Email Elizabethsacramento real estate agent
Sellers Who Do Not Trust the Real Estate Agent
Most clients will say that they completely trust and value a professional opinion until the day comes when they disagree with their real estate agent. The agent can see it coming, too, but by then it’s generally too late because the client will have already said something emotionally telling like, well, if you don’t agree with my opinion of value, then you should ask my daughter. The daughter who is not a Sacramento real estate agent and who has no experience in real estate.
The agent can haul out the heavy artillery, the trending charts showing the past year or so of real estate activity in that particular neighborhood, including days on market, sales price to list price ratios, absorption rates, median sales prices, inventory levels, but it won’t matter. It won’t matter because the client will spot a home that is nothing like the client’s home but that home will have sold for much, much more than the true market value of the client’s home. That particularly expensive home might have sold for more because it has a spectacular view, which the client’s home does not. That home might have sold for more because it is 1/3 bigger than the client’s home. That home might have sold for more because it has upgrades and features that the client’s home might not possess.
None of this will make any difference to the client.
This could be a case in which the client might utilize the per-square foot cost of that more impressive home and apply the same value to the client’s home, therefore proclaiming a higher sales price that will not appraise under any circumstances. The Sacramento real estate agent can point out that any reputable appraiser will use 3 to 6 comparable sales to justify the sales price, and explain that an isolated sale is not enough to substantiate a higher price. Because the comps are the comps are the comps; however, the agent may as well be speaking to a Muppet.
The agent can invest hours preparing a comparative market analysis, utilizing several independent sources, but it won’t make any difference to the client because the client wants the price that the client wants. To educate the client or try to justify a different opinion means only one thing. It means that the client will choose a different agent who agrees with the client. Probably an agent the seller’s daughter knows.
And this is why clients will say that agents only tell them what they want to hear. Because these are the very people who set themselves up for failure from the start. They sabotage themselves.
By the time the home closes escrow at a much lower price, the client will remember the agents. He will recall the argumentative agent who refused to agree with his point of view, and he will recall the agent who sold his home for so little that she forced him to “give it away” — and he won’t have anything good to say about either agent. They’ll pretty much all be scum is his book. And that’s too bad.
How to Unwind After a Long Day of Sacramento Real Estate
Flowers in bloom near WPA in William Land Park, by Elizabeth Weintraub
The flowers are in bloom on many of the trees, bushes and vines in Land Park, especially over the arches past Fairytale Town. When I ride my bicycle past the WPA Rock Garden, the scent of springtime flowers flows through the air, and it’s unmistakably sweet smelling. This is the second stretch of my bike ride where I can pick up great speed and shift from 5th to 6th and eventually 7th gear as I go down the hill and onto the road that continues around the golf course.
The bike ride takes me 35 minutes from my home in Land Park, down Riverside, around the entire perimeter of William Land Park and back, regardless of which side streets I might explore. I basically face one stoplight on 8th Avenue by Vic’s Ice Cream to circumvent and the other street detours help me to avoid the lights.
Father hugging daughter, his face illuminated, William Land Park, by Elizabeth Weintraub
This is my way of unwinding after a long day of Sacramento real estate. Sometimes, I take a break in the middle of the day and hop on my bike, too. The only problem is the wind hits the space between my bluetooth Jawbone and my jaw, separates the device from my face, causing noise and static on the other end. I have a handy dandy rack for my cellphone right on my handle bars.
I guess most people would say I should just enjoy the ride and forget about answering my phone. But that’s about as useful as telling a dog not to eat the steak you just threw on the floor.
Arches overlooking William Land Park behind WPA Rock Garden
I’m thinking maybe I should shop for a new bluetooth device. One specifically made for talking on your cellphone while riding a bicycle. The new ERA Jawbone isn’t it because it’s too small and the smaller they make them, the less effective they seem to be. I had Jawbone replace my device but it didn’t improve reception, and I’m now sending it back. If you have any ideas for a good bike-riding bluetooth, let me know.
Update on the Amazing Breeze Cat Litter Boxes
If you haven’t tried the new Breeze litter boxes, you are in for an amazing discovery if you do. I don’t know why every pet owner is not using this product except for the fact that perhaps they haven’t heard of it or don’t believe it works. We have a lot of pet owners in the country. For starters, the number of households in the United States where pets live is unbelievable. It’s staggering numbers, like 83 million dogs and 95 million cats, according to HSUS. And it’s only been recently that the number of cats have been outnumbering the number of dogs. That just means more cat boxes, and I have a followup report for you on those innovative Breeze cat litter boxes and pellets.
You know, if I wasn’t a top producing Sacramento real estate agent and not around enough to take care of a dog, I would certainly adopt a dog. I will get a dog when I retire. My husband is not much of a dog person so he would not take care of her. The only pets we can barely manage to accommodate in our house are cats. They are fiercely independent and capable of caring for themselves for the most part. For example, if it wasn’t for the cats jumping up on my desk, wedging themselves between my eyeballs and my monitor and staring me in the face at dinner time, I imagine they would go hungry for a while. But cats have a way of making their needs known. Dogs are so much more polite.
These cats never ordered me to change the litter boxes but my common sense did. When I listed a home in El Dorado Hills, the occupant of that home showed me his cat boxes, which were filled with Breeze pellets. I’d never seen anything like it. So I decided to try it at my own home in Land Park. And Eureka, it worked. Of course, there was that long period between not cleaning the cat boxes and hoping they will use the Breeze, but eventually they made that choice, and I won. It was less than a couple of weeks.
The trick is to give your cats that choice. You can’t make demands of a cat and say, use this litter box or I will cut off your allowance of unlimited catnip. Nope, you’ve got to be sneaky and just stop cleaning their original boxes. Cats aren’t stupid. Sooner or later, they come to their senses and use the Breeze boxes. Then you can remove the old litter boxes.
There is no odor. I change the pellets once every 30 days and the pads once a week. The pads slide right off the tray and into the trash can. Best of all, there is no litter tracking of dust or granules all over my laundry room floor. I can walk through that room barefoot now. If there is a downside, it’s that the pellets make a noise when they are moved around in the box. Sounds a little bit like a box of nails spilling onto the floor. Small tradeoff for not having to scoop balls of urine or sweeping the floor every day.
I love this new litter box system and, evidently, so do the cats. They haven’t gone on strike, so that’s a good sign, and it’s been a few months now. Try it. You’ll be amazed. It’s cheap, too; if you have only one cat, it will cost $30 to set it up and $6 for a bag of 4 pads.
Can You Rely on Zillow for an Estimate of Market Value?
Part of my job is to explain market value and how an appraiser will substantiate market value to a seller, none of which are remotely connected to the website Zillow. Most of the time I’m able to make sellers understand, but as a Sacramento real estate agent, I also get those who don’t care how long a home sits on the market (and loses its desirability with each passing day), and there’s not much I can do about those attitudes but go with the flow. After all, it’s not my home. It’s not my job to make that listing my home, even though I may care deeply about whether it sells.
One of my clients shared with me recently that his accountant told him Zillow is 10% underpriced with its Zestimates. I didn’t think anything of that statement — because it’s ridiculous — until I realized that there are people who actually believe it. Not anybody in my circle of real estate agents or appraisers or other real estate professionals, but the public thinks because Zillow notes an estimate on a website, it must be true. After all, they found it on the Internet.
The basis for that statement were two homes his accountant saw that had sold for 10% more. Therefore, my seller’s accountant must have automatically leaped to that conclusion, which doesn’t say much about his accounting skills now, does it? My own home is priced $150,000 more than its worth in Zillow. That’s certainly not 10% of its value. It’s widely known that Zillow estimates are all over the map and often there is no set correlation to value. That’s because it’s a computer-generated algorithm that isn’t even as reliable as something like Realist or Metrolist comparables, which still require a human touch because square footage isn’t enough. You can’t price a home on square footage alone just like you can’t live on cans of tuna fish.
Zillow is getting better but it’s just not there yet. It’s great for looking at maps and playing around but it doesn’t have all of the homes for sale much less an accurate value.
Zillow doesn’t know if that home sits on the edge of a cliff overlooking the ocean or if it’s nestled next door to a mobile home park. It doesn’t know if the floors are marble or dirt. It doesn’t know if planes fly overhead ten times a day. It doesn’t know if the guy next door fixes motorcycles in his front yard. It doesn’t know if the plumbing has been updated or if water trickles into the sink at the rate of two drops a minute. It doesn’t know if the home is close to a desirable school or a military base. It doesn’t know if the buyer will walk in the front door and fall in love or turn around and run. Quite frankly, Zillow doesn’t know crap.
Which is why a seller will always need a professional and experienced Sacramento real estate agent, and we’ll never go out of style.
Astonishing 2014 California Real Estate Laws in the Works
This year is shaping up to be an interesting year for new 2014 California real estate laws, which will affect us in Sacramento. For so many years the new laws have been more narrow, but this year will be different. In some ways, you’ve got to wonder why our California Assembly members had to propose some of these new real estate laws, and the answer is because they don’t (shudder) exist or our present laws are unclear. It’s enough to make some of us feel like dropping out and engaging our brains elsewhere such as searching for a Pinata Party during Plants vs. Zombies, or throwing a sheet around our waist and dancing through the house yelling toga, toga.
Let’s look at AB 1513, the so-called Squatter’s Bill. This is a piece of legislation that will allow law enforcement officials to remove unwanted persons from your vacant property. That’s right, under current law, a vagrant can break into your home, set up shop and you can’t immediately throw them out. They can party away like in Animal House for 30 to 60 days while you helplessly look on, dangling a piece of paper that says you’re entitled to an unlawful detainer. Well, I probably could get them out. As a Sacramento real estate agent, I have once resorted to banging loudly on the door and screaming FBI, I hate to admit, and then listening for the back door to slam as the squatters scatter like rats.
Another is AB 2039, targeting auction companies such as Auction.com, which is owned in part by a former third-party vendor company that processed short sales. This company has partnered with bad-mortgage purchasing companies such as Nationstar and forces real estate agents to allow this company to take over the transaction — kind of like a squatter, you don’t want them but you can’t get rid of them. This legislation would at least hold the real estate agent harmless from the actions of the auction company.
It boggles my mind as to how these auction companies are successful anyway. Because a buyer must pay a 5% premium to the auction company (on top of the commission) to buy the home as a short sale, and the bank wants market value. Seems to be a conflict of interest in that area, plus, how does the buyer obtain an over-market loan when it won’t appraise? Fortunately, I have been successful at not having to deal with Auction.com in any of my hundreds of Sacramento short sales, knock on wood.
My favorite newly proposed real estate law is AB 2136, which would clarify that a real estate agent is not required to keep a record of Tweets and Texts pursuant to a real estate transaction because those forms of communication are not considered a document. This means when I’ve receive a text message during sex, I can safely answer it in the throes of passion and not worry if it’s later deleted. I like that.
See, all good things coming out of our California Assembly, designed to improve our lives. Now, if they could just pass the mortgage forgiveness extension, we’d be well on our way to recovery. As it stands now, all of those poor homeowners who have successfully completed a principal mortgage reduction through a loan modification are positioned to get hammered on taxes. We have an exemption for short sales, but not loan modifications. Oy.
