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Where are the Property Lines for Homes in Sacramento?
A buyer’s agent asked this Sacramento Realtor the million-dollar question yesterday. She wanted to know where are the property lines for a home in Sacramento. Yes, just go ahead and ask your seller, the agent requested. Well, I will advise the seller not to answer that kind of question. Even if he thinks he knows the answer to where are the property lines, he should not discuss it. Because he could be wrong. Little puts a person more at risk than being absolutely certain where the property lines are located.
Besides, there are tools available and better ways to answer where are the property lines. In the early 1970s, I worked for a few years as a title searcher at First American Title. That meant I was responsible for piecing together a chain of title from the U.S. Patent forward. Some of that information was already updated on punch cards, but we didn’t have computers. If we didn’t have a punch card, then it meant a trip to the county courthouse. Which involved Grantor and Grantee books. Manual entries from pens dipped into an ink well.
Anybody can draw out property lines from property descriptions. It’s not rocket science. Simply use a protractor and a ruler. It helps to read this piece about legal descriptions, which I also wrote.
To answer the agent’s question about where are the property lines in Sacramento, I emailed her the preliminary title report. In the prelim is the metes and bounds description. The thing to remember is there is always a POB, the point of beginning. You begin at the POB and end at the POB. If you can follow directions, you can do it.
Another solution is to walk the property itself and look for a “pin” which is a marker in the ground at the corners. A pin is more likely to be discovered for a much older home than a newer property.
An easy solution for those who really do not care one way or the other about an extra foot here or there is to ask your neighbor. Just agree on a property line. Bear in mind that there is no guarantee with this solution that the neighbor won’t sell to an individual who disagrees with your agreed-upon assessment.
The very best way to settle where are the property lines for homes in Sacramento is to hire a surveyor. That expense can set a person back $500 to $1,000 or more. Which is why nobody really knows where the property lines are located.
July 2018 Sacramento Housing Report Suggests Stability
There are subtle changes in the July 2018 Sacramento housing report from Trendgraphix this month. It re-enforces what I see from my professional practice. Since May, I have noticed a slight change in Sacramento real estate. A bit of cooling from the extreme frenzy, and I’ve discovered there are some strategies that no longer work very well, so I’ve been shifting my approaches accordingly.
In looking through the statistics, what jumps out at me is the big uptick in inventory. However, pending sale numbers are surpassing closed sales for last month, which means August should be a good month for closed sales. Also, although the inventory is up, the new listings are down. Yet the average price per square foot is the highest it has been over the past 15 months, coming in at $237. Our median price is about the same in the July 2018 Sacramento housing report.
Basically, our closed sales are down 4.1% over this time last year. Our inventory is up by 22.1%. When inventory goes up and sales go down, we should see a little bit of cooling in the market. It will be interesting to note when we move into our spring market next year if this trend continues. However, the real number I see is the median sales price which has been fairly stable over the past 3 months, moving from $359K to $360K and back to $359K.
Below are the supporting statistics for the July 2018 Sacramento housing report.
charts: Trendgraphix, used with permission from Lyon Real Estate.
Couple of Weeks Ago This Sacramento Top Producer Had Zero Listings
Yes, do you believe that a couple of weeks back, this Sacramento top producer had zero listings in active status? Could not recall a time when I had no active listings because all of my listings had sold. Usually it goes in cycles. But I always seem to have at least a handful of listings in active status, so it was strange to look at MLS and see everything pending. There was a big push in Sacramento right after the Fourth of July, and a bunch of homes went under contract. But going under contract and closing are not always synonymous with each other.
Which brings me to today as I have 6 listings. You might see only four because two listings are going live in MLS this week. But I see six. I listed 2 more homes last week and two homes this week. The missing two homes are back-on-market listings. Released by potential home buyers who didn’t really want to buy, regardless of their initial intent. One property was re-listed to reset the days on market. The other wasn’t on the market long enough to accumulate much time.
Usually this time of year things begin to heat up for this Sacramento top producer. Because we’re getting close to Labor Day. Right after Labor Day, we enter our fall real estate market in Sacramento. This market lasts until just before Thanksgiving. That’s not say that November and December cannot be busy months because they can. We sell real estate year-round in Sacramento.
But August is a tricky month. Families often go on vacation. Get ready for back to school. Preoccupied. And it’s generally quite hot. I read that since 1941, every day in the months of June, July and August has had a 100-degree day. In fact, when I first came to Sacramento, it was in August of 2002. Bloody hot and miserable, what kind of people live in this extreme heat, I wondered? Yet, here I am 16 years later, and to my amazement, a Sacramento top producer.
Now, I’ve had years in the 1970s / 1980s when the month of August has been my very best month for real estate sales but lately it’s a bit quieter. Some of this could be due to the wildfires in California, with the Mendocino fire being the worst ever in the state. It’s super smokey and hazy in Sacramento. You can smell the smoke when you go outside. Plus our market is beginning to transition to a different cycle. Shifting markets often adds a bit of confusion.
Still, going from zero listings to 6 active listings over the course of a couple of weeks presents a new challenge. That challenge is how to slip them into escrow while maximizing seller profit, which is always my game plan. Because I’ve given up trying to get 3 cats to pose together on my desk.
When You Have to Break Bad News in Sacramento Real Estate
Nobody likes to break bad news in Sacramento real estate. Nobody. Especially not the agents to their fiduciaries. However, real estate is a two-way street. One side can do everything right and the other side can still make a mistake. The side with the mistake might feel like it’s not their fault because it’s some other party to the transaction that screwed up. Doesn’t really matter anyway who is at fault. What matters is the resolution. How we handle the solution.
When we have to break bad news in Sacramento real estate, the best way to do it is in person, but that is not always possible. Short of a hologram — why can’t we send holograms already — that means talking on the phone. Even when you know the other side is likely to lose their cool. Explode, maybe, even.
Like yesterday, for example. Things were fairly quiet Friday morning. I had my annual eye exam scheduled in Midtown for late morning. No phone calls. Very few emails and text messages. Started out to be a good day. No sooner did I step foot into my optometrist’s office than my phone blew up. Email after email. 17 emails at once. I know how this looks.
Oh yes, another eye patient glued to her cellphone. This one won’t even look up or address us. She keeps staring at her emails. So rude.
Well, they don’t come right out and say it, but you can feel the vibe going on. I am not another rude patient. Heck no, I put my phone in my lap when it came time to look at the letters on the wall and read them off. After I figured out the cup they handed me was not for my ear and actually placed it over my left eye, I was doing pretty well. Because, you know, it takes time for them to type the data into the computer, time to get the drops to dilate my eyes and make them look like I just dropped acid.
Time I could use reading and answering emails. Because a file that was supposed to fund and record by noon wasn’t happening. Which meant the concurrent closing wasn’t happening, either. How can I finish an eye exam when this is going on?
I left without my contacts’ prescription, too. Darn.
Got into my car and found it halfway blocked by an enormous moving van. I’m wearing dark sunglasses behind my own polarized sunglasses, and everything is so dark I cannot see to maneuver. But somehow I made it out of my parking spot. Tried to drive to the entrance to the street on Alhambra, but more emails dinged. Plus, my music was playing (because you cannot turn it off in a newer Mercedes). The dealer said I can only turn down the sound. Or pause it, which it what I would have done if I could see my phone.
I should look into this further because that is a stupid design flaw, if it is true.
Well, it was time to break the bad news in Sacramento real estate. Could not put it off. The seller absolutely needed to know what had happened and what we could do about the situation. Do you email? Text? What? Nope, that’s the chicken, loser way out. Not a loser. A phone call is best. Except, because I could not see my phone due to the dark sunglasses and eye dilation, I poked at the screen. Missed the “call” button and ended up in FaceTime. Uh, oh.
I got to watch my seller’s eyes divert to the ceiling. Look down at the floor. Scrunch up the face. Eyes a blaze. That was painful. But it was the right thing to do. Comes with the territory. Fortunately, I don’t have to break bad news in Sacramento real estate very often. Hardly ever. Most of the time I am able to anticipate problems and stop them from happening. But not much you can do when the other side makes a mistake. It reflects on the listing agent even if the agent can’t anticipate or cause it. It’s why we make the big bucks. Because the buck stops here.
The Difference Between Real News or a Con Job
Do you know the difference between real news or a con job? Are you being solicited as a consumer or are you receiving important information? In our Sacramento Bee on Sunday, my eyes fell on an article about 5 things that make you money when selling a home. None of the things in that article made any sense. Five bullet points and the middle point talked about a new roof, naming a certain roofing company. A new roof won’t make a seller more money. It’s a maintenance item not an improvement. A few more paragraphs down, the roofing company website was noted. This was not an article. The piece was an advertisement.
They are getting so clever and slick with this stuff. OK, says I, instead I will read my new RisMedia magazine. Except half of the articles in that magazine are written by third-party vendors who would LOVE to do business with Realtors. In fact, the entire slant of many so-called informational articles are about why the reader should purchase the author’s service or product. Makes me wonder if the magazine charges the vendors who supply it with content.
It’s bad enough there are news stations in this country where you can’t get the news. You would think it would be news because they call themselves a news station. But it’s not. You know how you can tell whether it is real news or a con job? If it is real news, the reporter will give you the facts without personal commentary. If it is not real news, the reporter will share what the reporter thinks about it. This is not real news because reporters are independent third parties reporting the hard, cold facts. Not opinions.
When they share opinions, they are no longer reporters. They are television personalities with commentary. Like Geraldo.
I have a strong aversion to being sold stuff and having it disguised as real news. I like to tell myself that I know the difference between real news and a con job, but that line is constantly blurring. Makes me wonder if children today will know the difference when they become adults. They don’t read newspapers. Only skim headlines now.
Common nature for many people to have an agenda. Just saying, I’m not gonna go into what you should think about the news, but at least try to get your factual news from a reputable source. If you hear a talking-head on television sharing an opinion, flip the channel until you find a real news station. Can you imagine Walter Cronkite inserting his own thoughts into a news story? That would be ludicrous.
Similarly, if you’re looking for an agent to help you buy a home in Sacramento, do not ask the listing agent to represent you. Hire an exclusive buyer’s agent who will represent only your interests and not that of the seller. Don’t get ripped off. You owe it yourself to hire your own buyer’s agent. It costs the same, and the specialty services offered by a real-life buyer’s agent will blow you away. We have expert buyer’s agents on the Elizabeth Weintraub Team waiting to hear from you. Call 916.233.6759.
