homes in land park: Who Rules the Home Buying Decision?
- 11/26/10 02:29 AM
You know what I hear some Sacramento real estate agents say about buyers? If mama ain't happy, nobody is happy -- meaning it's generally mama who keeps peace in the family. Because if you make mama happy, she'll make everybody else around her happy. And if you don't, she'll make everybody else miserable. So, if mama wants to buy a home, a particular home, maybe a home in Land Park, ya'll better sit up and pay attention.
Except it doesn't always work this way. Sometimes it's daddy who better be kept happy. It's rare that we have a compromise between … (17 comments)
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homes in land park: My Cactus Garden in Land Park is Going to Bed for the Winter
- 11/21/10 02:31 AM
I forgot that I had a taken a photo of my Land Park cactus garden last week. All the cacti have done extremely well this summer. People think that it's difficult to grow cactus in Sacramento, but I have a secret ingredient: Cactus Juice. It's a calcium-based fertilizer. You mix one teaspoon of Cactus Juice per gallon of water every 10 to 14 days, which for this Land Park resident means every other feeding -- during growing season, of course. Now that it's raining, I won't water the garden until next spring.
Last year I surrounded the tender cacti with … (5 comments)
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homes in land park: Have You Heard the News About Equator and Agent Achieve?
- 11/19/10 03:17 AM
In between picking up lockboxes yesterday for several short sale closings, I decided to drop in at the Apple store in Arden Mall. I've been toying with the idea of dumping my Sony PC laptop. I work primarily on a Mac Pro desktop computer and use a laptop for travel / client appointments. Been a Mac enthusiast for more than 20 years. But some real estate programs work only on a PC, until lately. I discovered this week that Equator and Agent Achieve are now both cross-platform. Goodbye PC, hello Mac laptop.
So, without an appointment, I marched into Apple. It's … (13 comments)
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homes in land park: Salvatore Ferragamo and a New Short Sale Listing in Land Park
- 11/01/10 04:41 AM
Let me make myself perfectly clear -- I am not an obsessive / compulsive hoarder. Not about shoes, anyway. I am no Imelda Marcos, but I do have a decent collection in my closet and quite possibly can bring myself to admit that I enjoy a bit of a love affair with shoes. My husband doesn't understand. He probably owns 3 pair: blue, black and brown. Couple of hiking boots, and a handful of tennis shoes, whatever they're called these days. I own at least 20 pair of black shoes alone. Dress and casual. Seasonal. Varying heel heights. You know. Women … (5 comments)
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homes in land park: Home Buyers Don't Care What You Tell Them as Long as You Tell Them
- 10/29/10 02:58 AM
Buyers don't care what you tell them as long as you tell them. That's my opening statement when I hand home sellers a package of disclosures to complete. It's the things you don't tell a buyer that can come back to haunt you, not what you do say.
You take a neighborhood where I live and work like Land Park. Because I live in Land Park, I have intimate knowledge about the neighborhood, which agents who live outside of Land Park probably don't know. If they don't know, they can't disclose those facts to a buyer. Although, it could probably be … (22 comments)
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homes in land park: Agents Owe Clients the Truth, Even if Clients Don't Want to Hear It
- 10/26/10 03:46 AM
I was reading another agent's blog this morning about dealing with a screwball situation and unreasonable demands. I made the comment that the icky part of the real estate business is when an agent has to choose between being honest and getting more business. Because sometimes when an agent tells a client the truth, that person is unprepared to hear it. Not only that, but because the client doesn't want to hear the truth or refuses to believe the truth, that person will look unfavorably upon the agent. An unfavorable opinion equals no more referrals. No more referrals hurts an agent's … (32 comments)
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homes in land park: Confidence is in the Mind of the Beholder
- 10/13/10 03:09 AM
I make people afraid of me. Yup, I frighten people. For the most part, they find me intimidating. I'm not saying this in a boastful manner; it's more of an insight -- a confession, because I'm aware of it. How am I aware of it? People tell me. They say that I'm straight forward and to the point and, let's face it, I have an assertive Type A personality. That scares people. Probably because they're not. But then people say that after they get to know me, they are astonished at how friendly and down-to-the-earth I am. Because that was not … (26 comments)
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homes in land park: We've Got Vultures in Land Park
- 09/23/10 02:45 AM
We've got vultures in my neighborhood of Land Park, Sacramento. And I'm not just talking about those agents fighting in the streets after a listing presentation. Because yesterday brought us not only the first day of fall, but we're beginning our seasonal bird migration. This is the time of year that birds travel through Land Park because we are located in the Pacific Flyway.
If you've never heard of the Pacific Flyway, it's a major flight zone for birds that runs through the Central Valley and much of California. It begins in Alaska and ends in Chile and Argentina, although not … (7 comments)
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homes in land park: Didn't Your Mother Ever Tell You If You Can't Say Something Nice, Don't Say Anything At All?
- 09/19/10 03:03 AM
A while back an agent in my office asked if I would be willing to spend some time with her. She asked me to explain how to do a daily real estate blog and show her what I do online. While it may seem to some that everybody is online these days, I know that they aren't. Especially older real estate agents, which tend to make up most of the population of any given real estate office. But I like to help people when I can, so I agreed to talk with this agent.
We went into the conference room and … (50 comments)
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homes in land park: Here is a Perfect Land Park Home for a First Time Home Buyer
- 09/18/10 02:44 AM
Almost every first-time home buyer I meet wants to live in Land Park. And why wouldn't they? The neighborhood is close to downtown Sacramento, close enough to walk. We've got tree-canopied streets, friendly neighbors, great restaurants, the Tower movie theater, Vic's Ice Cream, Target and specialty stores, not to mention Land Park Zoo and William Land Park. I love living here and selling homes in Land Park.
The problem that some first-time home buyers face is finding an affordable home. Many homes in Land Park are worth half a million or more. If you'd like to live in Land Park … (4 comments)
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homes in land park: A Land Park Refinance Appraisal and the Price a Land Park Home Buyer Will Pay Are Different
- 09/05/10 03:33 AM
My client's daughter sent me an email a couple of days ago. Her mother lives in Land Park and would like to sell her home. We've been discussing the list price. The daughter is trying to decide between a reverse mortgage or selling. Figuring out how to price a home in Land Park is an art, just as much as selling that home is.
Oh, I know some sellers who think the only thing that agents do is stick a sign in the yard and go on vacation, and I suppose some of them do (to tell you the truth) but … (4 comments)
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homes in land park: If You're Planning a Refinance in Land Park, Beware of the Crooks and Incompetents
- 08/14/10 04:38 AM
Because I bought home in Land Park in 2002, and I put down 20%, my home is not underwater, thank goodness. If I had bought a home back then in, say, Elk Grove or Natomas, I probably wouldn't have any equity right now, so I am very fortunate to be a Land Park agent and living in Land Park. Apart from being able to walk to restaurants, Target, Land Park Tower Theatre, I'm also close to William Land Park and Vic's Ice Cream. I'm partial to living in Land Park and wouldn't want to live anywhere else, well, except maybe Hawaii.
… (5 comments)
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homes in land park: Say Hello to Elizabeth Weintraub's New Team Member, Linda Swanson
- 07/30/10 03:36 AM
I am honored and excited to introduce my team member, Linda Swanson. Linda joins the Elizabeth Weintraub Team with 21 years of real estate experience. She was first licensed in 1989 as a salesperson and a few years ago received her broker's license. We are working together very closely.
You probably have no idea what it's like to work in a giant real estate sandbox all by yourself. You know, nobody to talk to outside of your clients and your cats. Lots of Sacramento real estate agents socialize with each other but I have precious little time to stand around the … (8 comments)
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homes in land park: Don't Leave Your Common Sense at Home When Buying a Home in Land Park
- 07/26/10 03:09 AM
The Land Park car wash people showed up over the weekend to wash my car, and I had forgotten to pull it out of the garage. So, I asked my husband to do it. When he came back into the house he asked, "When was the last time you had your car in for service?" Uh, oh. He said it shook vehemently upon starting and the engine light came on. Of course, when I later turned the key, it was fine, but that dang engine light is still on. I wonder how long I've been driving with the engine light illuminated?
… (12 comments)
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homes in land park: Here's A Land Park Short Sale and a Yard Worthy of Neverland
- 07/13/10 03:13 AM
You probably could not fit a ferris wheel into the back yard of most homes in Land Park, but my new listing in Land Park has a huge yard for a low price -- more than one-fifth of an acre -- which might very well be big enough for a ferris wheel. I've always adored ferris wheels. There's just something about being swept up into the air, whooshed to the ground, and going around and around that is a lot of fun.
You know who else loves ferris wheels? Well, he's dead, of course, but Michael Jackson. The state NAACP is … (4 comments)
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homes in land park: Real Estate Agents and Their Clients Reside in Different Worlds
- 07/10/10 03:46 AM
I truly believe that consumers live in one world and their real estate agents reside in another. We see things from totally different perspectives. As a Sacramento short sale agent, I don't expect sellers or buyers to walk in my shoes, but I do try to walk in theirs. For example, for years I have subscribed to newly matched listings from MLS for the neighborhoods in Sacramento where I live and work. I keep tabs on homes in Land Park, Midtown Sacramento and East Sacramento.
I simply signed myself up for listings a while back. That's because I want to see … (13 comments)
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homes in land park: What's the Worst Job to Have in Sacramento in the Summer?
- 06/29/10 02:35 AM
OK, my hand is in the air, and I vote for roofer. When the temperature hits 115 in Sacramento, the last place anybody on Earth should want to be is on top of a hot tar roof. I mean, given the types of jobs a person can do in the construction industry, sweating in the hot summer sun some 10 feet in the air falls to the bottom of my list.
My neighbor in Land Park is putting on a new 50-year staggered-design comp roof. His old roof was shake, which didn't quite fit with the surrounding homes in Land Park. … (8 comments)
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homes in land park: A Trip to Yellowstone and a Land Park Tudor Offered at $499,000
- 06/19/10 03:34 AM
How did I get to be almost 60 years old without ever going to Yellowstone National Park? Besides Old Faithful, Yellowstone has almost 300 waterfalls and it's the world's first national park. It's bigger than Rhode Island and Delaware put together. It has 10,000-some thermal features, petrified forests, exotic plants, calderas, weird wildlife and, at more than 2 million acres, a person can't see it all in a week.
So, come this fall, my husband and I are taking a vacation to Yellowstone. We planned this trip last year just before The National Parks by Ken Burns was released on DVD, … (10 comments)
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homes in land park: It Can Be Smart to Pay Full List Price for a Home in Land Park
- 06/14/10 02:50 AM
Home buyers in Sacramento often tend to put too much emphasis on the list price. I've heard buyers say they won't pay list price for any home, and I send those buyers elsewhere. Well, not at first, of course. I try to educate them. What if the home is underpriced? But you can't always pound a square peg into a round hole.
Some listings are overpriced homes, some are priced at market value as a highly desirable home, some are underpriced. Especially when you're looking at homes in Land Park. This Sacramento neighborhood is popular because of its close proximity to … (3 comments)
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homes in land park: Check Out This Ferocactus Pilosus in My Land Park Cactus Garden
- 06/13/10 02:31 AM
One sure-fired way to help conserve water in Sacramento is to grow drought-tolerant plants. When a winter storm in January 2008 took out my birch trees, I decided to remove part of my deck and turn that area into a garden filled with cacti and succulents. Not that I knew much about cacti but I'm one of those people who enjoys learning new things by implementation first, studying later.
For example, when I buy a new piece of technology, I rarely read the manual. Probably because I don't want to read 150 pages translated from another language into English to … (9 comments)
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