Cold Winter Days in Rocklin

I finally completed my review of the Rocklin real estate market for the first month of 2007, “Cold Winter Days.” There was not much good news to report but some of the other communities in our Sacramento area seem to be showing signs of life with increasing sales volume and stabilizing prices so we will keep an eye on Rocklin and see what happens over the next few months.

If you have been following my Reality Real Estate series, My For Sale Sign, I have decided to add a blog to the feature to keep my readers up-to-date. I want to thank all of you who have taken the time to visit and send me emails. I love hearing from you and appreciate your ideas. I will be working on a larger update later this week and will for the first time include some comments from Randi & Tony. For those of you who have asked to see a picture of them, we are working on that too

Roseville Review

As a follow-up to my monthly real estate review, “Sacramento Real Estate: As well as can be expected,” I have prepared an overview of how the Roseville real estate market performed during the first month of 2007. You can read it on my website or in my Rocklin & Roseville Today column.

Over my Reality Real Estate feature, “My For Sale Sign,” I think I have finally figured out a good way to unfold the saga of Randi & Tony as they attempt to sell their Yuba City condo/townhouse and find a larger home. Initially I was going to do a weekly or every 10-day update on what was going on but I am pleased to report I have been getting a fair amount of comments and email asking for more current information. Although there is not much going on during the initial marketing phase I have created a My For Sale Sign blog to post more short and quick updates. So the plan remains to have an article every week or so but use the blog to post more current updates. Take a look at it and let me know what you think. Your ideas are always welcome.

Check back tomorrow or Tuesday for my Rocklin real estate review and if you are out and about today in the Natomas area stop by and say hello, I will be holding an Open House at my Alcantar Circle listing from 1 to 4 PM.

Update at My For Sale Sign

Today I published the second of a series of articles on my new website feature, My For Sale Sign. The initial series of “reality real estate” follows a Yuba City couple, Randi and Tony as they make decision to sell their condo/townhouse and find a larger home to start a family in. Today’s edition is “One Step at a Time” and gives the readers an update on where we are a week after listing the condo and holding our first open house.

I want to thank all of you who took the time and emailed or phoned me about my latest article on the Sacramento real estate market, “Sacramento real estate: As well as can be expected.” I appreciate your comments, thoughts and at least two of you caught my mistake in using 2005 and saying “last year.” I apologize for any confusion and have corrected the version of the article that appears on my website. The article got picked up and syndicated so there are quite a few sites with it. Here is one at American Chronicle.

Early Spring?

If yesterday’s weather didn’t give you thinking about spring you must have stayed in all day. All of sudden our yard demanded attention and the bikes with dust on them came out of the garage. Today, looks like more of the same and I hope it holds at least through tomorrow so we can spend the day outside with Mikie.

I am off to Yuba City today for an open house on the My For Sale Sign property so I should have some information to post over there early next week. If you are out and about today and in the Yuba City area stop by and say hello, we will be in The Grove at 750 Lincoln Road, Unit 20 from 1 to 4 PM. Click here for a Google map.

By the way, we are currently looking for one or two Realtors to join our RE Group. If you or someone you know is relatively new to the business and would like to work with a small group of motivated agents and support staff, we would like to talk. We provide marketing, administrative, deal and backup support. We also share leads. If you are tired of doing it all yourself and want help, call Julie at 916 290-9339 or email us today.

Did I lose a day?

With three listings in contract I have been on the run the past few days but did have time to take a quick look at the growing inventory in the Greater Sacramento area. According to HousingTracker the inventory has grown 4.4 percent in the past month to 13,013. The good news for sellers is the median price has been holding steady at about $400,000 for the same period.

Thanks for all the positive feedback on my new feature, “My For Sale Sign” and first reality series tracking Randi and Tony as they begin the journey of selling their Yuba City condo and looking for a larger home.

Updates and more Zillow

Now that I have started the “My For Sale Sign” series I have had a number of questions about some of my past entries, the family from Washington and the clients from Canada that I mentioned in my Rocklin & Roseville Today column, “Surprised Realtor.” First, it makes me feel pretty good to know that a few people take time out of their day to read my blog, thank you very much, I appreciate it and value your email comments.

Unfortunately, the family relocating here from Washington is still looking although we are narrowing the search and hope over the next week or two they will have a purchase agreement and can begin setting dates to move. I remember how difficult it was when Michael was working here and Mikie and I were in Alaska. The first house they found was one they had admired on the internet. They came out for whirlwind weekend and it remained their favorite after seeing many other very nice homes. We did make what I thought was a very solid offer, but later found out we had insulted the very emotionally attached sellers. To make a very long story short, there appears to be some drama going on between the sellers and their relocation company and we were not able or willing to deal with it.

I just received an email from Kara and she and her family are settling in as California homeowners after living in Toronto for the past several years. We looked at, oh so many homes, but in the end we found the right one and I hope they will be happy in their home for many years to come. I enjoyed working with them and meeting their California family and fully intend on staying in touch.

BTW, there was a very good post the other day over at Sacramento Land(ing) referring to the Zillow Blog where they have just posted their Q4 Real Estate Performance: The Medium is the Message. I think they are both worth reading if you follow the market. Depending on how you feel about Zillow’s zestimates they make some interesting points about using median price as a measuring tool.

My For Sale Sign

Today I have started what I plan to be series of articles and blog posts focused on real time experiences of selling and buying a home. We have all the right ingredients; a pretty heroine, romance, dreams and the reality of the current real estate market. Check out my first article, “The Journey Begins” and let me know what you think. I promise to have at least weekly updates and if you have some good ideas or just want to kibitz we will include that too. Send your ideas and comments to ForSale@jalone.com.

Ready to Sell

My listing in the Diamond Woods development of West Roseville is a great house but has not sold yet. The owners of Greywood Circle want to complete their move and are ready to sell. Today we have made a significant price reduction to make that happen. I don't normally use my blog to advertise (well not too often!) but wanted to alert any potential buyers that we have a great house that is very aggressively priced at $550,000. If you want to see it or know someone who is, let me know and I will personally pay $500 of your closing costs or provide you with a gift certificate to Lowes or another store of your choice. Call me or email me today and let me know you read this offer on my blog.

Inventory and Listings

This week, HousingTracker, is reporting inventory of available homes in the greater Sacramento area is down 38 to 12,747 as of the past week ending February 5. The median price has been holding steady at about $400,000. The one month changes they reported are a decline of 1.2 percent in median price and a 4.3 percent growth in inventory. Seeing inventory holding and not growing fast is a good sign the spring selling season has not started. Another sign is the weather which is grey and wet today.

Speaking of inventory, our Jalone-Butler group added a new listing in Rocklin last week and it got an unheard of showing on Super Bowl Sunday! I have new Yuba City listing coming on the market this week and you can get sneak preview of it later today. It is an awesome townhouse and has the best location in the desirable planned community, The Grove.

Super Bowl Sunday

I was going to hold an open house at my Alcantar Circle listing in Natomas today until I realized it was the big day for parties and we were invited to one. I am not much of a football fan but do enjoy the overall spectacle and the people we will be seeing. They are not calling it a Super Bowl party, it is a “crawl” because we are going to move back and forth between a two houses. I suspect the Sacramento real estate market is going to have a slow day and there will not be a lot of people out looking at houses so we are going to go, relax and have some fun.

I am not sure who to root for but did hear the game may be played in the rain. That will be the first time that has ever happened. I do hope the game is at least as interesting as the commercials. I know Michael is waiting for the 49’ers to get back in it!

Saturday

I had not expected January to have been as busy as it was and now as we move into February, if anything, the level of real estate activity seems to be increasing. My listings are getting a fair number of showings per week and we have fielded several offers from interested buyers. For those of you who follow some of my story lines, we have just received another offer on the property I wrote about on January 24, “Why waste the paper?” It appears to be a solid offer from a buyer whose agent was not afraid to pick-up the phone and talk to me. We have not reached the agreement stage but I have a good feeling about it.

We are meeting today for a bit of fun and food with my young clients from Yuba City to see how they are progressing on preparing their condominium for sale so I should have an update on them next week and hopefully we can follow their story through the selling and buying process.

Check out Traci Butler’s new listing on Poppy Lane in the Stanford Ranch area of Rocklin. Looks like a pretty cool house and according to Traci has some innovative upgrades and decorating ideas that are worth seeing. Keep an eye out for an open house or give her a call to see it.

By the way, if you have visited my website recently you may have noticed some changes, we are trying to make the site a bit easier to read and navigate. Michael has some other changes planned over the next several weeks so check back often and please send us any comments you have.

Finally, an early start on Valentine’s Day, here is a buy one – get one free coupon from Cold Stone Creamery.