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The #1 Agent at Lyon for January Earned Ranking from Hawaii
Elizabeth Weintraub, #1 Agent at Lyon for January, earned ranking from Hawaii
If you want to be the #1 agent at Lyon, all you have to do is spend a couple of months in Hawaii. That’s my message for today. Because that’s the only way I can figure out how to explain the surprise announcement yesterday from Lyon Real Estate. I am not making this up. Yup, Elizabeth Weintraub was named #1 agent at Lyon for January, 2018. It was a big shock to me. January was a slow month. Just like December. Seasonal sales typically slow a bit in December and January, which is why I go to Hawaii to work from our vacation house.
Further, leaving Sacramento when it gets cold makes sense. The thought occurred to me that I could work from Sacramento and watch the trees lose their leaves. Alternately, I could go to Hawaii and eye sailboats on the horizon. Bonanza idea! Let warm breezes wash over me every morning when I park myself on the lanai to work from my laptop. Well, you know which I picked.
It wasn’t easy, either, for the #1 agent at Lyon for January. Hey, I had to cook for myself, shop for myself and figure out how to work the TV. Did my own laundry. Washed my own car. Figured out how to buy a Paddleboard, a touring Lahui Kai, which I loaded on top of my car, removed by myself and hauled to the beach. Oh, and I shipped said new vehicle and picked up the Subaru at Kawaihae Harbor. Big accomplishments.
Wow, those two months were busy. I also made 2 trips to Oahu from Big Island in January. Celebrated New Year’s Eve with Hella Rothwell, dinner, show and dancing. Then, went back with my husband when he came out in January to visit Pearl Harbor. Learned how to cook on gas grill, a new thing for me. Murdered many geckos. Killed a cockroach. Fixed our sprinklers. Harvested red ginger. Eradicated termites.
Along the way, I closed 5 listings in January. I also listed 6 more and put 5 of those into escrow. Out of my 5 listings that closed, only one was a dream sale, no hassles nor challenges. Two of those listings I sold 3 times due to crazy buyers who could not commit. Another was a nightmare of epic proportions dealing with unreasonable idiots. But all idiots are pretty much unreasonable. I don’t like to play hardball but will when circumstances warrant.
So, see, if you want to be the #1 Agent at Lyon, all you have to do is spend a couple of months in Hawaii. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
A Top Listing Agent is Always One Step Ahead
Sacramento real estate brokers rank #1 in the country for income.
Sacramento sellers deserve a top listing agent who is always one step ahead and knows what is coming down the road. It’s like having X-ray vision. We can see around blind curves. We know if you’re gonna run headfirst into another vehicle and slide down the hill or if you’re going around that curve with ease. We know it because our experience tells us. It works for those of us who learn by our earlier mistakes, and we all make mistakes on a regular basis in the early stages of our career. I made my share my first 10 years, but now I have passed the 40-year mark. I know better.
Time passing is no substitute for experience. You can have an average agent who has been in the business for 30 years but has never sold more than 100 or so homes in his life. Real experience is gained by closing sale after sale after sale on a consistent basis. An agent who closes 3 or 4 homes a year cannot possibly gain the experience of an agent who closes a couple of transactions a week. With every sale comes knowledge. It’s how we can preemptively know what is likely to happen and head it off before it turns into a problem. When you have gained that kind of knowledge and experience, confidence follows.
I was thinking about how a top listing agent is always one step ahead when I delivered a listing presentation yesterday before an audience. When somebody is watching you do it, you think about what you do afterward. My seller’s objective is to sell and have plenty of time to move into new home, which is being built. It’s supposed to be finished by December 8th. First thing I know from experience is new home builders often run into delays. I don’t want my seller to be without a place to live.
By using my negotiation skills as a top listing agent, I figure I can get the sellers at least a 2-month rent back. Another reason this idea works is because FHA will allow a buyer 60 days to move into the home. Given that time frame, I also figure that our hard winter rains could push the schedule forward. For that reason, I am targeting a move-out date of January 9th for this seller. Just to be safe. That way, if the builder is finished on time, she can move earlier, but at least she won’t be without a roof over her head.
To get the January 9th move-out date, we need to go on the market around September 29th. Plus, this date will coincide with our Lyon Real Estate Extravaganza Open House, which is held the first Sunday of every month (excepting for holidays). Her home could very well sell by the 9th of October, given our present days on market. With a 30-day escrow, we would close by November 9th. Two-month rent back brings us to January 9th.
The reason a rent back will work well is because this is a home for a first-time home buyer. First-time home buyers are often renters, which means they need to give 30 days notice. If they write an offer in early October, they might not need to move until the end of November, so it’s just another month for them to stay where they are and take their time to move. Not to mention, we have the holidays approaching, and it’s tough to move around the holidays. Much better to move early January.
This makes it a win-win for all parties involved. No stress. No hassle on both sides. And it’s a great plan for my seller. This is how a Sacramento top listing agent plans ahead and adjusts her strategy accordingly. Every sale is precious and unique to me.
College Glen Home Sold in 3 Days $10,000 Over List Price
This College Glen home on Cliffwood closed escrow at $335K.
When these wonderful sellers were referred to me to sell the husband’s family College Glen home, I was truly overjoyed to meet them. Sometimes, a Sacramento Realtor simply connects with her clients. It’s an amazing feeling. People who don’t express or welcome emotions probably don’t do well in real estate. I can tell when I meet people whether there is a spark, and I can also feel the energy when I enter a home. When both are present, whammo, remarkable things can happen. Further, these types of sellers make me want to be a better agent.
The sellers had appointments with other agents but after meeting with me, I think they canceled those appointments. The husband’s wife literally hired me on the spot. She said, handing me the successor trustee documents: I want you to handle this. See, they could tell. I would do whatever I could to make their transaction a smooth and pleasant experience, on top of netting them the most money they could possibly ever expect to achieve. That’s my job.
Son of the deceased help to build this wall at the home in College Glen.
There had also been a death in the College Glen home, to which I was equally sensitive. Especially since the husband had also grown up in this home. It was truly a treasured residence. My job, as I saw it, was to maximize profit potential and find the right buyer. Lots of people proclaim to be the “right buyer” but so often it’s just a smoke screen. We wanted to choose the buyers who would purchase the home AS IS, not demand repairs nor expect renegotiations later, all of that hocus-pocus employed by some buyers in Sacramento real estate.
The seller told me he expected the home to sell around $282,000. But all of the comparable sales, exemplified by our seller’s market frenzy, pointed to a price of at least $325,000. He seemed a bit astounded, but I showed him the statistics, explained my thinking, my strategy, they unanimously trusted me to do this.
After our open house Sunday, we received multiple offers. One offer was higher, but like I pointed out to the sellers, if they really preferred the first set of buyers — the buyers who submitted an offer on Friday and agreed to wait out the open house — the sellers could always counter the first set of buyers to match the highest offer. That’s exactly what happened and how this College Glen home came to sell at $10,000 over list price, at $335K. We closed 18 days later. No fuss, no muss. No drama. Just a smooth closing. And this is how Sacramento real estate is supposed to happen. It’s why experience matters.
Elizabeth Weintraub’s Thoughts About Sacramento Real Estate in August
The Mushroom at William Land Park is actually a water feature.
My thoughts about the Sacramento real estate market are not necessarily everybody else’s opinion. While the market may be on fire in Sacramento real estate, it doesn’t mean that everybody is aware of what’s going on. In fact, unless you’re in the business or follow the real estate business with a burning passion, which are not equally exclusive, you might be astonished to know what really happens. The first thing I find that is a misperception among sellers, mostly, is they are underpricing their homes. They believe their homes are worth far less than their home’s actual value. I am constantly finding myself telling sellers that they can get more than they had hoped to receive. Reverse was true last year.
Some find my thoughts about the Sacramento real estate market hard to swallow. I joke around and say: whatever you think your house was worth a few years ago, just add $100,000 to it. Not in all cases, of course, but in many I am right. Especially in the $299,000 range from 2011 to 2013. Many homes in the price range are now worth at least $399,000. The upper-end price points are fairing nicely as well, too, just less demand. Much of the pressure is on the entry-level homes.
Our median price point for Sacramento County is $355,000 for the month of July, but our days on market have dropped to 18 days. Median prices mean half have sold for more and half have sold for less. When I compare this to my own production, apart from matching almost exactly median prices, my listings are doing superbly better than that. Looking over the past 5 months, from March 15th to August 15th, I’ve sold my listings on average in 7 days, with many homes selling within 4 days. My average list-price-to-sales-price-ratio during that time period is 102%. From $347,945 to selling at $354,120. That means my sellers make on average 2% more, yet I charge the same commission I have always charged for the past 43 years.
Further, most of my listings sell without any repairs, renegotiations or buyer credits, which puts even more money into my seller’s pockets. That’s what sellers have come to expect. Although, I did have a seller ask me a few days ago why we did not hold an open house all day long. What? He could not believe it was only 2 hours. I had to explain 2 hours is the industry standard for an open house and during our Extravaganza, we do hold homes open for 3 hours one Sunday every month. But I want to keep him happy, so we’ll do a 4-hour open house for him.
One of my sellers contacted me yesterday to ask about selling a home in Elk Grove, and whether I could get it sold by September. Yes, I probably can. I know her home, as I had it listed 7 years ago before she decided not to sell. I thought, oh, I have photos for this, but I looked at the pictures. Wow. My standards have changed over the past 7 years. Can’t use those photos. I’d rather be found dead and naked in the streets than publish those photos. But I did get to share my thoughts about Sacramento real estate and my incredible news that I earned number one agent at Lyon Real Estate last month. The seller replied, “I knew I liked you for a reason.” Made my day!
Photo: The mushroom at William Land Park, Elizabeth Weintraub. Last Sunday was the first time I had ever seen water pour from it. This mushroom is also a portal in Ingress.
What’s Up With Free Seller Rent Backs in Sacramento Real Estate?
Free seller rent backs are common in today’s Sacramento housing market.
Given our strong seller’s market in Sacramento, many home buyers today are finding themselves closing escrow but not being able to move into their new homes due to the free seller rent backs. Part of the reason for the free seller rent backs is to induce the seller to accept an offer over another offer without the holdover possession. It’s also because many sellers are not moving up. At least not in my listing inventories.
Sellers are either a) a successor trustee or trustee of a trust; b) moving out of the area; c) selling an investment rental or d) buying a brand new home. They are not coming to me and asking to sell their home so they can buy a bigger, nicer home in a different neighborhood, which would be a normal Sacramento real estate market. But these are not normal times. We need to remind ourselves that much of what is happening today is NOT NORMAL. We can’t get complacent.
Ordinarily, buyers are sometimes a bit timid about offering free seller rent backs. This is a new concept to many home buyers. They don’t understand why they can’t collect rent from the seller, nor do many feel the full impacts of the craziness in limited inventory neighborhoods, but it is a fact of Sacramento real estate today. Sellers expect it and buyers will agree or the seller will sell to somebody else. It’s that simple.
To protect all of the parties, though, we do ask for signatures on a Seller in Possession addendum. This legal document was prepared by C.A.R. lawyers to protect all sides and state who is to continue paying for things such as utilities.
Three of my recent closings involve free seller rent backs. One was for 45 days. Another 3 weeks, and yet another a couple of weeks. In the last transaction, the seller was worried. Now I could understand a buyer’s reluctance, but a seller exhibiting hesitance was unusual. Why, I asked, would you fret over the free rent back when you’ve already closed escrow? Not to mention, you have your big ol’ pile of money, and you get to stay put until you’re ready to go. Doesn’t this exhibit peace of mind for you?
Because what if I broke something, the seller responded. Hmmm . . . you’ve lived in the property for 7 years, have you broken anything yet? No, but I might. OK, good point, let’s discuss.
But for everybody else, it’s a super great deal for sellers, even if buyers have to wait a little.
