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New Randy Parks Home Listing in Sacramento Absolutely Sparkles
Looking at the original cedar walls in the family room of this new Randy Parks listing in Sacramento almost makes me regret painting my rooms with cedar walls in my home in Land Park. Almost. The warmth and emotional pull of that family room is incredible. Lots of people tend to misidentify this wood, which was a very common material used by builders in the late 1940s and early 1950s, for pine wood because it features knots. But it’s really cedar, generally coated with shellac (remember shellac?) for preservation.
The family room is one step-down from the kitchen and is part of the original floor plan. The 8 windows on two walls are double-hung wood construction with sashes, and 7 of them open and close easily. One window needs the sash replaced, which is pretty good when you figure they’ve been in service for 63 years. All of this glass lends a spectacular view of the oversized yard.
If you need a yard for gardening, a place for children to play, dogs to roam, for sports such as volleyball or badminton, or maybe you prefer a big yard so you can survey all that you own and relish in your own privacy, this is definitely the home for you. The yard is only a small part that will attract you to this impeccable 1951 home.
First, it’s a Randy Parks home, which means it has random plank hardwood flooring and all of those cute built-in touches, along with quality construction. Home buyers really love a Randy Parks home because it’s timeless beauty. It never goes out of style and just becomes more beautiful with each passing year.
Second, all the floors in the 3 bedrooms are gleaming hardwood, because they’ve been refinished. This is a home that’s been in the family for 63 years, ever since it was built. The love and care is apparent every place you look. The cabinets in the kitchen are tall, run to the ceiling for extra storage, and they are painted in gloss with new hardware. The kitchen features a breakfast nook, too.
I could not find a scratch on the wall or even a pinhole from a nail that once held artwork. The wood burning fireplace is flanked by built-in bookcases on a wood wall in the living room. Dual pane windows throughout are low maintenance, except for the family room — and who in her right mind would change out those wood windows anyway? The sewer line has been replaced, and the roof is somewhat newer. There’s really nothing to do but move in and enjoy life.
3401 Saint Mathews Drive, Sacramento, CA 95821 is offered exclusively by Lyon Real Estate at $250,000. For more information, contact your #1 Sacramento Real Estate agent at Lyon, Elizabeth Weintraub, at 916.233.6759.
This Randy Parks home will be held open Sunday, February 23rd, from 2:00 to 4:00 PM by Keith Mikoff at Lyon Real Estate. Go east on El Camino from Biz 80 1.8 miles and left at Saint Mathews.
Aren’t You Tired of the Hello Are Your Carpets Dirty Guy?
Don’t you ever wonder how many do-overs the guy who recorded Hello Are Your Carpets Dirty had to do? Because you just know he had supervision, some manager, carpet store owner, who oversaw the production of that Robocall and squealed, “Can you just say it with a little more energy?” — until the guy was so far over the top he was completely irritating. “Yeah, yeah, that’s it, make them want to stab your eyes with an icepick.” The good news is new federal regulations are supposed to put a stop to this robo-calling business.
The FCC’s new Robocall rules say the consumer must give written consent to receive this crap. Further, the telemarketers can’t call a residential landline based on an “existing business relationship” — oh, thank goodness, just in time for the next election. And the icing on the cake is the telemarketers are supposed to give callers an “opt out” right at the beginning of the message, before the words Hello Are Your Carpets Dirty leave their lips.
See, I never get past that first sentence because I’ve already hit erase again on the answering machine. So far, they aren’t calling my cellphone, yet.
Even more interesting is how the new FCC rules affect real estate agents and mortgage brokers. Mortgage brokers, according to C.A.R., are not allowed to contact a borrower more than 18 months after the loan closed. Real estate agents can’t call sellers of expired or canceled listings if their numbers are listed on the Do Not Call Registry. Call me silly, but I highly suspect few of these individuals will comply, either due to cluelessness or outright refusal. This is Amaireeeeka.
Why, just yesterday I received a spam newsletter from a mortgage broker. I emailed to explain I do not know him, have not business with him, and I am trying to reduce the amount of unwanted emails I receive every day. It was, after all, my second request to him. There are days I receive anywhere from 300 to 500 daily emails as a Sacramento real estate agent. Unfortunately, in my haste to get rid of this guy, I had clicked “reply all”, and my kind request begging him to stop emailing me went out to all of his customers. Question: what kind of person sends a bulk email exposing addresses? Answer: I guess the kind who spams real estate agents.
When I complained, he wrote back to argue that he had represented a buyer who bought one of my sellers’ listings last year, so he figured we had “worked together.” He was hurt I didn’t remember him. Why would I? My records show I closed more than 100 homes last year. Moreover, to a Sacramento listing agent, a mortgage broker is a third-party vendor hired by a person the agent does not represent. There is no working relationship. I work with the buyer’s agent, not by extension the buyer’s mortgage lender.
For more information, please see the FCC Do Not Call List website. And let’s tell the Hello Are Your Carpets Dirty guy to stuff a sock in it.
Where Do Buyers Come From for Homes in Sacramento?
When greed and the need for shelter love each other very much, buyers for homes in Sacramento pop outta nowhere. Well, that’s the answer my husband came up with when I posed the question to him — where do buyers come from for homes in Sacramento — but he enjoys making me laugh. On the other hand, sometimes sellers think we real estate agents hide buyers under our beds. I’ve heard sellers say that they did not want to list their home, per se, they just want me to bring them a buyer. Buyers come from listings, they aren’t under my bed.
It’s true that we have some buyers who will wait forever to find that special deal, but typically what these buyers want is a home under market value. They often don’t want to pay list price for homes in Sacramento, and they don’t want to pay what the home is actually worth. They often want to steal the home. And every so often, I run across a seller who wants a buyer to steal her home, and I put the two of them together, but that is not the norm. It’s not really how homes in Sacramento are sold. It’s not how Sacramento real estate works.
Our listing agreements contain a big ol’ paragraph about why pocket listings are not in the seller’s favor. Sellers ask me when they see that paragraph if they should be a pocket listing because they don’t understand the verbiage. I realize C.A.R. thinks they are doing a service for sellers but instead it’s complicated and convoluted, like anything becomes when a committee is involved in the decision. When I explain pocket listings to sellers, which I shouldn’t have to do because I don’t take them or believe in them under ordinary circumstances, sellers then ask me why anybody would ever do it. Mostly because they’re bamboozled, I guess.
And then they want to know whether I have a buyer for the home.
We Sacramento listing agents get buyers for a home after an agent lists the home for sale. The agent looks for a buyer when the homes goes on the market. Often, the buyers might find another agent to represent them, but we are actively looking for buyers every single day. That’s what listing agents in Sacramento do. We dangle that beautiful listing in front of the eyes of every single buyer we can find. It’s like fishing. When we get a bite, we reel ’em in and toss ’em into the escrow boat.
What the Home Warranty Company Won’t Tell You
You’d be hard pressed to find a Sacramento real estate agent who won’t ask a seller to pay for a buyer’s home warranty plan. About the only instance I see in which buyers don’t get a home warranty plan when buying a home (unless they want to pay for it themselves or their agent is in a generous mood), is in a short sale. And that’s because most short sale banks will not authorize a home warranty payment for a buyer. Those short sale banks squeeze every dime out of the transaction. So, the message you’ll hear from short sale banks is no home warranty plan for you.
The reason agents like home warranties and why sellers will pay for it is because it’s like an additional buffer between the buyers and the sellers when something goes wrong. And believe you me, something will go wrong. It always does. It might not happen a few weeks after closing or even after a few months, but generally during that first year of home ownership something goes haywire. When it does, buyers tend to jump to the conclusion that the seller knew about this stinkin’ defect, whatever the heck it is, and purposely didn’t tell them it was going to break.
This is where the home warranty plan steps in. The homeowner pays a service call fee and, much of the time, the rest of the work order is paid for in full. Unless it isn’t. Unless it is exempt from coverage, and you’d be astonished at what’s not covered or what costs extra to cover. This is where your home warranty representative can be your saving grace. I fought many a battle with the home warranty company because it did not want to pay for something as simple as replacing a sink faucet.
Now, after your home warranty expires — because it’s only good for a year, they didn’t tell you that? — well, now the company will try to get you to renew it. The renewal price is a lot higher than the one-year fee paid by the seller. Whether it’s worth it to you depends on what is likely to go wrong at your house and what it could cost to fix. If your policy costs you $500, and the AC condenser cost you $400, plus you paid a service call on top, you might be (gasp) better off without the home warranty.
My furnace is on the blink right now, and I don’t have a home warranty. We got up yesterday morning, and it was 62 degrees in the house. No heat. Brrrrr. That’s cold for Sacramento. Ten years of a home warranty payment would pay for a new furnace. But we’ve owned our home for 12 years, so, see, financially we’re ahead, no matter what. Fortunately our problem was just a $400 control board. Everybody has to weigh his or her own situation as to whether a home warranty is worth it.
Picking the Buyer When Selling Homes in Sacramento Could Violate Fair Housing
Regular sellers with equity — and even sellers of homes in Sacramento who end up doing a short sale — can choose their buyer and establish requirements that the buyer must meet. You know why they can do this? Because they own the home and, with some legal exceptions, sellers can decide what kind of person buys it.
This is not to say that a seller can discriminate against any of the protected classes under the Fair Housing Act. For example, a seller could not say I am interested only in selling to a family with kids or to a guy in a wheelchair. You can’t pick a protected class and exclude others or vice versa. This is yet another reason to hire a top Sacramento real estate agent because agents are supposed to know, understand and follow the Fair Housing Act, among other regulations.
I’ve personally had buyers say to me they did not want to buy in a neighborhood in which minorities of any color live and, believe it or not, I have stopped the car and told them to get the hell out. Fortunately, we were still in the parking lot and not on the W / X freeway. They can go find some redneck yo-yo to work with them, but not this agent. Sadly to say, there is always some doofus moron who doesn’t give a flying fig about Fair Housing, but I’m definitely not one of those.
Sellers are allowed, though, to choose an owner occupant, for example, over an investor. I asked our lawyers. That’s almost a moot point as most of the investors have left the market in Sacramento, which leaves a bit of breathing room for Sacramento home buyers now, but it’s good to know. Btw, if you see that sales are down by 1/3rd, it’s because the investors have split. But some are still hanging out, writing lowball offers in hopes that if they throw enough crap at the wall, something will stick.
If you want to ensure the quality of your neighborhood and care enough to please your neighbors when you depart, then you might want to consider selling to an owner occupant over a buyer who will rent out your house. Even if that home needs fixing up, a rental investor is not always the answer. Whenever there is an increase of rentals in a neighborhood, the value of the other homes around it tend to go down.
