About Sacramento's Land Park

It ain't over until the fat lady sings. Some negotiations take time, especially for a Sacramento real estate agent. It doesn't need to be a short sale, either, to end up with 4 or 5 or more counter offers on a transaction. In fact, many short sale offers are accepted in the first go-around, but a lot of regular sellers who have equity are finding that buyers want to play the negotiation game. Some carry it to extremes.

And who's to blame them, really? Buyers want to make sure they get the lowest price possible as protection against flat or falling markets. Most want a discount. Yet sellers want to squeak out every thin dime of equity that they can.

This means that many traditional transactions can take a few days to reach a compromise. My worst was probably when I represented buyers who wanted to purchase a particular home in Land Park, near the Sacramento Zoo, from a seller / agent. It took 5 weeks this summer to negotiate that transaction. At one point, the seller / agent even took her home off the market. Much of the time she was unresponsive. I lost count of the number of counter offers we negotiated. But the buyers hung in there and they eventually got the home.

The problem is by the time an agreement is reached, sometimes the contract can be so messed up that it's difficult to ascertain intent. In these situations, it's sometimes better to simply redraw a clean contract.

Over the weekend, a Sacramento seller finally sold her home. The buyer's agent presented an all-cash offer to the sellers, but by the time they arrived at a meeting of the minds, it was evident that the buyer had expected to obtain financing. It was also eventually made clear that the buyer wanted a contingency for selling his home, yet that fact had also been missing from the original purchase agreement.

This happened mostly because the buyer's agent is a part-time agent. In the middle of the offer, the agent sent a blank TDS signed by the buyer for no apparent reason. You just can't make this stuff up. Yet, the offer was finally accepted. It took only 4 counter offers and 7 days. That's not so bad. But tell that to the poor sellers who feel as though they've been put through the wringer.

Kevin Morisawa promised me 30 days ago that our new lawn in Land Park would be finished within a month, and he was right on the money. My home, like many homes in Land Park, was built a long time ago, 61 years ago to be exact. That's almost as old as I am. I doubt that the lawn has ever been re-sodded during those years.

Stuff flies in, birds drop seeds, squirrels plant nuts, time takes its toll and, before you know it, weeds and Bermuda grass can take over a lawn. We treat the lawn in the spring to prevent crabgrass and regularly fertilize it, but our old lawn looked terrible. It looked like the lawn of a foreclosure home.

We chose Bolero Plus-TM, which has a bit of a blue / green hue to it. It thrives in either shade or sun. That was a big consideration because our yard has trees. It's a 90 / 10 mix of dwarf fescue and bluegrass.

The sod delivery truck showed up at 9 AM yesterday morning with the load. As they stacked the sod in front of the house, a woman walked by with two big dogs. She looked at me and exclaimed, "You're putting down sod??" Why, yes, we are. Then she put her nose in the air, spun around on her heels and sniffed before wandering off, "Well, I thought it was going to be a natural yard."

Hey, I'm just as green as the next person, maybe more so. The implication was I am not. If I catch her dogs doing their duty on my new lawn, I will turn on the sprinklers.

I absolutely love our new Japanese maple tree. It's a Bloodgood and will grow to about 25-feet. You can see it in the top photo, but it's a lot taller than it looks. The leaves are a deep purple-red and, fortunately, fall is the optimum time to plant this type of tree. What I'm really relieved about is I will never need to weed that ugly old rose garden again.

Here are the before and after photos of the front yard. The first photo was shot in the morning so the roof cast a shadow:

Who knew Bermuda grass would be so difficult to kill? Probably everybody but me. When Kevin told me it would take about a month before my new sod would be installed, he was right on the money.

This is the time of year that we see many homes in Land Park undergo some type of renovation. Kids are back in school and cooler weather arrives -- although the highs predicted for early this week (low 90s) are still pretty warm.

Kevin arrived bright and early Sunday morning with his team and sod cutter. After spraying the lawn with RoundUp on 3 separate occasions, that stubborn lawn had finally died. The sod cutter was pretty cool. It did throw dirt into the air, though, and I imagine my neighbors' cars might be a little dusty as a result. If your car has a slight film on it this morning, I apologize.

His guys carted off the strips of dead sod and weeds and dumped the mess in the street. Everybody throws their garden waste in the street on Sundays because the street sweepers come on Monday.

Then they dug holes to install additional sprinkler heads. Kevin says we don't have enough rotors to adequately water the lawn. His team also dug holes to install a drip system through the front garden beds. The drip system will wrap around the side of our house and wind through all the garden beds in back, including our vegetable garden. Except for the cactus garden, I will no longer need to water the flowers or veggies by hand.

Since the rose garden has now vanished, we had some discussion about planting a Japanese maple in that spot. But as I was showing homes in Land Park last week, I drove by a weeping cherry tree on Vallejo Way, a few blocks east of Riverside. The last time I noticed that tree, it was about 5-feet tall. Now, it's at least 12 feet. Hmm. I googled Yae Shidare Higan.

Most of those Google images showed the tree in bloom. So, I hopped in my car and drove over to Vallejo to take my own photo (see above). When my husband came home from grocery shopping, I showed him the tree on my monitor. What do you think of this? Isn't it spectacular? (It needs to be pruned, according to Kevin.) But I really love this tree. It has grace and movement.

No, he hated it. Said it looked like it was diseased and dying, which it's not, of course. I pressed him, but it was pretty clear to me that he is intensely against the idea of planting a weeping cherry tree in the front yard. He prefers a Japanese maple. I pondered this. He hasn't won any arguments for a while. We've been married for 10 years. A Japanese maple it will be.

Here are photos of yesterday's lawn removal in Land Park. First photo is a side view of my front yard's dead grass. Second photo is the back yard. Third photo is dumping the new soil, followed by bender board installation, which divides our lawn from the neighbor's. The back yard is dirt and so is the front. Look at that pile of dead sod in the street. Gosh, I hope the street sweepers take it this morning. It might be a bigger pile than the city allows.

Next weekend, the sod arrives. Kevin says we have to water the dirt daily to compact it. I wonder if stray cats will try to use this as a litter box? Or if the squirrels will continue to bury their nuts?

Photos: Elizabeth Weintraub, Land Park Agent

A reporter from CNBC called me yesterday to talk about selling your home in today's real estate market. She said I blew her away. She had no idea the market in Sacramento was so wild. We talked about home staging, home pricing and home marketing. Apparently, CNBC is doing some sort of fall special promotion about home selling.

She primarily wanted to talk about preparing your home for sale. But I focused on pricing because pricing is key. Basically, I explained if a buyer walks into the home and asks: does anybody lives here? -- then it's staged correctly. But the price needs to be right to attract an offer.

I base my suggested list prices on the pending sales, last 3 months of comparable sales and I examine the present competition. What's out there that buyers will consider? Do short sales / foreclosures dominate that neighborhood?

The most important thing is to look at the home through the eyes of a buyer and the buyer's agent. Representing buyers helps me a lot when I take listings. People think that all I do is list homes in Land Park or Sacramento short sales, but that's not accurate. Listing homes in the Land Park area and negotiating Sacramento short sales are my specialties, but that's not all that I do.

So far this month, I have represented 5 Sacramento buyers who have closed escrow in September. One couple bought a home in Land Park for $50,000 less than list price, with a spectacular view of William Land Park. Two single guys bought each in Land Park and in Curtis Park. Another buyer closed on a short sale home near Tahoe Park, and a 5th buyer bought a foreclosure flipper rental in Tahoe Park. Vastly different scenarios.

This experience carries over when I switch my buyer's agent hat for a listing agent's hat. Buyers purchase based on emotion, but pricing is very important, especially in today's market. I ask for buyer feedback on my listings. I ask what buyers think of the price, location and condition, among other factors. The answers I receive tell me what I may need to do to get that home sold.

I closed 2 short sale listings yesterday. One of those homes I sold 4 times and featured in a blog. The other was a home we filmed last month for HGTV's House Hunters, which will air this fall. That listing was a home the House Hunter buyer didn't purchase. Out of my pending sales, I think I have 2 more listings that may close this month: a short sale in Larchmont Riviera and a regular transaction in Curtis Park. How do I do it? Through the eyes of a buyer.

I don't know how an agent can successfully list and sell homes throughout Sacramento without occasionally representing a buyer. The insight helps tremendously.

Retail stores have been hit so hard by this down economy that some retail establishments are offering discounts on top of discounts without the customer asking for it. I dragged my husband to Macy's at the Sacramento Downtown Plaza this weekend to look at sofas and rugs. Since my little fiasco with the nail polish last week, we've decided to replace not only our family room area rug but also the sofa. For good measure, I'm throwing in a plasma TV and new surround system, too.

He's lucky that I'm not planning to install a skylight, but don't for a moment believe that I haven't given that idea some thought. My home improvement projects have a way of snowballing.

Our existing sofa is a little over 13 years old. So is the TV. And it's a 35-inch TV. I figure since I work from 5 AM to 7 PM, practically 7 days a week, selling homes in Land Park and throughout Sacramento, that we deserve a more comfortable family room as a reward for all this work. That's where we spend much of our time together -- watching movies, cable series and concerts.

When we bought our first sofa, we were at the furniture store for hours. Our former Victorian house had such a small doorway that it could not accommodate a full-size sofa. We didn't discover this until the day we moved in, so we donated our sofa to the Salvation Army. We chose, instead, to buy a reclining loveseat. In fact, we argued over the pros and cons of this loveseat for so long that the store clerk questioned out loud whether we really wanted to sit that close together to watch TV.

This time around, we found our perfect sofa in about 15 minutes. That's only because Macy's has limited inventory. The price tag shocked me. It was at least 20% less than we paid 13 years ago. We told the sales clerk we would take it. Then, the sales clerk announced, out of the clear blue, that he'd knock off another 15%. I sat down at his desk and took out my checkbook.

The clerk ran an online search for this particular sofa and found the model at another store for less. "OK," he says, "I'll give you another 15% off." I didn't have the heart to say I had been prepared to pay the tag price. He was working too hard to give us yet another discount, even though I wasn't expecting it.

Now I began to wonder if the sofa was of inferior quality or if there was something likely to go wrong with it.

This experience reminded me of a listing presentation I made last month. The seller interviewed 3 real estate agents, and I was the second. She called me after talking to the third agent, saying that agent walked in the house and -- without any discussion about the home, the seller or market comps -- announced that she would take the listing at a discount. The seller, of course, asked if I would lower my commission to match the offer made by the other agent.

That's a good question. But the answer was no. In these economic times, it can pay to hire a top-notch agent from a full-service broker. I believe sellers should question why an agent would, right off the bat, offer to work for less. Will that same agent tell a prospective buyer that the seller will sell for less as well? Does that agent offer the same marketing plan? Professional photography? Home staging? Internet exposure? What does her statement say about her negotiating abilities? Will that agent bring multiple offers? The seller hired me.

As for Macy's, I believe that store may want to rethink its sale floor strategy. If I'm sold upfront, it doesn't need to continue to sell me.