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Freshly Painted Deck at Our House in Land Park
A newly painted deck at our house in Land Park.
Now that we’re not likely to see any more rain in Sacramento until Trick-or-Treating time, it seemed a good idea to paint the deck at our house in Land Park. Not that I would do it myself, mind you. Although, I thoroughly enjoy painting and doing home improvement projects. It’s such a sense of personal satisfaction. Just do not have the time available to allocate to such projects these days. My time is better spent listing and selling homes in Sacramento.
The thing I find interesante is by viewing that history in my rear-view mirror, I understand the processes behind most improvement projects, which can make me highly critical of anybody else’s work. It is why I don’t put a lot of faith in reviews by average homeowners that are submitted to Angie’s List. What do they know if they’ve never done it and don’t know what’s involved? How can they tell if the job was completed correctly? They can’t. Probably not when it comes to painting, either. I doubt their noses are stuck at the seams checking for messy brush strokes or they are running their hands over the walls to check for sanding between coats, like some people obsessed with quality I know. Not saying who.
The guy who painted the deck at our house in Land Park did a marvelous job, I’m thrilled to report. He was referred to me by another fellow Land Park agent in my office at Lyon. This fellow takes pride in his work, and it shows. First, he spent half a day prepping. About 80 percent of any job is the preparation. If you do that part right, your chances of an excellent result skyrocket. He scraped the high spots off. Ran beads of caulk over cracks in the cement to seal them. Scrubbed the old deck within an inch of its life.
You can see the before photo below of when the deck was blue. Who picked that color blue? I’m not saying who that idiot was. The new color is a rusty brick red. I pulled a thread from the umbrella for my handyman to use for comparison purposes. He said he asked two people at Home Depot whether the paint matched, and both of those people, he made a point of mentioning, were women. As though women can spot color variations better than men, I guess. Or, maybe because then he could blame my gender and be closer to getting off the hook if I didn’t like the color.
Really perks up the yard at our house in Land Park. Lends a warm glow to our interior rooms at the back of the house, too. If it wasn’t so danged hot, I’d probably sit out there.
Former blue deck at our house in Land Park.
Newly painted rusty brick red deck at our house in Land Park.
Buying a New Home in Land Park Sacramento
When I talk with people I haven’t talked with for years, they often ask if I am living in the same home in Land Park, as though the first thing they would do if they were selling 100 homes in Sacramento year after year would be to buy a new home. Not because I need a new home, mind you, but because I could. They ask I suppose because my existing home is not a mansion nor an estate, and that’s what they would buy. It’s just a plain ol’ single level home, around 2,000 square feet in Land Park.
It’s not located on a premiere winding street in Land Park and there is no view of William Land Park. There is no second or third floor. No marble floors with floor-to-ceiling columns. No four-car garage. No pool in the back yard. There is nothing all that remarkable about our home in Land Park. It suits our needs, and we’re happy with it.
But people are still astonished that we haven’t traded up or built our own mini-mansion because it’s something that most other people would do, I guess. I think buying a larger home is one of those items on a list when people play what one would do if one won the lottery. A larger home means more to clean, higher taxes and more crap that could go wrong. But that’s me. I’m also over 60 and less inclined to move again. My husband echoes that sentiment.
Fortunately, my clients often think differently and they might move every 5 to 7 years. I met with clients a few days ago who buy homes dirt cheap, remodel them and move up. It’s called buy, fix up and sell. There’s nothing wrong with that approach and, in fact, it’s a method I used myself over the years. We all have our different dreams and things we reach for. And that’s OK.
I dream of travel. I love to see new places, encounter different cultures, meet new people who can’t understand anything I say and vice versa (and I’m not just talking about the South). This morning I received a digital version of the Four Seasons magazine and was sidetracked for a while, reading about gourmet street food in Singapore, Budapest theatres and how to get a free night in Langkawi.
But a new place among Land Park homes for sale is not on the horizon for us. Our present home is just fine, even though we’ve lived here forever. If you’re looking to buy or sell a home in Land Park, please call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759. I know just about every inch of my leafy neighborhood.
Even Land Park Agents Need Access to the Interiors
Why can’t you send me an electronic estimate of the value of my home in Land Park, asked a seller via email. He seemed rather irritated that I would a) correspond with him and expect a discussion when he preferred anonymous interaction, and b) why I wasn’t doing what he wanted me to do. After all, I’m a Land Park agent who lives and works in Land Park, and I have a ton of experience selling hundreds of homes all over Sacramento. Why, Zillow promised I would send him an estimate, and that’s what he expected. Why was I asking if I could see his home in Land Park? That just didn’t sound right.
Why wasn’t I a robot? Isn’t that what the internet is for? You ask a question and get free information? What the hey . . .
It took me a while to explain that Zillow is a private website with which I have little interaction except that it maintains my profile and manages reviews for me, and I pay to have my photo plastered around Land Park. On top of which, the homes in Land Park are special and unique. They are different from each other. They are not tract homes like you’d find in Natomas or Elk Grove. An interior inspection could make the price swing by $50,000 to $100,000 to $150,000 or more. It’s only one of the reasons why Zillow is so completely inaccurate when it comes to pricing of homes in Land Park.
Many online property value websites use a computer algorithm and do not take into consideration upgrades, orientation on the lot, nuisances next door that could affect value nor the emotional pull of architectural details. That’s why a Land Park agent needs to see the interior of the home before rendering an opinion of value.
I mean, I could send a CMA, which is a comparative market analysis, but it involve throwing numbers into the air. It wouldn’t carry any weight. It would have no meaning. It would not be an appraisal or even a very good estimate of market value. It’s not like I belong to a secret cult that allows me access to information on behalf of the seller. I need to look at the home with my own two eyeballs, the old fashioned way.
Do I need to personally inspect every home in Sacramento to determine value? Surprisingly, no. Sometimes I am right on the money just knowing the neighborhood and amenities, but homes in Land Park, regardless of my familiarity, need the personal touch. Just like homes in East Sacramento and Curtis Park and Midtown. You can’t look at numbers and determine value without interior access. No professional REALTOR would attempt it.
After I explained all of this and was successful at getting him to understand, turns out the seller isn’t yet ready to sell. Not until the fall, after his tenants move. So a value submitted today would change by this September anyway. And the September market in Sacramento is different from the spring market. We’ll meet up after the summer is over.
Sacramento Home Buyers Who Fall in Love With Homes
Have you ever noticed that the longer some companies remain in business, the crappier their products become? I suspect it’s because corporations tend to value bottom-line profit over anything else. They might promote a cute slogan like “people first” but you and I both know that’s just marketing fluff. It doesn’t really matter where you look, you’ll find some item that was made years ago is probably a better quality product than today’s merchandise. Even homes. Even homes in Sacramento.
Tour homes in some of our leafier neighborhoods such as homes in Land Park or homes in Carmichael, and Sacramento home buyers will find thick redwood joists and plaster walls, not the cheaper wood and thin drywall like today. I poke my cheap-ass Jawbone device and wonder why can’t they make it work like the earlier models when callers could actually hear me talk. Or, what about the Victoria’s Secret pajamas that used to actually keep a person warm at night and now you can see through the material, and btw, that’s not on purpose. Don’t even get me started on cars made out of plastic. Cheaper, and cheaper and cheaper until the corporation can no longer sustain itself because the profit margin is so thin and it bankrupts.
The one thing that hasn’t changed is our love affairs with real estate. No matter how small or cheap builders build, we keep buying these homes and falling in love with them. If you think people don’t fall in love with a home, then you’re not a Sacramento real estate agent. One of the entities that publishes homes for sale online, just on a lark, I guess, conducted a survey among 1,000 buyers and their lust for homes. It found that 2 out of every 3 buyers stare at online real estate porn and develop fixations.
I was surprised that the number wasn’t higher. But surveys can be skewed. People tend to participate if they have a strong opinion one way or the other and the results don’t always represent the opinion of an average person. In any case, I try to present my photographs online in such a manner that people will stay up late, glued to their laptop and click on every one of them. Because I want that next click to be an email to me, asking to see the home. What else they do with their laptop on the privacy of their own sofa, I don’t want to know about.
If you’ve about to fall in love with homes, call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759. Don’t wait. Do it today. The really cute homes go fast this spring.
