Email Elizabethlisting agent sacramento
How to Stay Happy in Sacramento Weather of Tule Fog and Rain
Low Temperature Forecast: Racine, Wisconsin
If you ever want to feel better about the tule fog and our biting cold Sacramento weather during the winter, all you have to do is call somebody in the Upper Midwest and ask how she’s doing. Eventually she’ll tell you why life is so completely horrible and stinks because of the stinkin’ weather. By comparison, let me tell you, life in Sacramento is pretty darn good, and Sacramento weather is lovely.
I gave an interview to a reporter from Eagan, Minnesota, this week. Eagan is a suburb of St. Paul that did not exist in its present form when I grew up in Minneapolis. It was mostly a farming community named after some Irish guy. Today, it is a thriving suburban area with mega shopping malls surrounding numerous subdivisions of massively huge tract homes, and it has four feet of snow. The reporter asked what my weather was like. Low 50s, about to climb into the high 60s. Bit of fog.
Pretty nice, actually. See, how that works?
We talked about curb appeal: how sellers can create curb appeal and how home buyers respond to curb appeal. She thanked me for the interview saying I gave her a lot more in-depth information that she had not expected, and her newly accumulated wealth of data would make it very easy to write her article. I did one of many good deeds for the day. Managed to list a couple of homes in the Sacramento area as well.
I then stopped by to see my dermatologist at UC Davis who somehow has locked me into visiting her every six months. In the beginning I thought she was a specialist to study suspicious spots on my body but she always finds something to take care of or recommend, so it seems like she is now a regular doctor for me to visit because of my old age. It’s those barnacles and warts and other weirdness stuff that keep appearing in strange places that she magically removes. I don’t wanna end up looking like Art Linkletter.
She asked me how I stay so healthy and vibrant. It’s positive thoughts, I joked with her, raising my hands over my head with palms up, and surrounding myself with positive people. Always looking on the bright side. But then I realized I wasn’t really joking. I do try to dissipate negativity. It’s built into my Midwest genes.
My husband is in Racine, Wisconsin, for a family memorial. With me, having just returned from my month-long winter vacation to Vanuatu and Hawaii and leaping into the Sacramento January real estate market, I would be overwhelmed if I had joined him. But he did jolt my heart a little yesterday when he sent me the photo on this page. He was concerned about the Marriott’s low temperature forecast for Racine, Wisconsin. You can see the Marriott had predicted a low of minus 460 degrees. Sacramento weather looks better all the time.
Tips for Home Sellers in a Changing Sacramento Market
Lots of home sellers in the Sacramento market have been calling lately for me to list their homes in the Sacramento area, and it seems to go in waves, just like purchase offers. For example, last night I received 3 purchase offers after 10 PM, which is kinda crazy. And I have a big uptick in listings this week, while it’s been relatively normal for the past couple of weeks.
I am hoping this translates into a lot more offers, but I suspect that if I’m seeing an increase in listings, so are other Sacramento real estate agents. When inventory increases in the Sacramento market but buyer demand stays constant or cools off, that means not every listing will sell. It’s a fact we need to face and prepare for.
See, this is why I am a top producer, because I think ahead.
What does it mean for a home seller? It means your first offer might be the best offer and the only offer you might get. We all hope for multiple offers because multiple offers can push up the price, and the seller can pick and choose which is the best. But that’s not true in most cases. Most sellers will not receive multiple offers. Work that offer you receive, even if it’s not an offer you want. Try to find a way to want it and to increase its desirability to you to make it work.
Don’t lose sight of the fact that what you have on your doorstep is a ready, willing and able buyer who wants to buy YOUR home.
It also means it might take longer to find a home buyer. It could take several months. If it does, it doesn’t mean your agent is slacking off, it just means homes are taking longer to sell in this market. If you are lucky enough to get an offer within a few days, don’t discount it thinking other offers are coming along. They might not appear. Not only that, but try to ensure the buyer you do find is serious about your buying your home because some buyers freak out and get cold feet the minute an offer is accepted. If you go into escrow and suddenly the buyer cancels, well, I hate to say it, but it’s happening.
The bottom line is keep up strong communications with your listing agent. Ask questions. Don’t make assumptions. Be reasonable. And your home should sell.
Where You Will Find Your Dream Home in Sacramento
Thinking about a dream home in Sacramento?
Buyers who are looking for a home in Sacramento tend to end up on my Sacramento real estate website because they find the link for homes in the area where they want to live leading to my site. I am not sure why my website tends to rank higher in Google than others but it’s a site I’ve worked very hard to support, and I’ve protected my domain name from inception.
I also create a lot of content for my readers that they find useful. I blog about what happens to me from day to day as a Sacramento real estate agent and woman over 60 who can’t believe that nobody has yet written the book: Shit That Happens to You When You Get Old. This drives readers to see what I’ve been up to. Recently, I’ve added a “subscribe to” link directly to the right of my blogs so my readers can enter an email address and voila! My blog will appear in their email every morning, no more clicking around. But they know that they can always visit my website to find a home in Sacramento.
I love to connect online, reach out to clients and showcase my sellers’ homes to a local as well as nationwide market. Every so often I’ll get an email from an agent who works at any of the smaller competing brokerages around town. They write to say that when they type the address of their listing into Google, some random home in Sacramento, my website pops up. This upsets them to no end, and they accuse me of theft, as though I had anything to do with their non-ability to maintain and promote an online presence.
Every home that is for sale in MLS throughout the Sacramento Valley is on my website, just like you’ll find on any other agent’s website through an IDX. The fact that an address entry into a search engine also directs buyers to my website is a credit to the fact that I am a top producer in Sacramento who sells a ton of homes. I’ve also been writing online for years. I am tough competition for other agents.
Yet, that’s a great benefit to my sellers. If they list with another agent, though, that home in Sacramento could very well be showcased in Google with a link to my website, so they may as well list with this Sacramento real estate agent to start with.
Why the Time to Buy or Sell a Sacramento Home is Now
Clients have been asking lately if the end of summer of 2014 is a good time to buy or sell a home in Sacramento, because they are wondering whether prices will continue to rise. If we have collectively learned nothing from the market crash years of 2006 to 2011, it’s that prices will not always continue to go up. I’ve been advising clients all year to sell now or buy now and to not wait until 2015, and that’s not just because I’m a Sacramento real estate agent who stands to make a buck or two.
It’s because I watch and analyze the market. I sell a lot more homes than your average Sacramento agent, and I see first-hand a lot more activity than your average agent. It doesn’t matter all that much to me whether home prices go up or home prices go down, like that Eddie Murphy movie, I will still be in business. People are yakking that Sacramento home prices have risen only 8% and lamenting that figure instead of rejoicing. I am very happy with the market prices lately because they’ve made huge gains over the past 2 years. Enough so that many homeowners are pulled out from being underwater — no more short sales, thank goodness — and scores of Sacramento homeowners are able to sell and move up.
All of a sudden, like an overnight magical fairy-wand tap on our chimneys, many sellers have an additional $100,000 of equity that they didn’t have a few years ago. Even sellers who bought a home in 2010 and 2011 are able to sell now. All of those foreclosure buyers and short sale buyers are morphing into equity sellers in this new Sacramento real estate market. Interest rates are incredibly low, and I can tell you this, they won’t stay there forever. You can get a loan around 4% right now, and that gives you heart-pounding savings. Don’t be crying a few years from now when interest rates are up to 5% or 7% or worse.
Once rates begin to edge up — and interest rates absolutely will rise — watch out, because Sacramento home prices will feel the affect. The impact of interest rates on the rise is huge, for example, each 1/2 percent interest rate increase can lose a buyer roughly $25,000 of purchasing power. What do you think that kind of rate increase will do to home prices in Sacramento? It will suppress prices a bit, sure, but you’ll lose more disposable income through the interest rate increase. Overall, your payment will be higher than it will be today.
You’ve got a window of opportunity right now to sell a home in Sacramento and capture the momentum of our upcoming fall market in Sacramento — which is the second hottest real estate market in Sacramento. It’s also an excellent time, due to low interest rates, to buy a home. Are you in or you are you out? Call me, Elizabeth Weintraub, at 916.233.6759.
Customary Fees for Selling a Home in Sacramento
A sure sign for a Sacramento listing agent that the buyer is “not from around these here parts” is when the buyer’s agent submits an offer that is not in line with customary standards for selling a home in Sacramento. While the seller’s closing costs are not actually etched in stone and they are negotiable, there are still customary ways of splitting costs or paying the fees that parties come to expect.
It’s kinda like how you know if it’s August, it’s time to put up your hair, wear minimum jewelry (because anything metal will burn) and limit your exposure to the sun. Nobody really tells you how to survive our extreme 100+ summer heat, it’s just common sense. Or, alternatively, you just hop in your car and head for the Bay area.
As you’re leaving town, the buyers from the Bay area are heading this direction, pulling their Bay area agents in tow. Our lockbox keys are not yet reciprocal, so it’s often difficult for Bay area agents to show homes in Sacramento, not to mention there is the whole pricing issue and being unfamiliar with neighborhoods that can lead their buyers to overpaying for homes, which is not unusual. Sacramento sellers often pray for a Bay area buyer. Please send me some fool from San Jose, they beg.
If a Bay area buyer would like to downplay the fact that they don’t know the area and their agent may be unfamiliar with customary ways of writing offers in Sacramento, then at the very least there should be a discussion about fees in the purchase contract. It is permissible to pay all of the fees, if the buyer wants, but it’s not always necessary. It is not customary for the seller to pay all of the fees, however.
Your best bet is to call the listing agent and discuss the offer beforehand. When the seller is paying title and escrow, for example, typically the seller chooses the title company in Sacramento. The trend seems to be moving toward sellers and buyers splitting the escrow fee as well, just like the city transfer tax is often paid 50 / 50. But there’s no law that dictates, except for RESPA, and that doesn’t affect fees the sellers pay. For more information, call Elizabeth Weintraub, Sacramento listing agent, Lyon RE, at 916.233.6759.
