Email Elizabethlistings in sacramento
How to Attract Listings in Sacramento By Going to Hawaii
Some of my clients know first-hand that I might pay a bit more attention to my listings in Sacramento when I am in Hawaii. That might sound counter-productive to some of you who would do the complete opposite if given a chance. But going to our house in Hawaii is like arriving at my source of personal power. I dive right into the Aloha. It’s not like I must go to the ocean to swim or drive the coastline. Because I’m perfectly content on my lanai, working on my computer against a panoramic backdrop of the ocean off in the distance.
Especially when I am the only person at the house. I don’t even have a cat or a neighborhood cat to distract me, although I won’t discount the geckos, lizards and occasional mongoose. It’s a quiet environment that lets me focus on my listings, alone in the warm Kona breezes blowing across the lanai.
No wonder I am so at peace and happy in Hawaii.
Of course, all I have to do to attract more listings in Sacramento is to print out that boarding pass. Like magic. Bam. The phone starts to ring. I managed to squeeze in one last listing appointment yesterday before I left. When you read this, I will be 30,000 feet in the air, enjoying breakfast over the Pacific. Two and a half movies later, I’m in Honolulu changing planes to Big Island.
I also just picked up another listing in Sacramento yesterday when a buyer flaked out. We had to put the home back on the market, but we’ve also got a group of interested buyers who did not act fast enough. The buyer’s agent said the buyer decided after going into escrow that he cannot afford to buy a home, or his loan was too much, hard to say. Cold feet. So many buyers develop cold feet, it seems.
It’s entirely possible that before I come back home to Sacramento that I’ll take more listings in Sacramento. With technology — internet and cell — that’s all I need to sell homes in Sacramento. The new listing on this page is a view from the street in Laguna West, which is in Elk Grove, a suburb of Sacramento. I love to sell homes in this neighborhood; it’s one of my favorites.
These sellers have a list of things to do before going on the market, but they could be ready in a couple of weeks. This will probably be priced in the lower to mid-700s, if you’re interested. You can call me at 916.233.6759, but please note the time difference in Hawaii is 3 hours earlier than Sacramento. Mahalo!
Listicles, Drones, James Taylor and Rude Home Sellers
Drones are the hottest thing in aerial photography for homes in Sacramento
For some labrador-squirrel-jerk reason, I found myself distracted the other day by 9 Things James Taylor Will Never Understand, and laughing myself silly. Oh, wait, I do recall why I ended up on that website when I have so many other more important tasks at hand: real estate-related stuff to do for my clients and also to research how to become a Known Traveler (from Sacramento, you have to go to San Francisco) to avoid those long lines at U.S. Customs.
I googled the term “listicles” because I have been asked by About.com to write such a thing for a new campaign.
Turns out I’ve been writing listicles all along for years and never realized it. Listicles are helpful content that is short, sweet and easily digested, generally numbered with subheads.
For example, I could write about the top 5 things to love and hate about drones. I love drones because they definitely help to market my listings in Sacramento. I get aerial views not otherwise available unless I were flying overhead myself in a helicopter and clutching a puke bag. The photos show geography surrounding my listing, including whether the roof needs to be replaced. Obviously, I would not include drone photography if the home backed up to a school or a commercial building.
I also have this vision in my brain of the future of drones, when Amazon and Pizza Hut begin employing drones, and how they might fill the airspace over your house, buzzing about like annoying dune buggies on the beach. Bite my shiny metal ass, you’ll probably mutter as you stare up at the skies in amazement. Drones can be irritating.
It would be nice, though, if drones could carry your packages without the packaging. Because we order so much stuff online nowadays, the recycling centers have got to be bulging due to all of this excess cardboard and packaging materials. Right now we have 9 boxes sitting on the floor at our living room entrance, delivered by UPS from a pet food supplier. Trying to find time today to unpack those boxes will prove as difficult as trying to find space in our recycling can for the waste packaging.
Much as I moan, you’ve got to agree, though that a guy who writes I walked out this morning and I wrote down this song; I just can’t remember who to send it to, surely should win the prize for Top 10 Stupid Song Lyrics. Plus, if I had a drone handy, I could have it sent over to south Sacramento yesterday to verify my listing appointment with certain Sacramento home sellers. Instead, I tossed my jeans, dressed up and prepared a listing package for a seller who couldn’t even open the door wide enough, as I stood on her front steps juggling a Supra iBox, my camera equipment and her listing paperwork, to properly explain over the noise of her barking dogs why the appointment was canceled and she forgot to mention it.
I can count with 2 fingers, not the peace sign, mind you, but the poke-in-the-eyes two fingers, how many times that has ever happened in my Sacramento real estate career. Those sellers don’t realize it, but they need me more than I need them. This woman today is on her own.
How Many Listings Should a Sacramento Realtor Carry?
The number of listings might have little bearing on a Sacramento Realtor’s ability to service.
A question that really has no bearing on reality but I get asked it often enough all the same is: Elizabeth, how many listings do you have? For starters, I suspect people want to use the answer as a quantifier. If you have one or two listings, you look like a loser in some people’s eyes. If you have 200 listings, you could look like a person who doesn’t have time to brush her teeth much less pay attention to her clients, and that assumption could be way off base, too.
What makes a difference, though, is in what position are those Sacramento listings? By that I mean are they pending, pending short lender approval (which is different than a pending sale), active contingent, pending bring back-up, active release clause, an active short sale or simply an active listing? I generally carry about 25 listings at any given time, but the active listings, the homes that take up most of my time, might only range from 3 to 5. I typically sell my active listings pretty quickly because I do things right. The short sale listings require a lot more time on the market because today’s buyers tend to pass those by.
A few years back, like 2010 or 2011, I carried on average about 75 listings in various states of status. Talk about stress. I am conscientious, though. When I worked on that amount of inventory, I was often out of bed by 4 or 5 AM and hard at work. I do what it takes, and that’s what it took to keep my sanity and my sellers happy with my performance. Now, that my inventory has fallen by about two-thirds as the number of homes for sale overall in the Sacramento Valley have slipped, things are fairly normal and quiet for me. It’s almost like being on vacation.
I realize for another Sacramento Realtor, 25 listings might seem like a horrendous number, but for me, it’s just business as usual. I can sleep in until 7 AM now. That’s a luxury. There is no question what my focus is for the day. I don’t spend much time on looking for business because business comes to me. I’m very fortunate that way. Many other real estate agents spend at least half of their time prospecting for clients, but I don’t. Some choose to work only part-time. I work full-time. My time is focused 100% on my clients and my listings.
Keeping track of 25 files and maneuvering moving targets is easy for an organized person to do. Besides, many decades ago, like in the 1970s, I was a certified escrow officer, and I used to work on a caseload of 60 to 80 files at a time. If you think handling a real estate file as an agent is time consuming, try being an escrow officer. Escrow is where I developed my organizational skills, and that ability has served me well as a top producer Sacramento Realtor. I try to treat each of my clients as though they are my ONLY client, because if I don’t, that’s exactly what would happen.
I am never too busy for a client. Call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759. I answer my cell.
Sacramento Will Be Featured in Financial Times
Just to show you how it goes in the life of a Sacramento real estate agent, last week I didn’t put any new listings on the market yet, yesterday, I worked on four new home listings in Sacramento, plus I gave a film interview to the Financial Times. That particular media is covering the collapse and recovery (or what-have-you) of the housing market across America. Because Sacramento was hit so hard by the real estate market-crash asteroids in a double whammy (2005 and 2008), and because we’re one of the first cities to begin our journey down that Yellow Brick Road, our town is of interest to the Financial Times, along with Austin, Texas, and a few others.
The morning started out innocent enough, an office meeting with my peers, during which I briefly and without actual intention mentioned a duplex I am listing in Tahoe Park. During the day, I received 3 phone calls from real estate agents about it. OK, this listing will be hot. It might even receive multiple offers. I conducted my visual inspection of the home a short time later and, as I lifted the door to the electrical panel to determine the amperage, the seller asked how I could read the label. She was stunned, watching me.
Hey, I might be an old fart but I wear monovision contacts. I am also a Baby Boomer, and we are not wearing reading glasses or bifocals if we don’t have to, and we don’t. I explained how distance and near vision works with this particular type of contact lens, and probably opened a new door of possibilities for the seller.
I spent about 30 minutes with a couple of my team members showing how to analyze a listing in MLS and various methods to pull comparable sales. It’s amazing how much information a buyers’ agent can glean about a listing in Sacramento if the agent utilizes all of the tools available. Knowledge is power.
Wednesdays are also my day to complete any last-minute open house schedules for the weekend. This weekend, Lyon Real Estate is holding its Open House Extravaganza for the month of May, so it’s very important to participate with such wide coverage for my sellers. I lined up a bunch of homes, matched with fabulous open house agents, and updated all of my online listing data because I like to tweak the listings myself. I’m such an odd duck, I guess. I do all of my own work on my listings because that’s my focus, it’s what I enjoy.
The best part of any Sacramento real estate agent’s day, though, is calling her sellers to announce their home has closed escrow — and a home in Roseville did close yesterday, less than 6 weeks after we went on the market. List price, all cash. West Park subdivision, at $375,000.
My team member Linda Swanson is filming with the Financial Times today, showing the reporter around Sacramento. I’ll let you know when this news story airs. I can tell you that although my life is pretty much open book, and my opinions are strong, leaning far to the left, I still prefer talking to the Financial Times over 60 Minutes any day. Some of those guys have accents.
Three New Home Listings in Sacramento Metro
As a Sacramento real estate agent who lists a lot of homes, I’ve got to replenish inventory that closes with more homes for sale. It’s the same with anything in life. If I run low on milk, for example, I might have to stop by the store on the way home and pick up another carton. I apply the same principle to items in my own home. If I buy a new piece of furniture or article of clothing, something else must go out the door. It’s a system of checks and balances. It also means after a few homes close escrow, more homes had better go on the market or this agent would soon run out of homes to sell.
Fortunately, the replenish system has been working well for me. I love to sell homes, even if I have to sell homes twice. You’d kind of expect that to happen in a short sale but not in a regular real estate transaction. Two homes that should have closed escrow last month did not, and they canceled. Both were traditional sales involving buyers who could not get a loan at the very last minute. The files sat in underwriting and were spit out. Denied.
Both sellers were understandably distressed and dismayed. I get their pain. In one situation, I told the seller that I was confident we would put the home back on the market, sell it for more money, and he’d look back at this particular cancellation and say it’s the best thing that could have happened. That was my intuition talking.
I love it when my intuition is right. It generally is, and I can rely on it. That’s exactly what happened, too. The next buyer paid cash, no appraisal. In the other sale, the replacement buyer had written a contingent offer. Sellers are often wary of contingent offers, but they can also be used as a benefit. And the contingent offer buyer removed the contingency within a couple of weeks and closed as well. Both of these escrows closed on Friday.
I’ve replaced these two sales with three more listings: An energy-efficient home in West Sacramento near the river at $240,000. An Elk Grove home, updated kitchen with granite counters, new appliances and wood floors, featuring 4-5 bedrooms, more than 2,700 square feet, turn-key ready at $395,000. These homes are open for viewing this afternoon. And last, but not least, a short sale home in Sacramento near Calvine, offering allergy-free floors, 3 bedrooms, formal living room with a brick fireplace and cozy family room at $225,000. Check out my new listings:
142 4th Street, West Sacramento, CA 95605
