Sacramento Real Estate Blog

credit: ishrona

Readers of this blog and Purva Brown’s Sacramento Real Estate Gal probably know that Purva is more of a real estate market optimist than I am. So she’s more likely to say something like this:

“Hey, you bubble blogger guys slept through the recovery!”

Sometimes I feel like such a coward, to tell you the truth, sending out a poor pregnant woman out to do the company’s rhetorical bear hunting.

On reflection, though,it’s probably not a bad thing to have a real estate company where the agents are optimists and the broker is a pessimist. While the agents are all out selling (a tough job where sometimes only optimism stands between you and despair), it’s the broker who’s supposed to be in the office fretting over getting sued.

We don’t say “pessimist” on the resume; we say “risk manager.”

What Do You Want To Prove?

Ouch, prices have come down 29.9% in Antelope, from the first quarter of 2007 to the first quarter of 2008 (sold price per square foot). The median sale price fell 26.2% during this period, from $325,000 in the first quarter of 2007 to $240,000 in the first quarter of 2008. The average home sold for $238,829 in first quarter of ‘08, down 28.1% from last year’s average selling price of $331,995.

If you’re Chicken Little, of course that proves that the sky is falling.

Meantime, a group of ungrateful home buyers in Antelope — heedless of the Naderesque altruism of these tireless geniuses who selflessly risk their anonymous reputations by toiling at their keyboards to warn buyers about the dangers of home ownership — these ungrateful buyers, I say, have refused to do the sensible thing and stay home and duck the falling pieces of Sacramento’s market.

In Antelope, in the first quarter of 2008, unit volume was up 44.5% from last year.

Damn it, ungwateful buyers. Wun away! Wun away!

Chicken Little was on such a winning streak last year in Antelope. Unit volume was down to 110 units for the first quarter of 2007. By August of last year, inventory in Antelope had topped twelve months.

Following the sell-off in the first quarter, we’re now looking at inventory numbers of 7.1 months.

Ingwates, that’s what you are.

Chicken Little FAQ

Q. How can you tell if Chicken Little is on your blog?
A. Your delete key finger is getting tired.

Q. What’s the difference between Ralph Nader and Chicken Little?
A. Ralph Nader has a job, and some people voted for him for President.

Q. Why does Chicken little tell you not to buy when prices are falling?
A. Because the bubble is bursting.

Q. Why does Chicken little tell you not to buy when prices are rising?
A. Because the bubble is going to burst.

Q. How do you make Chicken Little Soup?
A. Put Chicken Little in a pot. Boil vigorously. Then go out for Chinese.

Oh boy! Hold on to your hats. Buying a home is probably one of the most exciting and emotionally draining things you will ever do in your life. In my experience there are three types of home buyers:

1. The Fear Before the Process Starts Kind - This group of people feels an intense grip of fear/anxiety/dread when they first realize they are buying a house. They might walk around in a kind of stupor, bump into things and walls, and want to skip meals because their stomach is queasy. Then, they get over it and sail calmly through the home buying process. Their Realtors love them because they never show any worry or give them trouble calling incessantly. Their Realtors also wonder if they’re human, not having met them in the days these buyers refused to eat, got dark circles under their eyes and walked right out into traffic, scaring everyone around them.

2. The Anxious Home Buyer that Might not Make It - This is the worst group to belong to, so if you’re here, consider yourself warned: I will know you belong here. This is the home buyer who just cannot let go of her anxiety long enough to come into possession of a house. The home inspector almost gives up on her, the termite company swears they will never deal with her again and the Realtor is seeing red because this client has dragged her out of bed early on Sunday mornings and just when she is almost in escrow every calamity on earth has hit to help the cancelation of escrow. This home buyer might just not make it to the final signing and might not ever buy a home, so if you do see yourself here, ask yourself why you are buying a house or wanting to buy one. The answer might surprise you.

3. The Home Buyer’s Remorse Club - This is probably the largest community out there, so if you find yourself in the middle of an escrow wondering if you’re doing the right thing, or lying in your new bedroom of the house you just bought heart palpitating wildly, be reassured you’re in good company. Almost every home buyer claims to have some buyer’s remorse about spending too much, buying in the wrong neighborhood, and so on. Usually they get over it by the time of the housewarming and live happily ever after.

So which kind of home buyer are you? The group you fall into should give you a pretty good idea of how stressful this process will be for you!

Yes, I’ve been sick. No, I don’t hate the Sacramento real estate market.

While I was gone, I wrote an offer, got into escrow, celebrated, realized we weren’t in escrow when the listing agent called and said the asset manager had changed his mind about our offer, tracked down the deposit check, sent it back, felt very bad for my client, showed about ten homes to another client, wrote about five offers more, and worried about having infected my new client with the flu I had. (Although I really, truly was past it then.) Whew!

So what’s new here at Sacramento-Home? We are hearing from more investors and home buyers. Relocation buyers have been our specialty and we’re I think beginning to see them more and more now that it’s spring.

There are some incredible buys out there for people with 20% down. So let’s head out and shop! I have about 16 weeks left before the baby gets here. The countdown has begun!

If you’re interested in the history of development downtown in Sacramento, you may enjoy attending a presentation tonight (Wednesday, April 2nd) that’s being given as part of the Sacramento Preservation Commission Meeting.

William Burg, author of the Sacramento History Blog, will be giving the presentation at the Council Chambers, New City Hall, 915 I Street, First Floor. The agenda for the meeting is here.

I was just running the early numbers for March, and I’m happy to report that the Sacramento real estate market has fully recovered and has returned to the exuberance of 2004. The recovery started early in the month and was complete by March 17th.

Early in March, major lenders announced that they would once again be making many creative loan products available. John Stumpf, Wells Fargo chief executive, said his company intended to lead the market in this area by offering loans at up to 107% of the purchase price for qualified borrowers. When an aide brought the news to Countrywide CEO Angelo R. Mozilo, Mozilo quickly drafted a plan to provide loans at up to 109% of the purchase price for full doc loans, and 107% for stated income.

Countrywide is now offering two programs with these limits. The first is a traditional option-ARM, with one of the options being a negative amortization option. The second program is a new “negative amortization only” product, which is only available on the stated income loans.

With the new financing in place, buyers quickly realized the market had turned and shopped their way through the remaining inventory. After they bought the 3,411 available bank owned properties in El Dorado, Sacramento, and Placer County, they pre-ordered the next four months of bank owned inventory. A single investment group from Palo Alto accounted for over half these purchases.

With bank owned properties no longer available, buyers then quickly bid up the available traditional sales. Because of the rising prices and the availability of CountryWide’s innovative 120% HELOC, sellers offering short sales were able to refinance their homes and offer them on the market as usual.

With the short sales and foreclosures out of the way, prices quickly rose 23.9% on average, so prices in most areas are now at early 2007 levels. By July we expect to have prices above where they were in 2004.

There’s only one thing more irritating to me than telemarketers - it’s telemarketers from halfway around the world. Oh wait, there’s one more thing even more annoying - it’s when they harrass me by calling two or three more times after I have said, “Not interested, thanks,” basically the least amount of talking I can do to avoid eating up my minutes, which would essentially mean paying for telemarketers to tear into my day and irritate me.

And when did it become okay to flagrantly dismiss the Do not Call Registry? Suddenly, every lead generation company with leads to sell has found me on Active Rain and wants to call me - without any idea of how to read a script to make it seem like he’s actually talking - and sell me something!

Puh-leeze. Leave me alone. We don’t have “a business relationship.”

And I will report you to the registry. In fact, I just did. I don’t care if you live halfway around the world. If you’re calling a US number and selling to a US person, you better obey the laws.

This post was originally titled “Off Topic — Politics — Is America Ready for Another Clinton White House?”

But the truth is, that title was just an excuse to answer  “I say yes.  Especially if it’s George Clinton!”

But Wait, This Is On Topic After All

It turns out that everything ends up being about Sacramento.  Dawn Silva, who (if Wikipedia is to be trusted) sang for Sly and The Family Stone before joining George Clinton’s PFunk in 1977, hails originally from Sacramento — and that’s what listed as her location on her MySpace page.  “She was the only original Brides of Funkenstein member to continue through Brides’ career.”

Her MySpace page makes me wonder how I ever could have doubted MySpace.  That place is fantastic, as of today.

Hyperlink that funky music, white boy!  No greater HTML hath any man.

Over the weekend The Sacramento Real Estate Blog had a bit of a facelift.

Our old blog theme was ok, but it was looking a little long in the tooth and out of style.  Like everyone else, bloggers are slaves to fashion, and I was really starting to get tired of the three column layout — it was like wearing a wide tie when fat ties are back in vogue.

By the way, what kind of tie should I be wearing these days, if I wore one?

If you’re looking for Armani suit Realtors®, I’m afraid we don’t have any.

Things Should Be a Bit Easier To Find, I Hope

One of the things I like about the new layout is that it removes the huge number of links we had to everything under the sun.  Those links are still available from the web site.

Overall I think it’s a lot cleaner.  I hope you like it.

Does this dress make me look fat?

AdSense Ads, What’s Up With That?

One of the other things you may have noticed is that we’ve started putting up a few ads from AdSense.  In a few days we’ll probably also start serving some Project Wonderful ads as well. 

We expect the revenue from these ads to be extremely low compared to the revenue from our main business of helping our clients buy and sell homes in greater Sacramento.   Nevertheless, it’s a way to help offset the expense of maintaining our MLS feeds and other costs.  So with that let me welcome our current and future sponsors, whom I hope you’ll support.  If it gets to be too much of a distraction, I’ll take it down.

The green-eyed facelift lady stays up, however.

Some distractions are better than others.

Internet Mogul.  Sacramento Real Estate Gal.   Sacramento-Home.com co-author.  And now mother to be!

Given how nice this child looks already, we expect a full photo shoot when the happy day comes.

Wow. Hard on the heels of Inman’s nomination as one of the real estate blogosphere’s five least influential bloggers (no — I made that up — the truth is they never heard of me), Kathy T. over at Shak and Jill was nice enough to present Purva and I with our very own Thinking Blogger Award.

See, you thought we were just another C-list collection of market updates, but NOOOO, it turns out we’re actually “whimsical, informative, funny, and interesting.”

I should put that in bolder print so those of you who don’t read me can not see it.

That sure beats our last review, which accused us of being “uninformed, carcinogenic, dimwitted and fascist.”

No, I made that up, too. Inman never heard of me. Really.

Anyway, that’s the good news. The bad news is that there’s a bit of a chain letter aspect to the award — or at least, a sort of obligation to pass it on. I don’t usually go for that sort of thing, but today I was whining about that brick Inman threw at my window (no seriously, they didn’t), and Purva said “Well, gee, you depressed, egomaniacal dullard, at least you won the thinking blogger award!”

So today I have to come up with five blogs that have made me think and pass the award along, otherwise I break the chain and a Voodoo practitioner from the Dominican Republic will come after me with small animal bones and the blood of a chicken.

So without further ado, five blogs that have made me think. And remember you winners, you have to acknowledge this post and pass it along! Well, no, really you don’t have to do anything, but it’d be cool if you did.

Problogger
Yeah, I know, everyone links to Problogger, but that’s because his work is really, really good. If you want to improve your blog, the ideas he presents are a must read.

The Great Seduction
On the opposite scale of the popularity contest from Darren Rowse is the Web 2.0 critic, Andrew Keene. You might say that John Lockwood is to RE.net as Andrew Keene is to Web 2.0 in general. It’s not that he’s my Luddite hero or anything, but I do sense a bit of kindred spirit.

Sacramento Real Estate Gal
I don’t know if it’s cheating or not to mention Purva, since she’s an author here, but what the heck. In addition to her important role as my co-author and only friend, it’s a pleasure to enjoy her clarity of thought and optimism for real estate. She also really helps out the recruiting cause by saying nice things about the company — and it’s always good to be appreciated.

The Real Estate Blog Lab
So many of what pass for “real estate technology” blogs strike me as cheerleader pieces for gadgets I could care less about. “It’s a lockbox key AND an MP3 player”. Sorry, don’t need one. Dave Smith’s Real Estate Blog Lab is different. It really is a lab — a sort of Wordpress user’s journal that makes a fascinating ongoing experiment in blogging techniques.

The Housechick Blog
It seems to me that Kelly Koehler is one of the few people who has mastered the art of writing a real estate blog that her real estate customers would find interesting and informative. This blog successfully blends the local with the universal. Plus, how can you not like someone who calls herself the Housechick?

I know I can. 

Leap years only happen once every four years.  But of course you knew that.

I plan on making the most of this one.

You should, too.

We should all have a great February 29th, because if we blow it, we won’t get another February 29th until 2012.  So all the stuff we could have done will just have to wait.

I’m trying to be proactive here.

In honor of leap year day, I’m going to make a stupid announcement tomorrow.  It will be on my Roseville Blog, since I don’t want to be any more stupid here on this blog than I have to be, especially not on a high holy day like leap year day.

Now I hope all good children will go to bed early tonight so Santa Calendar will come.

With visions of chronitons dancing in your head.

The other day I was out showing property and ran into an agent wearing a ten dollar hat on a nickel head.

I was having a problem showing this one listing.  Every so often you meet a lock that doesn’t work or a similar problem that prevents you from getting inside the house.  In this case there was a key for the deadbolt, but the doorknob lock was keyed differently, was locked, and there was no key to the doorknob lock.

So I called the agent, who I’ll call Tami Talksalot, and got a sort of voicemail Homeric epic that went something like:

“Thank you for calling the Tami Talksalot Team, your personal real estate consultant for life.  Since 95% of our business comes from referrals blah blah blah.  Please leave your name, phone number, and a detailed description of your problem so we can be fully prepared before calling you back.  If you were referred to us blah blah blah please leave the name of the person who referred you so we can call and punish them with this epic voicemail too blah blah blah.”

It looks a lot shorter in print.  I’m sure there was more to it, like what color shirt Tami Talksalot was wearing and something about providing my cat with outstanding customer service, but after a few minutes waiting to tell my personal real estate consultant for life that I couldn’t show her property because 95% of my business comes from people who could actually get inside the house they wanted to buy, I got pretty tired.

I got a call back twenty-four hours later after my buyers and I had long since left the area by an assistant on the Tami Talksalot team, Peggy-Sue Getaclue, who asked if I was able to get inside the house.

I missed an opportunity there.  I should have told her I was still listening to the voicemail announcement.

Live and learn.

I’m still waiting to hear back that the house can be shown.  But I’m not holding my breath.

I’ve been thinking about all the news about foreclosures.  I work here in the greater Sacramento area.  Though I live in El Dorado County, which (along with Placer County) has experienced relatively few foreclosures, Sacramento County currently has more than fifty per-cent short sales and foreclosures in inventory.  Now granted, that’s not necessarily a huge number compared to all the homes in the area, since obviously being in financial trouble triggers a sale — most folks who own homes aren’t in foreclosure, and aren’t selling at any given time.  Still, it’s enough to get my attention.

A caricature of Realtors® is that we’re always pushing home ownership on unsuspecting victims.  I think the general consensus lies somewhere between the idea that we have hypnotic powers of persuasion to lure our victims into contracts they don’t want (much like the famous Hypnotoad, shown at right) or — less charitably — that we hit people over the head with shovels to get them into our cars, then take it from there.

Those Educated Internet Buyers - What’s a Poor Hypnotoad to Do?

Unfortunately, your standard Jedi / Hypnotoad mind tricks only work on the weak minded.  Most people I meet here on the Internet have too many information resources at their disposal to be an easy mark for these unscrupulous amphibians.  That’s probably why none of my buyers has (to my knowledge) ended up in foreclosure yet. 

Still, there may be some of you out there who are just itching to do it, so for those of you with a real hankering to financially self destruct, here are . . .

Ten Easy Steps to Foreclosure

1. State your income. 
   You may have heard that stated income loans are for the self-employed.  Don’t you believe it!  Full doc loans are harder to do so your lender doesn’t like them, and I know you want things to go smoothly for your lender out of gratitude for the wonderful loan he’s getting you, right?  And you don’t mind paying the extra half point or so to go stated, do you?  While you’re at it, forget about the fact that overstating your income is loan fraud, a federal crime.  A smart buyer like you isn’t afraid of some wimps at the FBI, are you?  The more you say you make, the nicer house you can get.  That’s why they call them “liars’ loans”, after all.
2. Don’t Pay To Run Your Own Credit - Your Lender Will Do It FREE!
   Here’s the thing.  If you run your own credit, you might conceivably talk one or more loan officers into checking into different loan programs for you.  That’s not good.  This might educate you as a consumer, and you might find eventually bump into a lender who’ll explain things to you.  Learning is the first step on the road to making stupid loan payments on a conservative loan package.  How are you going to get foreclosed on if you make loan payments?  Huh?  Plus, running your own credit doesn’t count as an inquiry, and your loan officer is counting on you worrying about making multiple inquiries, so letting them do it free for you locks you in quite nicely, doesn’t it?  So stay away from sites like MyFico.com.  I’m not even going to link to them because you’ll only end up running your credit and getting confused.
3. If your lender tells you you can afford the house, you can afford the house.
   Although most knowledgeable foreclosure-philes generally frown on talking to more than one lender because one or more of them might turn out to be ethical, one thing you should do is get as many opinions as you can about how much house you can afford, and go with the highest amount.  You’ll get a much nicer house that way.  If someone in your family has a calculator or spreadsheet or other budgeting tool and suggests a lower amount, you should argue with her until you get the most house that that nice lender said you could.  In fact, you should probably be looking at homes that cost more than that, because you can always talk the seller down.   And maybe you’ll see something you like even better that way.
4. Always remember:  your lender can refinance you later.
   Remember, the market’s going up! Up!  Up!  Sure, it’s going down now, but it’s going up in a few minutes.  (I think I heard it’ll be fine by Wednesday.)  The reason you don’t need to figure out a conservative loan that you can live with is that the market’s going up, and if you refinance later you can buy more house now!  Wasn’t it nice of that nice lender to tell you that you could refinance later?  He must really be trying to help you by offering to do that extra loan for you.  That stupid lender who said you could afford less house was only going to do one loan, and didn’t even offer to refinance you later.  He must just be lazy.
5. Refinance early, refinance often.
   Now that you have a really killer house, do you really still want to be seen driving that old broken down car of yours?  You have this great big garage, and all you’ve got to show for it is a five year old import.  You have some equity now.  Don’t you deserve a Hummer?  Besides, your equity’s not doing you any good unless you put it to use.  You’ve already by now picked out a hard working lender who generously doesn’t mind refinancing you, so go for the gusto!  You only live once.
6. Remember, the market will go UP!
   And of course, it’ll go up just in time!  So you don’t need a conservative loan.  In fact, come to think of it, hopefully you bought when the market was going up.  You don’t want to buy when prices are low, because good heavens, they may get lower (and what would your friends say to that).  Plus, if the market’s going down, the best way to pay for your house is with some kind of boring loan, and you won’t be able to refinance or get yourself a Hummer.  If you learn how to get foreclosed on, you can buy high when homes are popular, and then you won’t have to sell low, because the nice people at the bank will sell it for you.
7. If you can afford the lowest payment, you can afford the house.
   One of the great financial instruments of the twentieth century was the Option Arm, or “Pick-a-Pay” loan.  You may have heard that they’re appropriate for the self employed too, or for people whose cash flow varies.  But you’re not going to believe that either, are you?  (See “State Your Income”).  With a pick-a-pay loan, you get to pay either a lot of money on the loan, or just a little bit of money on the loan.  You’re not going to be a chump and pick the fully amortized 15 or 30-year fixed payment, are you?  That payment will be huge!  You won’t be able to buy as much house that way!  You might have to settle for a lousy older home or condo or rent for a few more years while you save.  Through the miracle of Negative Amortization, you can own the big brand new mansion you really want now!
8. Never mind what negative amortization means.
   You don’t need to know what negative amortization means.  “Negative” and “mort” — anything that sounds THAT depressing isn’t something an upbeat mansion-owner like you should spend time on.  You shouldn’t worry about it anyway, because the amount of negative amortization on the loan is limited, and you’ll still have the loan when you hit the limit.  I want you all to stop worrying about negative amortization right now, and never, ever, ever, look it up.  Also while you’re not looking things up, don’t look up what happens when you hit the limit.
9. The best thing to do with a document you don’t understand is sign it.
   The quicker you sign, the quicker you’ll get the keys to your new house!  Do you want to move in and throw a party for your friends, or do you want to waste your life reading and asking philosophical questions?
10. While we’re on the subject of reading…
    There are books on Amazon.com and lots of great consumer web sites that talk about loan programs, managing money, etc., but hopefully by now you’ve learned enough about ruining your credit to avoid all that highbrow academic stuff and get down to the real fun of shopping for the absolute most house you can afford, with a big garage for your new SUV!  Besides, reading makes you sleepy.

(This shouldn’t be necessary, but here it is:  You should be afraid of the FBI, and loan fraud is a serious crime.  This article is meant to be humorous and tongue in cheek only, and instructive only in a reverse-psychology sort of way).

Winter is not the time when most people get charged up about wanting to remodel. But in my family the day after Christmas is traditionally the time we use to plan and begin a new project. Ideally, you wouldn’t want to build a new roof then, but inside projects like replacing the wall heater, or painting seems just right. For one, it chases the winter doldrums, for another it helps brighten the room (if you choose the right colors) and your outlook.

So this winter we’re planning on transforming the fixer-upper part of our house in Pollock Pines. We bought it cheap because the top half was beautifully remodeled and the ground floor was not. It has wood paneling and is very depressing. Now that we have an extra set of hands with family, it should be pretty fun. I will post pics as soon as I get them!

And in case you have wood paneling on your walls and you want to update it, have you thought about just painting it? Read about it here.

Wow, look at that, it’s December already.  No wonder the sun isn’t out.

With the end of the year upon is, it’s time for holiday parties and closing out the accounting season, and Elite Properties is no exception.   At the end of the week we’re getting together for our Christmas Party dinner at the home of the agent who’s arguably our company’s best cook, Vicki Agregado-Babcock. 

Since it’s also time for closing out the accounting season, today I learned that our company’s best cook is also the company’s top producing agent for the year, so congratulations to Vicki for being ahead of the curve! 

I was somewhat chagrined to learn that I came in only in second place for total sales volume.  But I don’t mind too much because as the broker I can make up whatever awards I want, so I think there’s a good chance I’m a shoe-in for broker of the year.

If all else fails, I’m also the tallest.

See, kids, listen to your mom.  Eating your vegetables really works.

…for your home, that is. Consider these three fantastic finds for your bathroom:

A freehander shower: Especially if you’re one of those tall people that have the shower hit you in the face everytime or you’re so short, you can’t reach the shower head to adjust it. Makes the bathroom look very high-end as well and might make a good resale price for your house!

Ambient Rain: For those days when you really just want to shower in the rain, but it’s, say, 110 degrees outside.

A bronze sink: In bowl form or built in. Gives the bathroom a very special look. But be sure to decorate around these items and remove the clutter.

Everyone knows bathrooms sell homes. Consider these finds investments into the future value of your house!

John should be posting statistics for resales in Sacramento soon. I’m learning it’s tough to try and keep up posting to the blog(s), writing an e-book, getting mailers out to my clients for Christmas and managing an escrow. Huh! That would explain why the days seem to be shorter. No wait. They really are.

And while we’re upset with other people not doing their jobs, let me just throw in a certain title company that cannot seem to provide a Natural Hazard Disclosure for almost a week and a half after I’ve requested it. (It took them one week to get me a preliminary title report!) And all my calls have been of no avail. Today is day 17 when we’re supposed to remove contingencies! I guess we’re all in a holiday mood!

Add to that the software for our transaction not working - or better yet, not letting me into it - and we have the best of all worlds: a —— — Realtor with too much to do!!!!! (Add your own expletives. I’m okay with any of them, really.)

While everyone else is bemoaning the housing market and saying how terrible their loans are, I’m introducing a thank your Realtor weekend for those of you that have made good purchases over the years with Realtors who did not put you in a house you couldn’t afford, or mortgage brokers who didn’t sell you loans that they knew would blow up in your face in a few years.

This Thanksgiving, I think it’s important to remember that there are some of us who are concerned about our clients, their needs, and not just about getting paid. Some of us are truly here to help you find the right home for your needs and really listen.

Be sure to thank those honest professionals this weekend. (And the best way to thank someone is to send them a referral.)

And have a very happy Thanksgiving!

Much against the wishes of my husband, who probably hears more about real estate and Realtors than he would rather, we watched this movie. The trailer seemed funny, so I got my hands on it last weekend at Amazon.

If you’ve had any experience buying a house with a Realtor, you might not find it funny. We come out amazingly normal and sane after anyone watches this movie. But if you are a Realtor or have experience working with one, this might provide some comic relief. I think this movie might be funnier for Realtors than their clients.

But then again, any movie that makes us look sane is worth watching.

Yes, I know. I’ve become a bit of a T.V. correspondent for Sacramento-Home lately, but then who else is watching out for you and bringing you the latest trends? One thing I observe again and again from clients and others is that when they start to renovate a home and / or want to sell a home (a flip or otherwise), a lot of them want to tear down a wall and make a space more open.

While there is a lot to be said about light and bright spaces, you can also consider building a wall. Surprised? You shouldn’t be. “Designed to Sell” recently had a show in which an awkward area with a platform of sorts stuck out like a sore thumb, invading the family room and drawing attention away from it.

The solution? A wall. The wall was built to hide the platform and hide the awkward space, making it more of a storage area, but in a way that didn’t take away from the family room. Of course, it was done very professionally and molding was added to make sure it matched the rest of the home.

Sometimes, adding a wall can add more value than tearing it down.

I was watching Oprah the other day and she had her designer Nate Berkus on. And although the show focused on makeovers for people drowning in cutesy country things and stuck in a time warp, I’ve seen enough homes and heard enough potential buyer responses to know that what Nate suggested was right.

Often I hear home sellers say, well, it’s a work in progress. Really, in this market your house cannot be a work in progress.

Here are some notes I took while watching the show so I could share them with you out there having trouble selling your homes. There’s not that many people out there looking for a house, so you must make the ones that are looking want to make an offer.

How? Price is important. But here are some other tips you might want to follow to not drive buyers away:

1. The emphasis seems to be on simplicity. Throw away things you don’t use any more and put other things in storage. Remember, we don’t show our homes the way we live in them. I wouldn’t dream of letting a buyer through my home right now - I’m absolutely not the neatest person in the world!

2. Overaccessorizing is always a problem. So stick with simple accessories. Get rid of anything more than three things on any surface. If possible, try to stick with one thing on each surface. Think an orchid.

3. Finish all projects that are not complete. Do not hide things by covering them up with rugs. That makes buyers wonder what else in the home has not been fixed.

Sometimes, it’s a good idea to let your neighbors walk through the home before you think you’re ready to call an agent. Are you wondering why? Do you have to?

If you’re a landlord, or manage property for someone else, you MUST have a story to tell! We’re inviting you to tell us those stories. We’re working on putting together an e-book with axioms every landlord must follow to have a successful investing future.

Please go to www.SacramentoRealEstateGal.com and comment on the posts to submit your stories, anecdotes, advice or what have you. You will be featured in the e-book, but we could change the names of your tenants to protect their privacy.

Please contribute.

Today I got a nice call from Rhona Sutter at the Pet Realty Network, a group of Pet Friendly Realtors®. Rhona and I had a discussion at one time about different marketing strategies, and I found her to be one of those really nice people who put up with me in one of my cantankerous moments.

I had argued fairly vehemently against outdoor vanity advertising and in favor of pay-per-click ads, and she called to say hello and let me know I was half right, that the vanity ad she bought didn’t work but also that she doesn’t have much success with pay per click for her particular business model.

We also talked about Mark Twain, and the jumping frogs of Calaveras County, which is beyond the borders of the Elite empire, which is Amador County. If Elite Properties were Rome, Amador County would be, I don’t know, probably Gaul. Of course if we’re going to be Rome I think we’ll need more than six people.

So anyway, Rhona’s really a nice lady, and you should go check out her web site.

Being among dogs has a humanizing influence on people.

You’d think it would have a dogizing influence, but there you go.

Click the Youtube above video to begin, or here’s the link to The Price Song video.

I was informed of this bad news today on my Profile on Youtube:

Damn. How did they find out?

They must have seen the video of me.

I pasted that image in there, by the way. The new Live Writer is da Bomb!

If you like long walks with the leaves changing colors and a quiet town to hide in away from the busy Sacramento area, Cool might be just the place for your vacation home. On historic Highway 49, bordering a state park, Cool is a town of some 2500 residents and homes with acreage. At an elevation of just 1500 ft above sea level, the temperatures are a little Cool-er than Sacramento.

Median prices this year have Cool-ed (all right, I’ll stop!) from $454,000 last year to $385,000 so far this year. Only 34 homes have sold compared to 77 last year.

There are 59 homes currently available for sale from a low of $249,000 to $1,590,000.

There’s been some talk lately of vacation and second homes are the best investments especially in a slow real estate market and I would like to offer my own hometown here as a perfect place for such an investment.

Pollock Pines, CA is a little “city” of about 4700 people about 50 miles from Sacramento. Described by many in the past as a bedroom community or a place people retired in, this friendly city is now home to many who work in Folsom, Placerville, and even Sacramento.

The great diversity in home prices seems attractive to many as well. In 2006, 156 homes sold in Pollock Pines for a minimum price of $179,000 to a high of $873,000. In 2007, 103 homes in Pollock Pines have sold for a low of $87,500 and a high of $830,000.

Currently on the market are still 147 single family homes for sale between $129,000 and $2,650,000 putting the median at just under $360,000.

But you better be prepared for snow in the winter - Pollock Pines is at 4000 feet above sea level.

Well, here it is only 2007 and I’m finally getting around to uploading some video to the Internets.

I’m so behind. I’m sure others have already abandoned video in favor of smell-o-vision and other more leading edge “new media”.

My ultimate goal in this is to have yet another place (or bunch of other places) for my clients listings to go, such as YouTube and Yahoo Video. I also want to do some real estate screencasts about topics buyers and sellers may find useful.

As an experimental first video created with Pinnacle Studio, here’s a slide show based on my walk around Cameron Park Lake. The YouTube version is below, or there’s a slightly larger MP4 Version available from my Cameron Park Real Estate page.

I sometimes find myself feeling badly about some of the information I publish here, especially the market updates, thinking that the information they contain might be somewhat boring or trivial. Given this message I read today from Amazon.com, however, I’m beginning to think my web site is the soul of profundity itself. Thank you, Amazon, for lowering the bar, and for giving me a good laugh.

I’ve become absolutely obsessed lately about playing chess on my computer and likening pretty much everything I come across to it. And I began to think - well, how different is investing in real estate from chess anyway?

Besides the fact that there’s no king to kill or threaten? Well…

Both chess and investing require you to think about your next move especially in an if-then circumstantial way. You could get into serious trouble in both if you don’t plan for contingencies. The more you do both, the better you get at them.

Oh, and by the way - no one else cares about it as much as you do.