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Should an East Sacramento Home Buyer Lowball if a Home Needs Work?
If a home for sale in East Sacramento needs work, does that mean a home buyer can or should offer less than the asking price? Imagine this scenario. A home buying couple has been out touring homes with her East Sacramento Realtor for several days. They had been looking at homes in East Sacramento both online and in person, trying to find the home that speaks the loudest and stirs up those emotional longings. Finally, they stumble upon a home with the right number of bedrooms and baths, the layout is perfect, and the location is highly desirable, but, alas, it’s not in the best condition.
The home needs a new roof, and the elderly sellers don’t have the money to replace the roof. The hardwood flooring under the carpeting is in pristine shape but rolling up carpeting to haul off to the city dump is really not in the buyers’ future plans. Perhaps the flooring slants a little bit because the home has been around for 75 years. The hottest design trends that are featured in all of the home remodeling magazines are not found in this home; instead there is basket-weave tile in the bath, which the buyers would prefer to rip out.
Still, there are very few homes for sale in the buyers’ price range in East Sacramento. This home might be perfect in every way except for the defects the buyers noted. How much should the buyers offer if they decide to move forward? That’s always the big question. This could be the home of their dreams.
First, a buyer might want to consider the fact that the home is priced correctly and at market value, which is often the case. The price probably already reflects the work. Perhaps another home the buyers don’t much care for is priced less because it is a home that is much smaller and located on a busy street? Figuring out an offering price does not mean buyers should automatically offer less because the home does not measure up to their ideal needs. Market value does not depend on a buyers’ future home improvement plans.
Buyers, too, might point to the days on market, as the novice typically assumes incorrectly that longer days on market always means a home is overpriced. Sometimes newbie real estate agents make that mistake as well. What longer days on market can also mean is many home buyers do not want to buy a home that requires any work at all, so they pass it by. Not that it’s priced incorrectly. For many first-time home buyers, any amount of work is too much work.
The savvy buyer will instead see an opportunity to buy an East Sacramento home that will increase in value after the right kind of improvements are made. They also welcome the chance to apply a personal touch to their new home and might even spend afternoons strolling the aisles of Home Depot. Often, these types of buyers, believe it or not, are real estate agents. If you want to buy a home like a real estate agent, then you might want to talk with your agent about the comparable sales and look at the sales price the way a professional would. Because only a novice would believe a lowball offer is the right answer.
Affordable and New East Sacramento Listing at 5200 J Street
This new East Sacramento listing is a beautifully built home, most likely constructed in the mid-1940s, says the seller. The public records show the age as 1950 but the seller says that is incorrect. It is very possible that his family is the original owners of this home. The public records also smaller square footage than the home appears, so it’s difficult to know whether it’s an accurate reflection of this home. It could be some other home.
We recognize East Sacramento for its vintage East Sacramento homes but you will find very few homes on the market today.
From the moment you enter the living room, your heart will begin to ping. Especially with the Lake-Tahoe-like corner photograph mural. Very large living room, which features a curved fireplace with brick accents. Across from the living room and nestled next to the kitchen is the well laid out dining room. This room features a built-in China cabinet that takes up most of the wall.
Do you see the separate door to the hall? Lends access to the bedrooms without walking around the kitchen. Plus, see the laundry room with a side door to the driveway? Both the washer and dryer can stay. Check out the nicely maintained wood cabinets and tile counters in the kitchen, plus note original appliances, which include a built-in refrigerator, but alas, the refrigerator doesn’t work. However, the second refrigerator works.
The home offers dining options galore. Do you want a formal dining room? Or would you prefer to take coffee in the kitchen breakfast nook?
It appears that under all of that carpeting are gorgeous hardwood floors. You can see the immaculate condition of these floors in closets in the bedrooms and in the hallway, which is a good indication there is hardwood mostly throughout. This particular bedroom is even larger than the master bedroom. Not everybody loves wallpaper but the period wallpaper in this home might change your mind about wallpaper.
This new East Sacramento listing features 3 bedrooms and two baths (but like I mentioned earlier, due to inaccurate records, they do not reflect the second bath). The seller would like to leave most of the furniture, if the buyer would like it. Much of the furniture seems to be vintage and in excellent condition. Of course, it remains with the home without warranty nor consideration.
As you can see in the photo above, it’s a nice big yard with a lot of trees. Plus a detached two-car garage, which is often hard to find in an East Sacramento listing. There are pop-up sprinklers all over the yard, controlled by a mechanism in the ground near the garage. Lots of vintage roses, probably 65+ years.
Why not come to our open house on Sunday and see this new East Sacramento listing for yourself? This will be open from 2:00 to 4:00 PM. Needs a little bit of cosmetics, but priced accordingly. Seems to sport great bones! Also, not a corner location but mid block. No parking allowed on J Street, either.
5200 J Street, Sacramento, CA 95819 is offered exclusively by Elizabeth Weintraub and Lyon Real Estate at an AS IS only price of $495K. Call Elizabeth for more information at 916.233.6759. Check out the virtual tour, too.
Listings in East Sacramento and Glucose Curves for a Cat
Pica the Ocicat in 2013
For a federal holiday on Monday, President’s Day, the real estate business in Sacramento was pretty active. We enjoyed beautiful weather, which tends to put people in a good mood, so maybe many were out wandering about and noticing For Sale signs, hard to say. Some guy called, insisting that I have a listing in East Sacramento on T Street, and for the life of me I could not figure out what he was talking about. I felt like I was on Saturday Night Live’s Celebrity Jeopardy. What is the name of the street you are on? Doesn’t know. What is the cross street? Doesn’t know. What color is the house? Doesn’t know. Are you outside right now?
He became a bit agitated, too, because he could not believe that I did not recognize my listing. It’s amazing how some people can’t see beyond the end of their nose. They can’t possibly be wrong, it must be you. No wonder, because turns out he was in Elmhurst, yet inquiring about a pending listing in East Sacramento off of Folsom. But we try to help all people who call, even the challenging, so I referred him to a Team Weintraub agent for assistance.
I also ran over to East Sacramento in the afternoon to check out two houses on a lot that I am listing. Although I sell in 4 counties, I am an experienced East Sacramento agent. Plus, my entire office on 28th & J supports East Sacramento, Midtown and downtown. This listing will be on the market the last Friday of this month. Just needs a little sprucing up. The income on that unit is about $2,000 a month, so it would make a nice investment for somebody. I try to imagine what kind of buyer is best suited for each of my listings when I take them. It helps me to target that buyer with my marketing.
The buyer for this will probably be a single, urban professional who longs to live within walking distance of Midtown for the restaurants, bars and nightlife but doesn’t want to live in a condo and can’t afford a big house. That type of person could buy this listing, live in the front house and keep the tenant in the back house. The income from the studio house is about $700 a month, which would help to offset the buyer’s mortgage payment, plus the back tenant can keep an eye on the front house when the buyer is traveling. There is an enormous updated kitchen, featuring granite and ceramic, and the bedrooms are separated in the front house so the buyer could even take on a roommate to help make ends stretch a bit further.
Throughout the day, my husband and I also used this time to perform blood glucose curves on our diabetic cat, Pica. He has been horribly stressed going to the vet for this procedure, so we decided to perform the testing at home, regardless of our own queasiness. Glucose curve testing involves sticking a needle into his paw pad. At first, we tried to prick it slightly and then squeeze out a droplet of blood. We ended up wasting a lot of test strips, and those suckers are expensive, like a dollar each. My husband tried holding Pica while I poked him, and then we’d trade an hour later, and I held him as my husband stuck him. We squeezed and petted and squeezed, and poor Pica yelped.
We obtained 8 results over 8 hours, one an hour.
By the late afternoon, all of my cautiousness, anxiety and trepidation about the procedure was gone. Vanished. It was like, gimme that damn paw pad. Poke, blood, test strip, done. I just jabbed it. I was ruthless. It’s amazing, the transformation that can come over you when you realize there is no way out and you just have to do it. Yes, I could eat a raw bird if lost at sea.
To celebrate our victories of the day, we went to Ella Dining Room and Bar for oysters, drinks and dinner. Toasted to our incredible success with the blood glucose curves . . . and the guy who called on the pending listing in East Sacramento — maybe he’ll be a buyer for the two houses on a lot in a few weeks? Never know. Can’t judge people. The oddest things can happen in Sacramento real estate.
The Difference Between a Challenge and a PITA for a Sacramento REALTOR
There is a big difference between a challenge and a pain-in-the-ass (PITA) when it comes to Sacramento real estate for a REALTOR. A challenge presents obstacles that beg to be overcome and resolved, whereas a PITA just gets worse and nothing will fix those problems. It’s sometimes difficult to figure out which is which when they first appear in front of me. I like to try to help every buyer and seller who contact this Sacramento REALTOR. But when I start to question why-oh-why am I working on a house, that’s a definite clue that I should not.
I am not afraid of hard work. I don’t care how complicated a situation presents, I am confident that I will find a way to make it work out. It’s why I am successful. In fact, it’s how I sell hundreds of homes. It’s how, for example, that since 2006 I’ve sold more short sales than any other agent in town. So many agents would not touch those houses with a 10-feet pole. But not this agent. I welcome challenges. It’s how I turned into an exceptional Sacramento REALTOR.
If you have a difficult to home to sell, I’m your agent. I’ll do it. I gain deep satisfaction by successfully closing the seemingly impossible. By the same token, I welcome the easy-to-sell homes and I do a bang-up job selling homes in Land Park, East Sacramento and Elk Grove, all the way in some cases to Lincoln. The really nice homes in Sacramento owned by trouble-free sellers balances out the problematic sales. I take the good with the bad.
So, when a seller called, wiping away tears through our discussion about selling a certain home in Elk Grove, I decided to help her. Yes, I can be a sucker for a sob story. I sometimes feel as though if I don’t do it, who will? Many agents don’t like problems and they won’t work on situations fraught with difficulties. She faces an extremely complicated situation, made ten-fold by a super hard-to-sell property. Whatever pushed her to the edge meant she had to take action, pronto. I stopped what I was doing and jumped on this for her. Took copious notes. Shot photos. Inspected. Qualified. Put together a game plan, gathered required documents.
This went on for a two-week period. Finally, we were ready to go on the market. No more frantic text messages. No more interpreters. We were set. This seller’s 3-year battle was about to come to an end. Then, the seller emailed to say the timing wasn’t quite right. Maybe some other time? I guess there is a reason this has been going on for three years. It has nothing to do with me. It will never get resolved through a real estate agent. That nagging thought about why was I doing this vanished, because I’m not doing it. Not now, not ever.
It’s not a challenge. It’s a PITA. In those situations, a Sacramento REALTOR has to say no.
Sacramento Spring Home Selling Starts in the Rain
One of my Elk Grove sellers yesterday almost passed out when I called to say we had sold his home. I’m not joking. He could not believe it, and that’s putting it mildly. One day he’s a guy with a home in Elk Grove that is almost upside-down with a roof at the end of its life and the next day he’s slipping $50,000 into his pocket. I’m sure that’s the way it seemed to him. “Buttt,” he stuttered in disbelief, “We haven’t even been on the market for 2 weeks yet.”
When a listing is done right, much of the work is done upfront. Sellers don’t see the hours we agents pour over our listings, highlighting this feature, brightening this spot, cropping thusly, and plastering it everywhere online. Or the time invested to study the comparable sales and help the seller to choose just the right sales price. Or the number of inspection reports obtained from roofers, pest workers much less our own visual inspections, rearranging, color coordinating and staging the home a little bit. What they see is a buyer walking in the door and cooing, “I want this home.” It sends sellers into shock.
It was an unbelievable day yesterday for this Sacramento real estate agent. I don’t always have days like that Wednesday or I would probably drop from exhaustion. In addition to receiving an award from Leading Real Estate Companies of the World at my office meeting, bringing in a breakfast item for a potluck to honor veteran and former SAR president Barbara Harsch, and adding another curb scrape to the front lip spoiler on my car on my way to drop it at the body shop, it seems like everything happened in three’s. First, I took 3 new listings: met with the sellers, inspected the homes, shot my photographs, signed all the paperwork, explained how showings work, all that stuff.
Lyon Real Estate and I are bringing to the Sacramento spring home selling market today a gorgeous remodeled home in East Sacramento at 700 San Antonio Way at $649,000. The attention to detail in this remodel is astounding. Another new listing is a home in Carmichael, just north of Fair Oaks and east of California Street at 6145 Fountaindale Way at $350,000. This is a single-level, open floor plan with vaults and attached deck, surrounded by mature landscaping, built in 1992. The third new listing is located at 17 Oasis Court, which is on a culdesac, built in 2008 (among newer homes in central Sacramento), with 4 bedrooms and 2 baths at the affordable price of $195,000.
On top of this, I put 3 listings into contract and into escrow. Like the home of my Elk Grove seller who almost had a heart attack. I picked up 3 new clients by answering my phone as I was driving around Sacramento, too. We’re just getting started in this Sacramento spring selling season. See, focus. That’s the name of the game, and an agent must be on top of her game. Besides, it was too rainy to take my daily bike ride through Land Park yesterday anyway.
