About Sacramento's Land Park

Some home buyers and their buyer's agents have not figured out that the entry-level housing market in Sacramento is a seller's market, not a buyer's market. It's a seller's market because inventory -- the number of homes for sale -- has fallen and the number of buyers has increased. Two years ago, we had 14 months of inventory, meaning it would take 14 months to sell every home that is for sale. Now, we have 2 months of inventory. We had 10,454 homes for sale in September of 2007 in Sacramento County. September of 2009 had 3,243.

As a result, some home buyers are writing offer after offer and getting rejected. Part of the reason that these buyers are unable to buy a home in Sacramento is because they are writing offers on the wrong properties. I hate to say this, but the real estate market in Sacramento is not like a Macy's department store. Buyers can not leisurely stroll among the aisles and select merchandise that suits one's fancy. There is no time to casually drape garments over one's arm and ask to be shown the dressing room.

The Sacramento market is like a spring lingerie sale at Victoria's Secret. This is when underwear is dumped on a table at the front door and customers are grabbing, tugging and pulling on the same pair of panties like crazed maniacs, leaving pawed-through scraps for the rest of us. By the time you fight your way to the table, the only pieces left are large-sized, purple-and-pink-flowered panties. And the waistbands are torn.

Here is how I am getting my Sacramento home buyers into escrow:

• Before showing property, I check with the listing agents. I ask how many offers the agent has received and whether there is anything I should know about the property or the sellers that is not noted in MLS. I'm looking for seller motivation. I know that some other agents don't do this because every day I receive a report on my listings. This report shows who has accessed the lockboxes on my Sacramento short sale listings, and many of those listings are active short contingents, meaning we are in escrow. Those agents don't check with me beforehand.
• I look at the tax records to determine how long the seller has owned the property and the likelihood that a lower offer could throw that transaction into short sale status.
• I ask listing agents to delay presentation of an offer until my buyer has a chance to view the property. It's better for the agent's seller if the seller has the opportunity to compare 2 offers.
• I often eliminate those listings that are priced artificially low with few days on market for my FHA and VA buyers, because I know that competition will be fierce and those buyers are likely to lose out to a cash buyer. Instead, I look for overpriced listings with 30 to 60 days or more on market. I look for that diamond in the rough that nobody else can see.
  
• I write very clean offers, including points specified by the listing agent. I present those offers from a position of strength, highlighting why my buyer's offer should be accepted over another's; moreover, I make the listing agent's job easy. When the listing agent isn't faced with extra work and knows the buyer is well qualified and solid, that alone speaks volumes.

If you're looking for homes in Land Park, Curtis Park, East Sacramento, Midtown, South Land Park, or any of the core areas of Sacramento, give me a ring at 916 233 6759. I'd love to help you with your home buying needs in Sacramento.

Sacramento reluctantly welcomed the first storm of our fall / winter rainy season yesterday. Heavy rain flooded streets; wind gusts up to 48 MPH knocked down trees, landing some on top of buildings. Drivers in Midtown Sacramento jammed cars into each other -- one ran a car into a building. It was a wet and wild day.

I spent part of the day trying to re-stake a couple of young trees in my yard in Land Park. The maple tree I had planted 2 years ago in the front yard had lost one of its stakes, and the wind whipped it so hard that I was afraid it would break in two. The ground was soaked to the point that it could not longer support a stake.

My crepe myrtle in the back yard was not faring any better. The winds shook it like a rag doll and slammed branches to the ground. It also lost a stake.

I put on my rain gear and ventured into the elements with a sledge hammer, new stakes and ties. I was able to secure the maple tree, but the stakes for the crepe myrtle were not holding. There was only one thing left to do. Prune the tree.

It was top heavy and loaded with too many branches, spent flowers and leaves. The ground was too wet to set a ladder on it. The legs of the ladder simply sunk into the lake. I found 2 high spots near the tree and laid down a board to support the ladder. Then I climbed up the ladder and clipped like mad.

The poor tree looked like it had received a bad haircut, but at least it stopped hitting the ground. I might have saved its life. As I climbed down the ladder, my cell rang. It was a caller asking me: How are you?

Wet, was my reply. So am I, he said. He went on to explain that he was sitting in his car in front of one of my short sale listings and wanted to know the price of it. I wanted to know why he was driving around in the middle of a storm checking out Sacramento real estate.

I mean, I had an appointment with a tenant of my new listing in East Sacramento to do my agent visual inspection. Both the tenant and I agreed that Tuesday was not a good day to go anywhere if one didn't absolutely need to go outside, and we rescheduled our appointment for today.

But here was this guy watching the rain fall on my For Sale sign and calling me. It's possible he had to resort to this because his ISP was on the blink. Rain tends to knock out service in some areas of Sacramento. Given the choice between looking for homes online or driving rain-soaked streets, I know what I would choose.

At least no trees fell on my home in Land Park, like the birch tree in this photo from January of 2008. But my 5-foot cactus pear collapsed in the back yard. Some of the succulents look smashed this morning. The casualties could have been worse. We have so many stately and older trees in Land Park that every rainstorm seems to claim some of them.

More rain is on its way for today. I'm hoping that the worst of the storm is over and grateful that the homes on my street did not lose power this go-around.

William Land Park, along with all of the other Sacramento parks are experiencing the annual event of the birth of multitudes of squirrels. For those of us who love to see these little ones running around, playing tree tag or just darting around, they are truly a joy and one of the highlights of living near a park.

However, along with this event, comes a warning. Baby squirrles are not yet street wise. They don't understand that those huge mechanical things that they have seen from a distance can now do them harm.

For those of us who regularly drive through the park, the habit of squirrels darting in front of you instead of away from you is well established. We know to never take for granted that the squirrel will know the best direction to turn. Now, compound that with little ones who have no experience with streets, and there are some real issues.

Here is the warning: when driving through Sacramento's parks (or any other squirrel friendly location), drive slowly. This is a great season for watching the little unpredictable characters...let's protect them from themselves by being aware of their bad pedestrian habits!

I'm really glad that I passed up going to law school. At one point in my life, I thought it would be a good idea to get a law degree, so I applied to law school. As I was sitting in the conference room filling out the paperwork, students milled by. One of them poked his head into the room and said 3 words: Don't do it.

He wasn't the reason I withdrew my application but his words still echo in my head today. The main reason I decided against law school was because it required too much of my time, and it would have been impossible to handle the workload plus sell real estate full-time. Not to mention, real estate probably pays better.

But I've always been interested in law; I like hanging around with lawyers, and I love to analyze, to build cases for my clients. When I write an offer for a buyer, I do research beforehand. I call the listing agent and probe. I try to put myself in the shoes of the seller and that seller's agent.

I showed a bunch of homes in Land Park to buyers a few weeks ago. None quite fit. But there was one home in MLS without photographs. The description made it sound perfect for my buyers. So I showed it. Showed it again in the evening.

These buyers wrote an offer yesterday, and I included an email with the offer, hitting on the points that I believed would appeal to the listing agent and the seller. I focused on the main issue, which was a property defect. Not a huge defect, but one that could result in a canceled transaction involving a less informed buyer.

The seller lives out of state and is in no position to remedy this defect. But the buyers are ready and willing to deal with it. It's possible that other buyers who viewed this Land Park home didn't even see the defect.

I also gave the seller strong reasons to accept my buyers' offer, and hit upon the listing agent's hot buttons -- those things that reassure the listing agent this transaction will close. It's not a full price offer or anywhere close to it, which is why building a case for offer acceptance is crucial.

My fingers and toes are crossed today -- which could make it kinda hard to type or walk. I love these types of challenges. Which is probably why I make a much better real estate agent than I would a lawyer.

If you're looking for a Land Park agent, give me a ring or send a text message: 916 233 6759. I live in Land Park and specialize in older, classic homes in Land Park.

Photo: Elizabeth Weintraub -- this is not the home on which we made an offer. It's just a very pretty home in Land Park.

It's almost like the week before Christmas in Sacramento. Home buyers are hitting the streets and their computers, frantically trying to buy a home before the deadline for the first-time home buyer tax credit expires on November 30th. In all reality, they do have a few weeks to get into escrow.

A few Sacramento home buyers called me yesterday. John, we'll call him, announced, "Hello, I am a new client." Oh, you are, are you? He was very earnest and sweet. I smiled. John had signed up on my web site the night before. I had sent him an email asking about his needs but he never responded. Buyers can check my web site for homes in MLS without the requirement to sign up, but some choose to do so.

John had found the home he wanted to buy. From the MLS number he gave me, I immediately recognized the listing as a home that had gone on the market last spring. As I was looking up the home in MLS, I mentioned that it may no longer be available since it was such an old listing. John said, "But your web site is updated every 10 minutes." Which it is. Sure enough, though, the home was an active short contingent.

Then, Caleb called to say he needed to buy a home and move by the first week in November. I may be capable of performing miracles from time to time, but this one, although possible, was unlikely. Caleb asked me about homes in Land Park. He said he didn't care if he had to pay more than list price because he was desperate to move. Besides, he added, he could sell it within a couple of years at double its present value.

What? Has he been locked in a closet for 5 years? I gingerly tried to explain that the market is pretty flat and signs of recovery are way off in the horizon somewhere. I mean, Land Park is a pretty stable neighborhood and hasn't experienced the dramatic falling price cuts like some of the other areas of Sacramento, but home values are not going to double in the next two years. Oy.

The thing that both of these buyers have in common is they most likely cannot buy a short sale. In fact, I predict that investors will flock to the short sales now because they aren't under the pressure to close by November 30th. And there are some good deals on short sales in Sacramento at the moment.