Email ElizabethWhy My Team Members are Great Sacramento Open House Agents
You can stick 10 Sacramento Realtors into a room to talk about protocol for Sacramento open house agents and you’ll get 10 different answers about how to do an open house. Every agent has a different opinion. Many of my sellers want to corner our Sacramento open house agents and ask for advice. However, my team members don’t give advice. They tell the sellers to ask their Sacramento listing agent for direction. Just like I would not directly give advice to home buyers working with another agent. We don’t tread on each other’s toes.
However, some Sacramento open house agents can’t turn it off. They talk about everything and answer every question they are asked about somebody else’s listing. They feel like they are doing a good job by helping to answer the seller’s questions. They don’t understand that the listing agent might not see it that way. Especially if they gave conflicting advice that is counter-productive to the way the listing agent sells homes. Now, not only have they said the wrong thing, but the seller doesn’t necessarily like them very much anymore, either.
The best thing Sacramento open house agents can do is not give listing advice. They are holding the house open to find buyers and provide exposure for the listing. If they find residual business among buyers who want to buy some other home, more power to them. But they should not, under any circumstances, give listing advice. Unless maybe the house is on fire. In that event, they would call 9-1-1.
It’s a tough job for Sacramento open house agents. Sellers are anxious and want the home sold. There is a warm body in the house who holds a real estate license. So they start firing questions toward the agent. What do you think of the price? Should we stage the house? Do you think we should clean out the garage? Those are questions for the listing agent. Not for Sacramento open house agents.
Most Sacramento Realtors know they are not allowed to interfere in another agent’s transaction. So most Realtors don’t violate that. But there are always the handful who forget, who shrug what harm is there? Who blab whatever thoughts pop into their heads. And they won’t last very long as Sacramento open house agents with that kind of behavior. You gotta respect the relationships between sellers and their listing agents.
Members of the Elizabeth Weintraub Team already practice this. I wish every agent did. They greet buyers at the door, introduce themselves to visitors. The team knows enough about the house to talk intelligently to buyers about its condition and wonderful features. We often get offers after a successful open house. They never once give listing advice.
The Best Sacramento Real Estate Agents Via Real Trends 2017
Nobody really knows how Real Trends compiles its list of the best Sacramento real estate agents, but it seems to be divided into groups. Your lone agents and then your team of agents. It also seems to be divided into dollar volume and number of individual sales. But it is difficult to say where they extract that information from. If it is MLS, not every sale in MLS is closed out correctly. Assistants for the listing agents sometimes mess up how the data is entered or they credit the sale to the wrong associate. Sometimes, these people refuse to fix their mistakes. Legally, they really can’t just refuse, but some don’t care if they’re a dick. Those types of situations are not worth the effort to force them to comply.
In any case, Real Trends named the Elizabeth Weintraub Team to two different categories on their list for 2017 as best Sacramento real estate agents. Of course, Real Trends doesn’t know our stellar reputation in the community nor the 5-star Sacramento client reviews we receive. That company, strictly looking at statistics, says the Elizabeth Weintraub Team closed 97 sides last year and sold over $36 million. That’s almost two houses a week. When many agents sell two houses a year or so, our performance, as compared to others, is spectacular. But for us it’s just day-to-day routine business.
Sacramento real estate is our full-time passion and job. We love negotiating real estate, maximizing seller profit potential and finding our buyers that perfect dream home. When we do the same thing enough times, even though every situation is different, we gain a wealth of knowledge not available to agents who do not sell very many homes. As one of the best Sacramento real estate agents, we always put our client’s needs first, above our own. That’s really our secret for success.
Heads down, pedal to the metal and making miracles happen. That’s our work schedule. We often do what appears impossible to others. Thank you, Real Trends, for including the Elizabeth Weintraub Team in your list of Best Sacramento Real Estate Agents.
I only know this because my company, Lyon Real Estate, emailed me yesterday to congratulate the team on our achievement. You would think Real Trends would notify its winners, but I didn’t hear anything from them yet. Lyon Real Estate is always on top of what’s going on, though.
Fall Gardening in Land Park Involves Excessive Pruning
When a person ignores her garden all summer, it means fall gardening in Land Park involves excessive pruning. Look at how overgrown everything is. The jasmine growing on the back fence is causing a few fence boards to separate and, in some cases, fall over. Its tentacles are climbing over the fence and up my neighbor’s tree. The jasmine also blocks sunlight from the tomatoes growing right in front of it. Some of it wound its way into the rose bushes that line the back fence behind the flower garden. Not to mention, the rose bush grafts sent out shoots over the flower garden.
Well, the whole thing is just a mess. Seems like only yesterday it was spring and I cut down all the butterfly bushes to eye level. Now they are growing over the garage. I sprayed RoundUp in the flower garden over several days to ensure I could kill everything. Yeah, yeah, I know everybody hates evil Monsanto and I don’t want it in my food, either. My objective was to get ready for fall gardening in Land Park. To see if we can’t remedy the overgrown weeds. Starting over with our flower garden.
That objective also involved trimming back the orange tree, which was growing over the roses and spreading. In addition to pruning the hydrangeas. Our hydrangeas were just starting to bud on the stems, so that’s always a good time to prune back to the wood. Fall gardening in Land Park also involves hauling a bunch of debris to stuff into our garden waste can, and it’s full. So that means leaving piles around the yard to decompose.
The best part is the fact our gardeners will pick up all of the debris and stuff it into our waste can when they come on Friday. Although it makes me feel a bit guilty to leave it lying in the yard. It also made me feel guilty to cut back the jasmine because the plant bleeds milk. Sticky white residue streaming down all the shoots. Like I hurt it.
My husband pulled most of the weeds in the flower garden and started digging. But the job was bigger than it seems. We did not get the Amador Flower Farm daylilies planted. But we’re further along than we were. Wait until I show you the after photos of our cactus garden in Land Park. Well, it’s no longer a cactus garden. Right now it is dirt. But soon it will be grass. A lush and lovely garden of grass. Don’t see that very often anymore!
Amador Flower Farm Daylilies now on Sale
My husband got it into his head that we should go buy Amador Flower Farm daylilies yesterday, since they were on sale. Not sure what prompted this but it probably has something to do with the fact that I sprayed RoundUp in our back flower garden on purpose. We had too much grass and a ton of weeds growing in that bed. Nobody weeded it. I tried to bribe the gardeners to take care of that bed, but they don’t give a crap, either. Our back yard looks terrible since I stopped fussing over it. There was a time long ago that my husband and I both used to work tirelessly in the gardens, and our yard looked fabulous.
Now, it just looks tired. We both work and travel too much. No Martha Stewart here.
But what about lunch? That was also my husband’s concern. Probably that we’d get stuck in the Amador foothills with nothing available but stripmall lunch counters. One such restaurant popped into my head. My friend Myrl had been to Sloughhouse Inn not too long ago, and that was on our way to get Amador Flower Farm daylilies. Yup, we’d drive right through Sloughhouse.
We drove around in circles a few times because I did not realize the Sloughhouse Inn was under new ownership as the Meadowlands Restaurant. Finally, we figured out it was the only restaurant within miles. Had to be the one. So we grabbed a spot on the back deck for brunch. My husband had a scrambled egg dish with broken pieces of tortillas, chorizo: a chilaquiles. I opted for a spicy Bloody Mary to complement my patchwork salad with shrimp. The salad featured strawberries, corn, golden raisins, romaine, peppers, radicchio, cheddar and a vinaigrette dressing. Two thumbs up for this restaurant!
I also peeked over the deck to view the dry slough. For which I guess Sloughhouse was named. And yes, you can see my reflection in my sunglasses trying to shoot a selfie. I shoot awful selfies. When I see people shooting selfies with those selfie sticks, I want to break that stick over their heads. Mostly, I’m opposed to selfies on principle.
Look at all those Amador Flower Farm daylilies! They also sell bare root but primarily through online orders. Since we were already there in person, and not in a position to dig, we elected to take the pots. Daylilies are flowers that generally produce one flower a day and then it dies. Some are capable of blooming twice. They are not traditional lilies, like Asian lilies or Tiger lilies.
I queried my husband. Who did he think was planning to dig up the dead weeds? He volunteered. That would mean getting out of bed at the crack of dawn to start digging. Before it gets hot. Somehow I don’t see that happening. So, we will see if those flowers ever make it into the back flower bed. We did, however, manage to bring back a trunk full of Amador Flower Farm daylilies to our home in Land Park. Since my husband has a plan for that back garden, he’s got carte blanche to implement it.
The only bummer thing about the drive out to the Amador Flower Farm from Sacramento is loss of cellphone reception. Pretty dead on that stretch of Highway 16 and up 49. Hard to talk about Sacramento real estate when there are no cell towers.
What Types of Homes are Selling in Sacramento?
For sellers who wonder what types of homes are selling in Sacramento, I have answers. Sellers whose homes have been on the market for a while seem to still be recalling our spring market, hoping for the best. Our spring market started off with a bang but by May, for example, many of my listings, like many others, endured price reductions. We had been overly aggressive with pricing, and that strategy doesn’t work anymore. Neither does selling a home in its AS IS condition, unless it is a major fixer or a probate. And many probates are fixers homes.
When I go out to meet with sellers, it is sometimes difficult to explain they are not sitting on a “gold mine.” In fact, not only will they NOT get a bunch of multiple offers all exceeding list price, it’s a fixer. To avoid having them glare at me and think evil thoughts behind my back, I do try to explain in the kindest way possible that our market has changed. If a seller’s intent is to sell her home as a fixer, we can do it. Fixer homes are selling. There are always a market for fixer homes. But there is also a steep discount associated with fixer homes.
What are fixer homes? Today’s buyers view these homes as fixers: any home with older carpeting, popcorn ceilings, outdated appliances, tiled counters, vinyl or linoleum floors and older light fixtures. The home can be in excellent shape otherwise, but if those defects are not corrected, it will be hard to sell, if it sells at all. We should get used to 60 or 90 days on market now. It can take a lot longer to sell upper-end homes as well.
This is not a market to put a not-so-nice or non-updated house on the market, you know, like an average house. Because average house are not selling. At any price. To discover which types of home are selling in Sacramento, apart from my own experience, it’s easy to catch that action in MLS. I studied how many homes closed escrow the first half of September in Sacramento, and we’ve had 476 homes close in Sacramento County this month. Pending numbers are 1,076 for single-family homes, and probably a third of those will blow up.
I can also look at the days on market for other homes. Sure enough, if I check the history, I’ll find price reductions. Most houses will sell if the price is right. But that doesn’t mean other types of homes are selling in Sacramento. What I see are homes in tip-top shape, with all the bells and whistles and amenities a buyer wants. These types of homes, flipper homes included, will sell.
But if your home isn’t updated or fixed up, it might not sell without an aggressive discount. Buyers are no longer jumping on every new listing. Some have given up and left the marketplace because affordability has become an issue. Interest rates are rising, conventional at 4.75%. Median price points still stable. Attractive market but not as attractive. Others sit on the sidelines to see how long a seller will keep an overpriced home on the market. Like vultures. Waiting for that price drop.
It’s a new world in Sacramento real estate for listing agents. Adapt, educate, inform and conform. The only other alternative is to get out. And we’re certainly not doing that. Not after 40+ years selling. But some other agents might bail.
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