Email Elizabethhome in elk grove
Looking at Sacramento Homes for Sale From a Buyer’s Perspective
New Home Listing in Sacramento
It’s very difficult to color correct photographs when a kitten is attacking my television monitor. Typing doesn’t seem to excite little Tessa as much as when I move the mouse around and magic happens in front of her eyes. She appreciates when I use the tool that lightens shadows, and she is madly in love with the adjustments I make using Levels in Photoshop. As a Sacramento real estate agent, I often agonize over my photographs because I want to make sure that each and every photo does its job properly online.
Now, I try not to say anything about other agent’s listings when I see photographs that let’s just say don’t do the home justice. The major thing about presenting a home online is the photos should offer a clear picture of each room that is suitable for viewing and tell a story to the buyer. Contrary to some popular views, we Sacramento real estate agents are not trying to sell a home online, on the internet, we are trying to whet a buyer’s appetite enough to get the buyer motivated to view the home in person.
Sacramento home buyers have choices. Their first introduction to Sacramento homes for sale is online, typically. They might have automatic emails set up by their buyer’s agents, which deliver listings to their inbox as soon as those new listings hit the market. That’s the easiest and the smartest way to search for a home to buy in Sacramento. If a buyer is not receiving emails, that buyer may not realize how much she is at a disadvantage.
When buyers get an email, it may contain a bunch of homes for sale because new listings come out every day. To access the information, it involves clicking on the property address. That’s one click. Up comes the listing with one photograph, the property description and specifics. The listing offers the ability to look at more photographs by clicking a second time. If a buyer does not like the first photograph, a buyer might not click a second time. Moreover, if the buyer does not like the second photograph, the buyer might not click through all of the photographs and will simply discard the listing by moving on to the next home for sale.
Each photograph must encourage the buyer to click again. The marketing verbiage should make the home sound unique. Even if the home is identical to almost every other home in Elk Grove, for example, there is something unique that makes it different that made the existing sellers want to buy it, and that is what will make a new buyer want it as well.
Jackson in box with Tessa
If you’d like to talk more about what this Sacramento real estate agent can do for you, please feel free to call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916 233 6759. I love selling homes in the Sacramento Valley, and I’m not afraid to say I’m good at it.
And, my kitten Tessa? She says she’ll buy them all. This one, and that one, and the next one, too. You can see that she sticks her nose into everything. Even when I’m trying to take a photo of Jackson, our ragdoll.
The Jelly Belly Factory Tour in Fairfield
It is possible for a Sacramento real estate agent to have too much fun? From champagne and lobster at Rue Lepic, to Van Morrison in Nob Hill, to the Grace Cathedral, to the Jelly Belly factory, to Thomas Dolby at the Crest, I’m pretty much exhausted. That’s not counting Thursday night at the Club Fugazi to catch Beach Blanket Babylon. Which means I am happy it’s Sunday, and I have a day to catch my breath before jumping with both feet into Monday.
Usually, I go nowhere. I do nothing really exciting. I am not one of these let’s go out and party guys. Way too old for that. My idea of a good time is to list a home for the maximum a seller can realistically expect to receive and to exceed my seller’s expectations. My passion is real estate. After that, I’d just as soon curl up on the sofa with a purring cat and watch Boardwalk Empire, as my husband occasionally massages my feet.
As a result of the past couple of days, though, I managed to receive an offer for a home in Elk Grove from a very motivated buyer, complete most of my holiday shopping in Haight Ashbury and shove an entire bag of Jelly Bellies down my throat. OK, we picked up some fudge, too.
If you’ve never done the Jelly Belly Factory Tour on your way back to Sacramento from the City, you owe it to stop in Fairfield. An agent at another real estate brokerage called and asked me what I was doing. “I’m putting on my Jelly Belly hat,” I responded, which was indeed my activity when I answered my phone. Oh, says he, you must be in Fairfield. This is a favorite activity for families with kids, but you don’t have to be a kid to enjoy the tour.
Being a Saturday, we didn’t get to see a lot of production in the factory, but you could smell the bubble gum scent wafting in the parking lot, which was being processed in a small part of the factory. Not really my favorite. President Reagan’s favorite, they remind you, was licorice. Seems sort of boring, especially since you can get licorice in other forms. I lean more toward cherry or cinnamon flavors. An added bonus was the fact we received samples of Jelly Bellies along the tour and a free bag at the end. The tour itself involved gazing mostly at production lines and conveyor belts that were not moving or staring at a video screen showing a variety of brightly polished Jelly Bellies rolling along.
An astonishing part of the tour was the number of robots in production. Real, actual robots. They wouldn’t let us take photos, and I wasn’t about to risk my free bag of Jelly Bellies to violate that policy, or I would show you. We watched robots picking up crates of Jelly Bellies from one conveyor belt and setting them on another conveyor belt. I wondered how many jobs were replaced by those robots. It was like something out of The Jetsons. And don’t you hate it when the only futuristic thing we can ever compare anything to is the Jetsons? A goofy cartoon from the 1960s?
I believe you would like the Jelly Belly Factory Tour. But go during the week, when there is more to see and probably fewer crowds. You’ll find the Jelly Belly Factory at 1 Jelly Belly Lane in Fairfield, just off Interstate 80. Reduced hours on the weekends from now until the end of 2013, due to the holidays.
Would You Like to Adopt Two Rescue Chihuahuas from Land Park?
You know what’s really great about working as a veteran Sacramento real estate agent who has extensive short sale experience? There is a certain amount of respect for my short sale knowledge bestowed upon me by my clients. Everything else real-estate related? Forget about it. Forget about all of decades I have worked in real estate. Forget about the fact I sold $32 million last year. Forget about the fact media recognizes this Sacramento real estate agent as an expert to regularly interview. Forget about the fact that I write about Homebuying for About.com and have for years. None of that matters to some people. But talk about a Sacramento short sale and my name lights up the sky.
There are some days that I feel just like Rodney Dangerfield because let’s face it, the public, on the whole, are often led to believe that being a Sacramento real estate agent is easy-peasy work and anybody with a cellphone could do it because hey, look at their aunt, their cousin, their next-door neighbor! If a person is hoping to be respected and valued, a person should not search for those kinds of accolades in real estate.
If you want to be unconditionally loved, get a dog. In fact, get two of them. Twice the love. Have you ever thought about adopting a couple of Chihuahuas? I happen to have a pair living in my back yard, and we’re going on Day 4 of the rescued Chihuahuas now. You will see those dogs are no longer considered “lost Chihuahuas in Land Park” or even “found Chihuahuas in Land Park,” they are rescue Chihuahuas. And they are available for adoption to a good home.
We took the rescued Chihuahuas to the Sacramento Animal Shelter yesterday, filed a Found Dogs report and brought them back to our home in Land Park. Also, had them scanned for microchips, but like no collars, no microchips. Come to think of it, two of my cats are microchipped and one is not, so next visit to the vet, guess what? None of the cats venture outdoors. But there could be an busted-open screen, a door left ajar or they could encourage a passerby to break-in and trade our big screen TV in exchange for freedom, you just don’t know.
As we were going through the July Lost Dogs book, which is a big book filled with pages for every day of the month (4th of July was a really busy day) I noticed my clients’ name in the book. These are wonderfully genuine people, the kind you don’t forget. I represented them as buyers when they purchased a home in Land Park 7 years ago. It was a case of not overlooking the overpriced home. They were also my sellers, and I represented them as their listing agent on the sale of their existing home. I managed to sell their home in Elk Grove in the nick of time to fund the purchase of an overpriced home in Land Park. It was a complex escrow for both selling and buying, but they listened to me, trusted me, and I got the job done. Which is what they said when I called them to ask if they ever found the lost Chihuahua they filed the report about.
The husband said he did not want to talk about two rescued Chihuahuas, so I asked him to put his wife on the phone instead. Not going for it. Call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916 233 6759, if you would like to adopt a couple of super cute and lovable Chihuahuas. If you want to buy or sell your home in the four-county area of Sacramento, well, you can call me for that, too.
Why Not Hire a Top Sacramento Real Estate Agent?
Wouldn’t you like to go away on vacation and come home to find your home has sold for many thousands of dollars over market value? You don’t have to put up with buyers traipsing through the house, or agents calling for an appointment at all hours. No time consuming open houses. Nope, you just pack your bags, enjoy your vacation and maybe once a day, if you feel like it, check email to tally the latest offer that arrived in your inbox. You can kick back, relax, and let your Sacramento real estate agent do all of the work.
In fact, you might have been able to hire another agent in Sacramento for a little bit less, but why? Commissions are negotiable. Why would you do it, though? Why would you give up all of that extra money just to save a few bucks on the commission? That’s like cutting off your nose to spite your face. It’s like driving down the street and throwing money out of the window. It’s being penny-wise but pound foolish. Yet, some Sacramento home sellers don’t know any better. They tend to think that all real estate agents are the same, and homes sell themselves by sticking a sign in the yard. Little could be further from the truth.
Last week we had 68 showings and 14 offers for a home in Elk Grove! The home sold while the sellers were on vacation. I had met with the sellers to discuss strategy, marketing and home staging months before we went on the market. I have a certain way I do things because I have found that over 35-some years in the real estate business that my way of doing things works. It’s why I am successful. I constantly strive to improve my performance. Money matters. It matters to my sellers. Immensely.
If money matters to you as well, call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916 233 6759. Experience doesn’t cost you. Experience pays off. Because you deserve a top-notch Sacramento real estate agent. Don’t you?
