. The status change was to Temporary Off Market, which is only available to members of MLS.
It means this seemingly right-leaning Sacramento appraiser crafted a Tweet about a property he had no right to Tweet. His intention was self promotion. This was not his listing. He did not appraise this property. The seller believes he abused his MLS membership by taking private information and making it public without permission. At the time, I had the property listed and put it into TOM status for a number of reasons. For starters, the seller, her agent and her agent’s company began to receive vile threats and emails from all over the country, thanks to this appraiser. This guy’s effort to make a buck off somebody else’s distress is frightening. He jumped right in and added fuel to the burning fire. People threatened to literally burn down the house because of this Sacramento appraiser’s Tweet.
When I originally listed the property, it was a bit high. The seller based her price on another property on the same street in the same vintage condition that sold a couple of years ago. Sometimes, vintage homes fetch prices you won’t believe. My method of operation is to always try to get the amount the seller would like, within reason. And with the understanding that if we can’t get it, the price will be adjusted. After we placed the property in TOM status, I had several discussions with the seller about reducing the price. Based on her reaction, I could see this would be a long process. Months.
At this point, the seller also wanted me to file a complaint against the Sacramento appraiser at the California Bureau of Real Estate Appraisers for unprofessional conduct. For putting his own personal profit ahead of decency. I could understand the seller wanting to report him, but my part in this was not required. His participation in the false supposition that the seller lost $130,000 because she refused to sell to a Trump supporter was way off base. She dropped that stipulation months earlier. But perhaps the seller should pursue her $130K loss in court? If it’s on Twitter, it must be true.
I guess a case could be made by an astute lawyer that the Sacramento appraiser caused her to lose that money. I’m not a lawyer so I wouldn’t know. Instead I suggested the seller contact a lawyer, and I sent her several referrals.
In any case, this was the seller’s obligation to object to and file. She was the most damaged from the Sacramento appraiser’s careless, stupid and thoughtless actions. The agents are not really a party to the transaction or to her grief. Although, the situation had caused me to more thoroughly examine the facts at hand:
- Alt-righters and White supremacists were threatening to burn down the house, among other distasteful actions.
- A Sacramento appraiser who won’t stop tweeting, regardless of how much damage he causes, about matters that are not his concern.
- A seller who needed a lot more encouragement to reduce her price to where it needed to be, and the fact that this high maintenance issue was eating up all of my available time and then some.
- The seller didn’t use a computer and lived out-of-town.
- Every conversation lasted at least an hour, almost daily.
- Listing was too high publicity. The seller deserved a fresh start because my marketing and branding were too easily recognizable. It was best for the seller to let a new agent at a different company handle this.
As a top producer in Sacramento real estate, I regularly sell a couple of houses a week, on average. So, I turned to one of my very best friends in Sacramento real estate, a listing agent I admire, trust and respect, and asked her to take over the listing. My seller still deserved the best service available, and this agent and I are like two peas in a pod.
Sacramento Appraiser Tweets Again
Sure enough, soon as my friend listed the property — which took her several months to get into MLS — the Sacramento appraiser struck again. She had just put the listing into pending status after only a few days on market. This time his Tweet raised such a ruckus that the buyers canceled. They told the listing agent they did not want to buy a house associated with this Sacramento appraiser’s Tweets. They did not want their new home burned down. Fortunately, the agent promptly sold it again without changing the status in MLS and without notifying the busybody Sacramento appraiser.
When I asked the listing agent what she thought of this Sacramento appraiser’s actions, she texted, “Everybody’s entitled to their own opinions, but when you try to bring other people down based on your belief system, and try to profit off it, that’s stepping way over the line of professionalism, into hatred and bias and greed, [that’s the case of] a small-minded pea brain.”
Consumers deserve a good appraiser, too. The best appraiser in Sacramento, a professional I can personally vouch for, is Amy Parker at Appraise it Today.
This home in Carmichael, btw, has closed escrow.
Are You Guilty of Ignoring People?
Ignoring people, a good topic for today. Do you like to be ignored? Under any circumstances? I mean, if somebody is gonna ignore you, it doesn’t help if they’re a friend or a stranger. It’s just as bad, regardless, to be a person ignored. Whether or not you know the person, not relevant. How about if you’re the customer and the company’s representative is guilty of ignoring people? But you like the guy. His heart is in the right place, you know that, but he has a nasty habit of ignoring people when he gets overwhelmed. Plus, he’s just doing a job. A job he gets paid to do because it beats being unemployed. Not like me, not a Sacramento Realtor who loves her job and would almost do it for free.
Since the middle of last week, I sent 5 follow-up emails about a trip to New Zealand and Tasmania for 2020 to my travel agent. Rather than tell me he is too busy to handle our requests, he ignored my emails. When I finally accused him of ignoring people, he offered to send us to a specialist in another city. Because, get this, he didn’t want to make us to wait any longer. No grass grows under my feet. Of course, I booked the trip without him. This is not some stranger. This is a guy who has booked many trips for us, and we’ve even traveled WITH him. But this is also not new behavior for him. Same spots, same dog.
My sprinkler repair guy at Kona Pride Irrigation Repair has gone missing in action, too. Always there for me previously. He made an appointment to come over the day I left earlier this month, and then didn’t show up. Didn’t call. Didn’t answer his phone. Sent all calls to voice mail. Basically must have decided he was better off ignoring people. I contacted a different sprinkler company through Yelp and got no response there, either. So, I look at myself. Am I invisible? What did I do to justify this kind of behavior? Nothing.
What do guys who are guilty of ignoring people think to themselves? How do they rationalize that kind of rude and insulting behavior? Do they tell themselves: well, after several attempts to reach me, if she’s unsuccessful, she’ll figure out I am not accessible and stop. Ha, you are talking to a Sacramento Realtor. I never give up. If a person contacts me about selling a home in Sacramento, you can bet I will do my best to connect. I will call, leave a voice mail, send a text and email. Then do it again the next day. Because not everybody can be me.
Also, because life is unpredictable. People can end up in the hospital, on a plane, in an accident, breaking up a relationship, bonding with a new baby, overdosing on drugs, landing in jail, or otherwise engaged for at least a 24-hour period, I try to give people a bit of space. They get a break. But after 3 days of trying to contact a person to offer the assistance they inquired about in the first place and getting nowhere, it can be a bit confusing.
Finally, the other day, I just laid it on the line to a potential seller in Bridgeway Lakes. I emailed the following: The Referring Company asked me again this morning whether we have connected, and I let them know I have emailed you several times and have not received a response. Would you like me to stop emailing you? Would you like to talk? See, I do not know the answer to either of those questions.
I got an answer right away! Imagine that. The answer was he had an agent. Did he have an agent when he contacted the Referring Company? Does he just want me to stop bothering him? Is he a real buyer? None of those things matter. The point is I got him to respond. Small victory.
Ignoring people. It shouldn’t be like this.
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