Elizabeth Weintraub, Sacramento Short Sale Agent, 916.233.6759, Lyon RE

My husband is a savvy shopper, always looking for bargains and buying stuff on sale. Thank goodness he's not into those big discount chains and coming home with armloads of toilet paper. I've been to homes where the bathtub was the only place left to stash an oversupply of toilet paper. But he does tend to buy larger quantities of an item when it's on sale.

He was thrilled when he discovered that Target over on Broadway had Fancy Feast on sale. Our older cat, Brandon, loves Fancy Feast canned cat food. Turkey and Giblets. Maybe he's a Thanksgiving cat at heart? He turned up his nose at the other types of wet cat food we've tried to feed him, all of which smell nauseating but appear to be culinary delights for a cat.

My husband was so thrilled with Target's sale prices that he bought a couple of cases of canned Fancy Feast. Except they weren't Turkey and Giblets. Some were chicken and grilled beef. Maybe he was hungry when he went to the store? His explanation was he thought that Brandon would like a choice among a variety of flavors.

No, he wouldn't. Cats dislike change. They don't need variety in their diet. Once a cat has established that he likes a particular type of cat food, that's what you give him. Brandon expects the same food in his bowl, day-in and day-out. It fulfills a basic need that he can count on. Until the day comes when he changes his mind, and then he will let me know because he'll stop eating it and demand something else.

People are resistant to change as well. Sometimes, the older they get, the more stuck in their ways they become. Few roll with the punches. Some gripe, complain, snarl. Many have a routine, and they repeat that routine day after day. Change can be frightening.

I'm sort of an abnormality and buck the tide. I embrace change. I'm constantly searching for ways to improve things -- by remodeling my home, remodeling my car, remodeling myself, even. As a Sacramento short sale agent, I'm also constantly looking for ways to improve communication and speed up the short sale process. I believe communication is key.

Which brings me to my point. I have created a link to my website that now displays, in real-time, the activity on my Sacramento short sales. I refer buyer's agents to the site, which has dramatically reduced the amount of time I used to spend on my cell yakking about them. Clients can go there, too, to check the status of their short sales. Plus, the link is accessible by my associates who can post updates on the site as well.

Best of all, it's free. Any real estate agent can set up a reporting system such as this and publish it to a website through Google Docs. Check it out. Just go to Elizabeth Weintraub's website and look at the lower-left menu. It's the bottom link, called Short Sale Listing Status.

Photo: Brandon, in his Land Park home, by Elizabeth Weintraub

As I was driving to West Sacramento yesterday to take a listing in Bridgeway Island, a buyer's agent called. Just for the record, I wasn't pulling a Maria Shriver, I was wearing my Jawbone. He asked about a Sacramento short sale home that I have listed and wanted to know how much his buyer would have to offer to buy it.

I explained that his buyer would have a running chance if the agent ran the comparable sales and based the purchase offer on the comps. This is the same procedure an agent would use for a listing that is not a short sale. The agent got huffy with me. "I'm an old man," he said, "and I've been in the business for 46 years. I don't have time for this."

His poor buyer. He's apparently working with an agent who doesn't have time to do the job the buyer hired him to perform. This is where the adage: "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all" comes into play. So I thanked him profusely for calling me, and was as polite as I could be while following a cement mixer down Jefferson.

Here is a new listing in West Sacramento. It's a 4 bedroom, 2 bath, with vaults, boasting almost 1900 square feet of pure joy, especially if you own pets. That's because the living room, dining area, kitchen and family room have upgraded ceramic tile floors. The tiles are larger than 12-inch, but I didn't measure them to determine if the tiles were 16-inch or 18-inch. The home was built by Forecast in 2001. It's a desirable one-story on a cul-de-sac with a view of the greenbelt.

The interior is absolutely immaculate. It's in move-in condition. The kitchen has an island, the counters are ceramic tile and there's a breakfast nook that overlooks the incredibly landscaped back yard.

You'll love the spacious master suite, which is almost 20 feet. Plus, it has outside access to the back yard. The master bath has double sinks, ceramic tile floor, a separate tub, shower stall and a huge walk-in closet with organizers.

As I was leaving, the seller mentioned that she found me at my Homebuying About.com site when she Googled "short sale." When she read my article -- which ranks #2 at Google, right behind Wikipedia -- she discovered that I was a Sacramento short sale agent and was delighted when she realized that my office is in Midtown. See, Lyon Real Estate has 18 offices in the Sacramento area, and we have an office in West Sacramento, too. So, this seller gets the advantage of a For Sale Sign on her lawn that sports our West Sacramento office phone number, and she gets her home on tour with our Midtown office over the river, plus my cell phone number on a sign rider. Dual coverage. It doesn't get any better than that.

3044 Sherman Island Road, West Sacramento, CA 95691

Offered as a short sale exclusively by Lyon Real Estate at $235,000

Elizabeth Weintraub, 916.233.6759

Photos: Elizabeth Weintraub

Few guys understand what a woman means when she opens her closet and declares: I have nothing to wear. Guys look in the closet and they see clothes jammed in so tightly that one might break a hanger yanking something out. Wall-to-wall clothes. They scratch their heads and wonder how can a woman say she has nothing to wear when it's obvious that she has 6 times more clothing than them. In fact, it looks like the entire fall collection from Macy's in that closet.

See, here's the thing. When a woman says: "I have nothing to wear," it means she can remember the last time she wore every garment. I know, that doesn't make sense to many guys, but it does to a woman. And that which she can't recall, she probably doesn't like anyway. I imagine women who suffer from memory loss always have something to wear, so that can be the upside to losing your mind.

In my case, I realized yesterday that I have nothing to wear -- not for any of those reasons but because I had dropped 4 dress sizes. Very little in my closet fits me anymore. In case you're wondering, it's called the "don't eat" diet, which consists of consuming 3 small meals a day, no snacks, no desserts, and running around like a chicken with my head cut off slamming to closing those Sacramento short sales and homes in Land Park.

I'm back to the size I was in college. And I have my husband to thank. I thanked him, too, as I breezed in the door yesterday carrying a bunch of bags from my shopping spree at Macy's in downtown Sacramento. "What did I do?" he asked, bewildered. Well, he had stopped making me high caloric dinners and served up smaller portions, as I requested, since I had previously blamed my weight gain on him. He prepares our dinners and handles the grocery shopping. Now, I know it wasn't his fault, but it amuses me to share the blame. Call it a wife's prerogative.

At least now I'll have something to wear when I go over to East Sacramento today to shoot interior photos of my new listing. This is a very spacious two-bedroom home with an extra deep lot. And it's not upside down. Yup, not a short sale. It's owned by a regular seller. Been in the family for ages -- the mortgage has been paid off. I listed it last Friday for $314,900.

This East Sacramento home features hardwood floors, central heat and air, and one of the bedrooms has a murphy bed. The kitchen is huge, almost 25 feet, about the same size as the living room, with space for a table. In fact, you could also utilize part of the living room for dining and convert the formal dining room into a home office, if you needed an extra room. It has a 2-motorcycle garage, as the seller calls it, and a raised deck in the back yard for entertaining.

It goes into MLS today and showings start on Wednesday. If you're looking at homes in East Sacramento, give me a ring at 916.233.6759. I'd love to show you this. And I'll try to post more photos tomorrow.

A fellow blogger and agent on Active Rain, Pacita Dimacali, wrote a piece that included links which substantiate the theory that banks make more money on foreclosures than short sales. Pacita works in Alameda, about 90 minutes away from me in Sacramento, and she is also a contributor to my book, The Short Sale Savior. Pacita knows her stuff.

If the federal government is subsidizing lossses suffered by banks through foreclosure, it would appear that banks such as Bank of America, Wells Fargo and CitiMortgage have very little incentive to do a short sale. Yet, month after month, those same banks are approving my Sacramento short sales.

Now, Wachovia short sales are handled in a different manner. But that's primarily because Wachovia is a portfolio lender. Loans originated by World Savings, for example, that are now Wachovia short sales, close from sale date to recording in about 5 to 6 weeks.

I'll tell you why I suspect that my sellers are getting short sale approval and the sellers Pacita illustrates are receiving short sale rejections. I believe it has to do with short sale pricing and how I market those listings. See, banks are in the business of making money, and they probably don't care where the money comes from. The government can give it to them or short sale buyers can give it to them.

After all, if a bank takes the property in foreclosure, it will still need to ultimately sell that bank-owned home to a buyer. If the buyer is already standing in front of the bank, waving money and paying market value, why wouldn't the bank accept the short sale? As a Sacramento short sale agent, I fully realize that I represent the seller and have a fiduciary duty to get the seller the highest price possible, even though that money is not going directly into the seller's pocket. It goes to the bank. But the bank is also the ultimate decision maker.

At the moment, according to MLS, my short sale listing to sales price ratio average so far for 2009 is at 106.5% of the sales price. Yup, as bizarro as it sounds, that's right. I generate so much interest on my Sacramento short sales that buyers pay over list price. The banks are happy, the sellers are happy and even the buyers are happy. That's how life should be.

I just listed a new short sale in Land Park yesterday, but before I get to that, let me tell you about a weird thing that happened on Friday. I've never, in all my decades of real estate, experienced this before. A buyer who was supposed to close escrow on a home in South Land Park sent me an email with an attachment. That attachment was a copy of the recording status of the home, and the email asked if the home had recorded. Since I was viewing this on my BlackBerry -- which has very small print on attachments, even if I zoom the image -- I stopped at my home office to look at it on my computer.

Sure enough, the document included a book and page number. But it also had Thursday's date, not Friday's. I contacted title. Whoa. The title company goofed up and recorded the wrong deed. That loan had just funded Friday morning, but title recorded the deed in error on Thursday. This didn't affect my buyers much, but it certainly affects the buyers who thought they had closed escrow on Thursday and probably moved in already. Just goes to show that even title companies make mistakes.

Sometimes, buyers make mistakes as well, especially when they are moving to Land Park from out of the area. Many homes in Land Park are unique, and their values can vary dramatically, depending on a plethora of indicators. That's why it's important to hire an experienced Land Park agent or it's possible that a buyer may overpay for a home here.

Unfortunately, some appraisers have no idea how to appraise a home in Land Park. They don't seem to know where the boundaries are for each subdivision or how crossing some boundaries can have an affect on value. So buyers can't always rely on an appraisal to substantiate value.

The sellers of my new Land Park listing paid $515,000 in the spring of 2005, probably the hottest market ever on record for Land Park. It is presently assessed at $429,236 by the County of Sacramento. So, if you're looking for a short sale in Land Park -- and there are only 3 active short sales available in Land Park at the moment -- you might want to check this out.

1000 Fremont Way is offered as a short sale at $325,000. This Land Park Tudor features 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, and according to the County Assessor has 1,471 square feet. It has refinished hardwood floors, barrel ceilings, nooks, crannies, built-ins, crown molding, a fireplace, formal dining room, breakfast nook, master suite, a bonus room off the garage, partial basement and attic storage. It was updated in 2005.

Plus you get boat storage, RV access and a garage that will hold 2 small cars. The back-yard has a covered patio that is made to look like a beach, with a sanded concrete floor, the sides of the overhang adjust and a ceiling fan. There is also a lawn in back that you will never need to mow.

Although the home has an address on Fremont, it actually faces 10th Street, and is a corner lot. But the back yard has a southern exposure. The A/C was new in 2005. It's got everything a Land Park buyer could want.

1000 Fremont Way, Sacramento, CA 95818
Offered exclusively by LYON REAL ESTATE as a short sale at $325,000
Elizabeth Weintraub, Land Park Agent, 916.233.6759

Photos: Elizabeth Weintraub