Elizabeth Weintraub • Sacramento Short Sale Agent • Land Park

Ah, real estate predictions. See, the thing that is different for me about ending 2009 and preparing for 2010 is I've never in my 30-plus years in real estate started off a new year with so much business already in the works. Generally, the year ends a bit quietly and then explodes about the 5th or 6th of January. It's been that way for the past 7 or 8 years for me. However, in 2010, I will hit the ground already running.

Every year I put together my real estate predictions for the upcoming year, before the existing year ends. My 2010 real estate predictions are based on trends, facts, market movement, personal experiences and a bit of instinct.

I also realize that not every real estate market in the country mirrors that of Sacramento, and my focus is often more centered on the core area of Sacramento such as homes in Land Park, Midtown, East Sacramento, which gives me a somewhat narrow, very local view. But as a Sacramento short sale agent, I also sell short sales from Lincoln to Elk Grove, and that activity broadens my horizon.

This year has been phenomenal. I've closed more than $11 million in sales. In a down real estate market. Yet, I have still managed to find time to work on my About.com homebuying site, post a blog every day, give interviews to media, write a book and take a vacation to Viet Nam. I blame it on my Type A personality, passion for real estate and my saint of a husband. I'd like to add the luck of the Irish, but I'm not Irish.

I predict that the year of 2010 will be even stronger for me, personally. For example, come Monday, January 4, 2010, I will have at least 28 listings in inventory. Of those, 22 are already in contract. The remaining six listings break down as follows: One is likely to go into contract today. Another is going into MLS as a new listing on January 4. A third will be withdrawn and rented. That leaves me with 3 listings to sell. Very manageable.

But 28 listings on the first of a new year is a lot of inventory as compared to the number of listings that many Sacramento agents handle on their own as a single agent. Thank goodness I have systems in place and am organized. My goal is for clients to feel as though they are my only client by providing superior service to each.

However, all of this activity does not take into account the number of buyers, especially buyers for homes in Land Park and East Sacramento, whom I will represent. See, I like to think of myself as a listing agent but that belief is somewhat delusional because every year my production ends up the same. I represent about 50% buyers and 50% sellers. This could very well mean that I'll be writing a boatload of purchase offers next year. Paraphrasing Bette Davis, agents better fasten their seat belts because 2010 is going to be a wild ride.

Some weird things in life can be explained, even if they make no logical sense. Like, right after you wash the car, it's going to rain. Or as soon as the warranty expires on a new appliance, it's going to break. But nothing makes sense about how a service provider such as T-Mobile can pick up roaming charges for cellphone calls one did not make from another country.

Before I left for Viet Nam, I called T-Mobile to arrange for International Emailing. This sounded like such a cool service. For less than $20 a month, T-Mobile promised me that I could receive and send unlimited emails from my new BlackBerry Bold while in Viet Nam. I was warned that if a call came to my cellphone while I was checking email, I would incur a $4.99 roaming charge, even if I did not answer that phone call. And, if I made any outgoing calls, even to voice mail, I would be charged $4.99 a minute.

To get around this problem, I decided to check for email at a time when everybody in California was asleep. That was easy to do because Viet Nam is 15 hours (and a day) ahead of California. As long as I turned on my phone late mornings in Viet Nam, I could be relatively assured that nobody would call my cellphone from Sacramento. And if a night owl did call me, so what's $5 bucks here or there? My outgoing voice mail message directed all callers to my associate, with the caveat that I would not personally return calls but callers could send me an email.

International Email from T-Mobile allowed me to stay connected. I could, for example, forward a purchase offer from a Sacramento short sale agent to my associate, respond to listing questions and answer potential client inquiries. I happily pounded out emails with my thumbs as I wandered through Buddhist temples and munched on spring rolls. You can take a real estate agent out of the country, but you can't take real estate out of the agent.

Yesterday, I received my cellphone bill from T-Mobile. It showed $156 in roaming charges, all one-minute calls to my voice mail. Some of the calls were recorded in a series such as three in a row at 4 AM PST.

I immediately called T-Mobile to find out why. After all, I did not call my voice mail. Not once. Ever. I also turned off my BlackBerry and turned it on only once or twice a day to respond to emails.

T-Mobile said my Sim card registered those calls, which I did not make. It offered to charge-off half of the roaming charges. Maybe you put your phone into your pocket and bumped the voice mail number button, the rep offered. No, it was turned off when in its holster.

The strange thing is the roaming charges covered only 4 days of my trip -- 3 days after I entered the country and 7 days before I left. There were no roaming charges before or after that time period. Why would I place 3 deliberate calls to my voice mail all in a row? I didn't. Now, it was a matter of principle, not the money. You don't mess with Elizabeth Weintraub. By the time I was finished with the T-Mobile rep, he offered to remove all the roaming charges.

But T-Mobile had no feasible explanation why it happened, other than to say don't take your cellphone with you when traveling out of the country.

When I show buyers homes in Land Park, they are often amazed at the size of our vintage, classic homes in Land Park. The square footage of an average home in Land Park is generally much smaller than the newer construction home buyers see in places such as Natomas or Elk Grove.

My own home in Land Park is about 2,000 square feet. My husband and I downsized when we moved from a 3-story Victorian in Minneapolis into our home 7 years ago. At the time, I donated a lot of stuff to charity before we moved. After we moved in, I rented a 30-ton dumpster and threw out a bunch of other stuff. Our new rule was nothing comes into the house without something going out.

Yesterday, I discovered we still have too much stuff. My floor refinishing guy is due to start work on our hardwood floors today. He's giving us a discount at this time of year, so it seemed like a good opportunity to have our living room and dining room flooring refinished. But that meant we had to clear out everything in those 2 rooms.

I started in the closet and found a perfectly good wool coat that I didn't know I had. It's in great shape and still in style. What a find! In fact, half of the coats in that closet have not been worn since the day we moved in. Who needs a full-length mink coat in Sacramento? Or insulated Sorel boots? It's time to donate those coats, jackets and boots.

On top of that, after we moved all the furniture, I realized how big the rooms appear. We definitely have too much furniture. My husband asked me why the bookcases can't go back into those rooms. Because he has his own room, and we don't have a library in our home. In fact, do we really need an etagere? Why? Who needs to look at crystal stemware in the dining room? Why do we need all of this bloody stuff? My husband is concerned that I will throw out all of our furniture and buy new crap, but what I really want to accomplish is to minimize and simplify.

Ah, home improvement projects. They always lead to something else.

One of the reasons that the floors are to be refinished sat all alone in the living room. I had tried to give it to the movers, but they didn't want it. It's a lovely plant that I had over-watered. As a result, we have a dark spot on the floor, damaged from water. You can see that dark spot in the photograph. Our cat is sniffing it. Not only that, but for some reason, the cats love to nibble on this plant. It's like a salad bar to them. And I have to continually clean up the results of that munching.

There was no sane reason to keep this plant. I pulled it out of the basket and set it at the curb. By the time I turned off the lights last night, the plant had vanished from view.

Photo: Elizabeth Weintraub

 

 

When I take photographs, whether it's homes in Land Park or my Sacramento short sale listings, I like to show close-up and personal aspects that one might otherwise not notice. There is generally a texture, a sub-layer, a fine nuance, which can be easily overlooked by viewers, especially online when it's so easy to just click on the next link.

It could be fine detailing in a vintage light fixture, an ornate cornice or the curve of a 1930's fireplace. The small yet important appointments. After all, it's the individual elements that comprise the whole, which are part of the big picture.

For that reason, I thought you may be interested in viewing the color, texture and fabrics of life in Viet Nam. Below is a photo gallery I shot during our December vacation:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photos: Elizabeth Weintraub

As we flew into Siem Reap, Cambodia, our tour guide prepared us for the dramatic differences between Cambodia and Viet Nam. In Viet Nam, you see economic progress everywhere, new buildings going up, hustle and bustle in the shops and its cities are bursting with energy. In Cambodia, not so much.

There is a lot of poverty in Siem Reap, and much of it is surrounded by hotels. Tourism is the number one industry. The average salary in Siem Reap is $2 a day but tourists can easily drop $500 a night at a hotel. Hotels are ubiquitous. The currency in Cambodia is the Riel, but it's practically worthless. That's why whenever we received change from anybody it was in new bills. Nobody uses it. The U.S. dollar is accepted everywhere.

The food we were served was very similar to the food in Viet Nam except even more watered down for the tourists. I asked for a bowl of diced hot peppers, and that's probably what made me sick. I lasted all of 2 days before hitting the bed and staying there.

I did manage to pull my head up and get into a tuk-tuk (a carriage attached to a motor bike) with my husband to do a fast tour of Angkor Wat, because for some reason, it was scheduled for day 3 of our tour instead of day one.

We had a guide in Siem Reap, too, who was delightful, Mr. Ing. You know how some people can take a boring subject and make it interesting, while other people can take an interesting subject and make it boring? We had a tour guide in Hoi An who ended every sentence with "yeah." She barked orders at us like a drill sergeant. She was also very difficult to understand and demanded that we listen to her long boring stories about facts that were probably very interesting but it was lost on me. Mr. Ing made the stories about the temples in Siem Reap fascinating. Except I was too sick to pay attention.

Here is a photo of the Ta Prohm Temple. Many of these temple ruins are located in dense jungle that had been cleared out by early archaeologists. This temple was built in 1186. In the photo below, you can see the tree roots of the Kymer Spoong tree with the wandering tendrils of the charay. It is a vast complex with 39 towers which, over the years, has been heavily looted.

At the Preahko Temple, I shot this photo of a lizard. Most of the lizards we saw were smooth-skinned but this one was similar to gecko. I mean, look at it's feet.

I believe this child was a tourist at the temple ruins. I did not shoot photos of the kids who were begging and selling trinkets because they would not leave me alone if I did. At the Ta Prohm Temple, they have the system down pat. You might not notice when you enter the temple grounds, but the kids take a photo of you. By the time you reach the other side, they have developed the photo and glued it to a plate, which they then try to sell for $5.

One of the kids asked me if I was from Australia. He then guessed Britain. Maybe because I wasn't speaking to him. I swear, they are relentless. When he finally guessed America, which was about #10 on his list, he then rattled off the name of our president, Obama's daughters, Obama's dog's name (which even I don't know), said Rhode Island was our smallest state and knew when Hawaii was admitted to the Union. He had gleaned this information from other tourists.

I asked him why he wasn't in school. He said it's a holy day. Yeah, well, what day is today? What day of the week? What is the name of this holy day? He didn't have answers for any of that. I suspect every day is a holy day for this kid.

We saw several performances of Apsara dancers in Cambodia. Note how far back the fingers are extended. They flex their fingers for years to get them to move in that direction. Toes, too. This dance below was about the lotus flower. Each hand movement has meaning. The Apsara dancers do not smile and do not sing, but there is music as their story unfolds through slow and calculated movement.

Angkor Wat is the granddaddy of the temple ruins in Cambodia, built in the 12th Century to honor the Hindu god Vishnu. It is also depicted on the Cambodian flag because it's a national treasure. I was too sick to see much of this temple, but I did walk down a long exterior wall filled with carvings that depicted heaven above, earth in the center and hell below. The hell portion showed men being eaten by large animals and tortured. It was a lot more interesting than the heaven portion.

Photos: Elizabeth Weintraub

Far back as I can remember, my family always served ham on Christmas day. So, it's not surprising that I would continue with this tradition as an adult. Besides, it's a lot less work than stuffing a turkey.

Every year I prepare a planetary ham with champagne sauce. Ditto for this year. As I wait to hear whether my client will get her short sale offer accepted on the best day to buy a home, I will be preparing a planetary ham for dinner on this brisk, yet sunny Christmas day in Land Park, Sacramento. (There is frost on the ground in Land Park this morning.) It comes from a recipe in an old 1969 cookbook, which I actually bought in 1969: Cooking With Astrology, by Sydney Omarr.

You may remember the name, Sydney Omarr, as the author of a sun sign horoscope column that was syndicated in newspapers across the country or you may have read one of his many books on astrology, but more than likely the name may ring a bell as the celebrity astrologer. He died in 2003 at age 76.

I'm not really a follower of astrology. But we're talking about 1969, when astrology was all the rage. When the social pick-up line was not delivered in the form of a text message but was a verbal, face-to-face question: "What is your sign?"

Whether the cookbook, Cooking With Astrology, has any bearing on relationships, is not relevant. The thing is the book contains a lot of unusual and mouth-watering recipes. Sour cream raisin pie (Leo), for example, is one of my favorites. But the best recipe, by far, is planetary ham with champagne sauce (Aquarius).

My friend Lisa is fond of saying that she loves cooking with wine and sometimes puts it in her food. Since this recipe uses only one cup of champagne, there is still plenty left to go around.

The first thing I do is cut off the rind of the pre-cooked ham, then chop it into one-inch squares and fry, flipping every minute or so. After the rind is nice and crisp, I drain the pork rinds on paper towels, drop them into a glass jar, sprinkle with salt, shake and eat. I call these Chicharrones. Great as appetizers, assuming there are any left when guests arrive.

Next, I slice the ham diagonally and crisscrossed, about 1/8-inch all around, rub with mustard, stud with cloves, followed by a light rubbing of brown sugar. Using toothpicks, I secure pineapple rings to the top of the ham and stick candied cherries in the center of each ring. Bake at 325 until warm (cover with aluminum foil to prevent the cherries and pineapple from burning).

Here is the recipe for the Champagne Sauce, to be served alongside the ham:

• 1/2 cup orange juice
• 1/2 cup pineapple juice
• 1/3 cup grape jelly
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup of champagne
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch dissolved in 1/4 cup water.

Put the brown sugar into a sauce pan and continually stir over a low heat until the brown sugar is melted. Do not drink champagne during this crucial step or you may burn the brown sugar. Slowly add the remaining ingredients except the cornstarch and water; continue to stir. When it begins to bubble, add the cornstarch and water, and cook on low heat for another minute. Serve immediately.

After dinner, have a laugh reading my 2009 Horoscopes for Real Estate.

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah everybody!

Photograph: Elizabeth Weintraub

 

We were fortunate enough to have been booked at the Majestic Saigon in Ho Chi Minh City. It's a French Colonialist-designed hotel built in 1925 across the street from the Saigon River. Upon arriving, I put on a hotel robe and called the front desk to arrange a massage. My husband left to shoot photos in the street and to ward off what became an alarming number of propositions from young women offering services. Our room was on the first floor, above the ground entrance and adjacent to the spa. When I returned from my massage, my key would not work, which meant I had to go to the registration desk in the lobby, dressed in my robe to get help. Unlike our stay in Kauai last year, at least my hair wasn't a mess and I had all my teeth. There is more traffic in Saigon than in Ha Noi:

On our first day, we went to the Cho Binh Tay Market and wandered the streets of Saigon. Here is a view of the marketplace:

There are a lot of knockoffs in Viet Nam, just like in Hong Kong.

Although you may find this hard to believe, the central post office in Saigon is a tourist attraction. I didn't understand why until we entered this Gothic structure and I spotted the ceiling, shown below:

No trip to Saigon is complete, I suppose, unless one also tours the Cu Chi Underground Tunnels. These are a historic relic, which were a base of Cu Chi District Party leadership in the war. Villagers dug out a series of tunnels where they lived and fought against the opposition. You can see below the small entry. I mean, I'm not very big, but I could not fit in that hole. The guy below is demonstrating how a person would hold the cover above his head before descending into the tunnel.

Some of the tourists from our group decided to enter one of the larger tunnels and navigate their way to come out another hole. I started to go into it, but with people in front of me and people behind me, crawling through a two-foot high tunnel was too uncomfortable, almost a bit claustrophobic, so I backed out, deciding my vacation was complete enough without this experience.

They say these incense can burn for months. You'll find these at many of the temples in Saigon. Worshipers buy them for relatives who have passed on and light them in their honor.

We toured another factory. The Tay Son company produces lacquer-ware, embedded with many different types of material, from eggshell chips to pearls. Each piece has 17 to 20 steps to produce the shining finished product. As with many Viet Nam factories, some of the workers are disabled.

Photos: Elizabeth Weintraub

This is a picture perfect home situated on a quiet cul-de-sac in the Emerald Park subdivision of Elk Grove. Check out the cheery yellow stucco exterior and abundance of mature landscaping with big trees in the yard. It has 3 bedrooms and 2 baths. The assessor shows the square footage at 1,752.

The kitchen has been recently updated with over-sized ceramic tile flooring and newer granite counters. The sellers removed the cabinet doors in the kitchen and installed new hardware, but the hardware is the wrong size, which is why the cabinet doors are not secured to the cabinets.

The sellers also installed an antique type of laminate, perhaps a barn oak or tree branch type, in the main living areas and bedrooms. Some of the baseboards have been installed, but not all of them. The front entry area is prepared for installation of the buyer's choice of flooring, but this would be a good spot for ceramic tile, especially to prevent tracking into the home from Sacramento's winter rainstorms.

When you approach the home, you're greeted by a delightful courtyard. The side yard has a covered patio, and there's possible RV space.

At the present, the formal living room with a door to the back yard is being utilized as a home office, but you'll also find a large family room with a gas-piped fireplace.

9034 El Measa Court, Elk Grove, CA 94624 is offered as a short sale exclusively by Lyon Real Estate at $175,000. Call your Sacramento short sale agent Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759 for more information.

SPRING OF 2010, THE SELLER OBTAINED A LOAN MODIFICATION AND TOOK THIS HOME TEMPORARILY OFF THE MARKET.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photos: Elizabeth Weintraub

 

I was amazed yesterday when I called 2 agents on 2 listings and both agents answered their cell phones. Christmas week is generally pretty slow, and many agents in Sacramento go on vacation at this time. I've spent most of this week so far following up on my Sacramento short sales and requesting extensions of the short sale addendums for the banks. Trying to get buyers' agents to respond is almost like pulling teeth.

However, I understand why some agents like to take the week off. It's not that I don't celebrate Christmas, because I do, but I try to work every day, especially on those days that my clients have off.

So, when a client asked me yesterday if I would show her homes in East Sacramento on Christmas Eve, I jumped on it. I could tell by the tone of her voice that she felt it was an imposition. But it's not. I love my job; it's not really "work" to me, and my husband understands.

Not only is Christmas Eve a good time to view homes, but I firmly believe that Christmas Day is the best time to buy a home. I sold a home last year on Christmas Day. When you think about it, there are many reasons to buy a home on Christmas. Especially in our low inventory market in Sacramento -- because the shortage of available homes breeds competition.

How many buyers will be writing offers on Christmas? Not very many. In fact, hardly none. If this buyer writes an offer, she won't have to worry about another buyer vying for her selection. And what a wonderful Christmas present for some lucky East Sacramento seller. An offer! Just before the end of the year.

Hoi An, an ancient trading port in central Viet Nam, is known for its silk garment industry and lantern making. On our way, we passed China Beach, on the outskirts of Da Nang. Just pass the old flight hangars, we came upon the pristine and quiet beach. What I found strange about it was there appears to be a lot of new construction going up. Many hotels and resorts are being built overlooking China Beach. I imagine in a few years this area will be overrun with tourists. Here is a photo of China Beach:

Our hotel in Hoi An was the Life Resort. Each of us on the tour had our own little cabanas, with a step-up bedroom from the living room and a front porch, complete with built-in padded benches. The recent storms from last October washed out the road to the resort, so we had to walk dragging our luggage down a cramped dirt road with open ditches. But just around the corner from the Life Resort was the ancient town of Hoi An. Here is a photo of the roof tops shot from a balcony at the Life Resort restaurant:

Another attraction near Hoi An is the Cham Museum in Da Nang. The Champa Kingdom ruled this area from about the 3rd Century AD to the 14th Century AD. The museum first opened in 1919, featuring some of the finest Cham sculptures in the world, brought in from all over Viet Nam by the French. This is Tara, a bronze terracotta:

We were so intrigued and charmed by the Cham sculptures. Many are also made from limestone, such as this one:

We visited the My Son Sanctuary, which is a huge complex of religious monuments and ruins of the Champa Kingdom. This is a place where the Champa came to worship, as they dedicated some of the structures to the Hindu Gods trinity: Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, with Shiva being  predominant. Down the hill from the ruins, we stopped to watch the dancers perform:

Another interesting part of our trip to Hoi An was a stop at the silk worm factory. We watched as they made it. First, they put the silk worms on a tray with leaves. Then they turn into cocoons, and from the cocoons, thread is extracted after soaking them in hot water. Here are a series of photos that show how silk is made and the finished products:

You can see that silk is used for many different types of products, including lanterns. This factory makes custom clothing, silk scarves and handbags, too. You can order a silk blouse and pick it up the following day for about $15 US. Many of the garment workers work at night.

Photos: Elizabeth Weintraub