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Coming Soon Waterfront Home in Riverlake, Sacramento
Aerial view of 774 Still Breeze Way, Sacramento, CA 95831
Sitting quietly, specifically angled to catch the rays of morning light as the sun showers Riverlake in gold across the water, is a magnificent custom home in the exclusive gated-community of Stillwater at Riverlake. A home of this caliber comes along maybe once in a lifetime. The location is premier water frontage, next to a private beach with its own boat dock and forever panoramic views of the water.
Dining patio at 774 Still Breeze Way
When I first entered this home, it gave me the same feeling I experienced when I first laid eyes on the Grand Canal after leaving the Santa Lucia train station; unprepared for the historical beauty that gloriously unfolded below my feet. That’s not to say I did not enjoy the tamukeyamas, palms and assorted Japanese maples adorning the front yard, nor that I did not appreciate the stamped concrete steps set on the diagonal with the whimsical carriage man statue at the top, accentuated by the high walls of glass around the home; still, the water view is overpowering and dominant.
Pool at 774 Still Breeze Way
Apart from the 6 bedrooms, 5 baths and more than 4,000 square feet of refined luxury, this waterfront home in Riverlake also boasts a pool every bit delightful as its marvelous interior. Ample yard space near the pool provides access to the dock and your paddleboat, plus a beautiful patio perfect for entertaining. An office features a gleaming hardwood floor with mahogany inlays and an old world map from before Russia split up on the ceiling. Much of the first floor is covered in blushing pink Mexican pavers, which lends an Old World connection to the modern updates such as the unique Brazilian granite gracing the kitchen counters and island or the rare South African wood used in the family room. An unexpected bonus is the separate guest quarters with its own set of stairs, kitchen, work-out room and master suite.
Master suite balcony 774 Still Breeze Way
Of course the kitchen features everything your discriminating taste demands such as a wine refrigerator, a built-in Subzero, a built-in Miele coffeemaker / expresso, Wolf gas range, and quite possibly the quietest dishwasher this side of Germany. The master suite is the piece de la resistance, with her to-die-for closet, which came into life as a bedroom and today features walls of built-in storage for your designer shoes and bags, plus rows of rods, thoughtfully laid out under a large chandelier. Touch the mirror in the bath and the TV appears, just like you might find at The Four Seasons. You can also relax on the romanic master suite balcony at the end of the day, if you prefer an elevated view from this waterfront home in Riverlake.
For a private showing beginning on Friday, April 24th, 2015, you may call the listing agent, Elizabeth Weintraub, at 916.233.6759.
774 Still Breeze Way, Sacramento, CA 95831 is exclusively offered by Lyon Real Estate at $1,195,000, and will be on the market on April 24th.
Should Sellers Always Issue a Counter Offer?
Sacramento real estate agents often get upset or irritated when a seller refuses to issue a counter offer, but there is no law nor rule that says a seller must. This is the thing that they don’t understand because they put themselves in the seller’s shoes, and they would act differently. Everybody has his or her own way of responding to situations, and not everybody reacts in the same manner.
I mean, look at those guys out at Buckingham Palace. They stand there with their cute little chin straps, big furry hats, and they don’t even blink much less smile. You can’t make them smile. You could take off all of your clothes and do cartwheels in front of them, and their eyeballs would not move. Not that I’ve ever tried it, mind you, just making a point. Everybody is different. It’s what makes the world go round.
When I see purchase offers from buyers when I’ve explained to the agent that he or she needs to be extremely aggressive and very strong, and they submit an offer that results in less than list price, I feel for those agents. Because I know they’ve explained it to their buyers, and their buyers have their own thoughts. I imagine their own thoughts are something like: well, I’m gonna buy a home under my own terms, and if I can’t, it’s just not meant to be. Or something else equally ridiculous. Thoughts like that simply mean they are not buying a home. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not until they conform to the market.
But in any case, it does not mean the seller is required to send buyers a counter offer. Sellers are not allowed to discriminate and they can’t turn down a full-price offer without noting such in MLS, but they are never required to counter.
As the seller’s listing agent, I can’t make them issue a counter offer. And I wouldn’t want to try to force them to do anything anyway. Not every purchase offer deserves to be countered. Years ago I might have suggested that it’s always a good idea to counter, but today, meh. In this market, not so much.
Selling Rental Homes in Sacramento That Are Occupied by Tenants
Selling Rental Homes in Sacramento is easier with cooperation.
Some real estate agents in Sacramento will not list a rental property if the home is not easy to show, even if the price is right. The reasoning is the home might not sell for a while if buyers can’t get inside because tenants won’t cooperate. Oh, tenants will say, sure, they’ll cooperate, but then they bolt the inside of the door, don’t answer their phone for appointments and make life all-around-hell for the Sacramento Realtor. This is why I caution sellers to either evict the tenants or give them an incentive.
I have two new listings this week, a home in Elk Grove and another in West Sacramento, in which we were able to quickly move out the tenants, clean up the home, and put these homes on the market — while it’s still sizzling hot for sellers. Of course, I help sellers prepare the home for sale, either through referrals to contractors or staging advice. We want the home to show in its best light.
One rental home in Sacramento closed recently with a tenant in place. This tenant claimed to work from 6 AM in the morning to 11 PM at night — and maybe she held several jobs, I don’t know. She would not allow a lockbox. I had no interior photographs. Buyer’s agents struggled mightily to make appointments because the tenant would not call them back. I would text her and encourage agents to text, but the tenant was slow to respond, if she responded at all. This particular home probably could have sold for 10% more than it did, and the seller knew it, but the seller, for personal reasons, wanted to leave the tenant in place.
The seller also would not evict the tenant during escrow, which meant either a buyer would be saddled with a tenant and could not take immediate possession or the buyer needed to be an investor. There are not many investors in the market anymore like a few years ago. This is a situation that many agents would walk away from.
I am not an agent who needs to close every single escrow in 30 days. I have incredible patience, and I can wait, especially if that’s the seller’s intention. These sellers wanted a certain type of buyer who would pay a certain price. It took us 211 days to find that buyer but we closed escrow. Compare that to other homes in that area that typically sell within 30 to 45 days over the past two years. There was nothing wrong with this home. It was the obstinate tenant and the lack of seller motivation, but that’s OK with me. As long as it will eventually sell, I will list that home and sell it.
My time frame is my seller’s time frame.
Sellers Who Bare Souls Before Hiring a Sacramento Realtor to List Their Home
Do not disclose secrets until you hire a Sacramento REALTOR.
Home sellers say the darnedest things when they are talking to a Sacramento REALTOR about selling that home. There are times I might even stop them, but those are the occasions when I know that I will be their listing agent. In other cold-call situations, I might let them continue to babble. The reason I might stop them is because they will say something that I may file away in the back of my mind, when I don’t need to know it. Something like: my bottom line price is XYZ. It could be; it could not (which is a whole ‘nother blog). In any case, I have no business obtaining that knowledge.
My real estate business — one of the reasons I work as a premium agent and not a discount agent — is built on a passionate bedrock of commitment to obtain a full-price or higher offer for the seller. To do what is absolutely best for the client. What is best for the client is that I not possess any inkling of a bottom-line price. I don’t need to know. It’s not my business to know how little the seller might take. I maintain a fierce loyalty to my clients.
However, if I am not the listing agent, then all bets are off. I have no fiduciary to the home seller. Sometimes, I will meet with a seller whose goofy idea is to flatter by proclaiming that they have placed me on the top of their list for hiring a Sacramento REALTOR, but then say they want me to discount my standard commission or perform some other task that is outside the realm of reality. Or, maybe they’re just trying to confirm a price range because they’ve already decided to hire their sister-in-law, and are seeking free advice, I dunno. But the point is if they are not hiring that Sacramento REALTOR in a fiduciary capacity to represent them as a listing agent, I think they forget that we real estate agents work with buyers as well.
They might forget that they already disclosed their bottom line price, all of their fears and other important information, which buyer’s agents will use to their advantage. They might say: the pool needs work so we expect to pay a big credit to the buyer for that. Or, buyers can repaint those red and pink walls and we’ll give them money. They often don’t realize that buyers don’t want to paint and, if they must, they will deduct many thousands of dollars from the sales price. It’s not two $25 cans of paint in a buyer’s mind, which it is to the seller. It’s tough to understand sellers who want top dollar and refuse to neutralize god-awful colors. It’s one thing if you live in a culture like Mexico or Miami. Quite another in Sacramento suburbia. But if I am not the listing agent, I’m not there to give tips, drawn on my 40 years of experience in the business; I reserve pertinent advice for my own clients.
The main thing is home sellers should not share personal information or facts that can affect the sale of their home while talking to a listing agent who is not their agent. Because that listing agent might also be a buyer’s agent with a buyer underfoot who will now use all of that information to her advantage. It’s not unethical. That agent enjoys a fiduciary relationship with her buyer. Different priorities. And that buyer’s agent might be a shrewd negotiator, especially after the sellers have moved out of state, expecting escrow to close.
Sellers don’t often think of things that can come back to bite.
Prioritize to Just Sell Homes in Sacramento
Some people find it very difficult, almost impossible in some cases, to prioritize. Now that I am in my 60s, I’d like to believe that I have a pretty good handle on prioritization, especially for my Sacramento real estate business. There are days when I’ve got a ton of information coming at me from all directions: emails from buyer’s agents asking questions about listings, voice mails from a person who called at the same time I was on the phone, media desiring interviews, potential sellers, sellers whose homes are listed but not yet sold, sellers in escrow, buyers who want to purchase homes in Sacramento, and this doesn’t count my support team or escrow much less the time-waster sales guys.
What does one do first in any given day? Chase the new business, handle the existing business, process purchase offers, negotiate counters, suppress those Request for Repairs, what? I look to sell homes in Sacramento. This Sacramento REALTOR handles her existing business always foremost. It’s simple for me that way. Existing clients get priority.
Sometimes I’ll answer the phone and a person will introduce himself, state his company affiliation and before he gets another word out of his mouth, I find myself explaining that I am on the Do Not Call list and please honor it and don’t continue to call me. Then I hang up before he get can slip another word in edgewise. I’m lucky that reporters don’t sound like salespeople on the phone. Nope, salespeople are far too chipper and perky. They shouldn’t be calling me anyway, and if I needed a particular product, I’m not buying it over the phone or from an email or from some dude standing on my front steps because nothing good has ever come from that for anybody in the world.
I know some Sacramento REALTORS who wish that a few of their listings would go away. Especially if the days on market begin to linger, and they face more exhaustion trying to sell the home. This REALTOR, on the other hand, always figure if I went to the trouble to obtain the listing, then I need to focus on my objective to sell homes in Sacramento. Why go out and look for another listing to sell when I have an existing listing right under my very nose waiting for me to sell it? All I need to do is try a different approach if my existing plan doesn’t work.
That listing is already there. Just sell it. Hey, yeah, that should be my new motto: Just Sell It. So, that’s my focus and prioritization regardless of how long it takes. Because it’s not up to me how long it takes to just sell homes in Sacramento. It can be the market conditions or seller pricing or a bazillion other forces out of my control. Right now is a good time to be on the market, though, because we’ve passed Winterfell and are moving into a new year; bring on the dragons.
