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sacramento short sales: The Apple Pie of Sacramento Short Sales is No Dessert - 05/26/12 07:37 AM
Imagine you're having dinner at a restaurant. You've finished your meal and are awaiting for dessert when your cell phone rings. So, you excuse yourself from the table, grab your cell and head out to the parking lot to talk. When you come back to your table, everybody is gone, the table is cleared, and the waiter elbows you to ask: "Do you have a reservation?"
You wonder if this is the Twilight Zone. You say, "I just want to eat my apple pie." No, the waiter says you must call a special 800# and make a reservation. Then, they will … (9 comments)
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sacramento short sales: Sacramento Home Buyers Learn the Hard Way If You Snooze You Lose - 05/17/12 06:49 AM
Everybody has their own way of dealing with chaos. And chaos is exactly what we have in the Sacramento real estate market right now. It's absurd. The market is so wild that I've taken to putting listings on the market at midnight now. No joke. I'm not slipping them into MLS mid afternoon, no sirree. Live at midnight.
Then I get everybody into position for the onslaught the following morning. Shields in position, Scotty. Our gravitational sensors are spinning. Warp drive has been knocked out. All power to forward shields.
This is because emails go out to buyers from their agents … (7 comments)
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sacramento short sales: If You Can't Believe a Green Tree Rep, By Gosh, Whom Can You Believe? - 05/16/12 06:47 AM
Why do people want to believe the bank is their friend? Those warm fuzzy days of friendly banksters are history. You especially can't believe what you hear from a bill collector such as Green Tree.
I know of Sacramento short sale agents who won't touch a Green Tree short sale with a 10-foot pole, but I'm not one of them. I routinely get Green Tree short sales approved. Even though Green Tree can be very aggressive. I hear from my Sacramento sellers how Green Tree treats them. They hound them to death.
Green Tree calls over and over to demand payment. … (24 comments)
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sacramento short sales: Do I Look Like I Fell Off a Turnip Truck To You? - 05/13/12 07:47 AM
One of my clients said to me the other day that he's afraid of me because he reads my blogs. He was half laughing but he was also half serious, I suspect. Of course, I find that sentiment hilarious. I do not think of myself as a frightening or scary person. Confident, but not overly so. Direct, but not insensitive. I have limitations. However, there is a line that most people won't cross because they know there are consequences.
Agents, especially, know there are consequences. The idea of consequences, I realize, is foreign to many people born after 1985, and to … (15 comments)
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sacramento short sales: We Don't Exist in a Vacuum - 05/08/12 07:25 AM
Everything you do and say will be used against you. But that's how life is even when you're NOT under arrest. You can't walk through a shopping mall without those sitting at outdoor tables judging you. Oh, they might not wink, wink, nudge each other, but they have thoughts in their head. They're thinking: man, who let him out of the house dressed like that, or I wish I had her butt or where did that kid get a sucker as big as his head? Human nature, you can't stop it.
Perception is all around us. Sometimes, it's real and sometimes … (4 comments)
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sacramento short sales: How to Tell When the Market Begins to Recover in Sacramento - 05/07/12 07:02 AM
Because I sell so many homes every year, I am in a unique position to watch what happens in the market across the Sacramento four-county area. Not only am a busy Sacramento short sale agent, but every so often I list and sell a home in which the seller has equity. I get a real mix; although my concentration, due to the market, is basically short sales. I will most likely, based on present production, close more than 100 homes this year without much trouble.
I was talking to an agent a few days ago who used to work at Lyon … (6 comments)
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sacramento short sales: A Buyer's Agent is Your Key to Short Sale Offer Acceptance - 05/06/12 07:52 AM
Stop selling your buyers and start selling yourself, I want to tell buyer's agents. But it's not really my place to say it. I'm just a Sacramento short sale agent. I represent sellers. I refer buyers to my trusted team members and work exclusively with sellers. My job is to get the bank to accept their short sale and close that puppy. I do it quickly, efficiently and quietly, without a lot of drama, if I can help it.
But this seller's market is taxing on everybody. It's really hard on sellers. Oh, you might think it's all fun and games … (9 comments)
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sacramento short sales: Are You Gonna Die on that Natural Hazard Disclosure Hill in this Short Sale? - 05/04/12 07:07 AM
On which hill do you wanna die? That's an expression I sometimes apply to my business. Because sometimes you've gotta take a stand, especially when you're a Sacramento short sale agent. But taking a stand has consequences. If you're gonna do battle, you take a chance on being killed. Not literally, of course. So I choose my hills for my battles. I can't always choose my battles because adversity goes hand-in-hand with Sacramento short sales. No way around it.
But the hill on which I'm gonna die, you betcha. And there's a good chance I'm not gonna die. I like to … (7 comments)
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sacramento short sales: Is it OK for a Listing Agent to Negotiate With the Buyer? - 05/01/12 07:39 AM
It's not often that I talk directly with a buyer in the middle of negotiations. Because when it's my listing, I represent the seller as a listing agent. My fiduciary is to the seller. Fiduciary is an extremely important element in real estate. A fact that no agent should ever forget or temporarily misplace. It's not just the liability, either, it's common sense.
As the representative for the seller, I must look out for the seller's best interests at all times. Number one on that list of best interests, of course, is closing the transaction. Number two is closing it with … (6 comments)
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sacramento short sales: What Not to Do When Buying a Home in a Seller's Market - 04/30/12 07:02 AM
It goes without fail. If I want to see more action than I ever hoped for all I need to do is go out of town. It's like I kick-started the offer stream for my Sacramento short sales and opened the door for short sale approval letters as well. 24 hours. That's all I was gone. 24 hours and the offers rolled in. Plus, I received 3 short sale approval letters. What are bank negotiators doing working on a Friday night? It's not like they have Mondays off because they're all crawling around my email inbox this morning.
I felt a … (33 comments)
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sacramento short sales: A Recovery in the Housing Market in Sacramento, on Whose Planet? - 04/27/12 07:14 AM
Everybody's all a-twitter. And I don't mean that in a Tweeting sense. Everybody who has a dog in the race is jumping on the real estate bandwagon to beat chests and roar the market is recovering. Those without a dog in the race are sitting back on the sidelines, munching on pretzels with raised eyebrows.
Because I am a Sacramento short sale agent, I'd like nothing better than for prices to rise. It would be so much easier to sell a home that is not underwater. I think about how glorious it would be to sell a home once instead of … (2 comments)
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sacramento short sales: Work Like You Don't Need the Money - 04/23/12 06:56 AM
Work like you don't need the money. You've probably heard that expression before but it's a good one. Love like you've never been hurt. Dance like nobody is watching. I could probably get by on the income I earn as a writer for About.com. Well, it's not enough to fund a 3-week luxury trip to French Polynesia this winter, but it does pays the bills. So, when I tell you I love being a Sacramento short sale agent, you better believe it. Because it's the truth. I'm not doing this job for the money, although the money is great and I'm … (33 comments)
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sacramento short sales: Call First, Lockbox: What Does this Mean for a Sacramento Listing? - 04/21/12 07:42 AM
My sellers know that I track activity, all the comings and goings at their home. That's one of the reasons to use a lockbox. The little infrared gizmo beams all agent access info directly to a website for me. As a Sacramento short sale agent, I follow up on my listings. I email agents who show and ask if they have questions. It gives me an excellent way to obtain buyer feedback for my sellers as well.
When a seller of a new short sale listing emailed to say he had an evening showing yesterday, I looked up the agent information … (7 comments)
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sacramento short sales: Your Mother is a Hamster and Your Father Smells Like Elderberries - 04/19/12 08:04 AM
I have to be careful when I am facetious. Because I'm such a nice person, sometimes people don't realize when I am insulting them. I suppose that could be interpreted as a good thing. I could say I feel sorry for an agent, and another would think I truly felt empathy -- when what I meant was the other side of the street is a better place for that agent to walk upon an encounter with me.
Some agents are forced to work with crazy clients; I get it. The market is tough on many agents. The limited Sacramento real estate … (6 comments)
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sacramento short sales: Banks Write the Rules for California Short Sales - 04/17/12 07:37 AM
Interesting blow up at the California Assembly yesterday. AB 1602 was pulled from committee moments before Attorney General Kamala Harris was to speak. That's the bill that says banks can't have their cake and eat it too. In other words, this bill says banks can't consider a loan modification while they are pursuing foreclosure. Of course, the banking industry is against it. Because banks write the rules.
If you don't think banks write the rules, you've been living under a rock or not involved with short sales. As a Sacramento short sale agent, I have first-hand knowledge of how banks write … (14 comments)
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sacramento short sales: Has Rock and Roll Made You Deaf? - 04/16/12 07:43 AM
Eh, eh? What's that? I can't hear you. Is it just me or does there seem to be a rising number of hearing aid advertising around us? Everywhere you look; it's ubiquitous. Billboards. Bus stops. Print. And the prices always seem to be a big secret, which tells me there is a huge profit margin in hearing aids.
Then, today, on the front page of the Sac Bee is an article about hearing aids. Coincidinky? Probably not. The American Hearing Loss Association says hearing loss is the most common chronic ailment prevalent among seniors -- but of course they would say … (13 comments)
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sacramento short sales: Is it Better to Hire a Woman Over a Man to Be Your Real Estate Agent? - 04/14/12 07:09 AM
I listed three more Sacramento short sales yesterday. At my last appointment, I turned to the sellers and said, "You know who I feel sorry for?" And Mr. Seller said, "Me?" Then, his wife said, "No, must be me." Well, the truth is I have empathy for all of my sellers. Doing a short sale is not always easy or pleasant. But in the end, it's a huge burden released from your shoulders. You feel like you can finally get on with your life.
But the person I feel sorry for is the person who has a phone number that is … (8 comments)
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sacramento short sales: Short Sales Explode in the Sacramento Real Estate Market - 04/10/12 07:31 AM
I don't mean explode in a blow up kinda way. Although, every so often one of them does blow up, meaning it cancels for some peculiar reason. But it's rare. At least when it comes to the short sales handled by this Sacramento short sale agent -- the short sales that I negotiate myself -- it is very odd for me to lose one. My short sales tend to get approved.
I am talking about the market in Sacramento and how short sales now dominate. We have 3 times as many short sales closing in March of 2012 than we … (4 comments)
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sacramento short sales: Astonishing News from a Sacramento Short Sale Agent About the Sacramento Market - 04/08/12 08:06 AM
My sister sent me a line from the movie Evil Aliens: I have a brand new combine harvester and I will give you a key. She wants a tshirt with that message on it. Well, I just watched on DVD The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, and I covet the tshirt Rooney Mara wore. I would so wear that tshirt out to brunch. You can buy the FYYFF tshirt at Amazon. I did not know that.
Everybody knows that short sales appeal to a limited number of home buyers. That's because not every single home buyer is a good candidate for … (6 comments)
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sacramento short sales: An Escape to Tahiti and Thoughts About a Sacramento Short Sale - 04/07/12 06:55 AM
Every person has her or his own little things that motivate her or him. It's what gives life its pizzazz. Makes some of our sacrifices worthwhile. It's the dangling carrot that keeps one on the treadmill. OK, maybe not my treadmill because I sold that a long time ago after realizing it was nothing more than an expensive clothes hanger. Today, I use an elliptical. But the thing that motivates me to keep going, whether it's selling real estate in Sacramento or writing real estate articles for About.com, is a planned winter vacation.
I don't much like winter in Sacramento. It … (4 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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