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Cat Playing Piano and Listing Homes in Sacramento
A cat playing piano would happen all the time in our house if we had a piano.
People imagine that my husband and I spend inordinate amounts of time entrenched in serious conversations about consequential, essential issues facing society but we are very content to watch a cat playing piano, if you want to know the truth. In fact, a discussion over breakfast last week involved if our 3 cats played in a band, which instruments would they play? He says Jackson the Ragdoll would play a saxophone, but as laid back as he is, I envision him playing bass guitar. Jackson loves rubber bands, or as people from Minnesota refer to those things: binders.
Pica the Ocicat, on the other hand, would play a bass drum. He’s got the big paws to do it, and isn’t fast enough due to age and diabetes for the snare drum. Tessa would play everything else. Simultaneously. She’s like an ADD cat. Her favorite composer is Trent Reznor. Or maybe Dave Grohl. And that’s what it felt like yesterday as I balanced the number of phone calls coming in from potential clients wanting to list homes in the Sacramento area. Like a cat playing piano. It’s taxing, but doable.
We have no control in the Sacramento real estate business how fast and furious the business pops in. People have their own time schedules, and we, as Realtors, simply adjust to those schedules. It seems like yesterday was a break in the dam of Sacramento home listing trickles, though. We have such low inventory in Sacramento. I checked out a few homes in West Sacramento (only a few minutes from my home in Land Park), have another home in Carmichael to list on Monday, a condo in Arden coming up, and a single family home in Elk Grove.
I focused so intently on finishing the comparative market analysis for each that I spaced out my usual eyedrops, which meant my husband had to pluck my fried contact lenses off my eyeballs before bed. See, this is an excellent reason to be married.
And speaking of bedtime, I spotted a Beatles Yellow Submarine comforter at Target in the paper this morning. Instant craving. Yes, I love this comforter. While I enjoy the calming Ethiopian influence inherent in our bedspread, what better way to ensure interesting dreams than by crawling under a Yellow Submarine comforter? Perhaps the comforter could induce a dream involving a cat playing piano? We all have our diversions that keep us sane.
Breaking Bad News to Sacramento Real Estate Clients
Not every real estate client is prepared to hear his agent breaking bad news.
Most of the time a Sacramento Realtor can bounce along with her sunny disposition always looking at the bright side of things, except when it comes time for breaking bad news to Sacramento real estate clients. Fortunately, it doesn’t happen very often. Generally, everything moves smoothly according to plan, but every so often we face disappointing news. It’s at those moments, I believe, that we Realtors are handed an opportunity to make our clients feel better, even though we’ve got to deliver news they might not want to hear.
I was reminded of this yesterday when I stopped at the Sacramento Co-Op to pick up a case of wine. The Co-Op’s customer service department made it slightly difficult to order the case. After listening to me explain what I wanted to buy, the customer service desk sent me to the Cheese and Wine desk. The Cheese and Wine desk said they were not authorized to take my order and sent the call back to the Customer Service, which then accepted my order and credit card number and promised to call when the order arrived.
All excited that my order had come in, I decided I could squeeze in a 20-minute stop at the Co-Op to pick up my order, just before an 11 AM appointment a few blocks away. Dude at Customer Service, disheveled, like he had just rolled out of bed, asked for my name. He misspelled it but people often do. I spelled it for him. Three times. He could not find my order. He called the Cheese and Wine desk. Messed around on the computer some more and then asked for my first name, and lo and behold, he discovered my order.
I watched customers check out. Kids bouncing oranges in the produce aisle. Eavesdropped on conversations. Waited through 3 ATM transactions and then decided I may as well withdraw cash, too. Cheese and Wine suddenly appeared to present a single oversized bottle of wine. Where was the case? She did not know. Cheese and Wine vanished. I waited a while longer and then realized I would be late for my appointment. When you figure this out, please call me, I said, and left. This was fairly irritating, and I’m at the point now where I don’t really care if they ever find my order.
How quickly my moods shifted during those 20 minutes, from anticipation to disappointment to irritation to a cavalier attitude.
Our real estate clients are no different. There were many things Customer Service could have done but did not. I suspect they bank on forgiving customers, capitulated by a strong desire for organic.
First and foremost to me is how my clients will feel when I am in the awful position of breaking bad news. I try to make sure they understand that if I can do anything about it, I will. Occasionally I can make them feel better by offering a partial solution to what often appears to be a dead-end street or another alternative.
The point is I try to find solutions. I apologize for the problem, even when it’s not my fault. I don’t get angry because they may want to assign blame in my direction, as that kind of response is human nature. No defensiveness. People always want to find the individual responsible for the difficult spot they might find themselves in, and I’m a buffer for that. It’s OK.
Mostly people want information when you’re breaking bad news. They want to know how and why it happened and what can be done about it. They want options. They prefer to be in the decision-making position, if at all possible, and they expect their Realtor to respect their opinions. If it’s within my power, I try to deliver that.
How to Effectively Reduce Spam Yet Run a Real Estate Business
An alternative way to reduce spam and just as effective as shooting spammers dead in the street.
I have discovered wonderful ways to effectively reduce spam yet run a Sacramento real estate business, even while cutting out the mortgage brokers and home inspectors who hound to death this Sacramento Realtor with spammy emails. Their actions, of course, now prevent any emails from reaching this busy Realtor. This means, if they are on the other side of a transaction from me, I will never hear from them, which is actually OK. I am not required nor is it essential, as a listing agent, to interact with them.
These guys think it’s perfectly acceptable to go after every listing agent, perhaps wrongly assuming that a) the listing agent will begin to use them for business, or b) the listing agent is bound to work with a buyer some day and need them. Any top listing agent already has her referral base intact, and many listing agents never work with buyers. The constant haranguing from these guys was beginning to drive me batty. Plus, you can imagine how many emails I receive every day: hundreds.
Por supuesto (of course), as real estate agents, we want to receive email and phone calls from people who want to do business with us. Many of these individuals are strangers. We don’t want to lock out potential business. Heaven forbid should an agent block a legitimate call or email. What do you do?
The first thing one can do to reduce spam is don’t put your email out there, if you can help it. And if you do, encode it or print it in such a format that robots can’t recognize it such as agent at bestsacramentorealtor.com. You won’t find my email on my Elizabeth Weintraub website. To contact me through my website, you can call or generate a form, which needs to be completed by a live individual.
The second thing is set up spam filters for email. Gmail already nicely sorts mail for you into categories, and you can specify an address to move to Promotions or vice versa. The problem with spam filters is you might lose legitimate email. To combat that problem, here is another tip.
The third thing is go to your email provider, whichever company hosts your email, and add email addresses — specifically or through a wild card designation, or even by adding complete domain names — to a blacklist. Save the blacklist. That’s an easier solution than adding addresses to a whitelist. I’ve eliminated at least 80% of my spam email. I just copy and paste the email address from the sender into the blacklist.
For my website, I require authentication for all comments so a person can’t spam at random. There are many WordPress plug-ins you can adopt to manage spam. Prefiero (I prefer) to use Disqus. Only after I approve a comment will it publish on my site.
For my phone, the first thing is to set up cloud accounts or sync for email so once an email is addressed on one device, it does not reappear on another. That’s great for vacations. Nobody wants to come back and find a bunch of emails you’ve already answered.
The next 2 easy ways to reduce spam on your phone is to ask your ISP to provide you with Caller ID (so you can see who is calling; it’s only 3 bucks a month) and second, to install a spam blocker on your phone. Check out the App Store. Me gusta (I like) the TrueCaller app but there are many available. It lets me add specific phone numbers while it also identifies and presents certain known spam callers as true spam. Whereas an agent can block the call on an iPhone directly from “recents” (click on the i and scroll to the bottom to block caller), the caller is still allowed to leave a voice mail, albeit as a blocked message, TrueCaller does not allow your phone to answer the call. At all.
And to save your sanity, it doesn’t get any better than that. Qué hora es? (What time is it?) Time to reduce spam.
Amy McMullan in Training at Elizabeth Weintraub Team
Amy McMullan and Elizabeth Weintraub at Riverside Clubhouse in Land Park
The newest soon-to-be member of the Elizabeth Weintraub Team, Amy McMullan, is still in training, but that’s not stopping this powerhouse from jumping in with both feet to the world of Sacramento Real Estate. She’s out there holding houses, taking Floor time and showing homes, and we are here to guide her every step of the way. Amy is the kind of person who can learn from other people’s mistakes without insisting upon first personally claiming ownership, and that right there will make her a superstar.
She says she is dynamic and energetic, but that’s like saying the El Capitan Trail is a short hike. Amy is overflowing with enthusiasm. She brings it to every aspect of her life — whether it’s designing the interior of her charming home in south Curtis Park, her devotion to dog rescue or her industrious endeavors creating custom dog collars as Entrepreneur Extraordinaire at Karma Collars — Amy’s commitment to excellence is contagious.
It’s not entirely by accident that Amy is attracted to Sacramento real estate, and she didn’t just show up on my doorstep. I met Amy about 10 years ago when she and her then-boyfriend, Chris Pendarvis, bought a home in Midtown. We worked together to help her mother buy a home in Arden Park, sight unseen, before her mom moved from Atlanta to Sacramento. Several more transactions followed, and I got to know Amy McMullan fairly well. We’ve kept in touch over the years. I still talk with Chris and see her mom from time to time, and I rarely stay in touch with anybody, so that’s saying something for me. I don’t always have time for people who are not in the midst of a transaction. Just ask my husband.
Amy McMullan graduated in 2005 from California State University Chico, with a major in Organizational Communication. Over the years, she has worked in graphic design, developed creative concepts and fine-tuned brand management, which has prepared her for the challenging world of Sacramento real estate. She is steadfastly dedicated to providing superior customer service, and I can’t stop saying enough nice things about her. She is smart, talented, gregarious, and compassionate with a strong attention to detail. She is the perfect addition to our team, rounds it out completely.
Amy will specialize in working with buyers as a Sacramento buyer’s agent. I predict in a few years, her business will explode into a superstar real estate galaxy, where I know she already resides. I can see it. It’s almost like watching my own reflection in a mirror. If you get a glimpse of that infectious smile and the sparkle in her eyes in person, you’ll know what what I mean. You can reach Amy McMullan (Cal BRE#01990839) at 916.737.6664.
Who is Your Sacramento Real Estate Authority on the Internet?
Ocicats Pica and Tessa (sleeping) keep Realtor Elizabeth Weintraub company while she works.
Do you know the best way to search for Sacramento real estate information online? I suspect most people just stick a few keywords into Google and then click on the first link that pops up. I know for example that I receive a lot of phone calls from buyers, sellers and appraisers and even ordinary people trying to find owners of properties for a variety of odd reasons, because they find my website on Google. They call me because I am listed as a person, and it often looks like I could be the listing agent. They don’t realize that because I sell hundreds of homes as a top Sacramento Realtor, they’ll find me everywhere — and I can help and I do help so they lucked out in that event. Still, they often find this Realtor because it is confusing. That’s disconcerting.
It’s confusing to go to any of the popular online for-profit websites for homes in Sacramento and to try to find the listing agent. In many cases, it’s impossible. What you get are a list of agents who pay a lot of money to advertise on that website, many of whom are brand new to the business and, by advertising on Zillow and Trulia, for example, they hope to find buyers. They are not the listing agent, and they don’t know anything about the homes on whose pages they appear. And everybody knows you don’t know that but you.
Yet, unsuspecting buyers and sellers spot these agent’s photos and are able with a click of the mouse to send one or all an email, so they do. Most of the time, if the viewer is a seller, that seller will do more research; not so with buyers, though. The sellers often will check the California Bureau of Real Estate website to find out when the agent they are thinking about hiring obtained a California real estate license. You’d be amazed at how many agents on those websites have not held a real estate license longer than, say, 5 years.
Then, they will check out a Sacramento Realtor’s website. If it’s nothing but property searches, a templated website, they tend to pass it by. These potential clients are trying to conduct research, and they put more credence in Sacramento agent reviews on a third-party website than they do on the agent’s very own website, so this tells you what they think about the credibility of individuals. Incredulously, they will still click to email an agent who doesn’t know anything about the property.
It’s a good idea to look for authority when searching for a Sacramento Realtor, just as you would searching for medical advice, which I’m sure doctors love these days. I know you prescribed bed rest, but I read online that juju beans and jumping jacks will save me. There is so much bad information online along with the good. Why would anybody take medical advice from Joe’s Garage when they could visit the Mayo Clinic? When I ask my cats that question, who often sit on my desk while I’m working just to keep me company, they just give me that quizzical glance and go back to sleep. That’s their photo above.
When you search for Elizabeth Weintraub on Google, you’ll find almost 500,000 entries. Part of that is due to the fact that real estate agents all over the country take stuff I have written and they put this real estate information on their websites and they link back to my website. I don’t think your Sacramento real estate authority gets any better than that. You can betcha you’re not gonna find that kind of authority from any other Realtor in Sacramento.
