Email ElizabethContrasting Winter Seasons in America
The scene before you is my sister’s sidewalk in Minneapolis, representing contrasting seasons in America. She has experienced so much snow, and being a mail carrier at USPS, she gets more than her fair share being outside to deliver mail. My sister is not a well person. She likes to say I got all the good genes because I am the oldest, and she, obviously, is the youngest. Our brother died from cancer. Our middle sister went insane. Both parents are dead.
Her doctors say she should seek early retirement due to pain and injury from 30+ surgeries, but the post office refuses. The post office forces her to perform work that her doctor prohibits, and nobody seems to care. She is not offered jobs that accommodate her disabilities. So she works in pain. She claims there are no lawyers willing to fight the post office, except the dishonest ones who want to charge non-refundable upfront fees.
There is no better way to show contrasting winter seasons in America than to show you the photo I sent to her. It is the only recent picture I have of my lanai in Hawaii. Just replaced our patio furniture with something less lumpy, worn and uncomfortable. See below.
All over the country, we see contrasting winter seasons in America. In Sacramento, it’s been difficult holding Sacramento open houses due to the crummy weather, cold and rain. Buyers just haven’t been going out in high numbers. Not like previous years.
Yesterday, we had such hot weather in Kona. So hot that my friend Loli texted that we should go to the beach when she got off work. The beach we chose to visit was in the midst of a wedding, so instead we met some random woman from New York driving down the road, who also did not realize that beach was occupied.
Somehow, we jumped into her car and headed off to Kahalu’u when Loli suggested a beach just before that spot where the turtles show up in record numbers. You have to walk down a path just before Poinsettia and travel over lava rocks, aa and pahoehoe, to reach the place, but it was very private. Once we arrived there, we met another friend Loli works with, so the four of us hung out, checking out shells to determine occupied vs unoccupied. Careful not to step on sea urchin.
Life in Kona during the winter is probably the most contrasting winter season in America. It is unique in so many ways. I consider myself so extremely fortunate to experience this. Some people do not consider Hawaii to be part of America.
How a Sales Background Helps Real Estate Agents
A friend on another real estate board talked in her blog yesterday about out how a sales background helps real estate agents. Her research revealed that many real estate agents had no sales training before joining the real estate profession. She commented on how much her corporate sales background helped her in real estate. And boy, can I relate to that. I did not become a top Sacramento Realtor by chance.
From an early age, I won sales contests. Taught me to be competitive and to win. Even today, at my age, going on 67, I still like to win. When I no longer really need to win. It’s ingrained.
One of my first jobs was selling flower seed packets door-to-door in Circle Pines, Minnesota. In fact, I engaged in a lot of door-to-door sales, maybe because I wasn’t old enough to work in a stores. Also, there were not a lot of telemarketers on party-line phones in the 1950s.
Some of my sales background was acquired and some naturally inbred.
When I sold flower seeds, I would engage the person who answered the door in conversation. Oh, I’m not selling anything, lady. Like, where I lived in relationship to them, so they knew I was a neighbor who went to school with their kids. I wasn’t beyond begging them to buy my flower seeds. Or using my mother’s name in the community. The problem with that job was I wasn’t really motivated by money. I simply enjoyed selling every seed packet I had. Creating answers to handle rejection on the fly. Most neighbors could not say no to me.
Did not realize at the time how much a sales background helps real estate agents. I sold newspaper subscriptions for the Circulating Pines (a suburb of Minneapolis) and won a brand new Schwinn bicycle! My parents sure as hell were not buying such an expensive toy for me. I sold more newspapers that year than anybody.
While supporting myself through my senior year in high school, I sold magazines over the phone. People would say, “Oh, I don’t have time to read a magazine.” Oh, really? What about when you’re stitting at the breakfast table, eating a bowl of Cheerios? You’re probably reading the back of the Cheerios box when you could be reading Playboy, for the articles, of course. I take my cues from the conversation. Smile and dial was the name of the game. And not surprisingly, I made good money doing this.
When I moved to Denver, Colorado, at age 18, I sold Grolier’s Encyclopedias door-to-door. Something people would “value, use and appreciate, not only now but forever through the years.” See, I still remember the lines. I memorized a 90-minute presentation and was very good at ad-libbing my delivery. Changing it up in the middle of my performance. Complete strangers let me into their home, and for the next 90 minutes, they were all mine. Very similar to a listing presentation today.
Having a sales background helps real estate agents, no doubt about it. For a short time after moving to Ventura, I became a headhunter. The company sent me for training at IBM, to learn sales techniques. I learned how to sell benefits over features, like a duck to water.
The mere fact that I came up the ranks through working as a title searcher and later as a certified escrow officer boosted my analytical nature. Knowledge is power. But that sales background helped mold me into the top producer I am today. If a person says to me, I don’t think this is a good time to buy, for example, I will die trying to change that thought.
Most agents would shrug, say OK and get on with their lives. But I like to change minds. Just ask my husband what an argument with me is like.
Wordless Wednesday: Turkey Terrorists in Kona
Beware of the turkey terrorists roaming the streets in Kona this morning. Although it is does not really qualify for Wordless Wednesday because I do have words for this blog and it is not Wednesday. Reminds me of the theme song for The Monkees: Here we come, walking down the street. (Hey, sing along now.) We get the funniest looks from, everyone we meet.
I hate these guys. Not The Monkees. The turkey terrorists in Kona. There used to be 7 of them, a big gang. Nobody stops them. Don’t think we are allowed to shoot them but any other means are OK. I brought up that question at the last HOA meeting I attended, what are we gonna do about the turkey terrorists in Kona? Someone suggested a bow and arrow.
Where is Jon Snow?
Our neighbor across the street, Richard, was at the HOA meeting, too. He is in his 80’s, I think, and he’s been reading books from a house he takes care of for an off-island occupant. True story, the other day we were outside talking on trash day, because everybody drags a garbage can to the street. Richard began to describe a very lengthy and convoluted story line about a married couple who divorce, begin seeing other people and the drama that ensued.
I said to him, “This sounds like a Danielle Steel novel.”
His eyes enlarged and he gasped, “How did you KNOW?!?”
I take it he has never heard of Danielle Steel. Well, I never read any of her books but I can recognize the plot line, ha, ha, ha.
As we drove home from the HOA meeting, I pressed the issue with Richard, jokingly, to see if I could a rise out of him. Asked if he had thought of ways to murder those turkeys. Hey, those wild turkeys jump on our cars. Crap on our lawns. Scare the bejesus out of house pets. Block the street and act like they own the darned place. Plus they are mean! That guy in the center would stomp on me and bite my head if I didn’t get out of his way.
What about dental floss? I suggested. Double strength, wind it around their neck and snap it.
Richard nodded thoughtfully. That would work.
Yeah, but then we’d have a big ol’ turkey carrcas lying in the street. We’d have to break their legs to get them into a standard size 30-gallon garbage bag.
Richard didn’t blink an eye.
Condition Trumps Location in Sacramento Real Estate
Never thought I’d see the day that a home’s condition trumps location in Sacramento real estate. It’s been leaning this way for years, ever since the market crash created a falling market from 2006 through mid-way of 2011. That’s when the flippers stepped in and took over the market in a big way. Also, new housing is moving the market again, which was not a competitive factor during the downturn.
Need examples? Just look at building projects like the Mill at Broadway, which is sandwiched between two public housing projects and sits under the intersection of two major freeways. Or, the McKinley Village housing development, built next to railroad tracks where a train goes by 52 times a day and within the traffic roar of I-80. Horrible locations for real estate. But the home’s condition trumps location.
Today’s Sacramento home buyers gravitate toward and tend to prefer brand new or newly remodeled. They would prefer to buy a home in a bad location than fix up a home in a good location.
Not every home seller has the money to prepare a home for sale. However, the market for homes without updates appear to appeal primarily to contractor flippers, and those people do not want to pay market value. They typically demand high discounts.
Throw into the mix that the pool of home buyers who want to remodel a home is small, on top of some areas having so much inventory that we have shifted to a buyer’s market, and it doesn’t present an attractive picture for those sellers. Most of Sacramento shows increased inventory and falling sales.
Have you noticed the trend of home buyers deciding condition trumps location?
Zen Getaway at the Holualoa Inn
When my husband and I first embarked last month upon the Holualoa artist enclave above Kona, I noticed a sign for the Holualoa Inn. Do you want to take a look at that place, I asked? I’ve seen a few photos online and was curious to see it in person. But he had no interest in it, or maybe he was already exhausted from visiting art studios. However, when I went to Holualoa with my friend, Linda, because that’s where I do my Saturday yoga class, she was game for a visit.
As long as we don’t have to walk back up the winding road, she laughed. It was a bit steep but well worth the walk down and back. An employee met us in the lobby, wondering why we were snooping around, I suppose. If I had told him I would use my photos in a blog, he probably would have been more supportive than he was but he kind of seemed like he didn’t want us there.
I suppose I can understand his attitude, two women wander in lugging a yoga mat. But isn’t this lobby beautiful? There are ancient buddha statues and vintage hand-made furniture all over the place!
The room rates to stay at this bed and breakfast are slightly high ($400-$650) for having no beach access, LOL, but some people do not come to Kailua-Kona for the beach. They want to hike, explore, learn about the Hawaiian culture, meditate and be quiet with nature.
This is the entrance above. Fairly unassuming until you really take a good look around. It is a fruit-growing, orchid-loving paradise on 30 acres, nestled at an elevation of about 1,500 feet. We noticed avocados, maybe they were Sharwil avocados, lying around the ground, too.
We discovered all sorts of orchids growing under the shade of other trees and bushes on the grounds of the Holualoa Inn. My Plant Snap app identified this particular discovery as a Cooktown Orchid, a Dendrobium bigibbum.
The shells you see here are from sea urchin, with air plants dangling below them. I found these across the street from the Holualoa Inn at an art gallery behind a picture window in the back. Monstera grow in abundance here as well, which is where the coqui like to hide. Those noisy little frogs love a moist and shady environment.
It takes about 10 minutes to drive the 3-mile stretch up the winding road of Hualalai from our house in Hawaii. We are about a mile from the ocean and enjoy a fairly decent 180-degree view. But get a load of the expansive view from the Holualoa Inn. Magnificent and breathtaking.
No wonder so many people get married at the Holualoa Inn. What a great spot for honeymoon. If you get bored, you can choose from a list of entertainment and activity options. One of those is a private car to take you to Huggos for dinner, and that runs around $600 for two people, which seems excessive to me. An Uber and a hundred bucks would do it. But I guess if you’re in Hawaii on vacation, it’s something you would pay to do.
I once paid a driver $500 to take my husband and me from Death Valley to the Racetrack. A journey and experience well worth the money. So I am not knocking it.
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