Who is Your Sacramento Real Estate Authority on the Internet?

Ocicats Pica and Tessa (sleeping) keep Realtor Elizabeth Weintraub company while she works.

Do you know the best way to search for Sacramento real estate information online? I suspect most people just stick a few keywords into Google and then click on the first link that pops up. I know for example that I receive a lot of phone calls from buyers, sellers and appraisers and even ordinary people trying to find owners of properties for a variety of odd reasons, because they find my website on Google. They call me because I am listed as a person, and it often looks like I could be the listing agent. They don’t realize that because I sell hundreds of homes as a top Sacramento Realtor, they’ll find me everywhere — and I can help and I do help so they lucked out in that event. Still, they often find this Realtor because it is confusing. That’s disconcerting.

It’s confusing to go to any of the popular online for-profit websites for homes in Sacramento and to try to find the listing agent. In many cases, it’s impossible. What you get are a list of agents who pay a lot of money to advertise on that website, many of whom are brand new to the business and, by advertising on Zillow and Trulia, for example, they hope to find buyers. They are not the listing agent, and they don’t know anything about the homes on whose pages they appear. And everybody knows you don’t know that but you.

Yet, unsuspecting buyers and sellers spot these agent’s photos and are able with a click of the mouse to send one or all an email, so they do. Most of the time, if the viewer is a seller, that seller will do more research; not so with buyers, though. The sellers often will check the California Bureau of Real Estate website to find out when the agent they are thinking about hiring obtained a California real estate license. You’d be amazed at how many agents on those websites have not held a real estate license longer than, say, 5 years.

Then, they will check out a Sacramento Realtor’s website. If it’s nothing but property searches, a templated website, they tend to pass it by. These potential clients are trying to conduct research, and they put more credence in Sacramento agent reviews on a third-party website than they do on the agent’s very own website, so this tells you what they think about the credibility of individuals. Incredulously, they will still click to email an agent who doesn’t know anything about the property.

It’s a good idea to look for authority when searching for a Sacramento Realtor, just as you would searching for medical advice, which I’m sure doctors love these days. I know you prescribed bed rest, but I read online that juju beans and jumping jacks will save me. There is so much bad information online along with the good. Why would anybody take medical advice from Joe’s Garage when they could visit the Mayo Clinic? When I ask my cats that question, who often sit on my desk while I’m working just to keep me company, they just give me that quizzical glance and go back to sleep. That’s their photo above.

When you search for Elizabeth Weintraub on Google, you’ll find almost 500,000 entries. Part of that is due to the fact that real estate agents all over the country take stuff I have written and they put this real estate information on their websites and they link back to my website. I don’t think your Sacramento real estate authority gets any better than that. You can betcha you’re not gonna find that kind of authority from any other Realtor in Sacramento.