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Eastern Star Hall in Midtown Sacramento Goes Up for Auction
The more I talk with people, the more it becomes apparent that many are not cognizant of their surroundings. I might talk with a seller about homes in Elk Grove that I’ve sold which are located a few blocks away from their house, and they’ve never been down those streets. They’ve never even heard of some streets. I guess they don’t walk around their neighborhood or, if they do, one street must look like the other. It’s not just people who live in suburban areas, either.
I suspect it’s because people are too busy or don’t care to explore. If there is no reason to go over to some side street, why would you? Most people probably just drive to work in the morning and make a beeline back at night. Ask an Elk Grove Realtor, though, and she can tell you where the parks are located, which are “through streets” with a lot of traffic, and the distance from your potential home to Elk Grove schools.
I suppose those who are involved in community activities are very aware of which streets are in their neighborhood and what goes on, but still, I am constantly amazed when people don’t even know the name of the street behind their house. And, they don’t think it’s odd that they don’t know.
Some people who live in the city, like, say, in homes in Midtown Sacramento, for example, might not always pay attention, either. That’s one of the reasons this Midtown Realtor enjoys the cellphone game of Ingress. It points out works of art, historic buildings and other “portals” right under our noses in the midst of the city that we might otherwise pass by unnoticed. For example, I read in the Sacramento Bee today that the Eastern Star Hall is expected to show up in Auction.com, listed at $750,000. I know exactly where it’s located because it’s an Ingress portal.
The Eastern Star Hall is a historic building built in 1928, located at 2719 K Street, right across the street from Sutter’s Fort (also a portal, several). It depicts 5 women with those darling bobbed cuts, doing daring things for the 1920s, like drive a car. It reminds me of my grandmother. I have a photograph of her from 1919 when she cut off her hair in defiance and took up smoking, just like the guys. She came to the United States from Hungary in 1899. Thoughts of my grandmother often cross my mind as I deploy mods and link portals at Eastern Star Hall.
It will be interesting to watch what happens to this building. My real estate office is located a block away on the corner of 28th and J Streets, and I drive by the Eastern Star Hall to hack the portal many times a week. I wonder about its fate, and whether others who live and work nearby notice it.
Astonishing 2014 California Real Estate Laws in the Works
This year is shaping up to be an interesting year for new 2014 California real estate laws, which will affect us in Sacramento. For so many years the new laws have been more narrow, but this year will be different. In some ways, you’ve got to wonder why our California Assembly members had to propose some of these new real estate laws, and the answer is because they don’t (shudder) exist or our present laws are unclear. It’s enough to make some of us feel like dropping out and engaging our brains elsewhere such as searching for a Pinata Party during Plants vs. Zombies, or throwing a sheet around our waist and dancing through the house yelling toga, toga.
Let’s look at AB 1513, the so-called Squatter’s Bill. This is a piece of legislation that will allow law enforcement officials to remove unwanted persons from your vacant property. That’s right, under current law, a vagrant can break into your home, set up shop and you can’t immediately throw them out. They can party away like in Animal House for 30 to 60 days while you helplessly look on, dangling a piece of paper that says you’re entitled to an unlawful detainer. Well, I probably could get them out. As a Sacramento real estate agent, I have once resorted to banging loudly on the door and screaming FBI, I hate to admit, and then listening for the back door to slam as the squatters scatter like rats.
Another is AB 2039, targeting auction companies such as Auction.com, which is owned in part by a former third-party vendor company that processed short sales. This company has partnered with bad-mortgage purchasing companies such as Nationstar and forces real estate agents to allow this company to take over the transaction — kind of like a squatter, you don’t want them but you can’t get rid of them. This legislation would at least hold the real estate agent harmless from the actions of the auction company.
It boggles my mind as to how these auction companies are successful anyway. Because a buyer must pay a 5% premium to the auction company (on top of the commission) to buy the home as a short sale, and the bank wants market value. Seems to be a conflict of interest in that area, plus, how does the buyer obtain an over-market loan when it won’t appraise? Fortunately, I have been successful at not having to deal with Auction.com in any of my hundreds of Sacramento short sales, knock on wood.
My favorite newly proposed real estate law is AB 2136, which would clarify that a real estate agent is not required to keep a record of Tweets and Texts pursuant to a real estate transaction because those forms of communication are not considered a document. This means when I’ve receive a text message during sex, I can safely answer it in the throes of passion and not worry if it’s later deleted. I like that.
See, all good things coming out of our California Assembly, designed to improve our lives. Now, if they could just pass the mortgage forgiveness extension, we’d be well on our way to recovery. As it stands now, all of those poor homeowners who have successfully completed a principal mortgage reduction through a loan modification are positioned to get hammered on taxes. We have an exemption for short sales, but not loan modifications. Oy.
A Couple of Short Sale Rumors
An agent friend in northern California said yesterday that Wells Fargo and Chase are planning to rollout new short sale programs this fall. There are a couple of short sale rumors that they are handing over short sale leads to their REO agents. The banks’ thinking, no doubt, is all Sacramento real estate agents are the same, which is pretty insulting to some of us. Some of us are very different. For starters, I get my nails done at a nail salon versus the usual method of chewing them off with my teeth.
Call me silly but some REO agents don’t own a cellphone. That can be a major problem. You and I know they don’t have a phone because they don’t answer it. And their attention to detail, which is required for a short sale, is legendary, right? But hey, we’re talking about Wells Fargo and Chase. What do you want? A cake to go with that nail file?
In other short sale rumors circulating, REDC, a third-party vendor for Bank of America, is pushing Auction.com. A friend at Bank of America says he thinks REDC got its start as Auction.com, but I haven’t checked out that belief. A rep from REDC called me twice about slipping a short sale listing into Auction.com’s 120-day program. That’s longer than some rehab programs. Why would it take 120 days to sell a short sale in Sacramento? Our market is so tight it squeaks.
He wants my seller to agree to let buyers traipse through his home for at least 30 days and make offers online. Auction.com will get paid its commission from the buyer. Listing agents and selling agents are still paid by the seller. That’s an awful lot of commissions to go around in one transaction. I think he’s drinking Kool-Aid, and not the stuff made with sugar. That sounds totally insane. Because you know what will happen. Crazy and frantic buyers will bid up the price to a place where it will never appraise by the buyer’s lender. Then, it will be back to Square One with that short sale when the appraisal comes in low. We don’t need no stinkin’ auctions for Sacramento short sales. No rational seller wants to turn his home into a three-ring circus to boost the profits at Auction.com.
I should just sit back and look at the bright side. The bright side is my web designer got my new website to finally work correctly for Twitter yesterday. And I put a new short sale in Galt on the market today. I prefer my method of selling real estate. The one where the sellers contact me and not the other way around. Nobody wants to be hounded by a real estate agent.
Photo: Shutterstock
