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Wild Turkeys in Elk Grove
Wild Turkeys at Laguna Villa Way in Elk Grove
Wild turkeys on the loose in the city of Elk Grove is nothing new but they used to run away from you. Now, they don’t. The turkeys I spotted yesterday just stood there on the sidewalk in front of this guy’s house, acting like they owned the neighborhood. Two males, spaced apart, strutted back and forth as though they were guarding the driveway and were not about to let that vehicle depart. I stopped in the street, rolled down my passenger window and shot a photo with my iPhone.
The guys across the street were unloading stuff into the back of their car trunk and laughing at me, like I was a silly tourist. I’m not a goofy tourist, I’m an Elk Grove Realtor who sells a ton of homes in Elk Grove, and I was on my way to a client’s home just a few doors down. This may be an everyday sight for them, but I was a tad jarred. Those wild turkeys also seem especially prevalent in Laguna West.
I sold another home around the corner and I had to write into my agent visual inspection that I had noted a wild turkey occasionally would dart across the front lawn. That particular home was located uphill, so the turkey must have used additional leg muscles, expended additional energy, to run up that hill when the turkey could have chosen any other home on the block except that one. The seller said every morning the turkey shoots across his lawn before he leaves for work, implying the turkey was harmless and never inflicts damage.
Well, my question is what does the turkey do after the homeowner leaves? They can fly, you know.
You would think that I would know more about turkeys than I do, especially since I once raised turkeys, along with ducks, a goat, a rabbit, geese, what have you, when I lived in Costa Mesa, CA, in a neighborhood called Goat Hill. I’m thinking perhaps my particular turkeys were females because they used to follow me around the yard and try to peck at my gold rings, anything that was sparkly. Their beaks are sharp. Plus, when I would beg them to “please do your turkey thing,” meaning to spread out their tail feathers and look like a turkey; yet, they steadfastly refused. It wasn’t until years later, maybe during my trip to the Galapagos, that I discovered what males birds do to their bodies to attract females.
I hope these wild turkeys don’t decide to trot up the street to visit my new listing. That home has a pool and you know how birds are attracted to water. Oh wait, not turkeys . . . I have this picture in my head of ducks in the pool at Tony’s yard on the Sopranos. See, I do know something about fowl. Fortunately, I am a much better Elk Grove Realtor than a naturalist.
Eastern Star Hall in Midtown Sacramento Goes Up for Auction
The more I talk with people, the more it becomes apparent that many are not cognizant of their surroundings. I might talk with a seller about homes in Elk Grove that I’ve sold which are located a few blocks away from their house, and they’ve never been down those streets. They’ve never even heard of some streets. I guess they don’t walk around their neighborhood or, if they do, one street must look like the other. It’s not just people who live in suburban areas, either.
I suspect it’s because people are too busy or don’t care to explore. If there is no reason to go over to some side street, why would you? Most people probably just drive to work in the morning and make a beeline back at night. Ask an Elk Grove Realtor, though, and she can tell you where the parks are located, which are “through streets” with a lot of traffic, and the distance from your potential home to Elk Grove schools.
I suppose those who are involved in community activities are very aware of which streets are in their neighborhood and what goes on, but still, I am constantly amazed when people don’t even know the name of the street behind their house. And, they don’t think it’s odd that they don’t know.
Some people who live in the city, like, say, in homes in Midtown Sacramento, for example, might not always pay attention, either. That’s one of the reasons this Midtown Realtor enjoys the cellphone game of Ingress. It points out works of art, historic buildings and other “portals” right under our noses in the midst of the city that we might otherwise pass by unnoticed. For example, I read in the Sacramento Bee today that the Eastern Star Hall is expected to show up in Auction.com, listed at $750,000. I know exactly where it’s located because it’s an Ingress portal.
The Eastern Star Hall is a historic building built in 1928, located at 2719 K Street, right across the street from Sutter’s Fort (also a portal, several). It depicts 5 women with those darling bobbed cuts, doing daring things for the 1920s, like drive a car. It reminds me of my grandmother. I have a photograph of her from 1919 when she cut off her hair in defiance and took up smoking, just like the guys. She came to the United States from Hungary in 1899. Thoughts of my grandmother often cross my mind as I deploy mods and link portals at Eastern Star Hall.
It will be interesting to watch what happens to this building. My real estate office is located a block away on the corner of 28th and J Streets, and I drive by the Eastern Star Hall to hack the portal many times a week. I wonder about its fate, and whether others who live and work nearby notice it.
Persistence is a Mantra for Elk Grove Realtor
Confidence and persistence go hand in hand. While there are those who will certainly disagree, I happen to believe that persistence is a good thing, especially when it applies to Sacramento real estate. How important is it to be a person who finds a way to get things done and who doesn’t let adversity spit in her face? That’s what I ask. I’m one of those people who will do just about whatever it takes to accomplish my goal or the objectives of my clients. You will never hear me say something can’t happen if I can figure out a way to make it happen, and it’s within my power, then that thing will happen.
I preface my blog today with that statement because it will help to explain how I almost became the newspaper headline: Elk Grove Realtor Found Dead Speared to Gate. I had just closed escrow on another home in Elk Grove and had given the buyer’s agent a couple of days to get the keys out of the lockbox before I drove over to Stonelake. I paused on the front porch when I discovered a contractor’s lockbox attached to the fence. How convenient, I must have switched out the lockboxes at some point, which I often do. I tried several times to enter the code but it would not open. Hmmm. The reason it will not open has got to be that it is not my contractor’s box. Therefore, logic dictated that my own Bluetooth iBox was most likely in the back yard on the gas meter. Except, I was denied physical access by an electronic gate, which was closed and would not budge. Dilemma.
This was the pivotal point at which another Elk Grove Realtor would have shrugged her shoulders and elected to come back at some other time when the occupants were home. But not this crazy person. Oh, no, I was not leaving without my lockbox.
First, I am not completely insane nor illogical. I texted the buyer’s agent and asked if he had the code for the contractor’s box. Sure enough. My heart pounded with glee. I opened the contractor’s box. Uh, oh, the key was not there. Empty. Rats. OK, I am not tall enough nor strong enough to hoist my body over the iron gate with spikes. I’m in my 60s for crying out loud. But if I had a ladder or some big guy to assist, I could do it at the low point because an electronic box attached to the house could serve as a stepping point to the ground.
I texted the seller. He directed me to a relative’s house but she was not home. Anybody else? Oh, yes, there was Lisa, who lived a few doors down. I knocked on her door. “Hi, I am Elizabeth Weintraub, your neighbor’s Realtor,” pointing toward the house with the for sale sign still in the yard, “and I’d like to borrow your ladder so I can climb over his gate to get my lockbox.” Surprisingly, she gave me her ladder. Well, she first called the seller to verify because I probably looked like a crazy person.
I stood in Lisa’s front yard while she made the call behind closed doors. All of a sudden, a tiny hummingbird flew up to me and hovered within 6 inches of my face. I wondered if I resembled a flower because why would anybody be standing still in the front yard if she wasn’t a botanical of some sort? Hummingbirds generate a lot of noise up close, in case you’re wondering. A school of hummingbirds would be almost deafening. This was a female hummingbird. Suddenly the neighbor came around the corner and thrust the ladder into my hands. Eureka.
Trying not to break off any branches of a shrub, I positioned the ladder at the low end of the gate, and carefully squeezed my body around the corner, trying not to let my foot slip. One slip and I’d be gored by a spike. One tiny misstep, major injury, if not death. I considered the headline: Elk Grove Realtor found dead speared to gate. Nothing horrible happened. I grabbed the lockbox, and hauled the ladder back to the neighbor. Her parting words to me were she was sorry she had to make the call because “you totally look like a Realtor.” No makeup, jeans, a t-shirt, wild curly hair and Chanel flip-flops. Yeah, right. Perhaps it was my Italian roadster parked next to the sign.
Glancing down at my cellphone, I spotted an email from the president’s office at Quicken Loans. Quicken had located an appraiser who could go out to Anatolia yesterday to complete an appraisal, after every other appraiser in Sacramento was booked and at least a week out, and we were up against contingency deadlines. This is how persistence pays off. I do what it takes to get the job done, and that persistence is why my sellers are happy to pay my commission.
The photo on this page is of my sister, Margie, but the ladder photo was shot yesterday at the home in Elk Grove. Photos by Elizabeth Weintraub.
Losing a Wrapped Radiator Earring in Downtown Sacramento
The thing about actively selling Sacramento real estate all day long and being engaged, on-call, on my toes, alert and ready for any crap that is thrown in my direction is the fact that I don’t have a lot of time to spend on any of my obsessions, like trying to find a replacement for the wrapped-radiator earring I lost downtown. Yesterday was extremely windy. I parked in front of the Memorial Auditorium, hacked that portal in Ingress, captured it, while I fumbled for quarters to feed the meter in the midst of super strong gusts that blew down 15th Street. My hair probably resembled an octopus, curls flying in all directions.
It wasn’t until I was sitting in de Vere’s Pub with my husband for lunch — which has pretty decent grub btw — that I noticed my wrapped-radiator earring was missing from my left ear. You’d think that my Bluetooth device, which I wear on that ear as well, would have hooked the earring or prevented it from flying away, but that’s what I get for not sticking the little plastic doohickeys on the backs of my earlobes for security. 100% my fault.
Wrapped-Radiator Earring by McKenna Hallet
The artist who created those earrings resides in Maui, and she doesn’t sell to the public. I met McKenna Hallett at the Four Seasons last summer when my friend and team member Barbara Dow grabbed a much needed getaway vacation. She makes low-impact jewelry, things made from stuff she finds around the island, and she doesn’t use electricity or precious resources other than a treadle-driven sewing machine or her own muscle power. Her mission statement seems to be: Wearable art made without burning fossil fuels from stuff I find.
As I stuffed quarters into the parking meter, my phone rang, which froze my Ingress screen. The caller was a bank negotiator advising that the bank decided to send a person from the investment team to personally tour one of my listings of homes in Elk Grove and assess the damage. Even though we had delivered photographs and a contractor’s bid. They want to figure out whether they’ll make more money from an REO or from a short sale. I hate to say in this case I’m guessing they’ll choose REO because the occupants make it difficult to show.
There are many portals on 15th Street, and they change from Enlightened to Resistance and from Resistance to Enlightened faster than a Sacramento Realtor can deploy resonators. My cell rang again, and this time it was Roof Doctors to say they cannot provide a roof certification on a pending escrow. I didn’t need to capture the Taco Truck portal anyway. I’ll deal with this disappointing news.
But I sure wish I could have found my missing wrapped radiator earring. Walking back to my car, I realized that it could have flown into the bushes or been stepped on, flung into the street and, even if I spotted it, I probably would not recognize it, since I had a good 5-block area where it could have vanished. The best thing to do is just replace it. Short of flying back to Maui, I tracked down the artist and she gave me an outlet that sells McKenna Hallet’s stuff. Of course, I have to call them, and all of my other business gets in the way of that because I only work on personal matters after my real estate activities finds a break. Some days, that’s never. C’est la vie.
How to Close $2 Million in Sales in Sacramento in One Day
Closing $2 million in sales in one day in Sacramento is remarkable
A milestone day happened yesterday that is very rare in my end of the Sacramento real estate market and, in fact, I wouldn’t have even known that it happened if escrow had not pointed it out to me. Most of the listings that I take and sell, for example, fall within a wide range of price points, but I’m betting the mid-range of prices for homes in Sacramento is around $300K to $500K. Not only was it a surprise, but it was an odd feeling when escrow mentioned I was about to close $2 million in sales in one day. What? $2 million in sales for Sacramento home sales in one day?
All the home sales were very different from each other. One of the homes was one of those custom magnificent homes in Davis, which sold for $1.5m, so that home sale took up a big chunk of my $2 million in sales volume. An agent in Davis called last week to drill me about the buyer for this home. She wanted to know if there was financing, if the home appraised at the sales price, and insinuated it was overpriced. On top of which, she asked if the buyer was from out-of-the-area, i.e. Bay area, implying that a local buyer must not be in escrow. What business is it of hers where the buyer is from? She has no business knowing any of these details. I am generally not authorized to release personal information about pending transactions, so I was forced to deny her request.
Of course, it did close at list price, which might shake up some in Davis. My duty is to my seller. That home probably set a new high for Central Davis. Part of my $2 million in sales.
My second closing was a condo in West Sacramento, a short sale, which I have had the pleasure of selling 3 different times to 3 different buyers. Every time I got the short sale approval letter, the buyers were not in a position, for whatever reason, to close. It also involved years of delinquent HOA dues, and difficult negotiations between two separate HOA companies. The seller had been unable to get either of the HOAs to work with her and thought for certain she was destined for foreclosure. But she kept the faith and continued to work with me until we found a buyer who would stick it through. She got her short sale and did not have to face foreclosure.
I’ll probably get a Christmas card from that seller every year until I die.
The third closing was in my favorite stomping grounds, among homes in Elk Grove. For some unexplained reason, I sell a lot of homes in Elk Grove. When the seller and I examined the comparable sales, the top price we could justify for this particular home was a little bit below our list price. Listing homes is a little bit like going fishing, throw that line out there and bam, got a bite, reeled in the buyer and we went into escrow. The next day, the buyer freaked out and canceled.
We were NOT returning the listing to active status as a “back on market” listing, because perception is often the home is damaged in some way. We pulled a new MLS number and started over. This time, we got a bigger fish, and we pushed that price up another 2%. The buyer’s agent thought I was pretty mean because I shot down his idea of negotiating a request for repair, but we were clear at inception the home was sold AS IS. As a result, we don’t care what sort of defects they found on the home inspection — they were closing on a home in a limited inventory market when many other prospective home buyers in Elk Grove cannot buy a home at all.
When I look over transactions like these and the work that I have done for my clients, I feel gratified. I feel as though I have justified once again that sellers are better off hiring a full-service Sacramento Realtor who produces results. I earn my commissions. If you ask my sellers, they will agree. It’s also entirely possible that I never again will close $2 million in sales for Sacramento home sales in one day.
