Email Elizabethsacramento real estate agents
Downton Abbey Preview at the Crest Theatre
When I spotted seemingly free tickets to the Season 4 premiere of Downton Abbey, I snatched up four for my Elizabeth Weintraub Team to attend, along with my husband, of course — who will tell you he doesn’t matter because he jokes that that’s what I say when I do not. Tickets were free so a couple of cruise lines and a clothing designer could get our names and addresses, because I was required to register. Not only that, but KVIE collected another 250 names and addresses as backups in case anybody canceled.
Yet, still, none of us was allowed to sit in the lower front section of the theater because all of those seats were reserved for corporate sponsors. We did not allow this kind of marketing to damper our enthusiasm for Downton Abbey. After all, we are Sacramento real estate agents and we put up with worse stuff during our work week. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that KVIE could have sold seats for $100 a piece and people would have paid it, so there must be some kind of non-profit rules that prohibited it.
The Crest Theatre sold refreshments and there was a wine / beer section. There were not enough employees staffing the refreshment stands, and the lines were long. Not to mention, the night was pretty chilly for downtown Sacramento in December.
So, that’s all of the downside. The upside, of course, is the fact my team and I, along with my husband who doesn’t matter, got a chance to see the first hour of Downton Abbey Season 4, which is not showing in the United States until January 5th. Some of us have no patience. That’s another reason to go into real estate. Nah, I’m not gonna give you any spoilers.
My husband prepared cocktails and appetizers for a pre-theatre get-together at our home in Land Park. The photo above is Elizabeth Weintraub, with the always delightful Barbara Dow on the right. Linda Swanson was planning to come dressed as a maid but she had a prior appointment in Elk Grove to show a home. You know how that would go over. Like, who is this? Why is Mrs. Bates showing me a house?
No Homes for Sale in Sacramento
The real estate market in Sacramento is a little bit like that website depicting reasons why You Will Not Go to Space Today. I could easily create a website about why homebuyers are not buying a home today, except I can’t draw very well. Great Sacramento real estate agent, but lousy artist. I know my limitations.
A guy called yesterday to ask about a Sacramento listing. Said he found it among his list of homes for sale. He was looking on Zillow, poor guy. I don’t know how to get the word out to buyers that looking on Zillow is the wrong place to look. So is Trulia and, if we’re really talking about homes for sale, Realtor.com is not that hot, either. All of those websites are missing listings, showcase expired and sold homes, and they take too danged long to update. If you’re gonna buy a home in Sacramento, you better be getting your listings from a Sacramento real estate agent, either from an agent’s MLS-connected website or, even better, directly from MLS yourself.
You can’t get new listings directly from MLS unless a) you are an agent or b) an agent sends them to you.
But it doesn’t really matter because there are very few to no homes for sale in Sacramento. The guy who called yesterday was stammering because he could not remember the street address and was frantically searching for it during our conversation. I don’t think he expected me to answer my phone or to answer it as quickly as I did. Hard to say. But as he was stuttering, repeating himself and trying to buy time to find the address, I felt like telling him the home was probably sold, except I didn’t want to offend him; he sounded so sad and depressed. My heart goes out to first-time homebuyers, but if they already have an agent, I can’t help them.
I have new listings coming up this week. First, I will tell my Elizabeth Weintraub team members about them. Then, I will let agents in my office know that we have new listings. Many real estate companies in Sacramento withhold listings from MLS for 72 hours because we can. Lyon Real Estate agents are market leaders in Sacramento. By the time these listings show up in Zillow or Trulia, they will most likely be sold. This is a tough market with so few homes for sale. Almost every day buyer’s agents call and email, asking if my pending sales are falling apart or whether I am taking a new listing.
If home buyers are relying on Trulia, Zillow or Realtor.com to help them find a home to buy, I hate to say it, they are not buying a home in Sacramento today.
Should You Change Agents?
A seller, obviously frustrated with her Sacramento real estate agent, emailed yesterday to ask if I would be interested in representing her. She didn’t say why she was dissatisfied with her agent, but I intend to probe. Because sometimes there is nothing wrong with her agent at all. Sometimes, when the results do not meet a client’s perhaps unrealistic expectations, a client becomes disillusioned and wants to change real estate agents. It’s not that I don’t want new clients, but I do try to encourage people to stick it out with their present agent, to give that agent at least one more chance, and to talk through any perceived difficulties.
Besides, an upgrade might be the same thing they’ve already got. You never know. People who don’t understand the market in Sacramento and how real estate agents work, the rules we are governed by nor the things that are out of our control might believe we are capable of parting the Red Sea when we are not.
When we checked into our room at the resort in Bora Bora, it came with an upgrade, space permitting. Well, there was no space available at Christmas-time so we did not receive the upgrade. But after New Year’s, when many guests have gone home, we checked again and an upgrade was available. It meant packing our bags, which the butler offered to do, and moving across the way, so we took it.
The new house is identical to our old house. Except it’s not as new. Older flat panel TVs. Prints instead of oil paints. Weathered woodwork. Same layout, though. What’s different is the view. I suspect the resort built the front row of overwater bungalows much earlier than the second row. The second row overlooks the lagoon and the beach. The front row looks at Mt. Otemanu and toward The Four Seasons. Except when it’s foggy and rainy, you can’t see Mt. Otemanu at all; it vanishes.
There are times a new agent could be just what you need. Not all agents are the same, and some are very much different from other Sacramento real estate agents — maybe better suited to your personality. But agents have a lot more in common with each other than you might think. Sometimes, it might make more sense to stick with the guy who brought you to the dance.
Photo: Mt. Otemanu at dusk from St. Regis Resort at Bora Bora, by Elizabeth Weintraub
A Couple of Short Sale Rumors
An agent friend in northern California said yesterday that Wells Fargo and Chase are planning to rollout new short sale programs this fall. There are a couple of short sale rumors that they are handing over short sale leads to their REO agents. The banks’ thinking, no doubt, is all Sacramento real estate agents are the same, which is pretty insulting to some of us. Some of us are very different. For starters, I get my nails done at a nail salon versus the usual method of chewing them off with my teeth.
Call me silly but some REO agents don’t own a cellphone. That can be a major problem. You and I know they don’t have a phone because they don’t answer it. And their attention to detail, which is required for a short sale, is legendary, right? But hey, we’re talking about Wells Fargo and Chase. What do you want? A cake to go with that nail file?
In other short sale rumors circulating, REDC, a third-party vendor for Bank of America, is pushing Auction.com. A friend at Bank of America says he thinks REDC got its start as Auction.com, but I haven’t checked out that belief. A rep from REDC called me twice about slipping a short sale listing into Auction.com’s 120-day program. That’s longer than some rehab programs. Why would it take 120 days to sell a short sale in Sacramento? Our market is so tight it squeaks.
He wants my seller to agree to let buyers traipse through his home for at least 30 days and make offers online. Auction.com will get paid its commission from the buyer. Listing agents and selling agents are still paid by the seller. That’s an awful lot of commissions to go around in one transaction. I think he’s drinking Kool-Aid, and not the stuff made with sugar. That sounds totally insane. Because you know what will happen. Crazy and frantic buyers will bid up the price to a place where it will never appraise by the buyer’s lender. Then, it will be back to Square One with that short sale when the appraisal comes in low. We don’t need no stinkin’ auctions for Sacramento short sales. No rational seller wants to turn his home into a three-ring circus to boost the profits at Auction.com.
I should just sit back and look at the bright side. The bright side is my web designer got my new website to finally work correctly for Twitter yesterday. And I put a new short sale in Galt on the market today. I prefer my method of selling real estate. The one where the sellers contact me and not the other way around. Nobody wants to be hounded by a real estate agent.
Photo: Shutterstock
