Email ElizabethExtraordinary Craftsman Home in East Sacramento
For anybody who appreciates historic homes in East Sacramento, it doesn’t get any better than an extraordinary 1915 Craftsman. This new East Sacramento listing is a high-water bungalow with terrazzo steps leading up to the big front porch. I would love to sit up on this porch and watch men push babies in strollers and kids ride by on bikes. In fact, I would love to buy this home but my husband says we’re not moving.
When you open the antique front door, the home immediately welcomes you; there is a feeling of grandeur and warmth. It speaks fondly to you. Vintage features are intact and beautifully stunning such as the boxed ceilings, hardwood floors, high baseboards, molding, light fixtures, plus you’ll find sparkling chandeliers and even some of the door frames feature raised wood carvings. Many of the ceilings are unique, formed and curved by master plasterers from back in the day.
In addition to the formal living and dining rooms, this spacious home boasts a separate family room, plus a desirable first-floor bedroom with bay windows. The kitchen is so enormous you could roller skate across the black-and-white patterned floor and around the butcher block island that stays with the home. Plenty of cabinets, stainless appliances, plus a space for a breakfast table that could probably seat 10 people.
French doors lead to the back-yard deck. The deck is partially covered, and the yard has hydrangeas, fruit trees, a raised vegetable garden, an outbuilding used as a children’s playhouse, and a private patio, along the perimeter of a lush lawn. This beautiful view is also attainable from the second-floor bedroom, which has been lovingly remodeled by the owners with hardwood planked flooring and a walk-in closet.
There are 4 bedrooms and 3 baths in this home. The master suite features a marble bath, with unique built-in storage for shoes, which I, a woman who has a fondness for shoes, absolutely covet. The tub is jetted, and there is a separate shower sporting a pebble stone floor. The dual sink vanity with a cool marble surface features a large mirror.
On top of all of this, there is a full basement. The ductwork has been upgraded, plus any upgrades under the house are easy to do with a full basement.
Come to the open house on Sunday, October 27th, from 2:00 to 4:00 PM, held by the Elizabeth Weintraub Team.
1558 Santa Ynez Way, Sacramento, CA 95816 is exclusively offered by Lyon Real Estate at $725,000. Please call your East Sacramento agent, Elizabeth Weintraub, at 916.233.6759 for more information.
Three Top Reasons Your Sacramento Home is Not Selling
If you’re wondering why your home in Sacramento is not selling, you’ve come to the right place. The likelihood is you are not one of my sellers but I imagine you could be. Just as you might imagine you could be. In fact, I had a seller yesterday who imagined just that, as he was NOT my seller but said he wanted to be. Well, he doesn’t really want to be a seller, you know, he wants to be a former owner. All sellers want to be a former owner.
Or, at least that’s what a Sacramento real estate agent would imagine. But some of us are capable of imagining all sorts of stuff because we’ve learned early in life that what one can imagine, one can probably create. It’s why we excel at marketing.
Yeah, out of the blue this guy calls as I’m driving back to my home office. Thank goodness my top wasn’t down (on my car). The guy was happy I answered my phone and said he was mad that his agent did not. Said he’s had his home listed for 3 months, the listing was expiring today, and his agent doesn’t return calls or emails and simply ignores him. I tell him I’m sorry; I don’t know his agent. Then he admits his agent is the brother of his sister-in-law, or some such, what we call a DNA agent. Would I puhhhhhlease help him?
OK, sure, I’ll take a look at his listing when I get to my office. In the meanwhile, I tell him there are 3 reasons typically why a home is not selling:
- Price
- Condition
- Marketing
I pull up the listing in MLS and spot one photo — a bad quality photo — and no interior photos. The confidential agent remarks say the seller will credit the buyer X amount of dollars for painting. Wow, that really makes this Sacramento real estate agent want to show the house. What great motivation.
Next, I examine the comparable sales. I can see how the agent determined the price. He priced it in line with the homes presently on the market, which all have long days on market, and all of which are significantly larger and appear to be in better condition. This home is not priced according to the comparable sales. It’s priced at least 10% too high.
Not to mention, it’s a small part-time broker who has the listing, who might not have much of a network at his disposal. At Lyon Real Estate, we have almost 1,000 agents with whom we network. I explain this to the seller when I call back and offer professional photography with my Nikon and wide-angle lens. In fact, I could take the key from the lockbox with his written permission.
Thanks, but no thanks, the guy says. He’s now talked with his agent and supplied him with all of my wonderful ideas, and he’s thinking about staying with him for a while. He doesn’t want me to do any more work for which I won’t get paid.
It’s nice that somebody is looking out for this Sacramento real estate agent. I didn’t get a chance to tell him there is a reason I am closing in on selling another 100 homes this year.
Using Common Sense in Sacramento Real Estate
Common sense mixed with the truth must be a wild concept to some. I wish people would quit thanking me for being honest with them, because the message they’re really sending is they expected that I would lie. It’s not that I couldn’t lie if I wanted to because, let’s face it, I sell real estate in Sacramento and just to be successful in that profession there is a certain amount of enhancing the truth to push product; it’s the spin. Can’t be in marketing without the spin. But it’s that I don’t go out of my way to make up crap because a) it’s stupid and wrong, b) I’d have to remember it, and c) it’s easier just to tell the truth.
Years ago I had a girlfriend who was a pathological liar. You couldn’t believe a word that came out of her mouth. I don’t know if she lived in a fantasy world or just liked to fool people but she’d tell the most outrageous stories to complete strangers, and none of it was true. We’d meet cute guys at a party and she’d tell them we were flight attendants or we lived in Japan. There was no reason for it. Guys who are 22 don’t really care what you do for a living when they are seized by hormones.
Personally, I find being truthful rewarding. It’s second nature. It’s not that I don’t know when to keep my lips zipped, because I do, but the older I get, the more I enjoy telling people what I think. I say things at times that other people wish they could say but they haven’t yet given themselves permission to do so. This is one of the freeing benefits of aging. We give ourselves permission to speak our mind. They don’t tell you about this in Sunday school.
Not that I’m out there in my yard waving my fists at kids and yelling get offa my lawn you hoodlums, and that little pooping chihuahua with you, too. Reality and protocol are still embedded. But I will tell people what I believe.
Of the five senses, common is my favorite.
Like this guy yesterday from somewhere in the Northeast, maybe New Jersey. He wanted to know when he should do a price reduction on this home. It was listed with an agent. He poured out the entire listing history in his email, including suggestions made by his agent, which he had been ignoring. My-oh-my, whatever should he do?
He should listen to his real estate agent and stop asking for direction from strangers on the other side of the country.
Then, an elderly fellow called to talk about his friend whose husband had died, and he thought maybe his friend should do a short sale. I looked up the information in records that are not accessible to the public and easily sized up the situation. Yes, his friend was upside down but there was no reason for her to short sale. She wasn’t responsible for the mortgages. She should get out of title. I suggested he obtain legal advice. I was looking at it from his friend’s point of view, which was why go through the hassle and misery if you don’t have to?
See, common sense pertains to so many things. And it applies to Sacramento real estate as well. While it would be nice to lounge about and dispense sage advice all day while being fanned and fed seedless grapes, the fact is my job is to sell real estate.
When is the Purchase Offer Accepted for a Sacramento Home?
You will find veteran real estate agents in Sacramento who do not know the answer to when do sellers and buyers have a purchase offer accepted? What is the date of offer acceptance? Moreover, what date is the date of the purchase contract? Even Bank of America does not know the answer to this question, but at least it has picked a method by which to determine the date, even if it is incorrect, according to California law.
I had a conversation with a short sale negotiator at Bank of America yesterday about its SSPCA, which is a form used in a short sale. It specifies and references the date of the California purchase contract. This particular negotiator said that bank policy is to pick the date the real estate agent typed the offer, the date that appears in the upper right hand corner of every page of the C.A.R. Residential Purchase Agreement. This date may or may not be the date on which the buyer even signed the offer. It is definitely not the date of the purchase contract, even if it is the date the buyer signed the offer.
But I can see Bank of America’s point of view. It needs some sort of conformity in its short sale processes, thank goodness, and its lawyers probably decided that since the laws in all states are different, and their lazy ass wants to use only one form nationwide, then the lawyers would just make up their own rules. Nobody cares about short sales much anymore.
When it comes to a home buyer in Sacramento, though, the date of the purchase contract is extremely important because it establishes the contingency period date. Purchase contracts contain contingencies for all sorts of things such as home inspections, appraisal and loan approval. Those time periods, typically 17 days by contract default, start the day after the purchase contract is ratified, fully accepted.
The date the contract is fully accepted, the date of contract acceptance, is the date it is delivered to the party named on page 8 in the first paragraph (subject to counter offers, if any). If it is the buyer who is named, then it is the date that the buyer receives the fully executed contract. If the name is that of the buyer’s real estate agent, then it is the date the buyer’s real estate agent receives the fully executed contract. It is “delivery” and receipt of that delivery that starts the clock ticking.
For example, if a purchase contract is signed by the buyer on October 16th, accepted by the seller on October 19th, but not delivered to and acknowledged by the buyer’s agent until October 21st, then it is October 21st that is the date of delivery and the official date of the purchase contract.
Selling a Sacramento Home for a Family Member
Selling a home in Sacramento for a family member is not a possibility for this Sacramento real estate agent because I have no family in Sacramento — apart from my husband — whom, BTW, just informed me the other day that he is not really a family member according to Facebook, and that I should not have included him when I updated my list of family members in Facebook. WTH? See, this is why I don’t much care for Facebook.
I sometimes get referrals, though, from other agents who don’t want to work with a family member to sell a home or buy a home in Sacramento. It’s not so much that they don’t want to work with their relative as it is they don’t want problems to arise in the family over it. Anybody involved in an ordinary family will understand those dynamics.
For example, I would not sell my own sister’s home. I would not help her to do it herself as a for sale by owner. I would find her a top-notch producer to do it, try to make sure she stays out of trouble, if I can, but I will not interfere in her transaction. Some people might think that attitude is cruel, especially since I’ve been in the business for just about 40 years now and could be of great assistance, but they don’t know my sister and they aren’t in the real estate business.
I love my sister to pieces. I’d like it to stay that way. Plus, my personal feeling is family and business do not mix very well. It is very difficult to be impartial when it comes to family. A real estate agent has to hold fiduciary with a client, do what is best for that client, not what she thinks is best.
Further, imagine if a real estate agent with decades of experience feels it is not a good idea to represent a relative in a real estate transaction, the kind of a job a brand new agent with no experience might do?
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