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How to Find the Perfect Home in Sacramento
Today I am honored to bring you some extraordinary wisdom about how to find the perfect home in Sacramento, written by our exclusive buyer’s agent, Josh Amolsch. This is from an agent who shows on average 40 to 50 homes a week in Sacramento. He is not some retired agent who works only on referrals or an agent who sells a measly 1 or 2 homes a year. Josh is an agent down in the trenches who works every day, 12 to 14 hours a day.
How to Find the Perfect Home in Sacramento
by Josh Amolsch
The traditional and overused Sacramento Realtor marketing gambit is that they will “help you find your perfect home”. Well, I am here to explain why perfect homes are a fairy tale. A perfect home does not exist. But the good news is you can come close. The truth is even if I gave you a million dollars to build your own home from the ground up, afterward, there would be things that you wished you had done differently.
We too frequently hear from folks that a home will not work for them because of one or two features that they don’t like. One thing we can’t fix is the location, which is why location is always the most important aspect of a property. Aside from that, most characteristics of a property can be altered and renovation loans can make a so-so home a wonderful home that you will love and be proud of. It takes vision, and a little work, but anything worth doing or having requires effort. The key is to make the numbers work. Fortunately, we are entering a market in Sacramento where the numbers are starting to working for you.
Another factor is feelings can change from day to day and trends change from season to season. The point is to focus on finding a home that is about 80% what you want. Not about the 20% you don’t want (80/20 Rule). Even more astonishing is the fact the 80% homes are more plentiful. Why? Because most buyers won’t accept the 80% home when they are trying to find the perfect home in Sacramento. Their limited vision gives you a leg up on the price. Less demand = better deal for you.
This is how investors operate and become rich. Well, your riches can be in the form of a terrific home that you got for a good deal and added value to. Any outdated features can be fixed before you even move into the home. Walls can be knocked down to make the living spaces more open, can lighting can be installed. In fact, you can likely be living in your newly purchased/renovated home much faster than waiting for that “perfect” home to come on the market which, as we know, isn’t really isn’t perfect anyway.
Remember, perfect homes don’t exist. But wasting time and money chasing a fairy tale does exist. I encourage you to talk to your lender about a renovation loan. The best lender I know is Dan Tharp along with the renovation specialist Howard Nordberg. These two are industry diehards, local to Sacramento, and the best in the business. You can tie in the renovation loan with your new mortgage and close both at the same time.
The market is softer right now, so we can very likely get you into a home for under the asking price, giving you (and your contractors) the opportunity to renovate the property to your SPECIFIC needs. Much closer to your desired home than you will find just by waiting for the “perfect” home to come onto the market.
Maybe something close to the “perfect” home will come on the market, but by then, interest rates will have gone up even more (Fed Reserve Meeting Schedule) and prices will have gone up more. The market is not going down in Sacramento. We can talk about this one on one if you would like. Call Josh Amolsch at 916.224.2756.
Photos of Flowers and Ferns at Akaka Falls in Honomu
After we finished ziplining on Big Island, Vika asked to visit Akaka Falls in Honomu. This is one of the best known waterfalls on Big Island, although we have so many waterfalls. Vika and exclusive buyer’s agent Josh Amolsch discovered this glorious state park in Hawaii was closed when they had stayed at our Hawaii house last October. It had also been about 10 years since I’d been to the Akaka Falls. The park was near our Botantical World Adventure, so we made a point to visit before heading back to Kona.
After we paid our $5 to park, which included admission, we began the trek into this lush paradise. Akaka Falls is 422 feet high, and the word means split or to crack in Hawaiian. My eyes were not so much on the path as on the beautiful flowers and ferns growing like crazy in the park. Plus, when I heard a bird sing, I mimicked the sound through a whistle, and soon I found myself conversing with the birds.
It drizzled a bit but intermittently the sun peeked out. I snapped quite a few photos at Akaka Falls, so I hope you enjoy this effort below. After all, I shall be returning to Sacramento on Thursday. Back to the reality of Sacramento real estate. Only a few more blogs from Hawaii to go.
World Botanical Adventure for Ziplining on Big Island
Josh Amolsch, Elizabeth Weintraub, Vika Gerassimenko go Ziplining on Big Island
How did I get to be 66 years old without ever having experienced ziplining on Big Island . . . or anywhere for that matter? When buyer’s agent extraordinaire Barbara Dow and I went to Maui a few years ago, we didn’t bring closed-toe shoes. That’s pretty much a mandatory requirement to go ziplining. Plus, the place where we would go was a long way from the hotel when lounge chairs at the beach beckoned with their siren call.
The sport also seemed a bit scary. Dangling from a cable 300 feet in the air and moving at 40 MPH sounds scarier than it is, though. We heard there were some people who completed only the first of 8 ziplining runs at World Botanical Adventure and quit. Also, some did not complete the final half-mile zipline past the waterfall because it was too long and too high.
Elizabeth Weintraub Ziplining on Big Island across a waterfall.
We felt perfectly safe the entire time. There was a short period of time that we could have freaked out if we had stopped to ponder the trip and what could go wrong. So, we just didn’t do that. When it was time to go, the thing to do is hang on and go. Don’t think. Don’t analyze. It’s easier than you think. If you want to go right, turn the rope to the left and vice versa.
Elizabeth Weintraub approaches end of zipline.
At one point, we could race side-by-side. Exclusive buyer’s agent Josh Amolsch and I waited at the starting line. I took my tip from Vika. The World Botanical Adventure guide said, 1, 2 and I zipped off before the count of 3. Josh still beat me through because he weighs more. I pulled my body into a tight little cannonball, but he still flew by. I cannot begin to tell you how much enormous fun ziplining on the Big Island is. Now that I have a taste, I am hooked.
Ready for our next ziplining adventure
By the end of our adventure ziplining on Big Island, we reached a new consensus, a new level. That level was we now need to push ourselves further, because we could do this ziplining on the Big Island all day long. We soared like eagles through 8 ziplining runs. Along the way, we nibbled on wild ginger, studied an elephant apple tree, and sniffed a sassafrass root that smelled just like root beer. 10 toes and 10 fingers up. Excellent adventure for Labor Day on the Big Island!
Photos and Video of 12 Meter Cliff Jumping at South Point Hawaii
Vika Gerassimenko after cliff jumping at South Point Hawaii
Cliff jumping at South Point Hawaii was not one of my dreams. However, because exclusive buyer’s agent Josh Amolsch and his beautiful fiancée Vika Gerassimenko are visiting us over the Labor Day weekend at our house in Hawaii, we supported Vika’s leap off the cliff at South Point. As I explained in the car, if somebody was chasing me, firing a gun in my direction and threatening to kill me, I might find a reason to leap off this cliff. Otherwise, no.
But cliff jumping at South Point was a goal Vika needed to accomplish. I can understand that. We all have goals we want to achieve in life. It is very important that once we picture a goal in our minds that we realize our dream. The thing is anything you can imagine you can pretty much do, within the realm of reason. I say this because I might say I want to dance on the head of a pin, and I know that won’t happen. OK, maybe a pinhead. I would dance on a pinhead. I know a lot of pinheads. Sorry to admit.
Josh Amolsch jumps off the cliff at South Point Hawaii
I would be remiss if I didn’t say that I was unaware that Josh opted in for cliff jumping at South Point. After all, like he put it, if Vika jumps and he does not, I would write about it, even though I assured him I would not need to point out that fact. In any case, I suspect Vika encouraged him to take a risk, to put his life at risk, and to engage in cliff jumping at South Point. Although, after watching his face when he emerged from the water, well, let’s just say he was stoked.
Vika Gerassimenko, Elizabeth Weintraub and Josh Amolsch at South Point Hawaii
Here are the three of us after both Vika and Josh had completed cliff jumping at South Point Hawaii. I’m such a short little squeak sandwiched between these two giants. There are so many ways to die that I don’t need to elaborate. I am reminded of it every day. Like how the poet Tom Clark, buddy of Allen Ginsberg, was killed after walking a few blocks from his home in Berkeley when he was hit by a car. Stuff happens every day that we can’t always anticipate or prevent.
Cliff diving at South Point Hawaii? Well, it’s preventable. However, if you’re really into the excitement of it all, here is a video of Josh Amolsch leaping into the abyss:
Can You Put Bananas in the Refrigerator?
If you think you cannot put bananas in the refrigerator, there is a way to do it. Who knew? Certainly not me. In fact, when I was at our neighbor’s house in Hawaii during my last visit, my neighbor dumped a bunch of ripe bananas in my arms. How she thought I would be able to eat them any faster than she could is beyond me. Although, I probably could have made banana bread. Yum, nothing like Tutu’s Hawaiian banana bread.
The main reason I have all of this fruit is because we have company coming. Josh Amolsch, my exclusive buyer’s agent extraordinaire on the Elizabeth Weintraub Team, is arriving in Kona this week with his fiancé. For some reason, I did not check my calendar and thought Josh would arrive on Monday but he’s not. Naturally, before I realized this, I bought a lot of fruit on Saturday at Safeway in Kona.
Then yesterday, during a conversation with my sister, I bemoaned the fact the apple bananas might be too ripe by the time Josh gets here. Papayas and mangoes will hold a few days but the bananas will be tricky. My sister said I should put bananas in the refrigerator only when they turn ripe. If you do it before the bananas are ripe, they will rot in the refrigerator.
But if the fruit is ripe, and you put bananas in the refrigerator, they might turn brown a little bit, but the interiors will be sweet, firm and yellow.
So go ahead and put bananas in the refrigerator after they have fully ripened. OK, I might have to eat one just to make sure.
