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Spring Brings Cautious Enthusiasm
2008-04-14 18:56:00
Thank goodness the weather has warmed up! Although Sacramento and Folsom have been beautiful for a few weeks now, uphill Pollock Pines got its first seventy degree plus weekend this last Saturday and Sunday. Flowers are finally beginning to bloom - and with them come the real estate signs. REOs are a rarity here in Pollock Pines and Placerville - and when they come on the market they sell pretty quickly. In Sacramento though, the opportunity for investors is endless. There seem to be certain areas where REOs sit for a long time before someone buys them. One of these which I've been focusing on with one of my investor buyers is the Fruitridge area. 2 - 3 bedroom houses are selling there for right around $100,000 - an incredible rental if you can make it work. Rents range from around $900 - $1100, so potential for cash flow seems pretty good. The only problem with this area is the homes are older and some are in need of repair. Getting them updated (usually they don't have central a...
More About: Spring , Enthusiasm

Realtor not to Blame: Jury
2008-04-11 18:32:00
For those of you following the Ummel vs. Little case that some blogger had so kindly deposited into the comments section of my blog, the verdict is in. The Realtor is not to blame. The jury's decision was unanimous. Read all about it here.I will say however that even though a buyer's agent is not technically required to disclose the appraisal report to you, the buyer, I always get a copy of it and send it over anyway.
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Sacramento Condos for March: the Numbers
2008-04-08 23:02:00
Condos seem to be getting a bad rap lately. I don't know if it's just me, but I see investors - who were very interested in condos for a while - seem to back away from them. I guess given the choice between having a backyard you can call your very own and paying condo fees, people choose the former.Anyway, let's get right to the numbers. The median price for condos didn't fare as well as the median price for single family residences. It dropped 24.6% from February to stop at $138,500.Sales were up however. Sacramento county saw 90 condos sell in March , an increase of 52.5% over February. Pending sales were higher as well - 130 over last month's 116.202 condos came on the market as new listings in March, bringing inventory down to 7.8 months, an improvement over last month's 11.9Also read: February's numbers; January's numbers.
More About: Real Estate Market , Numbers

How Optimistic am I about Real Estate?
2008-04-05 19:04:00
As optimistic as ever. And perhaps will be more so when this market recovers, because then I will have been there, done it (or seen it).I was talking to a potential real estate investor yesterday. One thing that always strikes me about people that have been investing in real estate for a while (a while = more than a decade) is that they seem very calm about what's going on in the market. They see prices falling and REOs and they realize it is only part of a cycle. What's more, they all insist it has been much, much worse.I yearn to have that knowledge first-hand. I am as invested in this market as ever. True, when we bought our rentals, we probably did not time the purchase perfectly. But we haven't panicked and sold them either. There is a method to this madness and it is this: TIME. What is debt today is equity tomorrow. And the houses are rented, so why sell anyway? What difference does short term fluctuation make except to my net worth and that too for a short while?Real esta...
More About: Estate , Real Estate , By the Way

Market Statistics for Single Family Residences for March
2008-04-04 19:48:00
Good news, everyone. We have bounced off the bottom, even if it be ever so slightly. Here are the details on Sacramento county's real estate market recovery in March , 2008.Median price remains steady (or almost steady) at $254,000. It has hovered around $255,000 since January.2332 new listings were added to the market and 1006 sold. Existing inventory now stands at 8632, smaller again than January or February's. We now have 8.5 months of inventory on the market, a change of 15.84% over February and of 28.6% over January!More good news - 2021 homes went in escrow in the month of March, a whopping 37% higher than pending sales in February, which were already higher than January, which were higher than... well, you get the idea. So... median prices have steadied, inventory is down and sales are up! The Sacramento real estate market recovery has begun. Also read: January's numbers; February's numbers and come back tomorrow for updates on the Sacramento condo market.
More About: Family , Real Estate Market , Market , Statistics

REOs, Asset Managers, Multiple Offers... Grrr!
2008-04-03 18:34:00
I've written in the past about one of my clients who has been making offers on homes in the Anatolia area of Rancho Cordova and getting outbid every time. Well, yesterday was what seemed to be a historic day for both of us - one of her offers was accepted.Mind you, she's been looking since January of this year.Back to the story. After getting outbid each time, on new homes and waiting forever on a short sale, today was the last straw. I received a call from an apologetic listing agent saying that no, our offer has been rejected after all. Apparently, the asset manager in the bank changed and someone else took over the files and they decided to go with another offer. This AFTER my client has sent over good faith deposit cashier's check, and I had made an appointment for a property inspection! In a span of 24 hours, I lost a great, motivated home buyer. Thanks, asset managers!
More About: Offers , Managers , Asset

A Sick Realtor is Better than None?
2008-04-01 18:58:00
No, it isn't a case of the market blues - I have really fallen ill this week. Woke up on Monday after a hectic weekend and a hectic last week of showing homes in Elk Grove and Rancho Cordova and I seem to have caught my husband's cold. It the kind that drains you of energy and won't let you stand upright for longer than ten minutes... you know the kind.So bear with me while I recover. And in the meanwhile, if you're searching for some great investments, you might want to search online for Elk Grove. I noticed some fantastic homes there - 3 bedrooms, 2 baths for right around $200,000 - some of them right in Laguna West!
More About: By the Way , Realtor , Sick

Sacramento MLS Updates
2008-03-27 16:42:00
Finally. Someone heard my prayer. The Sacramento MLS - Metrolist - has made some interesting updates that should help us Realtors when we are searching for just the right properties for our home buyers.They have added cumulative days on market - huge help, thank you! And also active short sales. This way, when a real estate buyer says leave out short sales completely, we don't have to weed them out individually. Excellent changes! And so much more helpful than the maps they keep bragging about!
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Should Banks Just Foreclose?
2008-03-26 18:09:00
I've been speaking with a great many frustrated real estate buyers in the greater Sacramento area lately and the one thing I hear repeated over and over is that they have been looking for houses for a while and not been able to buy any. But it's a buyer's market, you say.And I agree. However, there are certain areas where short sales are the majority of homes for sale. Which home buyers hate. Picture this: drive down a street and see every other house for sale. Asking price is about half of what the sellers paid for it about three years ago as a new construction. The homes look great, and there hasn't been much time for even normal wear and tear. The home buyers are thrilled. They call the number on the real estate sign. Three months later, they're still driving by the house they've made a full price offer on, wondering what in the world happened.What's happened is that the lender who needed to approve the short sale has not responded. At all. Not even to say that they have ...
More About: Banks

Sacramento Market Heating Up!
2008-03-25 00:27:00
I know, I've been going on about this lately, but I just want everyone to know. I've been manning the calls at Elite Properties lately and we're getting a lot of them. These are - by the way - interested real estate buyers, first-timers, investors, you name it - and not the tire-kickers we've been used to seeing in the last few months. (With apologies to all the serious buyers, I don't mean you. Obviously.)Anecdotally, I went out to write an offer for a client I've been working with forever now. She's been looking in the Anatolia area of Rancho Cordova and was stuck on the waiting side of a short sale for a while now. Well, when that period finally ended, she decided to go after REOs and new homes. This is what has happened so far: REOs: multiple offersNew Homes: multiple offersSo anyway, to get back to the story, I went out to Anatolia to write an offer. Since it's a new builder, I had to do it at the sales office. Can you believe the house had three offers and it sold (wit...
More About: Real Estate Market , Market , Sacramento , Heating

Sacramento Real Estate Gal Is One Year Old!
2008-03-22 15:11:00
The blog not the person (of course!) Yay!
More About: Estate , Real Estate , By the Way , Real , Sacramento

Landlords - Pay Up!
2008-03-21 20:53:00
That was just a little tongue-in-cheek title just to get your attention. Landlord Land Mines, the book with advice for all landlords all over is in its finishing stages. John Lockwood of Sacramento-Home fame and I are collaborating to get on various writing projects and this is our very first.Interested in getting into real estate investing? Or are you already a landlord and want to brush up on the basics? Or perhaps you're a Realtor who works with real estate investors. Well, this might be just the e-book for you! Buy one for yourself, or package it to your clients with your custom imprint. Here's what John has to say about it:"As a real estate investor herself, Purva and her husband, James, went through their share of landlord horror stories. Landlord Land Mines is the book Purva wished they?d had when had when they were getting started. Landlord Land Mines is written both from her own experience and from the experience of many other landlords who she interviewed for the book."F...
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REOs, Real Estate Statistics and the Pricing Paradox
2008-03-20 19:48:00
The investors are finally jumping in. They are actively searching properties and buying up Sacramento's real estate. February pending sales are up. And whether while this activity signals the very beginning of the end of the bad market is debatable, there is a bigger paradox that buyers should watch for and it is this - some REOs are still pretty hot properties which get picked up immediately for far higher than the asking price. Thus even though the listing price seems like a steal, the selling price shows prices stabilizing, even amongst certain low-priced homes.Where are these properties? Real ly, they are all over Sacramento county - Natomas, El Dorado Hills, even Foothill Farms and Fair Oaks. I have seen some REOs disappear in a matter of a week or two, even two to three days. These REOs have some features in common: they are usually newer, priced toward the lower end of the range in a mile radius, and don't require much work to be considered livable. Mainly, they look like su...
More About: Estate , Real Estate , Real Estate Market , Statistics

How in the World did I Miss This?
2008-03-18 21:59:00
I've said it before. And now the Sacramento Bee says it too. Maybe the next time you'll listen. :)
More About: World , Real Estate Market , Miss , The World

Federal Reserve cuts Interest Rate by 0.75%
2008-03-18 19:17:00
Another rate cut came in today. The Fed cut interest rates by .75% down to 2.25% now.If you are a home buyer wondering if this will affect mortgage rates, the answer is probably yes. But maybe not in the direction you are hoping. Head on over to Dan Green's Mortgage Reports to get an idea of why.
More About: Breaking News , Federal Reserve , Interest , Rate , Cuts

Ask Sacramento Real Estate Gal Answers!
2008-03-17 18:48:00
I received this email the other day and thought it would be interesting to answer it online. I know the recent foreclosures have created this problem for many tenants in the Sacramento area and all I can say is that my heart goes out to them. I have always emphasized that landlords treat their rentals as a business - an ethical business - and this is obviously no way to do so. Read on:Sacramento Real Estate Gal, We are renting a house in Fair Oaks. The mortgage went into default in December, but we continued paying rent through February. The landlord has denied any problem every time we ask her. My husband decided to withhold March rent because she definitely won't refund our deposit. She served us with eviction papers March 10th, we received a Notice of Trustees sale on the door March 11th. The sale is scheduled for April 1st. We have been told we have to pay rent, don't pay the rent...what should we do? - S.P.S.P.,My recommendation to you would be to start looking for another pl...
More About: Real Estate , Answers

HUD introduces changes to RESPA
2008-03-16 19:13:00
HUD recently released some changes to the Good Faith Estimate to help real estate buyers better understand the loan they are getting. Read the details here. While these measures help, I believe there is no substitute for an honest mortgage person who makes sense of the numbers for you.

Oh, baby!
2008-03-14 17:51:00
While this is not the good news I was referring to in my earlier post, it certainly beats everything else right now! Yes, that's my (as yet) unborn daughter and I'm so thrilled to share the news with everyone. Will she be another Realtor and take over the family business? Hmm... who knows? Are we looking at a future mogul? (mogulette?)
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Have I Forgotten the Landlords?
2008-03-12 21:40:00
Nope. In fact, Im spending the day working on that Landlord e-book I promised to get out this year. I'm still very excited about it.I might even have some great news about it this week!
More About: Landlords , Forgotten

Sacramento Condos for February: the Numbers
2008-03-10 18:03:00
Median price actually rose for Sacramento condos in February 2008. Yes, that's right - it rose. And even though this might be seasonal, I'll take my good news wherever I get it. So there.Median price for condos in Sacramento was up 18.9% from January to hit $170,000.Pending sales were higher as well at 116 over January's 93. Solds were at 59.There are two things that stick out at me as I look at these numbers: For one, the number of pending sales do not equal the number of solds the following month. With the huge gap between the two, it makes me wonder if it is just the short sales that aren't going through that show up pending every month and cause problems with the stats, or if it really is people changing their minds. Too much choice can be pretty disconcerting for a lot of otherwise happy home buyers.The second thing that I notice that is actually good news is the number of houses entering the market every month has dropped. If you looked at the numbers for single family re...
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Sacramento Real Estate Statistics for February: Single Family Market
2008-03-07 19:29:00
Yesterday I wrote about how pending sales are higher all over the country and the National Association of Realtors expects a housing recovery beginning in sometime late 2008. Nice to know some of the statistics from Sacramento county tell the same story. The latest numbers from the Metrolist MLS for the month of February:The median price has steadied, it seems, at least for this month - $255,000 it remains, the same as January's median price.2155 new listings were added to the market and 864 sold, pushing existing inventory to 8749, a smaller number than January's 9042 actives. This brings existing home inventory to about 10.1 months, down from last month's 11.9. Here's another caveat, however. Pending sales were higher again - a total of 1474 houses went into contract in February - 21% more than January's pending sales, which were already higher than December's. I hear rumbling underneath the surface! If all these pending sales go through inventory numbers could look very dif...
More About: Family , Estate , Real Estate , Market , Statistics

Foreclosure Article
2008-03-07 04:41:00
I've been telling you for a while that fear in the real estate market is driving a lot of people to run to the safety of their (rented) homes. Instead, read this article and decide for yourself if the foreclosure crisis is overblown.If your home rose in value 53% in the last five years, really, do you have to worry quite so much?
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New FHA Loan Limits for Sacramento Released
2008-03-06 23:24:00
Just in:New (increased) FHA loan limits for Sacramento One-Family $580,000Two-family $742,500Three-family $897,500Four-family $1,115,400Check your area here.
More About: Loan , Released , Limits

Good News for Sacramento Real Estate?
2008-03-06 22:14:00
Pending sales are up, which means more buyers are out looking at homes.Could this be good news on the horizon for Sacramento?
More About: News , Estate , Real Estate , Good News , Real

First-time Home Buyer Mistakes: the Deadly Three
2008-03-04 19:21:00
First time home buyers, as hard as it may be, try and stay away from these three cardinal mistakes I see repeated over and over again. These three mistakes are deadly to your home shopping and home buying experience partly because they can make you want to run to the comfort of your (rented) apartment, even if you have fully decided to buy a home this year.Mistake #1: Looking for the Perfect Home There is no such thing as the perfect home. Yes, you may quote me on that. In the years of homeownership myself and selling houses to others I have reached this one conclusion that there is no such thing as perfect. When you are searching for houses all you will get is good enough. It is what you make of it that makes it perfect.Now I know there are some people that will walk into a home and know that it is absolutely the one they want. "It's perfect!" they might even say. But I contend that what these clients see is the home as it will become when they have moved in and had their way with ...
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Mortgage Rate Trends
2008-02-29 19:14:00
Another dose from Sacramento Real Estate Gal's mortgage expert Huck Ferrill:One would think from the news, that mortgage rates are falling like crazy. Not true!While the Fed Funds rate has dropped rather precipitously, my clients have been surprised to hear that some mortgage rates have actually risen. For example, the range for a 30 year fixed rate loan is actually about 50 basis points higher now, than two weeks ago, ranging from about 6-6.25% depending on whether one pays points or not. The reason is mortgages are longer term instruments whose rates move roughly with US Treasury notes and bonds, as opposed to a short term rate like Fed Funds. A ten year Treasury is currently yielding about 3.8% currently, up from a recent low of 3.4% in late January.These are still good rates, however. My point is that it's a bad policy to delay purchasing or refinancing in hopes rates will drop. One might wait a long time. So essentially, if rates and the resulting payment look good now, go fo...
More About: Trends , Mortgage , Rate

Real Estate Quote of the Week
2008-02-28 19:20:00
While technically not related to real estate, it is a good investing quote often forgotten.The future is never clear, and you pay a very high price in the stock market for a cheery consensus. Uncertainty is the friend of the buyer of long-term values.- Warren Buffett.
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Selling 101
2008-02-27 18:54:00
While in search of good customer service, in the last year, I have come across three basic types: the ones that don't care, the ones that involve you in their drama and the ones that talk down to you. The third kind is by far the worst. I shudder as I think what would happen to my clientele if I started telling them that the house they were in love with is just too horrid to be inside. See, I'm not even good at making this up.But it seems to be the lead selling companies out there that do this most often. In my early days of Sacramento Real Estate Gal, someone from one of these House-or-Home-Something-Value-Something-d ot-com called and asked me how I was generating internet leads. His big argument was that's the new frontier. I told him I wasn't interested in internet leads, which was true at the time. "Not interested in internet leads?" he repeated and laughed. Maybe it was the same guy that called today. Because this time he wanted to sell me an exclusive zip code and bragged ...
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You're a Realtor, so Show me a Home!
2008-02-27 02:02:00
Lately, I seem to be wading through quite a few clients who come in wanting to see homes and who - unfortunately - I have to turn away. Equally unfortunate is that sometimes they don't understand why and end up getting upset. So this is a post trying to explain my position.There are two sides to a real estate transaction - the listing (seller's) agent and the selling/co-operating (buyer's) agent. When most people call to see a home, unless they call the listing agent directly, the Realtor who receives the call hopes to become their agent, that is, the buyer's agent. This does not mean that he hopes to sell them just that particular home, but simply wishes to work with them until the right home is found. Hopefully, the client likes him enough to stick with him throughout the search.Also, as Realtors, we are ethically required to ask if you are currently working with another agent. If you are not happy with your agent and are looking for a new one, feel free to tell us. But I seem...
More About: Home , Show

Real Estate's Unexpected Fortunes: A Perspective
2008-02-26 20:59:00
It occurred to me this morning in the middle of a phone conversation that I may have changed. (Insert scary dramatic music here.) In a good way. I realized that selling real estate - and certainly buying it as well, may have contributed in a more positive way to my life than I ever thought possible. And before you write me off as another pollyanna, read for yourself and see if it isn't true for you as well, especially if you are a fellow Real tor or investor.Selling real estate forced me to become more social - earlier article about not doing well in an office not withstanding. I was one of those perpetual student types - you know the kinds that don't really ever quit school because they don't know what to do next. I had a long and happy road to a Masters Degree in Writing but wasn't really the best communicator outside of writing well and getting a few stories published in various magazines and anthologies. In my first few weeks of selling real estate though I was out around my ...
More About: By the Way , Perspective , Fortunes