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Elk Grove Realtor Closes Home Clawed By Bears
A bear’s claws are capable of ripping off siding from a home in Elk Grove.
Among our closings from yesterday, the most intense for this Elk Grove Realtor was the home that looked like it was clawed by bears. People are often amazed that there is a market for this type of fixer home. But those people are not in real estate. Those of us in real estate understand how much demand there is for this type of property because we sell all types of homes, not just the pretty, updated, historic residences in Midtown, or the luxury homes in Sacramento. We also deal in the gritty stuff because, bottom line, it’s all just a product.
Wearing my Tori Burch high heels, I climbed over piles of garbage to shoot photos. The home had basically been abandoned for more than a year, until such time that the seller felt equipped to deal with the sale. We expected to receive the highest price possible, which meant positioning the home for multiple offers. This meant accurately describing the condition of this home to attract the types of buyers who love buying fixers.
Knowing my target audience is always the first rule to crafting a marketing description for this Elk Grove Realtor. I try to be creative, to attract attention, sometimes to entertain, depending on the purpose. I want agents excited about showing the home, regardless of its condition, and hauling over buyers. What you, the reader, might feel is unorthodox, is what often works for me. I pull out all the stops for my listings. Each is unique. I can admit this, the office assistants at Lyon got a kick out of entering this listing into MLS.
The following was my marketing description, and it’s extremely accurate:
We are amazed the home is still standing. The exterior siding looks like bears attacked. Stuff is growing inside on the walls. “Needs a new roof” is putting it mildly. Garbage, debris, unidentifiable glops cover the flooring and the floor that is visible is torn, stained and mutilated. Water damage. Trash from one end to the other. Should probably be gutted. Use caution, home is uninhabitable and most likely dangerous to your health. A good fixer for some lucky buyer with vision for its potential.
Lest you think, who would buy that monstrosity, this Elk Grove Realtor received dozens of inquiries and many purchase offers for her seller to consider. Calls continued for weeks after we went into pending status. If you’re looking for a dedicated Elk Grove Realtor who pays extreme attention to detail with a solid reputation for selling homes at top dollar, call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759.
Why Home Sellers Should Not Pick a Sales Price
What home sellers don’t know about listing prices can fill a book. What makes a home sell immediately while another lingers on the market? How many days should it take to sell a home in Elk Grove, for example? It depends on which part of Elk Grove and the sales price ranges, but if we look at 95757 for the past 30 days, the average days on market are 53 and 63 cumulative, and the average listed price is $384,794 versus average sales price of $382,061, with an average size of 2,377 square feet. But that’s all homes up to a sales price of more than $600,000. The variance between list price and final sales price is about $1.00 per square foot, not much.
However, if you narrow the search criteria to homes under 1,500 square feet in 95757 over the past 30 days, you will see the smaller, entry-level homes are selling in 12 days over list price. It’s subjective. It’s why home sellers should not pick a sales price without this kind of information.
This is the sort of analysis I prepare for myself when I’m getting ready to list a home in Elk Grove or Sacramento. I also study the competition, meaning homes for sale now, as well, because those are the homes that buyers will see. Buyers won’t see the homes that are sold and, in fact, many of their agents will not share those comparable sales, for a variety of reasons. Home buyers tend to have limited vision because they compare homes that are for sale to other homes that are for sale and then try to discount the sales price from that inventory, which is really an ineffective method to use to buy a home.
That’s not to say that positioning is not important because it is paramount. But in the end, it is always what the market will bear. It’s the figuring out of what the market will bear that separates the struggling real estate agents from the top producers. It’s also a reason why home sellers should never pick a sales price by themselves without input from a seasoned agent.
Sure, sellers own the home and enjoy a vested interest, but they really don’t know how much that home is worth. Being right on the nose is an art developed by experience and backed by numbers. If you’d like to hire a top listing agent in Elk Grove or Sacramento, call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759.
40 Years in the Real Estate Business Pays Off
I see the look in sellers’ eyes when I tell them we will receive multiple offers and we need to put the home on the market right away. They stare at me with reservations blinking like strobe lights in their eyes but they also have blind faith that I know what I’m doing, which I do, so they agree to whatever I suggest. These are the kinds of sellers whom I love to work with. We have a trusted relationship that is based in the real world, and still I can astonish them when my predictions come true. 40 years in the real estate business pays off.
Just a few weeks ago, a tenant delighted in telling me that she had a good friend who worked at a competing brokerage, and her good friend said the list price I had proposed was way too high, and she predicted the home would never sell for that amount. Not only did the home immediately sell, but it sold for 2.5% more, and it was priced at the top of the market. My seller made out like a bandit, and I truly earned my fee. 40 years in the real estate business pays off.
A seller in Elk Grove called yesterday to inquire about putting her home on the market. She has spent a lot of money on upgrades and expects to get somewhere between $800,000 and $900,000. It’s not on the water, I pointed out. Well, she didn’t want a home on the water and deliberately bought it a few doors off the water because she didn’t want to deal with, you know, bugs and stuff.
How do I tell her that an identical model with upgrades that is actually on the water is for sale at $700,000 and nothing in that neighborhood has sold in her preferred price range, ever? Well, I’m not asking you, really, because I know how to break the news to her, but she doesn’t strike me as a seller who will gladly accept that news even when I back it up with hard, cold facts. She’ll just call another Elk Grove agent who will agree with her and list it.
Ordinarily I’d take the listing because eventually somebody will come to reality, and I kinda like to be the agent at that point. However, I don’t think this particular situation fits well into my architecture. My gut instinct tells me I would regret listing this home as an overpriced listing, and I listen to my gut instincts as they rarely steer me wrong. That’s the difference that 40 years in the real estate business brings. 40 years in the real estate business pays off.
How Long Will It Take to Sell My Home in Elk Grove?
Last week I talked to a seller who lives in the ZIP of 95757 in Elk Grove. I sell a lot of homes in that ZIP code, probably because so many of them are short sales, but some of them are not. It’s a desirable place to live, and some neighborhoods are located in a certain school district, which enforces the desirability of those subdivisions. This seller asked me how long it takes to sell homes in Elk Grove, and I told him we would be in escrow within 7 to 14 days, and probably closer to 3 to 7 days. His jaw dropped, but that reaction is expected because that’s what everybody does when this Elk Grove agent explains the market.
What’s going on in the market in Elk Grove and the Sacramento area in general is so wild and crazy that it’s difficult to believe. That’s in part because we’ve been depressed for so long. It’s like tying a circus elephant’s leg to a stake. The elephant eventually will give up moving, and you can remove the stake, and the elephant will stay there. It’s conditioned. And PETA will get after you for that. Yet in Elk Grove, homes are moving into pending very quickly and there are no consequences.
Unless you’re like this seller in Elk Grove I was talking to. When I showed him the pending sales to prove how quickly homes were selling, he looked at the numbers and snorted. He said the sellers were selling too quickly and for too little. Because he’s sold so many homes in his life that added up to the number 2, he knows for a fact the sellers in Elk Grove gave away money. Which is one way to look at it. Except they didn’t. They sold according to the market. They let the market dictate. And the market responded favorably for them.
Putting a home on the market for 30 days without accepting any of the dozens of offers you’ll receive is insanity. Because offer #29 isn’t going to be the highest offer. Neither is #30. Your highest offer will be among those received in the first 7 to 10 days. After three weeks, interest dies off. People begin to wonder what’s wrong.
My goal, as your Elk Grove listing agent, is to attract as many buyers as possible and let them bid for your home. In a seller’s market, like our present market in Elk Grove, a newer home in a popular subdivision priced between $200,000 and $300,000 will quickly sell. If your home is drop-dead gorgeous, buyers will be lined up down the block. An experienced Elk Grove agent can take one look at your home and tell you how quickly it will sell. Of course, selling is only the first step; you’ve got to get it closed and that’s another blog.
I will say this, if I were the owner of a food or ice cream truck, I would be driving around Elk Grove on the weekends.
