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Elizabeth Weintraub Still Lyon Real Estate Top Producer Recipient
Top 1% at Lyon Real Estate, Elizabeth Weintraub is in front row wearing pink.
Holy cow, I can’t believe how busy I’ve been that I have spaced out making a formal announcement in my blog about two recognitions I received last week as a Lyon Real Estate top producer. The first recognition was for 15 years at Lyon Real Estate. This place is the longest I have worked anywhere in my life. No joke. I got my start in real estate as a title policy typist in 1974, so that gives me 44 years in this business. At the time, it was just a job to get me out of the mountains in Denver and back into civilization.
From there, I marched into my boss’s office. Stated I would go stark raving mad if I continued to type title commitments. On a typewriter. With carbon paper. He told me if I expected a promotion to go across the street to a different title company. That attitude, of course, led to long lunches while I interviewed at other companies. My boss broke down and promoted me to title searcher. I aced that position and abruptly moved to southern California, where I entered the world of escrow. Eventually as a certified escrow officer specializing in creative financing, which led me to get my real estate license.
It was a roller coaster ride through many different ventures in real estate. For a while in the 1990s, I ran a company called Equity Enhancement in Minneapolis. Prior to the inception of home staging. While in the process of buying and flipping homes, I also helped other agents by advising sellers on prep work. I also did the work suggested myself. Yup, I painted, hung drywall, installed new light fixtures, fixed broken dishwashers, you name it. I could do it. I also worked a couple of other jobs in marketing so I could qualify to take out loans to do my real estate.
But it wasn’t until I landed in Sacramento that I really focused back on client-centered real estate. I started working with buyers from the seminar business as first-time investors in the late 1970s. And now I work with sellers. A complete 180. My office recognized me last week as a Lyon Real Estate Top Producer because it named me the #1 agent in the downtown Lyon Real Estate office for 2017. This is an honor I have held for so many years now I’ve lost count. Some other deserving agent is sure to take over that position down the road.
Interesting enough, when I moved to Sacramento in 2002, I wasn’t focused on real estate. We were buying our home in Land Park, where we still live today. I sat in the lobby of the downtown office telling my husband that that this is the place where I would work. Even though I had no concrete plan about staying in real estate, really. And sure enough, not only do I still work at this office after 15 years, I am now a Lyon Real Estate Top Producer. This is in addition to winning the #2 Award at Lyon Real Estate for the entire company a few weeks ago.
I wonder if this qualifies as being an adult?
Why You Want to Hire a Top Sacramento Agent
My month of June closings for this top Sacramento agent were enormous and totaled more than $5 million for the past 30 days in the Sacramento region. Lest you think I sit around sipping champagne while cabana boys dangle grapes over my lips and fan me cool in our summer heat let me explain that it only happened once in Maui last month; I actually work very hard to accomplish feats like this. I don’t sell one or two homes a month, that’s not my method of operation. I don’t focus on only one area or one type of million-dollar seller.
I’m not ashamed to admit that I sold more homes last month than a person can count on two hands and my listings outnumber all of a person’s digits. The sales prices of my June closings ranged from $131,000 for a condo in Woodside to $475,000 for a home in Curtis Park. You can see that I’m not solely specializing in the upper-end homes, but I also don’t do a lot of lower-end homes. Most of my sales are right in the middle between the two, where most of the real estate market lies in Sacramento.
Middle of the road is a good place for a Sacramento real estate agent. I am as happy as a cat with a bag of freeze-dried chicken treats.
I am available to sell a home for any seller anywhere in the Sacramento area, from Galt to Lincoln, and it would be highly unusual to run across an area in which I haven’t sold. I sell practically everywhere and over many long years have developed an expertise in a ton of neighborhoods. My pricing estimates are typically spot on. I talked with a woman in Elk Grove last week — because I am a noted as a top agent in Elk Grove — about selling her home. I sent the prospective seller a comparative market analysis showing her that she should expect to list around $465,000.
She did not believe me at first. She was blown away. She was certain her home was worth $399,000 or less. When she realized how much equity she had, she called a mortgage broker to find out how much she could extract at our still incredibly low interest rates around 4% and whether her home would appraise. Sure enough, her appraisal came in at $465K. So she decided to refinance instead. But I hope she will remember me when it does come time to sell.
My system works. I get results. I communicate. If you’re looking for a top Sacramento agent, call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759. I always have time for you.
The Sacramento Bee Masters Club Edition Arrives
The Sacramento Bee Masters Club edition came out today, but I know this primarily because I belong to that old fart’s group of individuals who still pick up the newspaper off the front porch. Our Sac Bee home subscriber numbers are dwindling, and it’s kind of sad to me to see an old institution like our daily newspaper in print slowly lose its life.
Crap, it was sad for me to see Ladies’ Home Journal bite the dust for home subscribers, and I would never read that magazine even if I was bored to tears at my doctor’s office reception, sitting there without cellphone reception. Watching time-honored institutions die is like watching little bits of my flesh get chipped away by the hammer and chisel of technology.
Print has its purpose. One of the problems with looking at the Sacramento Bee Masters Club edition online instead of holding the paper in your hands is you can’t draw devil horns on those grinning agents with the eye teeth exposed. You can’t put a mustache on that blonde grandma baring cleavage or draw horned-rimmed glasses on Mr. Surfer Dude. Who wants to look at photographs of a bunch of real estate agents in Sacramento online? I mean, outside of the ad department of the Sacramento Bee. Which didn’t do such a hot job with my online photo which, for some reason, is different from the print version.
All of the Sacramento region print publications have this racket going on with real estate agents and Masters Club. Let’s see, they ponder, who can we hit up for advertising dollars and make all of them pay for a wonderful opportunity? Because if an agent is in Masters Club and her photo isn’t there, the public will think she is not a member, so we’ve got ’em all by the balls, um, lady parts. You don’t get your photograph in any Masters Club edition of any newspaper or magazine unless you pay for that privilege. This is not a charity nor public service.
The Sacramento Bee “supports” Masters Club because agents pay the Sacramento Bee to do so.
Who’s got the money? It’s always who’s got the money. The people with the money are Sacramento real estate agents who sell at least 8 homes a year at $3.5 mil, say the advertising departments, and so they run after real estate agents and thrust their grubby little paws into agent pockets. I pay for most publications except for one that nobody else reads. Soon, though, this nonsense can stop. When the newspapers stop printing all together and the magazines shrivel up and die.
And that will be a time of sorrow.
So, even though I yipe about it, I pay for Masters Club print editions year after year.
Choosing a Sacramento Real Estate Agent in the Top 10%
My relationship with Google is that of love and hate. It’s a necessary evil. When Google says Do No Evil, I wonder why they don’t talk to themselves about it. Isn’t world domination in itself sort of an evil goal? Don’t they ever watch 007 movies? On the other hand, Google delivers my products and services to the world.
It’s difficult to put a real estate term into Google and not find one of my articles about real estate. Ditto for a real estate phrase. I continue to write because there is always something to write about, and Google loves me for it, even if the feeling isn’t exactly reciprocal.
Many of my clients find me through Google. They land on my homepage, and when they get here, I want them to feel like I am person to them. Because I am a person. I’m not your cookie-cutter Sacramento real estate agent, either. I believe I’m different. I strive for quality and customer service. My title and escrow background is of an enormous benefit to my clients because I can provide an added benefit that almost no other agent can. Moreover, I offer strategy and analysis. You’ll be amazed at what I can tell you about a property just by looking at the public records.
When clients see all real estate agents as cut from the same mold and being identical, I think they should ask themselves what makes the Top 10% the Top 10%? And then choose an agent in the Top 10%. Because the Top 10% are the agents doing business hand-over-fist. The more experience your agent has acquired over the years, the better for you.
The Guy Behind This Sacramento Real Estate Agent
People often ask me in amazement how I happen to have a life while being a successful Sacramento real estate agent. They want to know how I balance things because in this nutty world of real estate, sometimes, something’s gotta give. We real estate agents work wild hours trying to close business. Yet, those who know me, know I don’t want to give up anything that is important.
The first way I deal with the amount of business I create and close is to be organized. I’m pretty good at creating systems, methods and processes, plus I rarely vary or make exceptions. My priority is to keep my clients happy. I was thinking about this yesterday as I was getting ready to leap into my day and keep appointments, plus list two new homes. I listed a home in Antelope and another in Bridgeway Lakes in West Sacramento.
Yup, I concluded that a Sacramento real estate agent, no matter who she is or how much business she has, still puts on her deodorant one armpit at a time. I was standing in front of the mirror wrapped in a towel, looking at my deodorant when the thought crossed my mind that it’s getting low. I could begin to see the applicator below the white powder. It was then that it hit me:
I never have to worry about deodorant.
I don’t have to be concerned that I might run out because there will be a new applicator under the sink. I don’t have to look for it. It will simply appear. I do not have to go to the grocery store and stand there in front of the bazillion different types of deodorant to try to find my brand. I don’t even know if I have a brand, to tell you the truth, or what color packaging I would search for. I do have specific requirements in deodorant. You know, I want the antiperspirant qualities so I don’t drip all over my clients when signing documents. I want the deodorant but I don’t want a scent that annoys people, so I prefer unscented. I also don’t want to leave white powdery residue all over my clothes when I pull on a shirt over my head.
I am spared having to stand in the aisle and stare at these products. None of those thoughts ever enter my head. My husband knows what I want, and he gets it for me. I don’t know what a carton of eggs cost. Is a half gallon of milk $2.00 or $5.00? I don’t know. I would be a lousy contestant on the Price is Right. I don’t plan my meals or shop for my groceries or cook any meals apart from popping something into the microwave.
I don’t mow the lawn anymore or clean my house. I don’t do laundry or hand-wash any garments. When one of our cats gets sick, my husband takes the furball to the vet. Behind every successful real estate agent is a support system. Nobody climbs that mountain by herself.
My husband, Adam, has been doing freelance writing over the past few years, but that may all change soon. He has more than 25 years experience as a newspaper journalist and editor and, like many others in Sacramento, he’s looking for employment. He might get hired at U.C. Davis or at the State Capitol. Or, he might continue to do freelance writing for various publications, hard to say. But whatever path he choses, I know that he will continue to be my rock. I am so lucky and grateful that he is in my life. You want to know how a Sacramento real estate agent can be so successful? You should look at the man behind the agent.
