Email Elizabethsacramento real estate
Sacramento Getaway to Lodi
Welcome to Lodi
Make all the jokes you want about Creedence Clearwater Revival and John Fogerty’s song, Lodi, but there were some of us who used to sing along to that song when we were high school seniors in 1969 and did not know the words were Oh, Lord, stuck in Lodi again. There were some of us, and I’m not saying who, who thought he was singing stuck in Ohio. Except Ohio is probably a lot prettier with emerald grass and vertical white sign posts with the street names painted on them. Plus, you know, Fogerty isn’t the best enunciator.
We thought about doing a Sunday Sacramento getaway to Lodi after my friend Myrl Jeffcoat posted a blog about her experience in Lodi and included photos from J. Seward Johnson Sculpture Exhibit. This installation is life-size statues of people doing real-world things like sitting on a bench and reading a book, or standing up bird watching and holding binoculars. We didn’t get a chance to see every statue due to 3 reasons: a) a street festival was in the works, and b) we were busy blowing up portals in Ingress and c) we needed to get to the Ripken Vineyards and Winery before the tasting room closed at 4 PM.
Elizabeth Weintraub and Marilyn in Lodi
It’s odd to admit that I’ve lived in Land Park in Sacramento now for going on 13 years and I’ve never been to Lodi. It’s about the same distance from Sacramento as Stockton, about 45 minutes. Or, in terms of my real estate world, about 10 minutes past Galt, and I do sell homes in Galt as my outer boundaries for Sacramento real estate. But Myrl’s post and photos of Lodi encouraged us to go last Sunday. Myrl often inspires me with her adventurous spirit, just hopping in the car and taking off to engage in delightful experiences.
We parked on the outside of downtown, on a dusty deserted street in front of a Chinese restaurant, walked past the railroad tracks and through the arch that welcomed us to Lodi. The arch sports a golden bear on top just in case we forgot that we’re in California and the historic buildings in the background were a reminder that we’re not out in the middle of the desert somewhere, but you could have fooled me.
Take 27 Restaurant in Lodi
Some guy from our Ingress team sent my husband a communication message that he appreciated our efforts at blowing up and capturing portals around the movie theater. He even offered to buy us a beer at Ollies. Go Resistance! We stopped for lunch at Take 27, a movie-themed restaurant that, for some reason, maybe Jurassic Park, sports a big ol’ dinosaur head chomping down from the ceiling, right next to Batman in a cave wearing a red Lodi shirt. There were quite a few people who were missing teeth, I noticed, downing cocktails in the middle of the afternoon.
But we had a winery to visit. It was a spinach Mediterranean salad with grilled salmon for me and some sort of BLT for my husband. Decent faire. A train continually circled overhead, and we were grateful there were no derailments during lunch.
Elizabeth Weintraub at Ripken Winery
The reason we elected to visit the Ripken Vineyards and Winery is because somebody, probably a long ago dinner guest, had given us a bottle of 2008 Petite Sirah from Ripken, which we finally consumed a few weeks ago. It featured deep cherry and plum notes, very full bodied and extremely buttery smooth, no tannin aftertaste, like a fine Belgian chocolate melting. I had emailed Ripken, but of course the 2008 was a faint memory. It seemed worth it to visit to taste the 2013 Petite Sirah.
The ability to visit tasting rooms of favorite wineries is an excellent reason to live in Sacramento. Plus, since you’ve got a car, you can easily cart the cases back home instead of trying to stuff bottles of wine into your luggage, bottles that eventually will break. I recommend the 2011 Primitivo and the 2008 Port. The 2013 Petite Sirah isn’t quite ready to consume yet. This is an unexpected great getaway from Sacramento, to visit Lodi. If I only had a dollar for every song I’ve sung . . .
Thoughts About Starting the Day in Sacramento Real Estate
There is only one email this Sacramento Realtor likes waking up to in the morning that can be better than a seller saying they want me to list their home and that’s an email containing a purchase offer from a qualified and excited home buyer. Other people, they get up and survey the gardens, observe birds in the water fountain, pet their critters, hug a spouse or partner, but I make a beeline for my computer because it’s time to write a blog.
Before I can get to the writing part, I need to clear out my emails and respond to all those who stockpiled over the night. See, a long time ago my wise husband suggested I turn off my computer and phone at 7 PM so we could enjoy a couple of Sacramento real estate-free hours together. It doesn’t mean that a thought about a transaction might not hit my brain in the middle of The Good Wife so he may need to pause the show while I share my new idea. He’s good natured about it, though. And yes, we have no disagreements over the remote.
I mull over work-related stuff all day. Especially when I’m driving as straight shots up the freeway provide me with a bit of space to contemplate. I don’t know how other real estate agents run their businesses, but mine is pretty much integrated into personal my life and intertwined. The systems I use allow some automation of processes but they all still require a personal touch. There is no way to get away from that attention to detail that is crucial in every sale, nor would I want to give that up because that’s part of what separates me from the competition and makes me successful.
There are mornings, like this one, when I can’t write my blog right away because I need to attend to my emails. They eat up a lot of time if they are important. I’m excited to be listing a home in Natomas today, another majestic beauty in Anatolia tomorrow, a pool home in Del Paso Manor probably on Friday, and quite possibly putting a different home in Natomas into escrow this afternoon. This is because I focus basically on two things: Preparing the listing correctly, which includes all of my marketing strategies, and then selling it.
No two transactions are ever the same. Selling real estate in Sacramento as a top producer is not for everybody due to the dedication it requires, but it’s worked out well for me over the years.
If You Go to An Orchid Show You Might Come Home With Orchids
Paphiopedilum genus of orchid commonly called a lady slipper.
If it’s not bad enough that my mother always insisted on slipping boots on my feet and mittens on my fingers as a kid growing up in the sub-human coldness of Minnesota winters, now they want everybody to wear a bicycle helmet while bike riding, not touch any object but the steering wheel while operating a vehicle and to wear life jackets aboard a water vessel. How is a decent person supposed to succumb to the elements and possible kill herself if not left alone in peace? Next thing you know we won’t be allowed to leave our homes unless dressed like armed robots to protect ourselves from pollution which, when you think about it, might be kind of fun.
You know what else is fun? Well, besides selling real estate in Sacramento, that is. Going to an orchid show. The Sacramento Orchid Society put on a show last week, its 68th Annual Orchid Show, at the Scottish Rite Temple in River Park. I’m wondering, though, if my husband was looking all grumpy when we paid our admittance fees or if orchid shows are typically dominated by women because the people at the desk rightly assumed that he might have preferred to be elsewhere.
Spider Orchid belongs to the Brazia family.
Yet, I caught him shootings photos of the orchids and we spent a good hour walking the aisles and admiring the flowers. I can’t get over how beautiful orchids are. It’s almost like they are not real, not created by nature, that an artist painstakingly created each brush stroke and dot by hand. Each is unique. There are more than 25,000 species of orchids. They vary so wildly, and I love them all. The textures, the silkiness, velvety surfaces, crepe paper, sparkly sandpaper, and how they so can resemble insects like butterflies, or arachnids like spiders and other creatures in mother nature. I haven’t met an orchid I don’t like. If you ever get a chance to visit Lanai, Hawaii, go up into the mountains to see the Four Seasons Orchid Greenhouse.
Pink phalaenopsis “moth” orchid
I also learned they are orchids because, unlike other flowers that contain separate sexual identity, the male and female parts of an orchid are combined in the column. The stamens attach to pistils, which was new information to me, so I thought I would share it with you. In fact, the whole world of orchids is new to me. I started to read about the families and genus but then it was back to working on Sacramento real estate when my cell rang.
Oh, also, I did come home with a few orchids to try to grow on my own. Just a pinch of fertilizer and water once a week. I can do that. At the very top of this blog is a lady slipper that I bought. Such a cute little pouch and the dots on the tongue thing in the center give me shivers. It’s genus is paphiopedilum. If nothing else, I can walk around saying big words like that and drop them into casual conversations until I learn what I’m talking about.
In closing, it should be noted, btw, that the California Senator Carol Liu who is introducing the bike helmet law has flat hair.
Photos: Elizabeth Weintraub
Would Jon Snow Know Anything if He Sold Sacramento Real Estate?
The slogan if Jon Snow sold Sacramento Real Estate.
Before I talk about Sacramento real estate, I’ve got to point out I noticed that John Oliver meets Snowden is a high trending item online today, although, that was so Last Week Tonight ago, and while an intriguing, amusing and informative segment, it was not half the hilarious sentiment carried forth when Jon Snow meets Seth Meyers at a dinner party in Manhattan.
Not that I stay up late to watch TV, but thank goodness for technology and the main reason why I do not know when anything actually airs on television anymore. My husband handles the delicate balancing of TIVO, Netflix streaming and DVDs to the point where I don’t know half the time if what I’m watching on our big screen TV is this week or last year’s programming.
Even though I used to own a 19-inch television (set, as they were once called, a television SET, even though it was only one box).
Yes, sirree, in fact I started watching TV way back before stereo sound was invented, and we had to use rabbit ears to get reception, plus actually lift our butts up off the floor to change the channel on the TV, of which there were only 4 to choose among. Being the pioneer television watcher that I am, you’d think I might know all about television because of my vast experience. Although, like I mentioned the other day, I am vastly proud of my ability to turn on my television, connect to the thingie on the left or the other thingie on the right to either watch TV or a DVD. Not every pioneer TV viewer can do that.
This is very similar to some sellers who have friends who used to be in real estate or sell real estate in some other city and try to tell me that they know all about Sacramento real estate and our real estate market. Just because a person has a real estate license does not mean that person should be selling real estate, that’s the first problem. They make it too danged easy to get a real estate license, and the scary truth is an extremely large percentage of agents with a license have little idea what they’re doing. Obtaining a license doesn’t teach a person how to use it.
Second, you’ve got to be in the real estate business, working in the metro area where the real estate is located to have an opinion worth measuring and, even so, that opinion could be completely offset / skewed by a myriad of factors. Third, everybody works differently. You’ll rarely find two agents who do the same thing the same way. Production numbers are also no guarantee, because we’ve all met clueless agents connected to a feeding tube of clients who, despite the agent’s inherent inabilities to manage a real estate transaction, miraculously close sales on the same bell curve as those selling 2 or 3 homes a year.
When a mistrusting seller proudly proclaims to his agent that the seller has a friend in the real estate business, that generally means trouble. Especially if that friend lives in some other part of the country and is handing out contrary advice not pertinent to Sacramento real estate. One can’t just respond: put a sock in it because they don’t really understand the source of that advice, only that they trust that person and they don’t know their agent, must less trust that individual.
When I hear stuff like that, it makes me want to ask if they’d like to take my husband’s 13-inch TV off our hands.
If you need real estate advice, take it from an experienced real estate agent selling a decent volume of real estate and who works every single day in the business in your area. Choose an agent with 5-star reviews and ecstatic clients. If you need help with Sacramento Real Estate, call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759. I answer my cell.
How to Rely on Creative Problem Solving for Sacramento Real Estate
Realtors rely daily on creative problem solving abilities.
Creative problem solving can’t really be taught in schools or silly seminars, you’ve either got the ability or you don’t. If you have the ability, it can be developed and refined, but if you don’t have the ability to employ creative problem solving, then your next best bet is to align yourself with somebody who does. It’s especially helpful to have this ability when you’re selling Sacramento real estate, because no two situations are ever identical.
If I were to try to teach another agent, though, how to hone in on creative problem solving, I would begin with exercises. You know, set up a fictional situation and then ask for solutions, see how many different types of approaches the agent can come up with. First, one identifies the players: their strengths and weaknesses; next the final outcome desired. What is left over in the middle is how you do it. It’s called critical thinking. It’s like those diagrams with lines and arrows predicting outcomes: if you do A and B then proceed to C, unless you do B without A, then go to E.
I realize this sounds overly simplistic to many but many complicated things appear simple when they are broken down into separate components and analyzed. I’ll give you an example. Say a seller has moved out of state and a buyer’s agent goes over to check on the house and make sure it is ready for an appraisal. Perhaps she discovers the key won’t open the door. That’s a common scenario with keys and it happens a lot. One thing I always do when given a set of keys is lock the door, insert the key into the lock and turn to make sure the key works. Then I place the keys into the lockbox. So, when an agent calls to say the key doesn’t work, I can pretty much figure the odds are it is operator error.
Unless it is not. When construction crews have been into the home to make repairs after squatters broke in and vandalized the place, though, the odds of operator error go way down. I left the buyer’s agent a voice mail message and suggested she give it the old college try, but if the keys don’t work, then she has my permission to call a locksmith and change the locks. I called the seller and asked if the keys had been changed. Not to the seller’s knowledge. But the seller was perfectly OK with changing the locks, anything to get the transaction closed.
The agent called back and left me a voice mail saying she did not own the home and did not feel comfortable changing the locks. She wondered if the seller had other keys. This is where creative problem solving comes in. I called the agent, got her in person this time, and relayed the conversation I had had with the seller. It went something like this: I told the seller that the buyer’s agent is one of those agents who needs to follow all the rules and will not change the locks, so you might have to drive a couple hundred miles to change the locks yourself . . . when the buyer’s agent cut me off and said she would gladly change the locks. Could I recommend a locksmith? You betcha.
See, nobody wants to be accused of always following the rules. Nobody wants to be a pansy. There is getting the job done and there is following the rules. Sometimes you’ve got to focus on getting the job done. If you need a creative Sacramento REALTOR who solves problems daily, you can call me anytime, Elizabeth Weintraub, at 916.233.6759. I answer my phone.
