Email ElizabethInstalling Granite Countertops Flush With a Cabinet is Cause for Woe
AFTER: New granite in bath remodel
Not every bath remodel turns out exactly the way it should be most often due to contractor error. Just because a guy is cheap doesn’t mean he’s any good, just like your Sacramento real estate agent who agreed to work for a discount, which is not this writer. I recall from many years ago the guy who put in the granite on top of the vanity as being very proud about the fact he had “tricked out” the granite, meaning he had cut it flush with the cabinet. It wasn’t what I had expected.
BEFORE: Bad granite in bath remodel
At the time, it didn’t dawn on me that the edge of a countertop should never ever sit directly on the edge of the cabinet because a flush edge does not prevent water nor other liquids like contact lenses solution from dripping down the face of the cabinet. And even if that thought did cross wires somewhere in my brain, after the contractor cut and installed the granite, it was too late. Let this be a lesson you don’t have to learn the hard way: don’t ever install a counter flush with the cabinet in a kitchen or bath remodel.
It’s not just the water dripping down the cabinet that can damage cabinets. Our wall cabinet got dinged pretty badly by the ceiling heat / air vent dumping hot air directly on the finish. We ended up buying a clip-on clear plastic thingie that funnels the heat from the vent downward into the room. So much for Thomasville cabinets and the factory finish.
Before we could refinish the cabinets, we had to replace the granite countertop. Not only was the granite a problem, but the faucet was installed too close to the mirrored medicine cabinet door. Opening the door banged it into the faucet. On top of that, the spacer piece was never blocked properly at the base of the cabinet so it continued to move every time the housekeeper cleaned in the bath.
We fixed all those things with the new granite. It’s also lighter in color, which looks better with chocolate cabinets anyway. It opens up the room and makes the small bath appear larger.
Now we have a new problem, I hate to admit. With the overhang on the granite, we can’t easily open the cabinet doors. I’m not sure my husband has discovered that defect yet and I don’t have the heart to tell him. Well, after we get the cabinet doors refinished, we’ll attach pulls.
Everything is Awesome in Sacramento Real Estate!
Everything is Awesome from the Lego Movie is worse than It’s a Small World at Disneyland — because at least with the latter it gave you hope for the world, some redemption for humanity — but both of those songs once they get stuck in your head end up on robo-tape, playing over and over. It’s a catchy tune, too. On the surface the lyrics are simple yet the song is super snarky, which is what makes it hilarious.
I would not be surprised if in Corporate America somewhere, some meeting planner decides that the song Everything is Awesome would make a great theme song for an annual convention. After all, everybody wants to be cool when they’re part of the team, right? If you step in shit, you just wear brown shoes, right? Ridiculous optimism rules the planet, doesn’t it? Who doesn’t love a glass is half full?
Perhaps the California Association of REALTORS will choose Everything is Awesome for its One Cool Thing campaign?
Actually, the best part of the Lego Movie was when Unikitty loses it and explodes in violent anger. Oh, sorry, that was a spoiler alert. My bad.
My husband said the Lego Movie was too smart for its own good, and I suppose there is an element of truth in that statement. I guess little kids really liked the movie but I suspect they came away with a much different story. Like Everything is Awesome and people are Special, which is not that much different than believing in the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus, so what’s the harm?
Well, I don’t know about you but I was pretty crushed when I discovered there was no Santa Claus, and no Tooth Fairy, either. I resisted the notion, gravitating toward the belief that my parents harbored some nefarious reason for deliberately shattering my illusions that Everything is Awesome!
On the other hand, I have learned throughout my 40 years in real estate how to do Everything is Awesome pretty well. That attitude, goofy as it may seem, helps me to sell Sacramento real estate. I do try to find the silver linings in situations because given the alternative who wants to slosh through mud every day? I try to perk up my listings to make them more attractive to buyers, which often includes parking an expensive foreign sports car right down the street and taking a photo for the “street view” in the listing.
An out-of-area client emailed this morning after I sent him the link to his new listing online. He mentioned that the last photograph in my series of photos seemed to be of a different property. I explained that was the view across the street, where everybody parks their Porsches. He wrote back to say maybe the area has gotten better since he last visited. See, it works!
Sacramento Real Estate Agents Who Get Results Develop Confidence
You know what kind of listings the top-ranking Sacramento real estate agents prefers to take? You might think it’s the luxury homes in Granite Bay or El Dorado Hills at a million or more or maybe it’s the homes in Land Park right by my house or the homes by my office in East Sacramento and, while all of those are good choices, I don’t focus entirely on those neighborhoods and the price tag isn’t the deciding factor.
Most successful Sacramento real estate agents gravitate toward listings for sale by sellers who are reasonable and who will listen to advice. It doesn’t mean they have to follow to the T every single suggestion I come up with, but they shouldn’t ignore my advice. I’ve spent decades picking up experience to share in the real estate business, and I’ve been successfully honing my craft ever since the 1970s.
I’m not one of those part-time Sacramento real estate agents. I am a full-time Sacramento Realtor. I’m not a mom or a grandma who raised a bunch of kids and is now looking for something to keep myself occupied. I started in the real estate business when I was barely 22-years-old, and it’s been more of a calling than a job.
For that reason, I see the big picture when I talk to a client. I spoke to a guy a few days ago about listing an investment property in a somewhat scary part of Sacramento. It’s not Land Park by any stretch, but if a seller needs to sell, I go to where they need me to go. I don’t discriminate or think I’m too hoity toity to take a listing in an economically distressed or crime-ridden neighborhood. I drove over to this not-so-nice part of town in 106-degree heat and shot professional photographs, standing in the middle of the street, walking the property line, sweating to death, perspiration dripping down the middle of my shirt.
I studied the comparable sales. It was clear to me that the amount I could probably sell this property for would be an astronomical sum that my competitors who looked at the same comparable sales probably would not see. It would be a challenge but I could do it. That’s where my years of experience come in handy. Plus, I know how to extract top dollar for a property; I network and I have connections as well. I could have given the seller a lower price and been done with it, but it wouldn’t have been the ethical thing to do.
After I prepared the paperwork and sent it to the seller, I got a bit of push back on the listing. It wasn’t about the price or overall compensation. The seller wanted to change my strategy and insisted I conform to the seller’s idea of how to sell this particular piece of challenging real estate. The seller is not in the business of selling real estate. In fact, I’d go so far as to say the seller should not have ever done what the seller had done with regards to this particular property but that doesn’t alter the present.
My thoughts about this are it’s not gonna work for me. We’re not a team on this, not of one mind. It ultimately won’t really work for the seller either the way he wants to do it but the seller won’t figure that out until it’s been on the market for 6 months without any offers. I just tell people what I see and how I work. If they don’t want to go along with it, that’s OK. My feelings aren’t hurt. I am not a foie gras agent, prone to force feeding my clients. I don’t shove anything down anybody’s throat.
I just look at the client who is closing next week and pocketing an extra 10% profit because she listened to me. When I met with her, she was undecided between hiring me or another Sacramento agent. The other agent would charge less and wanted to list at a lower price, too. The seller had a hard time believing that she could sell for the price I quoted and did not want to pay a full commission. But in the end, she gave the listing to me at the higher price, paid my fee without griping, and now she’s laughing all the way to the bank.
Top Sacramento Listing Agent Ranks #70 Nationally
The brokerage your Sacramento listing agent works for makes a difference — which is yet one more reason for sellers to interview agents from competing brokerages and not from the same brokerage. Some agent from Illinois wrote this morning to say she disagreed with an article I wrote for About.com — and that’s not the first time some agent has approached such an issue with disdain and horror, as though they were splashed by a spoonful of spaghetti sauce flipped off a spoon held by yours truly and directed with precision at the front of their white shirts.
There are many reasons not to interview an agent from the same brokerage much less the same real estate office, but marketing provided by the brokerage is a strong reason. Sellers should see how other brokerages market their listings, and if all they’re doing is comparing one apple to other apples in the office, they won’t see the differences among brokerages.
This is not to say that all agents are the same because all agents are not the same. It’s like a bell curve. Plus, every agent offers a different education level, experiences, marketing, strategies, analytical reasoning and they sometimes talk to each other in the office about listing presentations. If you are a seller interviewing two agents in the same office, they might even talk about you, a common element they share. It’s human nature and to suppose otherwise is a bit naive.
It’s the same as believing that maybe Nixon was not a crook. Maybe Clinton didn’t have sex with that woman. Perhaps there is no revolving door between corporate America and government. Maybe the 99% are at fault and deserve what they get. Maybe the honeybees are dying because they’re supposed to. Maybe the world is flat after all.
Of course, if you’re listing with an agent at Lyon Real Estate, you’re getting a brokerage that ranks #1 in Sacramento. A brokerage that spends a ton of money on advertising and support for its agents’ listings. Real Trends issued a report this month showcasing the top 500 agents in the country. The Elizabeth Weintraub Team ranked #70 in America for last year’s number of sales. I never thought I’d see the day that I ranked in the top 100 teams in the country. That just blows me away. See what happens when you’re busy?
The downside is Real Trends and its affiliates now want to sell me every kind of statue, plaque and award thingie, and even Trulia has hopped on the bandwagon. Criminy.
Getting Business as a Sacramento Listing Agent
Anybody who thinks Sacramento real estate is dull and uninteresting is probably not a top listing agent in Sacramento. They probably don’t read this blog, either. There is always something horrific going on, some transaction trying to slip sideways down the hill that I’ve got to attach to a crane and hoist back up, but it’s never boring. I stay on top of my files.
Right now, ever since the vague thought of I really need to take a few more listings crossed my mind over the weekend, suddenly bunches of sellers have been contacting me to get their homes into MLS and sold. Now, I am not a spiritual person much less a religious person but it reminds me of Tom Robbin’s new book (memoir?) I’m reading, Tibetan Peach Pie. Robbins talks about picking tomatoes in the hot sun as a kid growing up in the South. His kid buddy he called Gumboot cried out in desperation one day as he was sweating to death in the tomato fields, “Good Lord, if it’s in Thy power, send me that knocking-off shower.” And lo and behold the heavens opened up and it poured down rain.
Those thoughts didn’t pass through my brain with much conviction. It was a passing minor panic attack of sorts, probably lasted all of 2 seconds, but it did cross my mind that I’ve been closing so many escrows lately that I need to pop a few more into the hopper on the front end. Where was that business gonna come from? Selling real estate is a balancing act, if you’re gonna run it like a business, which it is. A good Sacramento listing agent can’t run out of inventory.
The way I see it: I’ve got new listings to take, existing listings to sell and listings to close. Those are my 3 main focuses throughout the day. Everything else is external noise. I am almost impaired that way, my intense concentration is on those 3 areas. Some agents have to go out looking for business but business finds me, so that’s one aspect of being a Sacramento listing agent that I am fortunate I don’t have to spend a lot of time on.
Somewhere I read that agents spend 1/3 of their time canvassing for business. I suppose when I started in the business, I spent more time looking for clients but that was so long ago I don’t recall. Or, maybe it’s ingrained in me to such an extent that I don’t even notice it any longer. Perhaps I solicit in my sleep? I meet a person, doesn’t matter who or where, and that person knows I sell real estate in Sacramento. You can count on it. It’s a lifestyle.
My team held quite a few open houses yesterday. Oh, people like to pooh-pooh open houses and say they don’t sell real estate and some do not. Although buyers might not decide to buy a house through an open house; however, it’s how they often see the house they are planning to buy. Agents swarmed one such open house Sunday in Elk Grove. We ran out of flyers, which is highly unusual. One agent went into the back yard and started handing out business cards to visitors before she was slapped by my team member.
There’s a time and place for that kind of thing, and at another agent’s open house is not the time nor the place.
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