Email Elizabethhomes in east sacramento
Photo Galleries of Homes in East Sacramento and Elsewhere
Every morning, before I start my day as a Sacramento real estate agent, I clear all of the spam and junk emails from accounts and try to respond to the people who contact me out of the blue. This is the thing about writing online articles and blogging for so many years is you never know when a person will read a piece and believe it was just published. That’s timeless writing, and evergreen, and while some things are very specific and change from year to year, stately mansions and historic homes tend to inhabit a sacred spot on earth.
Today a writer thanked me for publishing homes in NW Portland. I love Portland to pieces, and not just because we really don’t have to be on the lookout at all times for Wesen or because Portlandia is so hilariously amusing, but because it’s a great city. Sacramento often looks to Portland as a model city: modern, ahead of its times, progressive. And it boasts several historic districts.
Historic district preservation has its foes and its supporters in Sacramento. The supporters are generally people who love homes. I’m not in real estate just to list and show houses, I do it partly because I love homes. Period. All kinds of houses. I had dollhouses as a kid; I built playhouses out of discarded composition shingles at building sites, and I even once drew a diagram of a floor plan in the street in front of my house. I used drywall chalk. I lived in a new subdivision called Heritage Homes in the then Village of Circle Pines, Minnesota, and homes were still being built around us for years after my family moved from Saint Paul.
I drew a floor plan with bedrooms, a kitchen and a living room. I had wanted my younger sister to go into the woods and play, but she didn’t want to let go of her teddy bear, and she couldn’t take it with us, for some reason. So, I put her teddy bear in the bedroom in the middle of the street and locked the imaginary door. Of course, when we came back from playing in the woods, her teddy bear was gone. She still speaks to me, though.
Here are photo galleries of homes in Sacramento, along the northern coast of California in Mendocino and in Northwest Portland, Oregon. I hope you enjoy them.
Homes in East Sacramento, Sacramento, California
Homes in Land Park, Sacramento, California
Homes in Mendocino, California
Homes in Portland, Oregon’s Nob Hill Neighborhood in NW Portland
About Buying a Home in East Sacramento
My hairdresser in East Sacramento was getting married last Thursday so I had to get my hair done on a Sunday. Which is OK, I guess, at least this way I don’t have to style today, as long as I didn’t toss and turn all night and let our new kitten Tessa throw up on my head, and I think I’m good there. It was while I was sitting in the salon on a Sunday afternoon touching up what she calls my sparkles, when I realized my hairdresser needs to buy a home.
Wait a minute. Sparkles, what are sparkles, you might ask? I asked that myself because for a moment I thought perhaps diamonds were a thing of the past, like Bruce Jenner’s face. I swear he no longer looks like a man, he looks like a woman. And I wouldn’t know that if I wasn’t sitting in a hair salon on a Sunday afternoon peering at the cover of People Magazine and discussing Sparkles.
Sparkles are gray roots. Yes, one of these days I’ll get around to letting my hair grow out its natural color just so I can see what it is, but for now, I don’t have that kind of luxury of time. If I have gray roots, I color them. I am jealous of the women who don’t have to mess with that, but then again, you still need to get your hair cut unless you want to look like Albert Einstein, or maybe Morticia Addams — the latter is the direction I’m heading.
Rather than spend my time at the salon catching up on all of the pop culture stuff I’m better off not knowing about, I used that time to talk with my hairdresser about buying a home. She has two incomes, a spouse, decent jobs, and she’s tired of living in an apartment. She needs a house. So, if she’s gonna buy a house, she may as well get started on the right path.
It’s funny what you hear yourself say when you spend time talking to a person who doesn’t know anything about buying a home. This particular couple will probably buy a two-bedroom, 1 bath, maybe about 1,000 square feet, and I predict it will be an older home somewhere in Midtown or among smaller bungalow homes in East Sacramento. However, my hairdresser needs to learn about home repair. Take responsibility for fixing up her new home; I insisted, it’s empowering, too. Unfortunately, she believes she can find whatever she needs to know about home repair on the Internet.
Only if she chooses wisely. Doesn’t end up electrocuting herself.
So, yesterday we talked mostly about debt ratios and finding out how much she and her spouse pay each and every month for bills and living expenses. Her first step is to talk with a mortgage broker and get pre-approved. If she needs to pay down debt, now is a good time to get started. I have plenty of time to help her out, lots of patience, and I’m in no rush. My experience says, once she catches the fever, she may be the impatient one, though.
Extraordinary Craftsman Home in East Sacramento
For anybody who appreciates historic homes in East Sacramento, it doesn’t get any better than an extraordinary 1915 Craftsman. This new East Sacramento listing is a high-water bungalow with terrazzo steps leading up to the big front porch. I would love to sit up on this porch and watch men push babies in strollers and kids ride by on bikes. In fact, I would love to buy this home but my husband says we’re not moving.
When you open the antique front door, the home immediately welcomes you; there is a feeling of grandeur and warmth. It speaks fondly to you. Vintage features are intact and beautifully stunning such as the boxed ceilings, hardwood floors, high baseboards, molding, light fixtures, plus you’ll find sparkling chandeliers and even some of the door frames feature raised wood carvings. Many of the ceilings are unique, formed and curved by master plasterers from back in the day.
In addition to the formal living and dining rooms, this spacious home boasts a separate family room, plus a desirable first-floor bedroom with bay windows. The kitchen is so enormous you could roller skate across the black-and-white patterned floor and around the butcher block island that stays with the home. Plenty of cabinets, stainless appliances, plus a space for a breakfast table that could probably seat 10 people.
French doors lead to the back-yard deck. The deck is partially covered, and the yard has hydrangeas, fruit trees, a raised vegetable garden, an outbuilding used as a children’s playhouse, and a private patio, along the perimeter of a lush lawn. This beautiful view is also attainable from the second-floor bedroom, which has been lovingly remodeled by the owners with hardwood planked flooring and a walk-in closet.
There are 4 bedrooms and 3 baths in this home. The master suite features a marble bath, with unique built-in storage for shoes, which I, a woman who has a fondness for shoes, absolutely covet. The tub is jetted, and there is a separate shower sporting a pebble stone floor. The dual sink vanity with a cool marble surface features a large mirror.
On top of all of this, there is a full basement. The ductwork has been upgraded, plus any upgrades under the house are easy to do with a full basement.
Come to the open house on Sunday, October 27th, from 2:00 to 4:00 PM, held by the Elizabeth Weintraub Team.
1558 Santa Ynez Way, Sacramento, CA 95816 is exclusively offered by Lyon Real Estate at $725,000. Please call your East Sacramento agent, Elizabeth Weintraub, at 916.233.6759 for more information.
Selling a Home in Sacramento and Offer Negotiation
A seller who is selling a home in Sacramento should not have to wonder if the buyers who just wrote an offer on her home really want to buy the house. I mean, what if I told you that I am willing to sell you a Ferrari for $10,000, but you say the sale is subject to your ability to find the money buried in a barrel Breaking Bad style out in the desert somewhere? Oh, and on top of that, at anytime, you can decide to renegotiate the price with me or ask me, if you like, to throw in, say, a year’s supply of gas and car washes for you. You’d probably think you hit pay dirt.
This is exactly what buying a home in Sacramento is like for some home buyers. The market is super hot for sellers of well-priced homes. Doesn’t matter if that home is located in Elk Grove or East Sacramento or Lincoln; if it’s priced right, the seller will probably quickly receive a full-price offer, if not multiple offers. On the other side, buyers don’t like to compete with multiple offers. It’s just a mindset though. Because buyers are competing the minute they step foot inside a home for sale where another buyer has recently been.
Lately, I’ve been encountering buyers who must think they are clever. Their idea is to lock down the home immediately by promising the seller everything the seller is asking for and, after a few weeks have passed and all of the other buyers have gone away, then they will ask for a price reduction or a credit. I sell more homes than most agents, and I see this tactic used over and over. It’s not enough to elicit a promise from the buyer that a home is sold AS IS because some buyers conveniently forget about that promise.
In one situation, I reminded the seller that the buyer might not know any better. The buyer might be getting pushed by relatives or friends who say that even though the buyer promised to not ask for a repair, the buyer should demand a new HVAC installation. Because you never know. Sometimes, sellers cave. I don’t like to see buyers and sellers at each other’s throats when there is no reason for it.
However, the seller pointed out that this was no first-time home buyer who was buying his home in Roseville. Nope, this was a retired guy over the age of 65. The seller said the buyer knew exactly what he was doing. Maybe. Age is really no guarantee, but the seller could be right.
This Sacramento real estate agent sometimes advises her sellers to issue a counter offer when an offer comes in at full price, quickly and with a shortened time frame for acceptance. The counter is not about price. It’s about performance.
If the buyer blows a fuse because the seller insists upfront upon no renegotiations down the road, well, what does that tell you? Buyers always have the right to cancel within the contract default period of 17 days for any reason — but once a buyer commits to buy a home, the negotiations should really be pretty much over. Particularly in today’s real estate climate. There is nothing wrong with pointing out to a buyer that AS IS in the residential purchase contract means AS IS. It doesn’t mean maybe.
You can shake hands all you want, but a pen to paper is always better. If you’re thinking about selling your home in the Sacramento metro area, call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916 233 6759. Put 40 years of experience to work for you.
Whose Listing Is It Anyway?
If a Sacramento real estate agent doesn’t spend much time online, the agent is kinda hosed in this business. Many agents and their sellers are unaware that a listing can show up on a popular website without the listing agent’s name or contact information. It happens every single day, as there are many homes for sale in Sacramento on the internet without the name of the listing agent or listing broker. This means not only does the listing agent remain unknown, but a potential buyer will probably call a buyer’s agent at a competing brokerage.
On the Elizabeth Weintraub website, through my MetroList-partner IDX feed, buyers can search every single listing among homes for sale in Sacramento. Every listing brokerage is identified in this listing feed because that’s the way our Sacramento MLS works. It complies with the law because it makes up its own rules. It’s pretty much the god of Sacramento real estate.
Try explaining this to an annoyed real estate agent who can’t figure out why my picture and contact information shows up on his listing. I regularly get those kind of calls. Agents need to monitor and work on their internet presence. I’ve been working online since 1991. It’s pretty much second nature to me. I go back to Bulletin Boards and squealing dial-up modems.
So, yeah, my listings enjoy great exposure. Put my name into Google and you’ll find almost 1,000,000 results. I challenge you to go to a website and not find one of my listings among the homes for sale in Sacramento. I plaster my listings everywhere and treat each as the individual piece of gold that it is.
At the same time, I provide every listing on all Sacramento homes for sale and beyond on my website. If you’re looking for Sacramento homes for sale, the website for Elizabeth Weintraub is the place to be.
You can call me at 916 233 6759. I answer my phone.
