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A New Condo Listing at Riva on the River
Riva on the River condo Community Center offers a clubhouse and pool.
Because I agreed to take a new condo listing at Riva on the River today, a day of many appointments crammed on top of each other, including our Lyon agent awards celebration tonight at the Sacramento Hyatt, my husband says it did not surprise him that I agreed to do it. He says I am a crammer of appointments. It adds a small amount of pressure to my business life, and many agents would not take on such a hectic schedule. But it’s also where I perform best.
I can’t stand to be bored and idle. It would drive me nuts. I’m just not wired that way. I am always busy and constantly multi-tasking, focused on achieving stellar quality. It doesn’t burn me out, it’s invigorating. OK, and maybe a little crazy, but it’s a system that works well for me. I am also not missing the chance to accept a new condo listing at Riva on the River. It’s one of my favorite complexes in West Sacramento.
Once the bridge over Broadway connects West Sacramento to Land Park, it will be an even more direct shot for me to drive to Riva on the River, and will take about 3 minutes instead of 10 minutes. It’s a great location for a condo complex, to be nestled so close the levee, near downtown Sacramento, yet in the middle of newer single family homes. There is no place exactly like this in West Sacramento.
The HOA dues are reasonable. Swimming pool, clubhouse, nice amenities, a little over $200 a month. Most of the units have balconies or patios, sometimes several. Attached garages. The layout is configured in such a way to maximize privacy. I recently closed a one-story condo in that complex for the highest price per-square-foot of any recent sale. This Riva on the River condo is a 3-story, the largest in the complex at 1,751 square feet. I can’t wait to see it and meet the seller.
So when the seller asked if I could squeeze her in tomorrow, between my appointments, I said all right. I just have to make it to the Hyatt by 6:30 to meet up with the Elizabeth Weintraub Team and all of the other Lyon agents I’ve worked with last year who are showing up to celebrate. I imagine Lyon will bestow some sort of top ranking producer award in my direction. You know how sometimes you dash out the door for the day and think what am I forgetting? Pants? Shoes? Car keys? Check. I hope to show up fully dressed for this event.
If not, so what, at least I have my new listing in Riva on the River to work on when I get home. You will see it most likely in MLS come Monday. Under $300K. For more details, call your West Sacramento Realtor, Elizabeth Weintraub, at 916.233.6759.
How Many Offers Does it Take to Sell a West Sacramento Home?
The Tower Bridge leaving West Sacramento.
If you believe that even in a hot market it is easy to sell a West Sacramento home that presents layout issues sans updates, then you are not a Realtor. A smokin’ hot seller’s market can only set the stage for a sale, it won’t ensure a buyer will fall in love with a home that is, well, not without its challenges. Por supuesto, as a top producer West Sacramento Realtor, I try to explain the challenges to the seller, but I also realize that not every seller is ready to hear that the home she bought oh-so-many-years-ago, the beautiful la casa with the layout she loves, has many things wrong with it from the perspective of home buyers today.
Things That Do Not Sell a West Sacramento Home
First, the main floor el cuatro de baño was located right around la esquina from the kitchen. One buyer joked that while he’s doing his business, he could open the refrigerator with his foot to grab a la cerveza. The kitchen featured glossy white ceramic counters, out-dated white appliances, under-sized ceramic tile flooring, and an island without a sink. A half wall separated the dining room from the family room (it was not open), and the adjoining areas were carpeted (not hardwood). There were only three bedrooms (not four) in this almost 2,000 square-foot-home. The back yard was open to a busy street. But worst of all, the separated attached garages were single car, lacking storage.
These were all el obstáculos to overcome. I figured it could take a while to accomplish my new objective: to sell a West Sacramento home at top dollar with drawbacks. Hey, I don’t make up the problems, I just deal with what’s at hand. I look for a way to put a positive spin on every drawback. The deal is the obstacles present $ decline values in the eyes of a buyer. Even though it’s wrong, buyers often steeply discount homes that don’t meet the standards they have come to expect.
We received 6 offers for this West Sacramento home before one of the offers was realistic enough and satisfactory to meet the seller’s needs. I did not throw in the la toalla and walk away from the listing, like some agents might be tempted to do. When I make a commitment to a seller, I make a promise to stick it out and do my best every single day regardless of how long it takes. If they are willing to wait for a full-price offer, that’s what we do. It’s not my house, I’m not making the payments. It’s not my call to tell a seller to sell for less than what they expect.
Buyers do it instead. They send these ridiculously low offers and expect us to work with them. Their agents send “comparable sales” to support the lowball offers because they are at a loss for any other strategy. No buyer’s agent I know wants to write a lowball offer that is going nowhere but they often do it to try to solidify a relationship. Usually to sell a West Sacramento home, the sellers and I might receive multiple offers at one time, not a bunch of lowball offers scattered throughout the listing period. I never urge sellers to take an offer they don’t want.
Instead, I review my marketing. I didn’t like the photographs that were shot in August with dead leaves all over the place, so in January, I paid my photographer to shoot all new photos. Studiously held open houses almost every Sunday. Plastered large ads in the Sacramento Bee for open houses, and updated the listing on websites across the board. Tweaked everything I could lay my manos on. And finally, the winning buyers fell in love with this home, and we sold the home over list price without a single repair. To sell a West Sacramento home with issues, it can take revised strategy and patience.
I’m satisfied that I got the job done well, and I set high standards for my performance. My sellers are thrilled they got their price.
If you’re looking for a West Sacramento Realtor who produces results, call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759.
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.
The Tower Bridge of Sacramento in Winter
Crossing the Tower Bridge in winter from West Sacramento into Sacramento.
Riveted, bolted steel make up the bridge towers. Steel frames stuffed with concrete serve as the Tower Bridge counterweights, a technique used in the Oakland Bay Bridge; it is the counterweights hidden inside the towers that give the Sacramento Tower Bridge a sleek, beautiful appearance. No matter how many times we cross the Tower Bridge in Sacramento, it never loses its allurement. Designed by Alfred Eichler, the bridge was designed to lift on two separate electric motors from the middle, horizontal to the water and parallel to the towers, instead of at an angle, which gave it a more likable picture-postcard display.
After weather related delays and over-cost production, the bridge opened in December of 1935. The deck of the bridge now rises 173 feet to allow the passage of boats in the Sacramento River. This is important to Sacramento as the river flows from the Klamath Mountains, north of Redding, to the San Francisco Bay. The Tower Bridge serves as a landmark in Sacramento. We like to think that others outside of the city recognize the structure, but many people do not. It is a thing of beauty to us. So much that we argued in depth in 2001 over the color to paint the bridge. We settled on Gold. Some compared the outcome to baby poop, but on a good day, the gold glitters across the water.
Raised lift of the Sacramento Tower Bridge, January 24, 2016, by Elizabeth Weintraub
We were driving home from the movies in Davis, home to Land Park yesterday, and approached the Tower Bridge just as the lift went up. You can see the Tower Bridge lift in the close-up photo above, shot yesterday. The photo at the very top is leaving the bridge, driving into Sacramento, and you can easily spot the Capitol bathed in natural sunlight at the end of the street.
I list and sell a lot of homes in West Sacramento, so I have reason to often cross the Tower Bridge, if not driving to Davis to take one of our cats to the vet. I never get tired of admiring its exquisite beauty. It’s so charismatic to me that I’ve used it as a backdrop on my website.
An interesting note from history was to mark the opening of the Tower Bridge in 1935, the city released 1,000 pigeons, the original Twitter.
Below is one of my favorite photos, which I shot from the top of the levee bike trail near the Holiday Inn on Capitol Avenue last summer. It shows the Tower Bridge as it spans the Sacramento River.
Tower bridge early summer in Sacramento from the banks near the levee bike trail.
Photographs: © Elizabeth Weintraub
Coming Soon Luxury Condo at Riva on the River
Entrance to 2480 San Marco St #6, West Sacramento, CA 95691
Over the years I’ve sold a few condos at Riva on the River in West Sacramento, but this luxury condo is the most beautiful and located in the nicest location possible. It is a highly desirable lower level unit and a corner condo, with a pleasant view of the residential area off in the distance, the greenbelt and the Sacramento levee behind it. Quite private, actually, with double patios, which is an unusual feature not normally found in these condos.
The front patio is enclosed and open to the complex. The master bedroom patio is very private with trees and vines forming a natural screen that separate the world from the interior, a secret spot to sit and sip morning coffee without anybody being able to see you. The master bath has been updated, with a California walk-in closet, separate shower, designer colors, dual sinks, dressing table and a tub for soaking away all of your cares.
When you enter the condo, the first thing you notice is how bright and open it is. Granite flooring greets you and leads to the dining area and into the kitchen where you’ll find bamboo floors. The stainless and black appliances stay; the counters are granite, and the maple cabinets feature pull-out trays for convenience. There is even a pantry closet.
In the spacious living room, there is a gas fireplace that turns on like magic with the tap of a button. You’ll find storage over the fireplace for decorative art, a panel television or whatever your imagination can conjure.
Overall, this Riva on the River condo features 2 bedrooms and 2 baths, plus a laundry room, and the washer and dryer can stay. It’s turnkey, ready to move into, plus you get a two-car tandem garage. The HOA dues are $220 a month and the amenities include a swimming pool, BBQ area, clubhouse and recreation room.
This luxury condo at Riva on the River will be released to MLS on Thursday, October 15, 2015, listed by Elizabeth Weintraub at Lyon Real Estate at the affordable price of $231,000. Please call 916.233.6759 for more information. 2480 San Marco St, #6, West Sacramento, CA 95691. Click here to view all homes for sale in West Sacramento.
