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Strangers Sleeping In Your Bed and the FBI
I called the FBI in Sacramento yesterday, but I’ll get to that in a moment. First, there is a real estate agent who lives in Land Park and supplements his income by renting out his house while he sleeps in a trailer of sorts in the driveway. I don’t know the guy but I read about it in the Snewzer. He does this through airbnb, which is based in San Francisco. It works for some people but it’s not a service I would probably use when traveling unless, of course, the owners were willing to show up at breakfast and dinner to cook for me.
Renting out my house is also not something I would ever do myself because I would not like strangers sleeping in my bed. In fact, I’ve had thoughts about maybe buying a vacation home, and agents always say, well, you can rent it when you’re not using it. Why would my husband and I do that? We don’t want strangers living in our house.
Which reminds me, a few weeks ago at Nordstrom my personal shopper asked me the strangest thing. After I had selected a few dresses to ring up, she asked if it was OK to let a customer in another fitting room try on one of my dresses. Apparently, I was about to buy the last size in that dress. I’m a fairly accommodating person and I almost said sure, then the reality of the situation, well, it hit me that it possessed a sort of ick factor. No, I did not want my dress placed on somebody else’s body before she rings it up, thank you very much.
We all have our personal boundaries. I’m the kind of person who answers her phone when it rings and, if the person on the other end of the phone is an individual I have no reason to talk to, who is wasting time that could be better spent selling homes in Sacramento, for example, I don’t show a lot of patience for that individual. I am very quick to say that my number is on the do not call list, don’t ever call me again, and I block the phone number. I’m surprised my own sister can get through to me, I’m so fast to block. My phone is for business, friends and family.
This is where the FBI comes in. A guy named “Ed” called from 850-933-0098 yesterday and insisted he was representing my cellphone service provider. He demanded payment, claimed I was past due, and threatened to shut off my phone. Well, that was just plain silly. That’s not how a cellphone provider acts. He wanted to argue with me, insisting I could go to the website to see my delinquent account, and I refuted his claim so many times he hung up on me. That’s why I called the FBI.
You might think that the FBI is not the right place to report these types of crimes but they are absolutely the right place to go. A very nice FBI agent took my report. I had Googled the crook’s phone and there were many victims he had tried to rip off. After the FBI completed my report, the agent asked me to report the incident to the Federal Trade Commission as well. I complied.
If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. Although, I still don’t want any strangers sleeping in my bed or trying on my clothes.
WSJ, Trulia and Zillow List Best Real Estate Agents in America
Best Real Estate Agents in America for 2015
The purpose behind the Real Trends 1000 List of Best Real Estate Agents in America is to sell crap to the agents on the list. Being named to this list means I will endure yet another year of harassment and haranguing from manufacturers who want to make me a plaque to celebrate my accomplishments and charge me an enormous sum for the privilege of hanging the ugly thing on my wall so our 3 cats can shoot spitballs at it. Real Trends will also sell my name to thousands of spammers. It’s the price of success, and it sorta sucks. Still, it also means the Elizabeth Weintraub Team ranks #7 in the Sacramento region, which is impressive, I suppose.
Real Trends now works in collaboration with the Wall Street Journal, Zillow and Trulia. Every year they put out a list of the best agents in America.
A couple of new clients called yesterday to request help with Sacramento real estate, people who probably did not know this list exists yet called me anyway. One was a buyer who said he had previously worked with a team in Nevada and was thrilled with the results. Because it’s difficult for one person to be in 10 places at the same time unless that person has a team for support. He gets it. He understands why working a team is the way to go. Happy-as-clam clients, that’s what we strive for. Clients for whom we strive to meet every need. Instantly.
This buyer wants to move his family to either Curtis Park or East Sacramento, probably with a more dedicated focus on homes in Land Park. Those neighborhoods happen to be my specialty. I live in Land Park. He hit the jackpot with us. I personally match buyers to team members who possess intimate knowledge, and we work together to make magic happen.
He knows the benefits of working with a team in Sacramento, so one less thing to explain. It doesn’t cost extra to get a team to work for you, either.
Another client, a seller with a home in Natomas, called to talk about sales strategy and market conditions. She wants me to list her home in Natomas as soon as the tenant moves out next month. She found me online and read my reviews. She gets it. As a natural course of progression in these types of conversations, she asked how much I charge, and I explained my standard fee that has remained unchanged over the past 40 years. Then, I went one step further to justify and to explain that she can find some cheap-ass agent, and she cut me off right there.
Said she’s been down that road with an agent who would cut the commission, and she does NOT want to work with a discount agent. I don’t blame her. She understands the value full-service agents bring, and knows the entire transaction will be smoother and she’ll make more money with an agent who is full service. And she’s absolutely right. I love working with smart people.
While my team and I are honored to be on the list of the best real estate agents in America, we much prefer focusing on clients and making them happy. I work with my sellers one-on-one by providing personalized and customized service. My sellers enjoy the privilege of sole access to me. I handle the listings and my team shows homes. That’s what sustains a successful Sacramento real estate business year after year. Not the top 1000 list of best agents.
Almost Everything Buyers for Homes in Land Park Need to Know
Land Park agent Elizabeth Weintraub works from home in Land Park.
One thing about buying a home in Land Park is afterward you get the local gossip and all the neighbors know what is happening, which is why I suggest that buyers talk to the neighbors, for that matter, before buying a home here or anywhere. Yesterday, for example, I was sitting on my front porch in Land Park with my laptop, cellphone, paperwork spread out and working in MLS. When I saw my next door neighbor approach, I removed my Bluetooth device from my ear (because that’s only polite).
My neighbor had wondered what all the noise was at my house and came over to see if somebody was breaking in; although, what would she do if they were? Poke them in the eye with her house key? She’s in her 80s. Or, maybe she carries a gun in her shorts — she did go on and on about how much she likes the pockets in her shorts, which, btw, matched the type of shorts I was wearing: OMG, old-lady-shorts. The “noise” was a team of four women vigorously cleaning my home: bleaching the ceramic, brightening the stainless, rubbing film off glass block, polishing marble and hardwood. It costs $500 to get this sort of cleaning done properly, and I needed to be out from underfoot when they cleaned my home office.
I was in MLS analyzing listings of homes in Land Park. I used to focus only on homes in Land Park, but I have since over the years branched out to offer my specialized real estate services as a top Sacramento Realtor to sellers and buyers in a four-county area. This is how I sell hundreds of homes now instead of only those I can count on two hands here in the city core of Sacramento. But I still carry a soft spot for my own neighborhood of Land Park. I see buyers come into town from out-of-area, in tow with their out-of-area agents, and pay tens of thousands over market value for a home, and appraisers don’t know any better, either. Land Park is a difficult place to appraise if you don’t possess intimate knowledge.
You can glean an incredible amount of information from MLS, though, even if you don’t know the neighborhood. One home in particular struck me odd because a) the price was too high for the street and b) the upgrades seemed disjointed and peculiar, and c) there were no window coverings in the master bedroom. That last clue meant nobody lived in that home. At first glance, I thought maybe it was an overhaul made by an homeowner who later decided to sell, which is the best kind of home to buy in Land Park. But it smelled to me like a flip.
Clicking on the APN number, sure enough, it was owned by an LLC. Looking further into the history, I noted they bought the home through probate and tried to flip it immediately without doing any remodeling. When that didn’t work, they remodeled it to within an inch of its life, stripped much of the character and vintage and then stuck it on the market. The cabinetry throughout is missing the magic, too. They took it off, put it back, took it off, put it back, yada yada. The square footage doesn’t match the public records, which makes appraisals of homes in Land Park even more difficult.
The street where that home is located is also not nearly as desirable as, say, Marian Way, where another home came on the market this morning for a whole lot less money. Plus, the Marian Way home is a Squeaky Williams home, which makes it even more valuable. But if you lived in Land Park, you would know that. If you’re looking for a Land Park agent, call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759.
Why One Home in Land Park Sells and Another Home Does Not
A good way to start my blog today could be with a comparison reminiscent of that old TV show The Naked City, to talk about there being 10,000 stories about real estate sales in Land Park, Sacramento, but we don’t have enough inventory anywhere in town to make a statement like that. In fact, probably the last time the entire Sacramento County region saw 10,000 homes for sale on the market was 10 years ago. Are you ready for the astonishing news today?
Today, this very moment, in the entire county of Sacramento, we have only 2,280 single family homes for sale in our multiple listing service. But wait, there is more. Guess how many single family homes are in some sort of pending status? You know I have the answer. It’s 2,791 homes. We have more homes in pending status than we have homes for sale, which means we can’t repeat this scenario next month because there is not enough inventory at the moment to satisfy demand! The pending sale line has risen above the number of homes for sale. We have a real estate drought in Sacramento real estate. It’s not just the water shortage we’re worried about, although granted we could die without water. Real estate, not so much.
SACRAMENTO COUNTY REAL ESTATE MARKET SNAPSHOT
To put it into technical terms, we probably have about 3 weeks of inventory for sale. We could sell everything in the next 3 weeks. And this fact is driving the market completely insane. If your home is not in the best condition, or if it is located in a less than desirable location, it could take longer to sell, but a well located home in move-in condition should attract several offers. This is not a time to sit idly, tapping your fingers on the desk, wondering if it’s a good time to put your home on the market. You don’t have weeks or months to think about it because summer is coming. Summer sales slip and slide. It’s kinda like Jon Snow’s real estate slogan: Winter is coming, except there is no snow, blood or gore. Just heat and not much action.
Which brings me to the point in this week’s Game of Thrones season opener when Varys charged Tyrion Lannister with the character of compassion. Tyrion responded quixically: “Compassion? I strangled my lover with my bare hands; I shot my own father with a crossbow.” I vote this best scene in Season 5, Episode 1, Game of Thrones. Made me laugh out loud and scared the cat off my husband’s lap. I enjoy this type of entertainment sometimes to keep my mind off the wild world of Sacramento real estate or I’d be consumed by it all night.
I closed another home sale in Land Park last week that sold so fast and for more than list price which, a year ago, might have taken up to six months to sell. Of course, it helped that the sellers listened to my advice and made improvements to make the home ready for market. We priced it on the high end, yet sold with a 3% price bump and no hassles. In fact, we negotiated a few days rent-back for the sellers who were relocating out of state. I’d like to believe my marketing techniques, vast internet exposure and excellent photography helped make buyers fight like wild animals over it . . . but it might also be that I work as one of the top 3 Lyon Realtors, at the largest independently owned real estate brokerage in Sacramento that sells many listings in-house through our huge network.
There is another home in Land Park I drive by daily that sits forlorn with a small sign in the yard and no traffic, no buyers. It’s been on the market for months. The sellers changed agents twice. The photography is decent, but it’s not being marketed the way I would do it. I’d like to get my hands on that listing and put it into escrow, but I can’t solicit another agent’s listing, nor would I want to be that kind of agent. If you’re thinking about selling your home, give Elizabeth Weintraub a jingle at 916.233.6759. I answer my phone.
Getting Ready for Spring in Sacramento
Getting ready for spring in Sacramento means opening your eyes.
Getting ready for spring in Sacramento means shoving my boots to the back of my closet and checking to make sure the heels on my sandals are in intact — because standing on my tippy toes in my client’s garden beds to shoot photographs of their back yards doesn’t always work, especially after they have watered the lawn. Sometimes those heels sink into the mud without my knowledge. Whereas getting ready for spring in a place like Minneapolis means opening the front door in excitement and then slamming it in disgust because the snow never stops falling.
You might not know this, but March is often the snowiest month in Minneapolis. See, it’s all in perspective for me.
Getting ready for spring in Sacramento pretty much means waking up and perhaps weeding the garden, perhaps not. Although I did pull our patio chairs from the garage. Those poor pieces of outdoor furniture traveled from Minneapolis to Sacramento some 13 years ago when we moved to our home in Land Park. They were in pretty good shape when we got here, a white powder-coat finish offset the navy blue sling chairs. I can’t count the number of times since they have blown off our back deck during a winter storm. Our table did not survive the first storm, the glass top shattered into a million pieces, so we bought cast iron. We replaced the umbrella after a tree fell on the house.
But arranging the chairs this weekend for a dinner party I noticed a seam had given way and was no longer attached to the frame. The white powder-coat finish featured a bunch of dings, chips and streaks of blue paint, no doubt scraped from the deck. The table had developed rust spots. Strings hung from the umbrella. It was time for new patio furniture. I was a bit astonished that my husband did not object, usually his response is something like: well, we can still sit on it, (except for that one chair). Then again, we have been married for many years.
Besides, there are Ingress portals to hack out by Emigh’s Outdoor Living on El Camino and Watt. And I was super excited to discover a Laser Tag place nearby. Let’s go play, let’s go play. But no, for my husband, we had to do normal things like shop for cat food and get home in time to take the clothes out of the dryer. For me, to update my clients about what happened at their Sunday open houses. And call my sister in Minneapolis to hear about how much the snow never stops falling while I describe our new patio furniture. She claims her phone just dropped the call — but probably the only thing worse than opening your front door and slamming it in disgust is to listen to your sister in California ramble on about her shopping adventure for patio furniture.
I love spring in Sacramento. It’s an excellent time to buy or sell a home. If you need a Sacramento REALTOR, call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759.
