Elizabeth Weintraub • Sacramento Short Sale Agent • Land Park

Here is another chapter of if I could change the world. I woke up this morning with Judy Collins on my brain. Strains of bows and flows and angel hair and ice cream castles in the air suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Probably because we have tickets to see Judy Collins at the Crest Theatre in Sacramento this November. I don't think I've ever seen her in concert, although I did buy her album Wildflowers in 1967. This was back in the day when you could have one hit song on an album and people would buy it.

I suppose I was subconsciously thinking about Both Sides Now because yesterday I was looking at homes to buy in Hawaii. When you're looking at a website as a consumer and not as a Sacramento real estate agent, you see things with different eyes. For example, I see some agents rank very high in Google but that doesn't necessarily make them a good real estate agent. In fact, they might be a brand new agent, and I don't want to hire a new agent. I've been in this business long enough to know that an experienced agent, an agent who is passionate about her job, is the kind of agent I want to do business with.

Yes, before you say it, everybody has to start somewhere but that doesn't mean I have to help them get started. Those agents can go practice on somebody else.

I am also not interested in registering to look at property online. I registered at one site, and if that agent ever calls me, I'll hang up on him. I don't like him because he made me register to look at homes in Hawaii. I don't like him for other reasons, too. Because he's a keyword hog without substance. I don't mind agents who rank high for keywords because I am one of those agents. What I do mind are agents who didn't earn it because they have little to offer.

Presently, I'm working on changing and upgrading my own website. I will be adding an IDX, too. One of the reasons I'm changing is because Agent Achieve has gone haywire too much lately, and I don't have a lot of patience. A great way to choose an IDX is to look at the way other agents maintain property searches. I've picked up a lot of useful information by searching as a buyer. I've also looked at how agents present themselves, their company and their performance.

I'll tell you something else, too. Switching gears here. You know what the most important button is on a remote? On a remote that you're holding in your hand to watch a movie? My husband is in Chicago, so I have to operate the TV remotes by myself. That's something I don't ordinarily do. Now, you might say it's the On / Off button or the Power button. That's for neophytes. It's kind of stupid that each remote manufacturer manages to switch the Up / Down volume buttons and the Higher / Lower change channels buttons. On one remote, the volume might be located on the left and the channel changer on the right. On another remote it's the opposite. So you can find yourself watching World Wrestling Allstars instead of Dancing with the Stars and the volume is still too low.

The most important button on a remote is buried in the middle somewhere. It's not a big or obvious button. If you're a woman with long fingernails it's hard to depress. Who designed these remotes? Probably some guy with little tiny fingers. The most important button on a remote is hard to reach, hard to find and it's in the wrong place. It's the pause button.

I really don't know remotes at all.

The thing about being self-employed as a Sacramento short sale agent is the fact that limitations are present every day in my business. I am not boasting when I say there is only so much that one person can do. It's the truth. The way I stay successful is to stay hands-on. I could list 1,000 short sales a year if I wanted to but I do not. To do that volume, I would need to hire a bunch of agents to work for me, and then the quality of my work would suffer.

There is no way around that. Nobody is ever going to negotiate a short sale as I would do it myself. I can't be cloned. I also won't lower my expectations. I've tried that approach and it didn't work. Rather than end friendships or associations with other agents, it made more sense to stop hiring them in the first place and / or placing expectations on them that they can't meet.

Besides, unless a seller has hired a lawyer to negotiate a short sale, my sellers want Elizabeth Weintraub to be their Sacramento short sale agent. That's why I work with an amazing team, a wonderfully bright assistant and run a tight ship. I constantly evaluate my performance and look for ways to improve it. Fortunately, I can still take on new business, and I actively pursue it. I am not too busy to be your Sacramento short sale agent. Don't ever worry about that. The more business I accept, the more streamlined and focused I become. That's the secret of my success in a nutshell.

One of the things I did yesterday to improve my performance was to buy Adobe Acrobat X Pro. I don't know why I had overlooked this piece of software. I've been working on Sacramento short sales since 2005. Acrobat has been around for a long time. It's only $450. I felt so silly printing out forms, completing them in ink and then eFaxing the documents to myself. That's a dinosaur solution. We have technology, why not use it?

The reason this came up is because a negotiator for a Bank of America short sale asked me on Saturday to make a change on a HUD. He is ready to approve the HUD. Well, the title company is closed for the weekend. An escrow officer prepares my HUDs. I did not want to wait until Monday to send the negotiator a revised HUD. That's 2 whole days wasted, sitting around tapping fingernails on my desk. I've got sellers who are counting on me to get this short sale approved and buyers who want to close. It's the former escrow officer from the 1970s in me who is whispering in my ear: Time is of the essence.

Well, THAT and I want to give an immediate response to Bank of America. I never want any of my short sale banks to think I am slow to respond or to get that kind of undeserved reputation.  There's enough of that lax attitude in Sacramento already. So, I bought Acrobat. Acrobat X Pro is incredible. There is a Mac version. Now I can complete short sale addendums, listing addendums and other short sale bank documents on my computer and email them off. No more hand-written scribbles that people can't read. Plus, I can revise a HUD on the fly. Turn any document into a PDF. I was so excited I could hardly sleep last night. Isn't it funny how such a small thing can be such a big deal?

If you ever need evidence of how fast the years roll by when you're busy living them and not counting them, just look at when you last bought a new computer. I replaced my old PC laptop last Christmas with a snazzy and faster-than-the-speed-of-light Mac Pro notebook. Of course, now my desktop pales by comparison. But that computer is fairly new. Except it's NOT. Seems like I just replaced it yesterday but it was actually almost 4 years ago.

I can probably squeeze another year out of it if I upgraded the RAM. My Photoshop stopped working last week. What do you expect from a 4.0 version when 9.0 is now available? It just pooped out in the middle of fixing photos. My 9.0 version arrived over the weekend. I have a new listing going on the market this week in Carmichael. And guess what? It's not a short sale. It's a regular home in a private gated community. I like being a listing agent in Carmichael. I seem to get one or two fabulous listings in Carmichael every year, and this is one of those.

We've been working on sprucing it up, reglazing baths, replacing fixtures, transforming the landscaping, staging the home, and in general plucking its eyebrows. It's just about ready to face the public. But I have to do a virtual tour, and I can't put that together without Photoshop. Part of the problem is my computer's RAM. I have to reboot halfway through the day because everything seems to slow down and my timing ball spins, and I have the patience of a fruit fly.

I went to Apple's website to order memory. It seemed to have every model but my computer. I have a dual core not a quad core, and could not find my computer listed. So I did an old-fashioned thing. I picked up the phone and called. Even more old-fashioned, somebody answered the phone on the other end. I gave her my serial number, model and specs for my computer and asked her to send me 2 GB of memory, which arrived yesterday.

I quickly shut down my computer, booted up my laptop to run a video on how to install memory, took my door off the Mac, opened the memory package and hey, what the heck was that? The chip was about 3-inches long and my slots were 6-inches. Sure enough, Apple sent the wrong memory. I called Apple again. The first guy was no help and totally clueless, which is unlike Apple. The second guy understood the problem and said Apple doesn't carry memory for my computer. He referred me to a different website and transferred my call to a different customer service rep who told me Apple doesn't give refunds on memory but she'd get an exception for me.

I was on the phone for at least an hour with Apple. I watched calls come in, light up and go to voice mail. Over and over. A bunch of prospective short sale sellers, I bet. I still don't have my memory because I ran out of time in the day to order it from somewhere else. Instead of replacing my computer every 5 years, maybe I should just buy a new computer now? That's what they want you know. It's a conspiracy.

If you're an Internet user who maintains a domain account at Go Daddy, this blog is for you. Because there is something happening at the domain name, web hosting business of Go Daddy that you might not know about. Of course, if you're a small business owner who relies on your domain email account, then this could really affect you. Here's the deal: Go Daddy blocks emails from you. And you can't change it.

That's not so bad if it's the occasional spam email that doesn't get through to your account, but what if it's a potential customer or client who can't reach you? How would you feel about Go Daddy then?

I spoke to Active Brad over at Zillow.com yesterday who mentioned the huge number of leads I've been receiving from Zillow, leads that I pay to get. However, I haven't been receiving those leads. That's because they are emailed to my domain email account through Go Daddy, and Go Daddy has been blocking them. I know this because I went to Zillow and changed my email account to a Surewest email address. Sure enough, a lead came through.

I called Go Daddy 3 times. After sitting on hold the first go-around, I was disconnected after 15 minutes. The second time, I got through to a guy, but he was unable to help me. The third time, the customer service guy at Go Daddy said it certainly appears that Go Daddy is blocking my leads from Zillow, but Go Daddy did not have any systems in place to fix this little quirk. Because to fix it for me would mean changing their system for other customers who did not want email from services such as Zillow.

This seems a bit counter productive and very non-customer oriented to me. In the bigger scheme of things, I've prepaid Go Daddy for a number of years in advance. It's not that much money to lose in comparison to what I pay for leads that can't reach me if I send those leads to my email at Go Daddy. It also makes me wonder that since I am not receiving email leads from Zillow, what else is Go Daddy blocking from reaching me? Who else can't get through to me because of my domain account at Go Daddy??

You should see me when I pull up to a client's house to list a short sale. I look like a human coat rack with all the equipment I'm hauling inside. Sometimes, I shoot a virtual tour, depending on the size of the estate. So, I've got a tripod for that, which requires an extra trip to the car. I generally carry a lockbox, my MLS display key, a bluetooth device, my BlackBerry, Mac Pro laptop, a cross-platform mobile scanner, my iPad, Nikon camera with flash attachment and zoom lens -- hey, if I can shoot the photo from the property it can go into MLS.

My goal when listing a Sacramento short sale is to use as little paper as possible. But it also depends on who I am meeting with because I try to tailor my technology to fit my client's needs and not the other way around. There are some sellers in Sacramento who are not comfortable touching a high tech toy. I respect that. To each his or her own. But collecting paper isn't necessarily practicing very green real estate.

Every Sacramento short sale agent is loaded up with paperwork. We have to collect our seller's tax returns, W2s, bank statements, payroll stubs, financials, hardship letters, bank short sale applications, and all of that can add up to 100 pages or more. When I'm at a client's home, I don't need to remove any of their personal and sensitive financial information from the premises. I simply attach my mobile scanner to my Mac Pro laptop and wirelessly scan all those documents directly to a PDF file on my computer.

Signing the listing paperwork and delivering the tons of disclosures about short sales is a breeze. Even without wireless, I can turn on my 3G connection in my iPad settings and, through DocuSign, my sellers can sign that short sale listing right on my iPad. Tap, tap, tap and the listing paperwork is signed. After signing, sellers can elect to receive a signed copy sent straight to their own email.

If there are other short sale agents reading this blog, here is how to use your iPad with DocuSign. Download the DocuSign mobile app. Open DocuSign and upload your docs. DocuSign cannot read docs scanned to a PDF from a mobile scanner, for some reason. (I asked why but they can't figure it out.) But DocuSign will read any other docs in a PDF format, even those odd forms you FAX to your own email. Change the "signer" drop-down menu to "in person." For the email address, type @me. It will also insert your name as the host. Type your client's name in the signer box. Tag it, and send it. When you get to your client's home, open your email, and hand the iPad to the seller, after entering your DocuSign password. Tap, tap, tap. This is the coolest app. You won't know how you got along without it before.

Photo: Big Stock Photo

I have been reading a ton of articles about the different apps available for the iPad and downloading suggestions. People think I'm a tech wiz but that's only because I do stuff they don't or can't do. I'm really no different than your average real estate agent. I am, however, an early adopter of new technology because I'm easily lured by the "coolness" factor, and I also believe much of it tends to simplify my real estate business -- but for the life of me, I can't figure out how to use the iPad DocuSign app in person to sign a document. I can email it, but I'm talking about signing on the iPad screen.

I've read blogs that say you can sign documents with your clients while sitting on the couch with your iPad. I even bought a special pen that works on my iPad. Granted, I've used it primarily for precise aiming when pulling back the slingshot for those Angry Birds, but I've been told the pen can also be used for signatures.

As a Sacramento short sale agent, I sign a lot of listings with sellers in Sacramento -- I signed more than 100 new listings last year. That's enough to warrant a paperless transaction.

I've been using DocuSign for a while now and find it to be mostly intuitive. OK, I find most software intuitive because I admit to being one of those people who will only read a software manual if all else fails and, even then, the Folsom dam can break and wash out Sacramento before I'm likely to consider that all else has failed.

I wrote to DocuSign yesterday and explained my situation: I'm sitting at the table with sellers. I've already set up an envelope, saved it as a draft, made the sellers each a recipient and myself. I asked, how do we sign this in person? The answer from DocuSign: They would need to access their email once you send it on your iPad and then follow the steps.

Doesn't that sort of defeat the purpose of bringing my iPad to list a short sale? I may as well print out the docs and haul 'em along. Criminy.

Photo: Big Stock Photo

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 better to get an appointment, but I could not wait that long. The store was really packed. People everywhere playing with iPhones, iPads and iPods. A greeter approached me to take my name and put me on a waiting list. I managed to get myself moved from the #4 appointment slot to the top of the list by sweet-talking the guy. Being nice gets you much further than being pushy.

Heck, while I was there, I decided to pick up an iPad as well. The 64 GB with Wi-Fi and 3G. I blame it on the Beatles, which Apple is promoting big-time now that the Beatles are available on iTunes. Every other song on the PA system was the Beatles. It put me in such a happy mood. Oh, Apple is so smart.

The salesperson who was helping me didn't have a price sheet, so I went to the Apple website on one of the laptops to show her the features and options I wanted. I selected the 512 GB Solid State Drive, even though it cost an extra $1,300. There are no moving parts, it's lighter and it doesn't get as hot. The salesperson agreed it was a good choice and went into the back room to find it. It wasn't in stock. I'd have to special order it.

Suddenly the salesperson changed her tune. She said I didn't need the Solid State Drive. She had the model I wanted in stock without it. Perhaps this salesperson should go into real estate and not waste her talents selling computers in a mall?

At that moment, I received an email. Some Bay area agent asking me if I had any offers on an apartment building in Sacramento, which is presently in escrow as an active short contingent. Hmmm, the mere fact it's ASC means I have an offer. As a Sacramento short sale agent, I sell all types of short sales all over Sacramento, from homes in Land Park to Elk Grove, Natomas and Roseville; condos, townhomes, and that includes apartment buildings. I emailed him back: yes, several. He then asked for the rent roll and income and expenses. I sent him the email for my TC and suggested he contact her to get it.

Next thing I know, the agent exploded and emailed a tirade, all about how he has sold more than $300 million in real estate. How I wasn't doing my job. How dare I pass him off on an underling. Why, he was going to call the bank's asset manager himself. I thought to myself: Well, here is a guy who obviously carries a higher opinion of himself than those around him do. I was tempted to tell him to knock himself out and and call the bank, but then I would be behaving as badly as he. I responded: You, Sir, are being a jerk. I didn't mean that in a Steve Martin kinda way.

And I headed over to the "personal table" so the salesperson could "personalize" my iPad, which meant downloading apps for me to buy more Apple products. I guess that real estate agent hasn't learned the lesson that you get further in life with honey than you do with vinegar.

Photo: Big Stock Photo

My husband laughs at Sacramento drivers who, upon leaving the vehicle, turn around and point the key remote at the car to lock it. That's because some people think it works like a TV remote, which emits infrared signals to the TV, but it doesn't. It sends its signal by radio, through the air. So, you don't need to face the vehicle to lock it. Although, I admit that I do look at the car, just to make sure the lights flash, which tells me it is definitely locked.

Hey, where would we be in modern society without our gadgets?

Take my DisplayKEY, for example. It opens SUPRA lockboxes, which lets me retrieve house keys to show homes. It's an essential part of my real estate business in Sacramento. While I was in The City this weekend, I received an email from MetroList that said it is retiring our DisplayKEYs. It is switching to an ActiveKey system that doesn't update daily in a cradle. Not only that, but MetroList informed me that it has already scheduled an appointment for me to exchange my DisplayKEY for an ActiveKey.

The only problem is the date it has scheduled me for is a day when I will be in Vietnam. Now, you know that MetroList has been working behind-the-scenes on this for months. But it just dropped the bomb in my lap on Friday. A little advance notice would have been nice. Because when I return from Vietnam, my DisplayKEY will no longer work. If my DisplayKEY doesn't work, I can't work. Thanks for the heads-up, MetroList.

Of course, if I had been using eKEY, I would not be in this position. The eKEY system lets an agent access a lockbox through an agent's cellphone. That sounds like an excellent solution. I went to the GE Security website to check devices that support eKEY software, but my BlackBerry 8700 was not listed. Now I remember why I am not using the eKEY system.

I popped over to my service provider's website and, low and behold, the BlackBerry BOLD 9700 is now available. I've been waiting for its release for months! And the BOLD works with eKEY. Plus, it has a video camera, a faster network connection and utilizes trackpad navigation. My 8700 is headed for a funeral. As my service provider reminded me, I've had this phone for 38 months. That's an eternity in a cellphone's life.

That research has solved 2 problems, but a 3rd problem still exists. My email downloads to my BlackBerry. I'll most likely bring my cellphone to Vietnam as I have World Access, which will let me check email from my phone. That will save time as I won't have to visit Internet cafes. Who wants to sit in an Internet cafe when you're on vacation? Instead, I can turn on my phone once a day to stay connected through email. That all sounds feasible except for spam. I deal with overnight spam by deleting it in huge blocks from my computer in the morning. But that won't be possible in Vietnam.

I receive daily huge volumes of spam. The worst offenders are two short sale promoters. How I end up on their targeted spam list is beyond me. One would think they could use their marketing dollars in a more effective manner. They bombard my email with short sale spam. As a Sacramento short sale agent, I don't need their short sale courses since I am tortured enough daily through my very own activities. So, this brings me to the solution of signing up for a spam-blocking service. The downside is important emails may be delayed. But the upside is I will never again have to manually delete their crap.

Some people use spam blockers that require the recipient to click on a link and enter a password to prove that one is not a robot. Those sites annoy me. If they annoy me, they probably annoy others. I guess that leaves Postini or Barracuda to consider. If you have any suggestions regarding spam blockers, I would welcome the input. I hate to do it, but this Sacramento agent has got to lock the gate.

Fed up with my Motorola earpiece, 3 years ago I began investigating new devices and decided the Jawbone headset was most likely the best on the market. I bought a snazzy little red number and have been delighted with it. It truly blocked out noise. I was once standing in the middle of a casino in Reno when an appraiser called me -- bells, chimes, clanging -- and we could both hear each other; the sound was crystal clear. But 3 years is a long time, and Jawbone has made exciting advances. So, I bought new Jawbone yesterday.

The new generation of Jawbone is much smaller. Plus, it comes with more choices in earbuds and earloops. One of the earloops is padded for comfort. The fit on my ear is more secure, too. I love this contraption to pieces.

What I didn't expect, though, was to receive Jawbone's literature titled, "Important Safety Information." The only reason to write a pamphlet like this, of course, is to prevent more lawsuits or complaints from consumers. Evidently, some consumers experienced problems . . .

To ensure its useful life, here are the top 10 things that Jawbone says you should avoid doing:

• Do not wear your Jawbone while bathing or swimming
• Do not microwave your Jawbone
• Do not shred your Jawbone
• Do not toss your Jawbone into a burning fire because it could explode
  
• Do not disassemble your Jawbone
• Do not stomp on your Jawbone nor drive your car over it
• Do not insert coat hangers or paperclips into your Jawbone
• Do not let your children swallow the Jawbone
• Do not drop your Jawbone into the toilet
• Do not wear your Jawbone while driving because you may kill yourself.
  

That last one grabbed my attention as most people -- especially in California where it is unlawful to hold your cellphone while driving -- are buying earpieces as an alternative. But I guess we all know that people shouldn't try to walk and chew gum at the same time.

Looking to buy or sell real estate in Sacramento? Call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759. Put 35 years of experience to work for you.

The Short Sale Savior, by Elizabeth Weintraub, coming June 2009.

Image: Aliph