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Listed Homes in Elk Grove Can’t Get Into MLS Fast Enough
In this hot seller’s market in Sacramento real estate, a cancellation by a buyer can turn into a blessing in disguise. When you work so hard on getting an offer accepted by obtaining document after document that proves the buyer’s mortgage worthiness, and you’re making countless phone calls to assure sellers that by waiting to respond is in their own best interest, and after having out-of-area parties finally agree to sign all of the documents, it can seem a bit defeatist when the buyer announces a chance of heart. You might say to yourself: why did I do all of that work?
And of course, the home can’t suddenly appear back on the market as though it was damaged goods. So the listing agent starts over, with a brand new listing and a new MLS number, and a fresh approach. It’s a situation of damned if you do and damned if you don’t, meaning do you put the home immediately into pending status and take a chance the buyers won’t flake or do you wait and get buyer’s agents irritated because they’re showing a home that’s under contract. I generally choose to change the status of those listed homes in Elk Grove as soon as possible.
There is not much one can do when an offer quickly arrives with a 3-day window, and you don’t want to make the poor buyer suffer by waiting out the whole 3 days. You can only stretch it so far. When no other offers arrive, it’s best to deal with the offer at hand and treat it as the precious gem that it is, so when the buyer cancels for no good reason, it can initially be a let-down.
Except in this market. The odds are if a buyer cancels, the next buyer, if handled properly, will pay a whole lot more for that home. I’m betting sellers are wishing that buyers would cancel right now. I can hear them, “Hey, we only got list price, and we could get more if we were back on the market.” It’s very competitive out there. More competitive than it’s been for years. And I’ve seen some wild markets over the past few decades.
I’m ready for it. I am dropping my doughnut holes of listed homes in Elk Grove into that hot vat of grease, spacing them one by one, until they fluff up and float to the top, a beautiful shade of gold, ready to melt in your mouth. Oh, wait, let me shake a little sugar. If you’ve got a home in Elk Grove to sell, call a top Elk Grove REALTOR who gets results, Elizabeth Weintraub, at 916.233.6759, Lyon Real Estate.
40 Years in the Real Estate Business Pays Off
I see the look in sellers’ eyes when I tell them we will receive multiple offers and we need to put the home on the market right away. They stare at me with reservations blinking like strobe lights in their eyes but they also have blind faith that I know what I’m doing, which I do, so they agree to whatever I suggest. These are the kinds of sellers whom I love to work with. We have a trusted relationship that is based in the real world, and still I can astonish them when my predictions come true. 40 years in the real estate business pays off.
Just a few weeks ago, a tenant delighted in telling me that she had a good friend who worked at a competing brokerage, and her good friend said the list price I had proposed was way too high, and she predicted the home would never sell for that amount. Not only did the home immediately sell, but it sold for 2.5% more, and it was priced at the top of the market. My seller made out like a bandit, and I truly earned my fee. 40 years in the real estate business pays off.
A seller in Elk Grove called yesterday to inquire about putting her home on the market. She has spent a lot of money on upgrades and expects to get somewhere between $800,000 and $900,000. It’s not on the water, I pointed out. Well, she didn’t want a home on the water and deliberately bought it a few doors off the water because she didn’t want to deal with, you know, bugs and stuff.
How do I tell her that an identical model with upgrades that is actually on the water is for sale at $700,000 and nothing in that neighborhood has sold in her preferred price range, ever? Well, I’m not asking you, really, because I know how to break the news to her, but she doesn’t strike me as a seller who will gladly accept that news even when I back it up with hard, cold facts. She’ll just call another Elk Grove agent who will agree with her and list it.
Ordinarily I’d take the listing because eventually somebody will come to reality, and I kinda like to be the agent at that point. However, I don’t think this particular situation fits well into my architecture. My gut instinct tells me I would regret listing this home as an overpriced listing, and I listen to my gut instincts as they rarely steer me wrong. That’s the difference that 40 years in the real estate business brings. 40 years in the real estate business pays off.
How Long Does it Take to Sell Homes in Elk Grove, CA?
Ask an Elk Grove Agent About Selling Homes in Elk Grove
Home sellers always seem a bit astonished when I talk about how long does it take to sell homes in Elk Grove, and I give them hope that their home will quickly sell. Sometimes I see the uneasiness in their eyes, like why would I say that? Could it possibly be true or am I just saying those words in order to get the listing? Yeah, I know that it can be hard to trust every Elk Grove agent and some of them earned a bad name, but my clients come to respect the fact they can rely on me, no matter what. I do what I say.
I have no reason to predict that a home will sell faster or for more money than a seller expects unless it is true. There is nothing but heartache for the agent who can’t perform or live up to expectations, and I never want to be in that boat. I would much rather under-promise and over-perform because it delights sellers to get even more money than they hoped to get and to sell faster than they anticipated. If anything, I might deliberately set expectations a little bit lower. My goal is happy and ecstatic clients.
Speaking of happy, I was watching the Grammy’s last night, Pharrell performing Happy, which won him a Grammy, and was happy to see some of the other performers included from the 1970s and 1980s (but I don’t know why they were there). My husband says some of them are under various CBS contracts / subsidiaries, and that’s why.
But AC/DC? There are many bands I have never seen perform live and probably shouldn’t. It can alter your long-held opinion based solely on the music. That’s because when I was growing up, if you wanted to see a band you either checked for a schedule with the venue where they were likely to play, or you waited until you heard an announcement on the radio or somebody else told you; maybe somebody plastered a playbill on a telephone pole. I knew what the musicians looked like because I had an album cover to stare at. And sometimes, I hate to admit, from magazines at the grocery store. Maybe, if I was lucky, I’d catch a band on Ed Sullivan or some other variety show.
Ah, kids today don’t know how good they have got it with the Internet at their fingertips and cheap air fare. I wasn’t flying anywhere much less hopping a bus to St. Paul to see a show as a kid.
And Elk Grove sellers don’t know how good they have it until they hire this Elk Grove agent to help them to sell a home. The market right now, this very instant, is hot. There is almost no inventory. How long does it take to sell homes in Elk Grove? A home sells as fast as the best one above it goes into escrow. That’s your real answer, and the one that you’re looking for. And you can rely on it.
What is Wrong with the Elk Grove Housing Market?
It’s not just sellers of homes in Elk Grove who are asking what the hell is going on in the Elk Grove housing market. Sacramento real estate professionals are also baffled because they tell me so. But whenever I am perplexed, I search for answers, and I think I’ve figured out what part of the problem is with our Elk Grove home buyers this fall, and also part of what’s wrong with the Elk Grove housing market.
Let me also mention that this phenomenon seems to be isolated to Elk Grove / Laguna. I sell homes from Galt to Lincoln, and cover a wide sales territory over many counties in the Sacramento Valley, and the only place where this situation seems to exist is in Elk Grove and Laguna.
This spring, buyers were snatching up homes like crazy. I call these guys our Tier 1 buyers. They were motivated, had the bucks, were pre-approved and wanted to close escrow on a nice home in Elk Grove. Didn’t matter if the ZIP was 95624, 95758 or 95757, all three of those ZIPs experienced similar market movement across the board. Elk Grove or Laguna, homes were moving.
Now, we have what I call our Tier 2 buyers and our Tier 3 buyers, the ones who aren’t necessarily all that motivated, and might, maybe, perhaps, purchase a home if it fits all of their criteria and is priced right in the right location with the right amount of amenities and upgrades. If a home is missing one of those things, a Tier 2 or Tier 3 buyer is likely to pass it over in favor of another. They also don’t have a lot of financial security and many are unable to pay closing costs. They typically buy with leveraged financing above 80%. Not only that, but these buyers are obviously writing multiple offers, which is wrong on so many levels.
I don’t know if they’re doing it through one agent or multiple agents leaving the others clueless, but they write the offer they want on the house that they want the most, knowing that they might not get it because others probably want it, too. So, then they write an offer on their second-choice home. Because that home is second choice, they feel it doesn’t deserve the same consideration as their number one choice, so they sign lowball offers, ask for all sorts of concessions and then wait to see which way the wind blows.
On the other hand, our absorption rate in those 3 ZIPcodes in Elk Grove is 41%. A year ago in July it was 75%. You calculate an absorption rate by dividing the number of closed sales by the number of homes for sale. Our inventory is almost double over the past 15 months and by any stretch would be considered low at roughly 2.4 months. MLS reports we have 454 homes for sale in Elk Grove, with an average square foot price of $175 and 52 days on the market.
I guess I will now need to advise sellers to put into a counter offer that the buyer promises there are no outstanding offers floating about on other homes before we enter into an acceptance. Because when I ask agents if their buyers are serious, the answer I received this morning from a buyer’s agent was, I kid you not: “I don’t know, let me ask.”
Homes are closing in Elk Grove, and I’m living proof that it’s happening, but what a trip. One can’t be an emotional tree-hugging softie in this kind of real estate market, and sellers really need an assertive agent. A new client mentioned a few days ago when I was out at her home that the reason she wants to hire me to represent her is because I’m tough and firm but nice about it. I prefer to think that I am focused with thick skin. I work hard to get the job done.
Magical Castle at Country Club Golf Course in Elk Grove
To be completely factual, you probably won’t find fairy dust or pixies prancing about this magical home on the golf course in Elk Grove, but it’s easy to let your imagination run wild at this unique property. Passersby who live in this gated community have been panting to get inside this home since it was custom built in the early 1990s. It features a turret, and the front brick exterior is covered in ivy. It looks like a home you would expect to discover in Once Upon a Time.
There are so many custom features. It is obvious that the woman who designed this home spent a long time contemplating its design. Beautiful, tall, and heavy dual wood doors grace the entry. Hardwood floors feature strongly mostly throughout the main level. Stained glass and leaded glass are introduced not only as windows but are also prominent in some of the light fixtures. Many of the rooms are spacious; there is almost 4,500 square feet in this 5-bedroom, 5-bath home.
The living room is formal, featuring a vaulted wood plank ceiling with accent beams, a fireplace with marble mantel, hardwood floors. There are French doors to a patio, including dual half-circle custom-covered windows above a bank of windows on a curved wall, all of which allows spectacular views of the golf course and lake.
Just when you think it can’t get any more beautiful, the family room is equally if not more so impressive. Vaulted wood plank ceilings in this room, too, accented by beams. One wall is covered in raised paneling, with a built-in bookcase plus a brick fireplace. The windows are clad in wood trim and the wood paneling continues as half walls. This room has hardwood floors and double-entry doors.
You’ll notice near the entryway a room used as wine storage. This was once an elevator and has since been converted. The first floor is for wine and the second floor space offers storage.
The kitchen is immense. Raised panel, beautifully finished wood cabinets — some of the upper wall cabinets have glass in the doors. There is a built-in area with a desk. Next to the built-in Subzero refrigerator, which simply vanishes into the wall, is an arched brick alcove with a top-of-the-line Thermidor gas cooktop. The floors, of course, are hardwood.
There are several sinks in the kitchen, a separate island and a dining bar, as well as a breakfast nook. Its smooth synthetic counters would be excellent for rolling dough and making pastries. Overhead is a stained glass light fixture, coupled with recessed lighting. A handful of chefs could easily work side-by-side in this gourmet kitchen. Like the other main rooms, this also offers stunning views of the golf course and lake.
The backyard is large enough for a pool, and the landscaping is breathtaking. After you buy this gorgeous home, you can sit on the patio and watch golfers at the fourth hole if you like or relax on the second-floor balcony and take in more of the golf course view. But to get there, you must call your Elk Grove agent for a private showing. We will show this home on Sunday, October 12th, between 2:00 and 4:00 PM, strictly by exclusive appointment only. Buyer’s agents must accompany buyers. Sorry, the public cannot attend. For more information, please call Josh Amolsch at 916.224.2756 or Elizabeth Weintraub, 916.233.6759.
9217 Laguna Lake Way, Elk Grove, CA 95758 is offered by your Elk Grove agent, Elizabeth Weintraub at Lyon Real Estate. $749,000.
