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It is How a Sacramento Realtor Says It to Describe a Home For Sale
Ask any writer, the most powerful type of word in the English language is a verb, hands down; yet when it comes to describing a home for sale and marketing Sacramento real estate, verbs are not nearly as useful as a noun, and proper nouns are better. As a Sacramento REALTOR who also writes professionally, I adore verbs. Verbs punch. Verbs shove prose front and center. A home description, however, is not capable of much movement or lively action, and it’s difficult for four walls and a roof to, say, spring to life through a verb.
A friend whose business is to ghost-write for real estate agents apparently incapable or unmotivated to describe a home for sale says she is adverse to adjectives, which made me ponder verbs and nouns, and how I employ parts of speech in my marketing comments. The marketing comments is the cornerstone for a Sacramento REALTOR’s listing and second only to photographs.
True, some homes are challenging to describe. There are tract homes in Elk Grove and Natomas, for example, that resemble each other so closely that it’s challenging at times to come up with a way to describe it in a unique manner. When I am faced with those decisions, I generally lean on my emotions and pluck something useful from the aisle of gut instincts. That’s because buyers buy on emotion. They may think they are buying a four bedroom, three bath, but they are really buying is the way that home makes them feel.
I’m fond of repeating: it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it. I often coach my sellers on the types of things to write on their disclosure statements; in other words, how to convey negativity with temperance. One of my new sellers whose $1.5 million home won’t go on the market for a few months, handed me her writeup, and I’ve been considering revisions. She made an excellent point when she referred to an exterior ramp made for “people on wheels.” See how how much better that reads than handicapped access? Besides, people on wheels, could refer to a kid on a bicycle. I love it.
But when she noted this home feature of “heavy reinforcement to withstand earthquakes,” I’m fairly certain we do not want the word “earthquake” in a marketing piece. It denotes negativity and fear. It’s not like we really ever face any earthquakes centered in Sacramento anyway. A different term such as “reinforced construction resists movement” would paint a softer picture and deliver a stronger message. The benefit would be smooth walls and blemish-free ceilings. It’s always feature > benefit.
If you’re looking for a Sacramento Broker who consistently puts thought and care into each and every single listing, give top producer Elizabeth Weintraub a jingle at 916.233.6759. Or text. Broker license #00697006.
New Sacramento Listing Allows Credit to Buyer
3146 Northstead Dr, Sacramento, CA 95833 is offered exclusively by Elizabeth Weintraub and Lyon Real Estate.
Finally, a home for sale in Sacramento that first-time home buyers can purchase and also get a credit to buyer for $4,000. The buyer can use that money to buy a new dishwasher and range. One of the seller’s disgruntled family members removed those appliances from the kitchen. There’s even enough money leftover to buy a brand new stainless refrigerator.
Need furniture? There’s quite a bit of abandoned furniture left in this home that is yours for the taking. Or, the buyer can sell it at a garage sale after closing escrow. A lot of the furniture is in fairly good shape. There is a sofa, a kitchen table with chairs, a couple of children’s beds, a few dressers.
This home features 3 bedrooms plus a den. The den has built-in shelving and could be considered a bedroom as well, although there are a few holes in the walls in that room. Nobody knows why. Minor fixes, though, and not a big deal. The door leading into the den is pretty banged up, too.
But the rest of the house seems to be in good condition. Just needs to be cleaned up, swept up, polished, and maybe a bit of painting. Stuff just about any buyer who wants to save a few bucks when buying a home could do. Hence part of the reason for the credit to buyer.
There are also two room additions at opposite ends of the house. One room is a big family room with a lot of windows, exterior access to the back yard, and a ceiling fan. When I shot the photo, the neighbor next door continued to walk into the room, so my really good photo of the room is not usable. I tried to hire my usual photographer but he is booked solid all week, so I shot all of the photography myself.
The other room addition is a big family room, also featuring a lot of windows, a ceiling fan and exterior access to the back yard. This home sold two years ago with a VA loan, so we’re not expecting any difficulties with an FHA loan or even VA.
Come to our open house on Sunday from 2:00 to 4:00 PM or call the listing agent, your Sacramento Realtor, Elizabeth Weintraub, Lyon Real Estate at 916.233.6759 for a private showing before then. Very affordable price. 3146 Northstead Drive, Sacramento, CA 95833 is offered at $289K, with a $4,000 credit to buyer.
Tips for Selling Tenant Occupied Homes in Natomas
Very few tenants are happy to hear the lease won’t be renewed in Natomas.
If a Sacramento Realtor in Natomas knows her neighborhood, she can often guess how quickly that home will sell. I have noticed that certain neighborhoods are taking their own shapes and directions now that the housing bubble has popped in Natomas, and I have gained a sense of why some homes in Natomas might take longer to sell or whether they will fly off the market. But even though I might know instinctively how a transaction will progress, it is still not an excuse not to be completely prepared for the market. As I continually say, half of the hard work is done in advance to listing a home.
For example, let’s talk about a home in Natomas that closed yesterday. These particular sellers called me around the middle of July to talk about selling a home, which was presently occupied by a tenant and managed by an excellent property manager I’ve done business with in the past. The thing about tenants is you never know which way it will go, they will either cooperate or they won’t. But when you are working with a top-notch property manager, the property management company will send the correct legal paperwork to the tenant to explain the process, and that often gets the tenant on board.
So does being nice to the tenant and making her beds. Hey, I do what I have to do. She left me a key under a pot in the back yard, which I promptly confiscated. All of the beds were a mess. She knew I would be taking photos, but you’ve got to remember that tenants don’t always care about the listing agent’s objectives when they are suddenly notified their lease won’t be renewed and, oh, btw, that means you have 30 days to find somewhere else to move. They have other pressing matters on their minds, like where their children will go to school and whether they will find another roof over their heads in our super tight rental market in Sacramento. I get it. Tenants don’t care what we agents have to do when selling rental homes in Sacramento.
Without grumbling, I made the beds. Picked up the house, straightened out the bathroom towels, put the load of laundry on the floor so I could shoot the cabinets in the laundry room. To get to this point, took me about a month. A month of work I don’t get paid for until it closes.
We went on the market August 21. I could write a book about how to sell a home in one day, even though it really takes a month or more. On August 22nd, we received a cash offer for less than list price. Why is it cash buyers tend to think their offer is stronger because it is cash? It can close faster, but it is not necessarily stronger. I’ve had transactions in which the cash buyers suddenly developed severe needs elsewhere for the cash and they canceled. I sent the offer to the seller and suggested they counter back at list price. Come on, 24 hours on the market and the buyer can’t offer list?
The buyer agreed to pay list price. This is what a seller gets with a full-service Realtor. We also made the sale AS IS. Those sellers who sometimes pass by the more experienced agents in favor of a discount agent who will charge less have no idea how much money they are losing in their transaction due to limited vision; they just don’t know any better. I made sure we had no drama in this transaction. We closed a month later. No repairs, no concessions, the tenant moved out of the home in Natomas on time. Happy sellers.
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.
Timing the Micro Housing Markets in Natomas Sacramento
Study the housing markets in Natomas before selling
There are a few neighborhoods in Natomas that comprise such a high percentage of rental homes that the unbalanced situation is negatively affecting property values. Home buyers relocate to Natomas because they want that close-to-downtown urban commute but they also want the suburban lifestyle offered in part by other homeowners who live nearby and who are just like them. If they wanted to live near tenants, they’d live downtown Sacramento or in Midtown. No matter how you cut it, if your street begins to dip toward more tenant-occupied homes than owner-occupied homes, your property values will undoubtedly suffer.
Landlords for a home in Natomas called last fall to ask about listing their rental. It’s a home that had been underwater for years, and they, like many people, did not want to do a short sale. Luckily for them, they were not so far under that they could not rebuild equity, unlike others. Further, the comparable sales in that neighborhood supported higher values, high enough that they could have sold, paid all expenses and probably pocketed $20,000 or so. But, they decided to wait.
Fast forward to this year, with far less inventory and fewer sales, which resulted in fewer comparable sales. This is a disappointing situation for those who try to time the market. I have sold a lot of homes in Natomas and, in particular, in this certain neighborhood. One of those homes, in fact, was an identical model to my client’s home. Same square footage and located a block away. That other home was filmed in 2009 for a House Hunter’s episode because it had been sold as a Sacramento short sale, and I used it as one of the 3 homes my buyers chose when I appeared on that HGTV show.
The sellers struggled with the value I presented. It wasn’t as high as the value from last fall, but the housing markets in Natomas and for that neighborhood had changed. The comparable sales did not support that higher price. The strategy I suggested was to list it under a certain price point and let buyers bid it up by a few thousand over that particular price point, and it worked. Market demand dictates price. We sold the home. Yet, I got the feeling that the sellers had wished for a better turnout, a better return.
They sold the home for slightly more than they paid for it 8 years ago, and they made a few thousand in profit. That’s better than a poke in the eye with a stick, don’t you think?
It’s really difficult to time the real estate market. I monitor the housing markets in Natomas day-in and day-out, and I would not try to time the market, even though my finger is on the pulse. I sense the lesson of this particular situation is when the price is right for you, jump on it and put that home on the market. Don’t always try to push that envelope by waiting to squeeze a bit more because it might backfire.
