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foreclosures: I'm Just Sitting Here on the Group W Bench - 12/01/10 09:34 AM
They say the numbers don't lie. But numbers lie all the time. Look at 'em, just sitting there on the page. Lies, all lies. Can't you hear 'em squawking, making promises they can't keep? Why, I'll never leave you, say the zeros. And then they skip town. You can count on me, say the fives, as you watch their backbones crumble and morph into squiggly threes.
The thing is there are a dozen ways to manipulate interpret just about any real estate market report. What do you want it to say? Whether real estate prices in Sacramento are going up or … (8 comments)
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foreclosures: I Don't List Every Short Sale in Sacramento, Just the Short Sales I Expect To Close - 10/05/10 10:18 AM
I rarely take time off from selling Sacramento short sales. Apart from working 7 days a week, 14 hours a day, I have little time to do much of anything else. So, when I do go somewhere, I don't answer my phone. My team member, Linda Swanson, responds to my emails, takes my phone calls and keeps business running as usual in my absence.
I was amazed when I returned from my vacation at Yellowstone National Park to discover my inbox was fairly clean. Evidently, documents were processed and questions were answered. Escrows are on target to close. And, in a … (9 comments)
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foreclosures: The Truth About the Housing Market in Sacramento - 08/20/10 10:28 AM
I hear a lot of agents bellyaching about the real estate business in Sacramento. They ask where all the home buyers have gone and wonder if they should quit selling real estate. Well, with an attitude like that, it sounds to me like they have already quit selling real estate, they just haven't made a formal announcement yet.
There will always be home buyers and there will always be home sellers in Sacramento. The real estate business doesn't come to screeching halt just because the economy tanks or inventory rises. It just changes shape. More than half of the sales … (1 comments)
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foreclosures: How Many Years Could it Take to Regain Lost Equity in Sacramento? - 06/03/10 09:41 AM
Some home sellers tell me that the reason they have decided to do a short sale is because they are growing tired of waiting for the market to rebound. Maybe they bought their home in 2005 and paid $500,000 for it. That home today is probably worth about $250,000 or less. That's a shocking drop in value for many Sacramento homeowners. It sort of hits you between the eyes.
Perhaps you look around your neighborhood and see foreclosures everywhere. Droopy for sale signs on bank-owned homes. Sign posts leaning toward the ground. Neglected yards with weeds and dead grass. Windows boarded … (10 comments)
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foreclosures: A Real Estate Agent Is Not Required to Show Homes to Every Home Buyer - 05/03/10 09:45 AM
Lots of strange things happen in the real estate business. That's why it's important to maintain a sense of humor. Otherwise, quite frankly, most real estate agents would all go stark-raving mad.
The other day I received an email out of the blue. It was from a person I had never spoken to. This person said her brother was coming to Sacramento this week and asked if I would show him homes in Land Park. I responded to that request and asked for more information, which was not forthcoming.
Apparently, this guy wanted to look at short sales and foreclosures that … (5 comments)
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foreclosures: A New Type of Short Sale Seller is on the Horizon - 04/22/10 09:09 AM
The buzz in the industry seems to be mostly about foreclosures in Sacramento. People are talking about the shadow inventory, wondering what happened and when we'll see it hit the market. As the Sacramento Bee reported yesterday, foreclosures are falling. But short sales in Sacramento are on the rise. Almost one in four closed sales in Sacramento is a short sale. That's not to say, however, that short sales are replacing foreclosures.
I see three things going on. First, I'm getting short sale approval on some of my really old files. Buyers who have been patiently waiting since last summer are … (17 comments)
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foreclosures: Selling Homes in Land Park and Sacramento Short Sales Earned Weintraub an Award - 02/25/10 09:19 AM
The last time I won a third-place prize, I was probably about eight. Somewhere, I have an old newspaper. My mother was an editor in the 1950s at the Circulating Pines, which was a local newspaper in a suburb of Minneapolis. She put a story and a photo of my brother and me on the front page. I am holding in my lap a long-haired black cat named Spittsboo, sitting on the front steps of our childhood home in Circle Pines, Minnesota, next to my brother. He is holding a salamander on his shoulder.
I placed third in a pet contest. … (12 comments)
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foreclosures: Fannie Mae Pushes Short Sale Sellers into Default, Gets Bonus Pay and Bailout Relief - 01/01/10 09:33 AM
I received a phone call from a short sale seller in Michigan yesterday. He found me through an Active Rain blog about Fannie Mae short sales, and how Fannie Mae is insisting that my Sacramento short sale sellers who are current on their payments go into default before Fannie Mae will approve a short sale. The caller said his short sale was denied by Fannie Mae because he was current. To qualify for the short sale, he was instructed to stop making his mortgage payments and go into foreclosure. The seller was devastated.
Don't blame him for being angry. This is … (18 comments)
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foreclosures: How Many Foreclosures Are in Land Park and Curtis Park? - 11/26/09 05:02 PM
As compared to the rest of Sacramento, the number of foreclosure homes in 95818 is tiny. In October, we had 557 bank-owned homes for sale in Sacramento. The bank-owned pending sales numbered 674, and 689 bank-owned homes closed escrow. That's almost an 80% drop in inventory over the past 15 months. If you're looking for a foreclosure in Sacramento, better get in line behind the other 20 buyers who are competing for the same home.
The number of foreclosure homes in Land Park and Curtis Park pale in comparison. That lack of inventory could be due to the fact that some … (3 comments)
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foreclosures: Is This a Good Time to Buy in Sacramento? Check Out These Real Estate Stats - 10/13/09 09:13 AM
An investor called me from the Bay area yesterday to inquire about the real estate market in Sacramento. She asked the familiar question: "Is this a good time to buy?" That's sort of like asking a street vendor with hot dogs for sale if it's a good time to buy a hot dog. What's the vendor going to say? No? He's got product to move.
But I am straight-forward with people. It seems like a good time to be an investor in Sacramento but it's a struggle. It's not easy to buy a house in this market. I suppose Bay area … (5 comments)
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foreclosures: In Sacramento's Real Estate Market, Home Buyers Struggle to Find a Home - 09/24/09 09:44 AM
Sarah, not her real name, is retired and just sold her home in the Bay area. She is in a position to pay all cash for a home and prefers to live around other seniors in Sacramento. I suggested an area of Natomas called Heritage Park. This is an active adult community for people over the age of 55.
We toured 5 homes yesterday, one of which was a foreclosure. Now, Sarah really doesn't want to buy a bank-owned home. The problem with foreclosures is many of them need repairs. She also does not want to wait for short sale approval … (9 comments)
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foreclosures: Fannie Mae Tells Short Sale Sellers to Stop Making Mortgage Payments - 08/19/09 08:30 AM
I can't believe that Fannie Mae, operating under government conservator-ship, is telling short sale sellers to go into default. The U.S. Department of Treasury is giving Fannie Mae up to $200 billion dollars to bail it out. Yet, what we have here is the government telling short sale sellers to stop making their mortgage payments.Fannie Mae is now rejecting short sales for sellers who are current on their payments. Flat out rejecting them. Which means sellers who hope to get short sale approval from Fannie Mae must stop making their mortgage payments. This sounds so bizarre to me. But it's happening … (26 comments)
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foreclosures: Here is Why FHA Buyers May Have an Edge in the Sacramento Market - 06/05/09 10:44 AM
It's no secret that many Sacramento listing agents prefer to receive offers from conventional buyers over FHA buyers. The reasons are many and sometimes unfounded: Listing agents and their sellers like to see large down payments. They believe a large down payment makes the buyer more attractive and solid. They know that credit score requirements for a conventional loan are higher than those for FHA, so they sometimes believe that FHA buyers have lower credit scores, even when they don't.
Listing agents also worry that FHA may impose repair demands that could cost their sellers more money, but FHA's requirements have … (9 comments)
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foreclosures: This is Your Land Park Short Sale, and Don't Deny It, Agent Says - 06/03/09 09:45 AM
One of the things about online marketing is it may cause confusion among some home buyers and sellers. It's often hard to immediately pinpoint who the listing agent is for some of the homes you see for sale. Sometimes agents can't figure it out, either.
An agent called me earlier this week to inquire about a short sale Sacramento listing on Robertson Way in Land Park. I tried to explain that I do not have a listing on Robertson in Land Park. I have 18 listings -- 16 of which are Sacramento short sales -- but none is on Robertson. She … (10 comments)
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foreclosures: Land Park - Curtis Park Home Prices for April 2009 Reflect Wild Swing - 05/17/09 10:18 AM
The real estate market in Land Park and Curtis Park is very different from the market in the rest of Sacramento. All real estate is local, which is why you hear that lovely mantra over and over: location, location, location. Home prices in Natomas, for example, have dropped about in half from 2005 sales prices, but Land Park and Curtis Park median prices have dipped about 21% over this same time period.
Experts often advise home buyers and sellers to rely on a neighborhood specialist to get the facts about specific markets. In Land Park where I sell, for example, there … (4 comments)
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foreclosures: April 2009 Real Estate Stats for Sacramento Show Prices Going Up - 05/16/09 09:56 AM
Home sellers and buyers in the Sacramento market are advised to ask their Lyon real estate agent for Trendgraphix reports specific to their neighborhood. After all, only Lyon agents have access to Trendgraphix; these reports are exclusive to the company and show precisely what is going on in any given area.
I use Trendgraphix with my clients, especially with my first-time home buyers, to help them understand what the market is doing, and from there we form a strategic plan. Newspaper and TV stories are mostly general and some pertain to national statistics. And, quite frankly, sometimes people who read articles … (7 comments)
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foreclosures: Has the Sacramento Market Hit Bottom? - 05/05/09 09:48 AM
The New York Times says there are signs of recovery in the Sacramento real estate market. Well, if you read it in the Times, it must be true, right? :) Part of the basis for this claim is the fact that home buyers and investors are fighting over the few morsels left on the market. Inventory is low. But it's been low for months. Sacramento home buyers and investors have been going neck-to-neck over the choicest homes for months as well.
None of this is news. Except to those first-time home buyers who are still looking at the list price of … (9 comments)
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foreclosures: If Your Offers on Short Sales and Foreclosures are Getting Rejected, This May be Why - 04/21/09 09:42 AM
A frustrated home buyer in Orange County, California, called me long distance yesterday to ask why her offers weren't being accepted and often, in many cases, were unacknowledged. Now, I don't know the Orange County market because I haven't worked in that area since the 1980s. I primarily sell real estate in Sacramento. But if that market is anything like Sacramento, entry-level housing is hot, hot, hot. Which means multiple offers.
I asked the buyer if her agent had any experience working with short sales or foreclosures. The answer was no. When I suggested she might ask her agent for a … (16 comments)
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foreclosures: Dealing With an Absence of Comparable Sales in Sacramento - 03/21/09 09:37 AM
As most astute Sacramentans know, the comparable sales in many neighborhoods consist of short sales and foreclosures. Almost 75% of our closed sales in Sacramento these days are foreclosures and short sales. But let's look beyond that phenomenon and think about what happens when these homes are resold, and how value will be determined.
Some experts are predicting that Sacramento will hit the bottom of the market this summer. I believe in some neighborhoods it happened a while back, and we've been scrounging around the bottom for some time now, like chickens pecking for grain. Because we have little inventory.
… (13 comments)
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foreclosures: Who Let the Cat Out of the Bag About Elk Grove? - 03/14/09 10:00 AM
A Business Week reporter finally caught wind of what's been going on. Well, to be fair, the reporter had access to a study completed by First American Logic in Santa Ana and tweaked it a bit.
That study showed that most of the top 25 ZIP codes for fast-paced home sales activity are in California. So Business Week narrowed the choices to ZIPs with 10,000 households and picked only one ZIP per metro area. This resulted in the Elk Grove ZIP of 95624 landing in the national number 10 slot of most improved real estate sales for fourth quarter of 2008.
… (9 comments)
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Elizabeth Weintraub, Sacramento Short Sale Agent, Land Park, East Sac, Lyon RE
Sacramento,
CA
More about me…
Top 1% at Lyon Real Estate #00697006
Address: 2801 J Street, Sacramento, CA, 95816
Office Phone: (916) 233-6759
Cell Phone: (916) 233-6759
Email Me
Broker-Associate at Lyon Real Estate, midtown Sacramento. Selling since 1974. Home Buying Columnist at About.com. Sacramento short sale agent.
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