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Should You Change Agents?
A seller, obviously frustrated with her Sacramento real estate agent, emailed yesterday to ask if I would be interested in representing her. She didn’t say why she was dissatisfied with her agent, but I intend to probe. Because sometimes there is nothing wrong with her agent at all. Sometimes, when the results do not meet a client’s perhaps unrealistic expectations, a client becomes disillusioned and wants to change real estate agents. It’s not that I don’t want new clients, but I do try to encourage people to stick it out with their present agent, to give that agent at least one more chance, and to talk through any perceived difficulties.
Besides, an upgrade might be the same thing they’ve already got. You never know. People who don’t understand the market in Sacramento and how real estate agents work, the rules we are governed by nor the things that are out of our control might believe we are capable of parting the Red Sea when we are not.
When we checked into our room at the resort in Bora Bora, it came with an upgrade, space permitting. Well, there was no space available at Christmas-time so we did not receive the upgrade. But after New Year’s, when many guests have gone home, we checked again and an upgrade was available. It meant packing our bags, which the butler offered to do, and moving across the way, so we took it.
The new house is identical to our old house. Except it’s not as new. Older flat panel TVs. Prints instead of oil paints. Weathered woodwork. Same layout, though. What’s different is the view. I suspect the resort built the front row of overwater bungalows much earlier than the second row. The second row overlooks the lagoon and the beach. The front row looks at Mt. Otemanu and toward The Four Seasons. Except when it’s foggy and rainy, you can’t see Mt. Otemanu at all; it vanishes.
There are times a new agent could be just what you need. Not all agents are the same, and some are very much different from other Sacramento real estate agents — maybe better suited to your personality. But agents have a lot more in common with each other than you might think. Sometimes, it might make more sense to stick with the guy who brought you to the dance.
Photo: Mt. Otemanu at dusk from St. Regis Resort at Bora Bora, by Elizabeth Weintraub
Goodbye to 2012 Sacramento Real Estate Market
This past year of 2012 could have been the best of times and also the worst of times but I’m not saying which. No sense making a proclamation. I will say for many sellers of short sales in Sacramento, the year was bitter sweet. It’s a relief to eliminate a financial burden, an albatross around the neck. For many, the road to a short sale was anything but comfortable. Nobody wants to come to the realization that it’s time to get rid of the house. The house they so desperately wanted to buy when it was purchased.
I’ve worked with sellers this past year who did not do a short sale. Believe it or not. Some of my clients were traditional sellers, that is sellers who had equity. Even the clients who were moving out of state, looking forward to a new life elsewhere, were not exactly ecstatic to be forced to release their home by selling it to a complete stranger.
It’s a little odd working with sellers who are not thrilled to be selling. It’s not like the old days, the days of the 1970s . . . and thank god I don’t have to listen to Barry Manilow anymore . . . the days when sellers were making money hand over fist. Sellers were selling even if they didn’t have to sell because there was too much money in their home, equity that was burning a hole in their pockets. They wanted to see it up close and personal. Cash in fist. Selling was a good way to capitalize on their equity.
So was creating paper. I worked with sellers who became buyers by creating a promissory note and recording a trust deed against their residences. These prom notes were often straight notes, without payments and accruing, often annually compounding, interest. Sellers used these prom notes as down payments on other homes, which also carried straight notes secured to them as part of the financing. This was like putting a roulette gun to their heads and not pulling the financial trigger for a few years. Maybe there was a bullet in that gun, maybe not. Riskier today than it sounded back then.
It’s much more straight forward these days. Although, in Sacramento’s frantic real estate market, I have been able to squeeze out a few sales this last quarter for sellers that were not short sales and probably would have or should have been if they had been listed with somebody else. Fortunately, we were able to stretch that sales price far enough to make the home sale an equity sale. That’s the advantage of hiring a Sacramento real estate agent with her finger on the pulse of the Sacramento real estate market. The market shows no signs of letting up. The tide is still rolling in.
Yup. Twice a day in French Polynesia, where I will watch fireworks tonight. Happy New Year to you!
Arrival at The St. Regis at Bora Bora
Ants, teeny-tiny, itty-bitty ants are crawling around my keyboard. They are zipping in and out, over and around. They are doing somersaults in delight. And I’m just thankful they are not those little lizards. My husband says I should AEL — Always Expect Lizards. But they still freak me out when they show up unexpectedly. It’s not like they crawl with a purpose. They are not determined lizards. They change their mind in a flash about the direction they are headed and all of a sudden, there they are, looking up at you quizzically, like a bank short sale negotiator who doesn’t bat an eyelash over taking 6 months to process a short sale.
Today we are at the St. Regis at Bora Bora. Air Tahiti does not fly directly to Bora Bora from Rangiroa, although it does fly from Bora Bora to Rangiroa. I was told by a tour operator in the islands that our vacation needed to “progress,” to get substantially better, which is why we could not fly the other way around. Which meant to get to Bora Bora from Rangiroa, we needed to return to Papeete on Tahiti, retrieve our luggage, and then go back through Security to board a flight to Bora Bora.
I did not see how it could get any better than Rangiroa. Our overwater bungalow at Kia Ora was stunningly beautiful, modern, and it had just been remodeled. What could possibly be better than looking out on the warm sapphire waters and endless horizon? First, there is no bumpy van ride from the airport to the hotel. In Bora Bora, you are transported via a yacht. Second, I can’t say the view at Bora Bora is any better. On the one side we have the island, and on the other we have the mountains, and there is nothing inherently wrong with that view. The water is a pale pearly greenish blue. Although, you can see a portion of your neighbor’s bungalow, which you could not at Kia Ora. I feel homesick for Rangiroa already. I felt a strong connection to that atoll.
However, our overwater bungalow villa at St. Regis at Bora Bora holds no candle to Kia Ora. We have our own bedroom, which is enormous, lots of island thatch, wood, bamboo, ceiling fans, cathedral ceiling and sliding doors to the deck. A separate bath is also enormous with a walk-in open shower and a rainshower head as big as a Super Bowl pizza, situated next to a sunken and jetted tub, plus wood floors, dual stone sinks. There is requisite glass-in-the-floor windows, too. But we also have a separate living room / dining room. We had to take a golf cart shuttle to get here from the restaurant last night because it is so far away from the lobby. I bet it’s a 3/4 mile. Most guests grab bicycles. But a nice unexpected feature is the fact we have our own butler. He offered to unpack for us last night.
Would you let a butler unpack your suitcases?
Our butler motioned toward the table where a tray of chocolates and a box of chocolates and a bottle of champagne awaited consumption. But the ants had gotten to them first. That’s what we got for going to dinner before settling in. I am thankful that my cold has pretty much cleared up, and our sunburn pain has been minimized somewhat. Not enough that we could, say, enjoy a Swedish massage, but we’re here for two more weeks. Stuff can change.
Overview of Kia Ora Resort
Something does not want us to sleep in, and my guess is it’s a bird. The last 2 days, we’ve heard a knocking sound before the sun rises. I suspect a bird lands on our balcony and pecks at the glass top over our rattan table. It’s four knocks in a row yet nobody yells out: hellllloooooooo, so our bets are on a bird. This rude awakening doesn’t bother me because I am an early riser and take it as my wake-up call, but my husband just pulls the covers over his head.
Our resort, Kia Ora, is one of those vacation spots that blends so well into the environment that you never want to leave. Some resorts can give you “resort fever,” making it imperative that you high tail it out to explore, but I could happily hang out here for days on end without the slightest bit of guilt or annoyance that I’m not driving around the atoll. It’s pretty much paradise everywhere you go, ocean on one side, lagoon on the other. Except the lagoon is so vast that you cannot see the other side, only the blue horizon.
Roosters crow every now and then, even way after sunrise. Fish splash as they jump out of the water, which makes the birds circle, squawking and diving, trying to catch them with their puny little feet. Yesterday, I spotted an eel swim past our lower-level deck. My favorites are the yellow butterfly fish and big blue groupers.
This is a diving and snorkeling destination for many people, this atoll in the Tuamoto Archipelago. The lagoon of Rangiroa is about 75 kilometers by 25 kilometers. Even though I don’t SCUBA, I can still watch the fish because the jade-colored and turquoise waters are so clear. The fish are so danged cute that I want to pet them. Some of them you can catch if you’re quick enough, and you can pet them as long as you pet them right direction. If you pet them in the wrong direction, you could get your hands cut up. Just like if you don’t watch where you are walking in the water, you could step on a sea urchin (ouch ouch) or squash a ray (triple ouch).
If I have any derogatory comments about the Kia Ora Resort, it would probably be the food. Just because it’s French doesn’t mean it’s as good as Paris or even as good as Tahiti. It’s all right, but it’s nothing exciting. Sometimes, it’s hard to figure out what you’re getting. The waiter called it vegetable soup but it was really cream of celery. We ordered what we thought was a vegetable tray of carrot sticks and celery sticks, and it turned out to be a salad. It would help if we could read French. We only know the important words, like how to figure out whether it’s fish, beef or chicken.
Our meals are incredibly expensive for what you get. Even a Diet Coke is $5.00. It’s the same kind of Coke you get in Europe, Light and not Diet. So it tastes a little bit like Diet Coke watered down to Light. But I’m happy to get any kind of Diet Coke at all in the South Pacific. I’ll just say if you ever come here and decide to opt for the private dining in the air conditioned restaurant and blow a hundred bucks pp for a 3-course meal, don’t. They put forth an ambitious effort, but it’s not what you are probably expecting.
