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The Hobbit and Sacramento Real Estate
One of the requirements to be a writer — what they call an “expert”– at About.com, is to be passionate about your topic. You have to be able to write, of course, and have something to say, naturally, but that passion (expressed through dedication, intense commitment) is completely necessary. Passion is also the necessary ingredient to being immensely happy and content in your job. If you find yourself consumed, driven, and almost half nuts about a particular topic, that might qualify you to write for About.com.
My topic is home buying and home selling. I can’t help it, I love real estate. I love everything about real estate. The people, the homes, the financing, the excitement, the challenges, the battles, the history, the future. It’s given me independence and extreme satisfaction in my chosen career. I started in real estate when I was in my 22, and I’ve been happily married to it in some form or fashion ever since. This year, I will sell over $30 million as a Sacramento real estate agent.
Real estate has become my Hobbit, the foundation for some of the other stories in my life. We saw the movie The Hobbit yesterday, and my husband shot a photo of me with Gandalf. The Hobbit is being shown in theaters all over Sacramento, but if you want to see it in 3D and high-speed (48 frames per sec), you need to see it at Century Stadium. It’s been more than 45 years since the nuns at The Home of the Good Shepherd in St. Paul first read that book to me, but I do not recall much of that movie in the book. Oh, how us poor souls who read expect screenplays to faithfully follow the book, and film entertainment often crushes those silly expectations.
Here are a few highlights without spoilers: I had to laugh when Thorin knocked on the door. It was why, hello, yes, here I am, the hunk of the movie. And he swaggered into Bilbo Baggin’s home. I thought Cate Blanchard was going to throw Gandalf to the ground with her mind and molest him right then and there. I kept waiting for it, but it didn’t happen. There were many battles. One after the other. We were in the theater for days. Some people went to sleep and snored. Oh, wait, that was on the screen. And then, at the end, there was no end. Because we have 2 more movies. And there you have it. The complete description of The Hobbit.
Don’t get me wrong, I was entertained. But last night while I was thinking about The Hobbit, I suddenly realized I have two more reasons to buy a home to add to my article of 8 reasons to buy a home. I finally have 10 reasons. I had tried to come up with 10 reasons when I originally wrote the piece in 2006, but 8 was all that popped into my brain, so that’s what I ran with. But now I have 10. And it’s because of The Hobbit that I thought of them.
Reason #9 is Security. Because nobody can kick you out of your home, as long as you make your payments. Your landlady can’t come along one day and tell you she’s decided to rent to her son. Or remodel. Or sell the home. Because it’s your home.
Reason #10 is Stability. With today’s widely used amortized loans, your mortgage payments, the principal and interest, stay the same over the term of your loan. They don’t go up when interest rates go up, and they don’t fluctuate. The state of the economy has no affect on your mortgage payments. Nobody will raise your rent.
CHDAP Loans for Sacramento Home Buyers
Buying a home in a seller’s market, especially in our Sacramento seller’s market is super tough. Which is worse, you think? Being a CHDAP buyer in a seller’s market or being a VA buyer in a seller’s market? Because no doubt about it, we are in a seller’s market in Sacramento. And the buyers who really get my empathy are those who are struggling with having to write offer after offer after offer, and getting none of those offers accepted.
Fortunately, the Elizabeth Weintraub Team members don’t experience much of this. We often find our buyers get a whopping edge in negotiations. We’re experienced, and that alone is a major factor. Sometimes, other listing agents advise their sellers to accept our offers because they know us. They know we will perform. If it’s a short sale, our buyers will wait for short sale approval. They are educated about the short sale process. Our buyers are prequalified and have the preapproval letter and proof of funds to show it.
But I hear from other agents whose buyers are not so lucky. One agent last month told me she had written 15 offers for her buyer. It was tough because her buyer was relying on an FHA loan. We accepted her offer; most sellers are sympathetic with FHA buyers because they once stood in those shoes. The CHDAP buyers, however, are relying on down payment assistance because, for whatever reason, they often don’t have enough money to buy a home. VA buyers are different story. They are not required to put any money down but it doesn’t mean they don’t have it.
CHDAP stands for California Homebuyer’s Downpayment Assistance Program. It helps first-time home buyers with the downpayment and / or closing costs. There are income limits. CHDAP loans take longer to close, often 45 days or more. In a short sale, many lenders expect to close 30 days from approval. Some short sale banks will not grant extensions. This makes buying a short sale extremely difficult for CHDAP buyers. Moreover, in a competing multiple-offer situation, a CHDAP buyer is very unlikely to win when pitted against a cash buyer.
I question whether CHDAP is the right choice for a first-time home buyer who wants to buy a short sale in Sacramento. It might be better, depending on the situation, for a home buyer to scrape up the downpayment, ask the short sale seller to pay their closing costs and be done with it.
