A Song of Wind and Rain
How to Prepare Your Home for Winter in Sacramento

The long and sunny days of summer have come to an end, with the last notably hot day in Sacramento being toward the end of September. The autumn rain came right on time this year compared to past fall seasons in which we had summer encores of hot days that didn't go away until early November! It appears that Northern California is getting more of an average fall season this year, which may even be a sign that the long-term drought could be winding down as the much-needed precipitation helps replenish the water tables and reservoirs in the Central Valley. In short, we might be able to keep our lawns green again, amiright?

Yeah, you remember this stuff, don't you?

The Sacramento area is well-known for hot summers, but if you're a new homeowner in Northern California it can be trickier to plan for winter weather. Sacramento doesn't get snow like most of the rest of the country, but there is some semblance of a winter season here, unlike Southern California.

Pictured: Venice, CA in the dead of winter.

After working that part out, it is also important to consider which part of Northern California you live in: the coast gets one weather pattern, as you move inland, the coastal mountain range gets another, the Central Valley yet another, and finally the Sierras bordering with Nevada, which actually do get snow once above 2,000 feet or so in elevation. Sacramento and surrounding valley cities get lots of rain (in non-drought times, anyway), and can get plenty of wind from storm activity that tends to peak in intensity in December, though every year can bring surprises. Knowing that the biggest threat from winter weather is the rain and wind out here, how can you as a Sacramento area homeowner best prepare to keep your house safe and in good condition during the winter?

Here it is: the number one threat posed by winters in Sacramento - falling water!

Here are a few tips, which are mostly pretty obvious, but knowing what to do and actually doing it are two different things! Our list makes it easy to do both, whether you prefer to DIY or hire a professional service to help you winter-proof your Sacramento area home.

Clean the gutters. Summer doesn't typically leave your gutters full of leaves if you clean them each winter, but they can get filled with small amounts of dirt blown in by the wind, or they can even become dried out and brittle from cumulative sun exposure. Safely use your ladder and scoop any debris out of your gutters (they even make gutter cleaning scoops, although a gardening trowel works fine too). Use a hose to wash the gutters out with some pressure for even better results, and to visually confirm that the gutters can drain properly.

Check the windows for cracks and old seals. Replacing them with double pane windows is ideal to save on heating (and cooling) costs down the road. Go around your house (easiest if one story, but can be done for two story homes with an extension ladder, using caution) and check each window, as cracks and worn out seals are usually easy to spot. There are ways to patch cracked windows temporarily if replacing them is out of the budget at the moment, but it is not recommended to use this Band-Aid method for more than one winter season, as moisture and mold have the potential to build up between dual panes of glass.

Trim the trees around your house, and even consider removing any old trees that look like they don't have another winter left in them so they don't drop branches or even fall over in strong winds, or land on power lines, in neighboring yards, on cars, or even people and pets. Also give the front and back yards a round of fall cleaning so that everything looks good, and any issues that could come up due to overgrown vegetation or broken fence boards, etc. can be dealt with before the heavy rains arrive. There's nothing more annoying than having to try to fix something when it's been pouring rain for two weeks straight (again, in non-drought times).

Flood preparedness. If you live near a river or in one of Sacramento's flood plains, be sure to obtain FEMA's emergency preparedness guide (download here). It contains lots of different things to be prepared for, but at least be familiar with what to do in a flood situation. As long as you have homeowner's insurance, which you probably were required to get anyway if your home is in or near a flood zone, then don't sweat the potential damage to your house, since that's what the insurance is for. Just make sure you know how to evacuate your family to safety with a basic preparedness plan. If you check the history of catastrophic floods in the Sacramento area, you will have a hard time finding any recent headlines, but it never hurts to have a plan for floods and other natural disasters, particularly because the ones Sacramento can have which involve water tend to be more of a risk in the winter.

Clean the chimney, if you have one. Santa will thank you, if you celebrate Christmas, and the atmosphere will thank you, regardless. It will also ensure no debris is stuck in the chimney that could cause blockage or catch on fire. Adding a spark arrestor at the top if you don't have one will help you stay safe (and compliant in areas that require one anyway). If you use a gas fireplace, test out the fireplace and be sure that you don't smell any gas leaks. If you just moved into a home with a gas fireplace, make sure you read up on how your fireplace unit works to be extra safe and not have any delays when it's cold and you don't want to have to experiment for the first time.

Make sure the stove is working properly. Electrical stoves are a little easier; just make sure each of the coils and the oven (and microwave, if equipped) are working properly, are clean, and don't smell funny. For gas stoves, it's important to make sure you don't smell any propane leaks. If you smell a little bit of propane, it could either be a loose connection (most likely if a newer stove - make sure the connections are tight and seated properly), or a worn out old hose if an older stove. You can either shut off the gas and replace the hose yourself, or have a professional check out the entire gas line at your house if you suspect the leak could be in the wall or elsewhere that you can't access to safely repair. Also, whether or not you will only use your home's central heater to keep the house warm (or wall heater units, in older homes), make sure you have all heating units inspected if over ten years old. For newer units, just change the air filters throughout the house after a summer of running the A/C to ensure clean air that doesn't smell bad (you can even buy those scented filters that smell like evergreen trees if you want!)








We ran out of stock pictures, but here are some additional things to consider:

Make sure you don't have any electrical or plumbing issues to take care of. When it's warm outside and it stays light until 8PM, it is much easier to put off lighting and air conditioning or water heating troubles than it is when its cold and raining outside, and dark at 5PM. If you have an old water heater unit, it pays to have it inspected as well. The same goes if you have any water filtration or softening units. If you live in a rural part of the Sacramento area and have a well and/or septic system, early fall is a great time to get both systems checked out. For those of you who've lived in a remote area before, you may already know from experience how a failed well pump that can't be looked at until after a four day holiday weekend can dampen your holiday cheer! Last of all, it pays to have flashlights and other battery-powered light sources and/or candles throughout your home, as power outages happen when the weather gets stormy, but flashlights can make the experience easier. If you use SMUD for electrical service, they even send notifications to your phone in the event of power outages.

For more ideas of how to winter-proof your home this fall, consult your homeowner's insurance company. Looking to become a homeowner before winter arrives? The end of the year is traditionally the slowest time for real estate sales, thereby allowing some bargaining power in making an offer on the homes available. If you were considering buying a home anyway, then winter is a great time to get a deal (inventory levels are lower, but there are still plenty of possibilities). Call Premier Midtown Realty today for more information on buying a home: (916) 502-0953. (Ok, fine, we won't throw in the tagline pun of "Where great service is always in season!" The random cop from the Monty Python sketches would appear and take us away. Far too silly!)

Premier Midtown Realty: "Your Partners in Midtown Sacramento & Central Valley Real Estate!"

Ryan Wagner, California Real Estate Broker. CA BRE license # 01968073.

So where are home prices headed, anyway?

As the third quarter of 2016 came to a wrap, the Sacramento market area saw continued growth in home sale values, driven by steady demand and ever-dwindling inventory. The average home sale in the third quarter closed around $343,000, which is up 8.5% since the third quarter of 2015 when that figure was about $316,000. Helping to fuel sale value growth are the inventory levels for single family residence (SFR) houses and condos listed on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS), which was down to 2,774 listings in August, versus one year ago when it was 2,876, representing a -3.7% year-on-year (YoY) change. Sales volume in 2016 peaked in June - historically one of the highest volume months for SFR/condo sales - at 1,815 closings, which is actually up 17% since June 2015 when sales volume reached 1,783. This is a solid indication of demand having risen in the last year, and certainly when compared to June 2014 sales volume, when it was at 1,548 closings. Turning to average days on the market (DOM) for SFR (one house on lot) and condo listings, we saw most homes sell in 30 days or less, with 75.3% of those sales being cash deals (naturally - less time to transact than mortgaging). Following the speediness of cash sales, conventional sales (non government-backed loans, that is) reached a five-year high of nearly 55% of total sales in July. During the Great Recession, conventional financing was 20 basis points (BPS) lower in terms of percentage of total sales in July 2011, when that amount was around 35%. Cash and FHA loans came in as close runners up back then, but have since decreased and made way for mostly conventional loans as the financing method of choice from July 2013 to the present. Conventional loans have been relatively easy to obtain with more consumers having improved their credit scores and financial health since the economic downturn, nearly 10 years ago, and consistently low mortgage rates over recent years.

With all of this analysis to put into perspective the facts of how things have transpired in the recent past, how can we use this data to figure out where the housing market is going? The good news is that employment is still solid, with national unemployment remaining at a ten year low of 4.9% and regional unemployment for the Sacramento-Arden-Roseville Mean Statistical Area (Sacramento MSA) also at a healthy 5.6%. Total non-farm jobs in the Sacramento MSA climbed to just over 940,000 positions in Q3-2016, up about 20% since Q3-2015 when the number of regional jobs was up to 923,000. The upward trend in employment is a positive sign that the economy is nowhere close to repeating history and plunging into another chaotic recession like in 2008, but we're not out of the woods just yet. Economic growth phases tend to run for 5-10 years at a time, and if we start with 2011 as the recent bottom in economic expansion and project all the way to the end of 2018, it will then seem more plausible to expect a market correction. This is not a bad thing, as too much growth in home values, for instance, can and always will result in bubbles like we saw in 2005. Economic downturns, whether actual recessions or just colloquially referred to as such, can be a good thing for an economy, believe it or not. It's one of nature's fail-safes, since we all get carried away in the capitalist world, and when we can we invest and invest, hoping for endless gains. Sounds too good to be true, and that's because it is - the old adage of "what goes up must come down" rarely fails to remind us of the power of having rational and realistic expectations when it comes to growing wealth. We saw the damage that was caused by unfettered home value expansion and careless development in the high volume of bankruptcies and half-completed housing developments that were caused by the Great Recession.

Now, with all of that talk of "Ecession-rays" aside, the fortunate thing is that we are most likely not going to have any major downturn as we approach the 2020s, though we will almost certainly have a market correction that will bring the climbing home values back down to Earth a little. This is not to say that buying a home now is a bad idea as a result. In fact, it's just as good a time as ever before if you intend to buy and hold your home as either a residence, an investment, or both. After every market correction, there is usually a new growth period and the whole cycle begins all over again. The catalyst that could begin to draw back home prices, possibly later in 2018 or early in 2019 would be the inevitable increase of federal fund interest rates by the Federal Reserve, which has now been several years in waiting. Sitting for eight years and counting below 1%, it is no surprise that we have had success in the recent years bringing the U.S. economy back from the brink of destruction in 2009. The lower the interest rate, the easier it is for banks to make loans, in brief. This is starkly contrasted with the 5.25% rate at its last high water mark in Q3-2007, before the 2008 calamity began to make headlines. Tight-money policy is meant to help keep inflation under control, as the more money there is out there chasing goods and services, the lower the value of each dollar will be and, therefore, the higher prices in general must climb. We've had the opposite since 2009, when the Fed lowered interest rates all the way down to 0.25% (AKA very easy-money policy) and that rate will have to go back up to at least the usual 1% to keep inflation from gaining on us right when things are going so well for the U.S. economy. Other forces are at play in the economy, as well as the impact of world situations (like wars, emergencies, natural disasters, oil prices, etc.), but keeping an eye on Fed interest rates is probably the simplest (if not the most superficial) way to try to predict when and how far home prices may start to come back down. The harder it is for banks to make loans, the less homes will be able to sell, and the lower home prices would have to drop to entice more buyers - in a nutshell, that's why tracking interest rates can help us predict where home prices are going to go.

To toss out nothing more than an educated guess, it would be safe to expect home values to continue rising and housing market activity to remain on its present course until Q3-2018 at the earliest. Anything could happen to change this, but if you go into purchasing a home with the expectation that you will see peaks and valleys in the value of your investment over time, then you will have no reason to worry about making the important decision of buying a house or condo. If you are solely an investor in SFR properties, then the rule of thumb about timing market recoveries is to estimate at least 50% of the time period in which the preceding expansion took place, but moving in the opposite direction. For example: a 7 year expansion from 2011-2018 using that model would mean a minimum 3.5 year correction before you would expect home prices to bottom out in June of 2021 and begin climbing again in the next bull market for realty. Late 2021 in this case would be the sweet spot if buying property with the intention to resell later on, after the home value had reached its next peak value. The rollercoaster metaphor about the economy may be overplayed, but it will probably never cease to be true, so just keep it in mind when investing in anything, let alone your home, and remember to keep your arms and legs inside the ride at all times!

Sources: Sacramento Association of Realtors, Realtor.com, Cushman & Wakefield Research, & The Atlantic. The information sources used and conclusions provided in this article based upon those sources have been deemed reliable, but are not guaranteed to be accurate. This article is not intended to provide investment advice, and should not be relied upon in making real estate decisions. 

Interested in talking about current mortgage rates and options for first-time buyers, veterans, and conventional buyers in the Sacramento Area? Premier Midtown Realty works with a network of knowledgeable and trustworthy mortgage advisers to ensure that you are as well-informed as possible, and can buy real estate with ultimate peace of mind. Looking for a home in Sacramento, Roseville, or a surrounding city? We can help you get pre-qualified and start your home shopping experience right away. Give us a call at (916) 502-0953, or go to our website and fill out our home shopper questionnaire to get the ball rolling! If you're ready to make home-ownership a reality, you'll be surprised how quickly we can help you go from dreaming to doing!

Premier Midtown Realty: "Your Partners in Midtown Sacramento & Central Valley Real Estate!"

Ryan Wagner, California Real Estate Broker. CA BRE license # 01968073.

Do I Still Need to Hire a Real Estate Agent These Days?

You would think that in this day and age with Zillow, Movoto, Craigslist, and tons of other online resources or mobile apps available that real estate agents would be a dying breed. Becoming obsolete just like the pager or the fax machine, right? Why should you still have to pay a commission for someone to help you sell your home or find you a home?

The interesting thing is that you need a good real estate agent now more than ever (notice we said "good" real estate agent). Sure, the less effective agents out there are going to have a harder time justifying their services if they are not among the best at negotiating, listing and selling homes, determining pricing and marketing campaigns that bring in the offers, and the other skills that an agent must have to do their job. The days of the agent who would add a listing to the Multiple Listing Service (MLS), spread the listing around online, and send out mailers then wait for the phone to ring while working on getting more listings are certainly numbered.

Passive marketing has become increasingly difficult to count on in real estate because it's the majority of what the online or mobile real estate service companies these days are offering. You have so many options to advertise real estate and get information, but that abundance just causes the adverse reaction of losing your online home listing in the crowd, with no better chance of capturing attention than the others. As for getting real estate advice online, it is certainly helpful to have so much information at our fingertips. However, without an in-person guide to help put that theoretical knowledge into context from the perspective of a professional who knows how the real estate business really works, it can set up would-be FSBO sellers or self-represented buyers to fail in cases where they think they know what they're doing but do not fully understand the grey areas of how to do business in real estate. There's always more to anything than what you get from only reading about the topic, which is why practical experience always beats theoretical study alone. Just think of driving a car, for example. Would you expect to be an expert at driving if you had only read books and watched videos about it, but had not yet set foot inside a car? No, of course not! For this same reason, the top agents out there will continue to be quite necessary in real estate. Their ability to make something look easy enough that it hardly justifies what you have to pay them to do it for you is the mark of a true professional, and you likely know how much of a difference that can make, regardless of the field of expertise (Fixing the transmission yourself? Yeah, not unless you are a mechanic yourself!)

Top agents will avoid the glut of passively marketing agents and unrepresented sellers and buyers by aggressively marketing for their clients (or if that sounds too harsh, we can also call it "direct marketing"). This involves the simplest and most effective tool in real estate, which happens to have been around much longer than the online tools we have today: calling people, meeting people, and asking around within their network. That's right, people skills! The online options are pretty cool for what they can do, but they have trained us to think that we no longer need to talk to people to get business done. In fact, most individuals overlook how hard it is to effectively talk business with people, let alone doing it often enough to learn how to do it well and putting that skill to work for clients in buying or selling real estate. It seems easy to think about it, but here's an experiment for you if you are not a real estate agent: pick up the phone and call a stranger with it in mind that you would like to ask them if they are in the market for real estate. Give it a try, we can wait... Chances are you hung up before they said "hello," and that is perfectly understandable! If you lack experience in being comfortable actually talking business with people, with the first step being approaching potential buyers or sellers you don't know with the idea, then it's no fun having to learn how, since the only way to learn that skill is to jump in and make mistakes! Sorry, but the internet still can't handle the interpersonal aspects of real estate for us, and robots still aren't here to take over real estate agents' jobs (even if they were, a good agent could still out-negotiate the robot), so this is why the need for a good real estate agent is crucial these days if you are serious about your real estate transactions.

The fact that the real estate industry is propelled by sales activity is a simpler way to put it. Nobody likes the derogatory image of the duplicitous "salesman," but everyone loves harnessing the power of an effective sales professional who is working for them, right? Trained and motivated real estate professionals will always be needed because they are not only licensed and well-educated in how the real estate business works, but are also experienced in how the psychology of selling works. This is not just using the generic concept of how supply and demand, motivation, and pricing come into play, but the finely-tuned and sophisticated psychology of selling real estate.

In the real estate business, timing plays a huge part in everything, as you're probably well aware. In the case of the relevance of a savvy real estate agent in the Information Era, we're talking about their understanding of how timing affects the marketability of a home listing, as well as the strength of a buyer's offer. To grasp how this goes, we must first acknowledge that when listing your home, the top prospective buyers who will actually make an offer on your listing and follow through to closing will be using a buyer's agent. We can call these the "grade A potential buyers," as opposed to the "tire-kickers" who will take up your time but will not end up buying your home. Since a home seller is seeking these grade A potential buyers, it is vital to know how a buyer's agent will react to their listing. Buyer's agents know what they are looking for, based on industry experience, and it is to their benefit as well as their client's that they only spend time looking into attractive listings by motivated sellers. After all, who would you rather negotiate a deal with? You can make the mistake of dealing with someone unrealistic about what they should get for what they are selling, or you can spend the same energy cooperating with someone who comprehends that striking a deal always requires some level of compromise so that each party, the buyer and the seller, gets something they want.

Where timing specifically comes into play is that the seller only has so much time after publishing their listing to get offers before the buyer's agents out there will decide that the listing (which will show up in their reports every day as an active listing) has been listed too long and the seller must not be serious about selling the home. This leads into the other aspect of how timing is involved in the psychology of real estate: if the buyer's agent perceives the listing to be too much of a time-drain because either the price is too high, the seller sounds too picky or stubborn, or there are other potential snags that would waste a lot of time at the negotiating table, they will write the listing off and move onto better opportunities. Even with tight inventory, a bad deal is easy to spot for an experienced buyer's agent, and it's their job to help their client steer clear of bad deals (while still getting them the homes they want). 

If the buyer's agents identify a listing as a bad deal, the listing will go stale on the MLS and elsewhere online, soon expiring unsold. The only way to ignite anyone's interest in the listing again would usually be to discount the price or sweeten the deal otherwise, with some kind of additional concessions at the expense of the seller. A good listing agent would not let their client get to that point because it would cause them to lose a lot of bargaining power, or leverage, and would therefore lower the chances of getting their client what they wanted by selling their home. Have you ever tried to sell something on Craigslist (not your home)? It's actually very similar, though on a smaller scale, and teaches firsthand how timing is critical in getting something sold. If too much time goes by, the attention received by the product for sale gets more and more negative (depicting low demand or bad pricing), and the product does not sell. In a nutshell, this is where your real estate agent makes a huge difference.

How about knowing which questions to ask? Someone could bring all of the mobile apps and their magic 8 ball (do they still make those?) to a meeting with a buyer or seller and try to work out the terms of sale on their own. Without knowing what to think to ask, however, their mind would already not be focused on the key components of the meeting that a good real estate agent would have known to concentrate on, in order to actually make the transaction happen. Again, it seems so easy to just cut a real estate agent out of the picture and save some commission money, but think of how much it could cost if you forgot to ask certain questions that could have set you up to have more negotiating leverage that would have kept the home price ten thousand dollars higher, in some cases. That already would cost more than paying an agent, and it could be worse. What about the legal mine field in so many transactions? Do you know what to ask if buying or selling a home, in order to avoid neglecting something during the pending sale which could lead to getting sued by the other party? That would definitely cost more than hiring an agent for their knowledge in keeping you clear of such pitfalls. The list goes on, but the point is that unless you have the years of daily practice dealing in real estate, the cost of paying an expert (the "good" real estate agents, that is) will normally be much smaller than the unexpected costs that could be incurred without their help. Since your home is the most expensive thing that you could sell or buy, remember that the losses, fines, and other costs of not professionally transacting in real estate can usually be the biggest ones you could ever have to pay. It sound too good to be true to just sell a house straight up, with no other expenses in doing so, because it will never work out like that in the real world of real estate!


The simple ability to think and adapt on the spot, and apply situational reasoning rather than following a theoretical model is exactly why NASA still wants to send humans to explore Mars some day, instead of just sending more robots. It's that human touch on the spot when it comes to critical thinking which will remain relevant and absolutely necessary now, and in the distant future. Real estate is no different in this regard.

The online tools and mobile apps have changed the real estate industry, without a doubt, but in ways that continue to highlight how a knowledgeable real estate agent fits into to the equation as the most important factor, rather than pushing them out. Call us, your friendly neighborhood real estate agents today to find out how else they bring irreplaceable value to realty. At Premier Midtown, we are millennial owned and operated, so we understand very closely how technology fits into buying and selling real estate, but the difference will always be the agent working for you. Our philosophy is to make technology work for us, not to compete with technology for business! This is just one of the many ways in which our approach to real estate is effective and can be put to work to get you the best results in your transaction. Consultations are complimentary, and we will always council the most profitable course of action for you, not anyone else. Come experience the difference!

(916) 502-0953

Premier Midtown Realty: "Your Partners in Midtown Sacramento & Central Valley Real Estate!" 

Ryan Wagner, California Real Estate Broker. CA BRE license # 01968073.

What does FSBO stand for?

More like "Fails (to) Sell Because Of..."

Well, lots of reasons, actually.

First, however, we will acknowledge that sometimes, selling a home without a listing agent works. Lots of sellers do it actually, and some even liked the experience. Unfortunately, it would require us to cherry-pick examples of good cases compared to all of the less successful ones out there to try to offer that point. The truth most of the time is that you're better off using a skilled listing agent to get this job done. The good ones know what they're doing, will keep you informed, and make the stressful process of selling your home as non-intrusive to your life as possible. You have better things to do than try to handle all of the home-selling duties alone, if it's just an attempt to save a relatively small amount of money!

Let us begin with some statistics from the National Association of Realtors to illustrate the larger picture when it comes to FSBO. (These can also be seen at www.realtor.org if you want to look more closely at any of these). Since the primary reason most sellers attempt to sell their home on their own is the perceived savings on the typical 6% broker commission: 

In 2014, FSBO home sales accounted for a mere 8% of all home sales. While the national average agent-assisted single family residence sale was for $249,000, FSBO homes sold for $210,000 (nearly 84.5% as much as agent-assisted). If the seller sold the home to a buyer they knew, the median gross sale price was $151,900 (about 61% as much as agent-assisted). An agent-assisted gross sale of $249,000 would cost the seller $14,940 (6% commission, which excludes the costs the broker and buyer's agent incurred to sell the home/procure a quality buyer) , but that's nothing compared to the $39,000 loss due to the average FSBO sale price, or especially the $97,100 in average lost proceeds if the seller sold to a friend or family member! (Source: National Association of Realtors)

Ok, we don't mean to use what appear to be "scare tactics," but the logic just doesn't add up to cost yourself twice as much on the home sale, in the form of underselling due to improper pricing (as well as the additional costs of marketing, inspections, cleaning, staging, etc.) by going FSBO instead of using a solid listing agent. Aside from the costs of selling on your own, let's now check out the usual duties that your listing agent does every day, behind the scenes so-to-speak, to make that magic happen and sell your home within a reasonable amount of time.

1. Negotiations!

If we left off every other reason to use a listing agent, negotiation skills and the resulting savings on costs are the summary of this article as to why you should never attempt to sell your home on your own (unless you have experience doing all of these really well, that is!) Negotiating with buyer's agents on the price and terms of the sale, negotiating with attorneys, negotiating with lenders (short sales especially), negotiating with home stagers, inspectors, appraisers, and anyone else involved in selling your home - it gets to the point where you would gladly pay 6% of the sale price of your home to not have to talk to any of these guys! All of these different professionals, and possibly the buyers, are very experienced in their area of real estate expertise, and without a savvy listing agent to handle negotiations for you, the sale price could end up very low and the costs incurred to pay for anything that could have been negotiated in the deal might be very high.

2. Timeliness!

You're busy, right? It takes nearly a full-time person to handle just one of the many tasks involved in selling a home within what would be considered a short amount of time, like 30 days. Just answering all of those emails and voicemails after a long day of working already can add hours to your day, before you can relax and get ready for the next one. Then being home to show the house to potential buyers, to let the appraiser in, to lock up the dog if you have one, to clean up and stage the interior and exterior, to be online marketing the property, to have access to the Multiple Listing System (MLS) at all, and the list goes on. Trying to keep all of this on track is only possible if you have a very flexible weekly schedule, or are Superman/Wonder Woman and can juggle so many time-sensitive tasks at once on your own! The "tax" on taking too long to sell a home that is out there being marketed to buyers' agents is that the longer the listing sits on the MLS, Zillow, and other websites, the less likely it will be to get market-value offers (and beyond that, any offers at all). The listing goes "stale" and nobody likes stale anything, let alone home listings!

3. Experience!

That's a simple one: a successful listing agent has experience. Where does experience usually come from? An approximate 75-25 mixture of failures and successes in life, which informs us how to do one thing or another like a natural, simply because we've done it correctly before and know how to watch out for all of the pitfalls. Just like if your kid said that driving a car looked easy - sure, it looks easy until they get in the driver's seat and realize they can't even reach the pedals! That's how any good professional is, in making their job of doing difficult tasks look easy. If you don't have time to build up experience in real estate (especially if the motivation is just to save on a commission or in having to work with a listing agent), then the logical conclusion is that this is just asking for failure more than success in trying to sell your home. That's blunt, but only intended to help. Let your listing agent use their experience in the real estate business to judge and react to all of the things that could come up during the process of selling your home. If the listing agent has had lots of sales before, the chances are they will able to repeat that success for you. If the listing agent is newer and has not listed any homes before but offers customized strategies and has shown their business acumen in other areas, the chances are also good that they will be able to apply their innovation and sell your home more effectively than an agent using less cutting-edge tactics. There are positives to both using an established listing agent and using a newer listing agent with modern strategies, but the important thing is that they understand the business of real estate.

4. Marketing!

The last but not least reason you're best off using a listing agent instead of attempting FSBO is marketing. At first glance, the average person will think "What does marketing have to do with real estate? Isn't that for TV commercials and name-brand products?" Marketing has everything to do with real estate. The best product in the world that could do anything you could imagine would sit on the shelves/not get any orders online if it was not marketed properly. Marketing is necessary to get the word out and tell the story about the product or service in question. In the case of selling your home, the property is the product! Marketing online, via social media, using signs, mail, billboards, radio ads, etc. all takes up-to-the-minute knowledge of what everyone else is doing, as well as the nuts-and-bolts of how to actually use them. We won't bore you with marketing statistics here, but the average consumer is exposed to thousands of advertisements each day, including emails, phone calls, TV commercials, magazine ads, pop-ups and other online ads, YouTube video ads, and plenty more. Now let's drill down to how the consumer will be bombarded with ads and contact attempts by buyer's agents once they begin searching for a home to buy. Ever seen one of those movies where something falls into a piranha tank? Yeah, lots of bubbles! Just joking with the visual and certainly not making a comparison to the real estate industry (well, maybe... no, we're not), but there will be a lot of activity targeting those potential buyers. Amidst that level of competition to get the attention of a possible buyer, not even getting them in for a tour yet, just getting them to even notice your listing at all, how do you think an FSBO marketing campaign by someone who does not specialize in marketing will go? "We just want to put a sign on the lawn and wait for the phone to ring." Good luck with that! The callers, if any, will usually be unqualified, low-quality buyer leads who will take a whole lot of your time, but almost never come back to make a serious offer. A professional marketing campaign using as many applicable and cost-effective advertising methods as possible is your only hope for going from a tire-kicking time-vacuum buyer (that's a good one, let's call that the TKTV buyer!), to the quality pre-approved buyer who can and will make a prime offer and follow-through to closing. Now, we're not talking go full-throttle and spend a fortune on tons of advertising - it's all about crafting a custom strategy which uses the avenues best-suited to bring success for the lowest cost possible. That takes skill, and your listing agent has it.

Premier Midtown Realty specializes in listing single-family and even multi-family investment properties. We have over ten years of combined real estate, property management, marketing, digital media, and business management experience, and a playbook of unique ideas for selling your home for the top real-world sale price (as much as the market will bear at the time is what that means), and as quickly as possible given market conditions at the time. Since we're in the business of making sure that our clients are as well-informed as possible in making their real estate decisions before transacting those decisions with us (rather than just being here to sell houses), we will always give you the honest, no-nonsense information you need to succeed in selling your home.

See why FSBO is probably not going to work out so well? We encourage you to do some more research on why FSBO is a bad idea, if you aren't quite sure yet. We wouldn't council using a listing agent if FSBO was the option with better odds for success.

Call us today and we can advise you as to how to become a Premier Midtown Realty represented seller. Consultations are free and your treatment is always as a VIP.

Ryan Wagner, California Real Estate Broker. CA BRE license # 01968073.

Why didn't my home sell?!?

Nevermind that - why am I suddenly getting all of these calls from real estate agents??


It's frustrating, isn't it? Your listing has expired on the Multiple Listing System (MLS). Not only do you have to now figure out the smartest next move toward selling your home; you are getting tons of calls and unwanted mail from local real estate agents. How fun! If only you'd gotten that kind of response from buyers when the home was still listed for sale, then you wouldn't have to go through all of this! The good news is that the reasons are usually few as to why a home does not sell. There are many potential causes to a home sitting on the market for a long time only to see the listing expire, but it usually tends to be any or all of the three reasons below. In fact, lots of times the rest of the effort to sell the home was fine, but these three biggies were overlooked or not done correctly. We'll go over those reasons next, but the important thing to remember is that selling real estate requires persistence and staying motivated! If it was easy, everyone else would be doing it too, right? Hang in there, we can help with the Premier Midtown "Three P's" of effectively listing your home.


Okay, so what went wrong?
It's best to think of each of these potential reasons for your home not selling from the buyer's perspective as much as possible. It all clicks into place when you consider how you would have viewed your home listing as a home shopper who didn't know the home the way that you do.


1. The Pictures (as in quality, as well as composition - or the staging of the home)

If you were looking for a home and had a ton of options coming at you from Zillow, your Realtor, Craigslist, etc. then just compare the home shopping experience to browsing on Amazon, or even using an online dating app, as funny as it seems. You give a few seconds of attention to the pictures/profiles you like, and quickly disregard all of the rest. The ones you really like, you'll email about or even decide right there are your final selections, and stop looking at other choices. It's the cruel nature of the "internet shopping" experience, but that's how it works - especially with limited time to make an important decision based on so many similar looking options! As the seller, it is hardest to psychologically adjust to look objectively at how your home is depicted in photos. After all, you've lived at that home for years, maybe, so you know that the kitchen (though shown in a dark, grainy, titled picture in this example) has been the site of many great times and you just know someone else will love it like you did! You have the history and know the context of the home, so it takes extra effort to look at a picture of your home and decide whether it looks terrible, regardless of the home itself being wonderful. Image is everything in online marketing and shoppers have to be shallow and quick to say "yes" or "no" to an option due to time constraints, so having stellar marketing images will help make sure that the pictures are not working against you in selling the home. As for getting the pictures, having a savvy real estate brokerage like Premier Midtown on your side is the best way to get marketing photos that will produce results. We only use professional photographers with real estate knowledge to decide from their own objective standpoint how best to show your home to potential buyers, and at no extra cost to our client, of course.

2. The Price (as in too high, as well as lack of willingness to adapt the price as needed)

This one is pretty easy to comprehend from the buyer's perspective, also. If they have multiple options and their goal is to get the best house they can for the lowest price possible, what do you think they're going to do if they don't like the price range of your listing? (Hint: they usually won't tell you; they simply vote by not calling on the listing!) It is crucial to have a realistic outlook on pricing, as well as full understanding of how competing properties are priced (meaning homes that have the same room count, amenities, general location, and other similar traits, making them as relevant a comparison as you can find). Therefore, as the seller, you must be ready to make adjustments to price as needed (this can be a good thing too, as a rising market can allow for increasing the asking price, too - just don't fall into the trap of going too high, or holding out for a higher price if you have a buyer today!) We say this only because we've seen how some sellers will decide not to budge on their asking price, regardless of what market data and comparable sale analyses show at the time. The result with that level of stubbornness is no sale. The longer the home stays on the MLS at an unattractive price, the fewer buyers' agents will bother calling to make an offer, also, thus compounding the problem. The takeaway: adaptability in pricing, as well as using a solid listing agent (yes, like Premier Midtown!) who will keep you up to speed each day on all things related to pricing. Not just any price to sell the house right way, but a final closing price that has been finely customized for each transaction to ensure the seller gets as much as they can from selling their home.


3. The Presence (as in marketing efforts made, as well as effectiveness of those efforts)

Perhaps a misunderstood component of selling real estate, marketing is more than just listing your home on the MLS, maybe on Zillow, and in various forms of print media (which is a declining way to get results, in the smart phone era). How innovative was your listing agent in planning a strategy to sell your home? These days, just about everyone carries a smart phone and uses the internet, email, and social media. In fact, we ought to write a non-real estate related blog about the phenomena seen since the '90s in how consumers have adjusted to the "Too Much Information" Era. You could even look at how it has affected your own way of picking and using information, if you wanted. Consider the average person with a smart phone and many social media, news, and other subscription services that send push notifications, newsletters, and updates all day long. Then actual emails from friends, family, work, etcetera, etcetera! We simply don't have time to go through all of the stuff we get in our inboxes all day, nor do we have time to look at the millions of cool websites out there which all offer similar information or services. This level of information abundance has required us as information consumers to have tunnel-vision, so to speak, in that we only will notice and actually read through things that have gotten through our subconscious mental barrier that blocks out information we find less important. This occurs even if that lightning fast verdict we make could be cutting good information out of our awareness! How to avoid that involves delivery more than content. Now compare this to how your listing agent crafted your home listing's presence, in terms of marketing. Did they use run-of-the-mill, cookie-cutter methods to find you a qualified buyer? What did they do which you might say was different? That's really what it's all about in this day and age; being effectively different in order to cut through the clutter out there! As a simple example: if you were standing outside of a big corral looking at a herd of 100 bison, and only a few were standing far from the crowd, you'd probably at least notice them, right? Our point exactly: one small presence can stand out from that of many others if it perceived as unique - otherwise, the first response is to see just the crowd, in which individuals loses their presence. There's more to it all than that, but we will say that Premier Midtown has proven marketing talent which has allowed us lots of success for our clients using the lowest-cost methods applicable. This allows us to save you money in the selling process, and get you results.


After these big three reasons why listings expire, there are other possibilities like a lack of accurate data, poor communication across the board, or even things beyond a seller's control, like a house down the street having burned down recently. It could even have been that your home simply was on the MLS too long without any updates made to keep the listing fresh (to envision that, compare it to when you go shopping: if one day you saw a can of fruit by itself and marked "on sale," and then you came back a week later to find that it was still there for the same price - what would you think about that?) There are plenty of other "why it expired" reasons we can discuss with you as your listing agent, but the key to all of this is to realize that selling real estate can be challenging, and will take commitment from the seller to see the process through. If you go into the selling process prepared to prevent the above issues from happening, and ready to keep a positive and patient outlook, then the rest is up to your listing agent and you'll almost be certain to sell your home - even if you've already tried before!

Ready to re-list and get better results? Call us today and let's get it sold!


Premier Midtown Realty: "Your Partners in Midtown Sacramento & Central Valley Real Estate!"

Ryan Wagner, California Real Estate Broker. CA BRE license # 01968073.

INVESTMENT PROPERTY ANALYSIS:
"Should I sell or hold onto my rental property?"
How to determine whether downsizing is the right move.
Rental properties can be a great investment, and when properly managed, can deliver consistent profits for many years. However, the time comes for some rental property owners to decide whether they have reached the end of the real estate investment life cycle. Many factors come into play, but it mainly has to do with your objectives as the investor, and whether or not the investment was a good one to begin with.


Beginning with the investor, it is important to understand objectives. If you have owned a rental property for many years but are deciding to retire and do not wish to continue having to manage or oversee the management of your property, then the time value of freeing up your schedule becomes a personal matter. Is your free time worth more to you? If so, that would be perfectly understandable. After all, we can always use our time to get money but we can never buy back our time with that money. Maybe time is not so much the concern, but having liquidity to pursue a hobby or dream goal like buying a sailboat in your golden years. Also perfectly understandable, since retirement is a common time for downsizing on investments like rental properties to allow extra cash for such pursuits. If not in retirement, then when, right? Last of all, and this is not the final possibility but another solid one: do you still want to be tied down to the location of your investment property, if that is the case (or maybe you're fortunate enough to have a great local property management company to handle daily affairs with your rentals, and you do not need to live in the same place but you are still tied to the location of the property to a degree). Not feeling like you're stuck can have a tremendous psychological value to it, so even if it is a less tangible benefit to downsizing, it is just as valid. As you can see, the investor mainly needs to consider their time, money for life outside of the investment, and their freedom to do other things and not be tied down to one location, when figuring out whether downsizing is the option to pursue.


The investment itself, the rental property, is the area where you do not want to make such personal and emotional decisions. When dealing with the actual asset you are considering liquidating, it is crucial to look at the numbers. If your current pro forma still shows that your rental property is generating sufficient cash flow to make sense as an investment (meaning the cost of having the property is less than the money the investment is earning after all taxes and expenses are paid for), it makes the investor's objectives even more important to consider. Remember: you are thinking of getting out of a position in which your time and effort are providing a return on your investment, and if you give that up you could have trouble finding a replacement for that income and tax structuring. In other words: if you have a profitable investment but still want to get rid of it, you'd better be sure that your objectives are more important than the argument to hold the investment which is presented by that profitability! Whether the property is not generating a solid return or you value non-financial reasons like some of what we looked at already, then the next thing to consider is what selling the property could cost you. If the investment property is highly-leveraged, then you will need to be able to pay off the debt if selling off the property outright, otherwise you could owe money in selling the property. Then consider the depreciation of the property: has it lost value due to any damages from tenants, or simply functional or other forms of obsolescence? How about the market at the moment? Is the market doing well, or is the property value at or below what was paid for it originally (and regarding debt again, is the property "under water" or owing more on the mortgage than the property's current market value)? If the property is not under water and would maybe even make some profit on the sale because it appreciated in value since you bought it, you must consider the capital gains and income tax ramifications. Taxes are vital to consider in selling any type of investment at the time, because they can be the difference between selling at a sufficient profit level to cover taxes and still walk away with some extra cash, or breaking even because the taxes ate up the profit margin. To ensure that market timing is working toward your benefit and you are selling at the right time, your Premier Midtown Realtor (or your Wagner Property Management consultant) can help you figure out what the current market value of your rental property is, and how much the sale would cost. Sometimes it is better to hold the property and wait to see if the property value climbs (and to that effect, climbs enough to make it worth the associated rising property taxes - can't get away from taxes no matter what!) The summary: look at the numbers to make sure selling is a wise decision, even if it might be what you want to do, regardless of other considerations, because it could cost you dearly to sell at the wrong time.


Do you want to get a little extra cash out of your investment, but don't mind remaining tied to operating the rental property? Consider refinancing instead, because despite the cost to get a new loan and start paying more for a new loan, you could realize some liquidity that way and still keep your investment. Plus there would be no taxes or other selling fees, and if you were able to lock in a decent mortgage rate you might even come out on top with a better mortgage that was for a larger principal amount now, yes, but a cheaper mortgage rate. If you are an investor simply stuck with a rental property that you would like to be free of, whether or not the financial considerations of downsizing made sense, you could also consider transferring the mortgage to another party. This would require that your mortgage had an assumability clause, which means that the mortgage could be assumed (transferred) to another qualified borrower. Assumption comes with it's own risks, like escalation clauses that allow the lender to increase the mortgage interest rate for the new borrower, and most importantly: the former borrower (considered the seller in a loan assumption) remains liable for the loan if the new borrower (considered the buyer) defaults on the loan at any time. This is where a good "subject to" clause can make a world of difference, and your Realtor at Premier Midtown can help with navigating such options. If you as the investor were at the point where you were considering any of these options, it would also be important to know that for a reasonable cost you could set up a living trust and transfer the investment property into the trust. Then designate your trustees who will eventually have stake in the investment property, and could take on some or all of the responsibilities that you were hoping to not have any more - all while keeping the investment property. Let's not forget the option to create a business entity so that you could transfer the property to the S-Corp, LLC, LP, or other entity you founded (according to your taxation and liability preferences) and allow any principals you've designated to help with managing the property (for a percentage, of course). This could be a more costly approach, but your investment would live on under professional oversight - a bit of extra comfort if you'd had the property for a long time and it held sentimental value to know the rental property would continue to operate.


Premier Midtown Realty (or our parent company, Wagner Property Management, Inc.) can help you with these difficult decisions regarding your investment properties, in order to help you reach the right conclusion about what to do and when. Premier Midtown Broker-Owner Ryan Wagner has nearly a decade of experience of effective property management and handling his own portfolio of investment properties in the Sacramento area. Feel free to call us for a quick consultation if you have any questions. Our goal is to advise you toward making the best possible decision within the time frame you have to work with. Whether our suggestion is to downsize it, hold onto it, or pursue other options, we'll give you the straight answers you need.


Premier Midtown Realty: "Your Partners in Midtown Sacramento & Central Valley Real Estate!" 

Ryan Wagner, California Real Estate Broker. CA BRE license # 01968073.

 It Depends.

...On a few different factors, that is. Deciding on whether it is better to rent or buy comes down to the circumstances of your life, your financial objectives, and your preferences. We'll go ahead and look at all of the pros and cons of renting, as compared to those of buying a home. As with everything in life, there are positive and negative factors to consider with a big decision like your living situation. However, by understanding what your needs are, either option will work primarily toward your benefit as long as you choose the right one for your situation. The rule of thumb is to have an idea where you intend to be at least five years ahead. Having a time horizon in mind helps sharpen the focus on whether your preferences now will allow you to pursue your financial objectives later.


As the saying goes, "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail," and that certainly applies to getting the kind of home that you want!


RENTING
More Freedom of Mobility, Short Term Cost Saving, No Major Upkeep Costs but can cost you financial benefits, as well as sacrifices in quality of your living situation.

Renting is the first type of living situation most of us experience when we're young, though it is also completely normal to rent at any point in your life it if suits your needs. Renting is the best option for those who do not want to stay put for a long time at the same address, as compared to having a 30-year-mortgage for a home as an owner-occupant. Aside from that freedom of mobility, the costs within short time periods tend to be lower for renters, aided by the tenant not usually having responsibility for repair and maintenance costs of their apartment unit. It certainly is nice to be able to just call the landlord and put in a request to fix a leaky water pipe or take care of an ant infestation, for example, and by the time the tenant gets home from work, the problem has been solved without cost to them. As long as the tenant doesn't trash the apartment, that is - then they're probably not getting their security deposit back! On the other hand, as long as a tenant's apartment is in good shape when it's time to move out, it is nice to get that security deposit check to put toward the next apartment or a house.


Now, there are some big trade offs to living in an apartment, as a counter to all of those benefits. Having to share common areas, using coin-op laundry if you don't have an in-unit washer/dryer, and tolerating other tenants' noise or activity from time to time. You have to be a people person, and you have to be willing to make a few sacrifices to be a good neighbor, once in a while (like the guy practicing on his new electric guitar upstairs, and that funny marijuana-ish smell coming from his window, for example - though similar things can still happen living in a house). It's also not a total cakewalk to get an apartment, as tenants must often wait on lists for availabilities where they prefer to live. They need to be able to pass a credit check and meet other requirements before they can move in, which can make it even more difficult to secure a rental. Rented houses are a little different, allowing the tenant to avoid the lifestyle drawbacks of apartment living (not to mention, parking is usually less of a pain), but renting a house also tends to cost more. In fact, renting a single-family house usually reaches the price point where buying makes more financial sense than leasing over a shorter period of time, simply due to the higher rent payments. Finally, a word on location regarding renting a house: sometimes, you can only rent an apartment or condo in a popular central city neighborhood, like so many parts of Downtown and Midtown Sacramento. There simply are no houses in some areas of a central city, which can cost you on location if you prefer a house, having to be further away from the hot spots in town instead of renting in a multitenant building. If lifestyle was your whole motivation for living in the central city, then you can see the problem with this. However, if suburban or rural living is your preference, then a house is certainly a better idea. After all, there's something less glamorous about renting an apartment in a suburban area rather than the central city, and it mainly has to do with still needing to jump in the car to go anywhere! Then it feels more like settling for a multitenant living situation instead of accepting it because of the prime location you get to live in - then again, if it suits your needs, then go with what you want! To sum up on renting, it makes sense if you want: freedom of mobility over the years, short term cost savings on your living situation, and of course, no concerns about major upkeep costs (including property taxes). Otherwise, let's take a look at why buying your home might be a better idea.


BUYING
Equity Building & Tax Benefits, Long Term Cost Saving, More Stable for Raising a Family but the responsibility is greater, as can be the costs, requiring more commitment to your living situation.


For the more permanent resident, buying is clearly the smarter financial choice over the long haul. Renting may work well for the following: young adults still deciding which city they identify with, college students who only need to live somewhere for a few semesters, and others who simply don't want to be tied down in one area for too long, and to each their own, but if you have the more traditional desire to live in one place, then buying your home is the best option. Added benefits of buying are that you can watch your kids grow up in the same house and enjoy an uninterrupted social life, as well as being able to leverage the financial benefits of homeownership over time. Renting quickly becomes a bad decision after calculating the longer term costs, as you can see. Lost equity is one of those costs, and if you understand how retirement saving works (save sooner, gain more interest on your nest egg, to be brief), you can see the lost opportunity at stake in just paying rent each month, with nothing coming back to you. Equity is the ownership stake, you could say, that a homeowner builds up in a mortgaged property. Think of it as the percentage of the property that is paid off and actually belongs to the homeowner. It is also the amount against which new home loans may be taken out (by qualified borrowers), so it can be like a credit card with a high balance (actually a HELOC is just that). Ideally, when a mortgage is paid off (or amortized ), an individual homeowner will have 100% equity in their property. If the home value were to rise from $250,000 to $260,000 in one year, they would realize 100% of that $10,000 gain on their investment. Pretty sweet, huh? All they had to do is own the house to earn 10 grand in net worth during that time period! In such an ideal situation, you can see why some people take out reverse mortgages, because for all normal intents and purposes, talk about a solid credit line! However, in most homeowner's situations they do owe a mortgage balance, so it is easiest to think of the equity in their home as being the current market value of the property less their mortgage balance plus any other liens (that is, recorded secured debts that claim the property as collateral). As a demonstration, if your house could sell for $300,000 at the time and you owned 45% of the equity in the house, then you'd have a gross home equity of $135,000. See now why it's better to be putting your monthly payments into a mortgage, and thereby contributing to the stake you own in your home? The longer you pay off a mortgage, the greater amount of each monthly payment goes toward the principal (original loan amount), also, so you build equity faster as time goes on. Aside from building equity and having your feet planted in one spot, which gives your children stability for getting to grow up with the same friends all throughout K-12 school and allows you to really become a part of your local community, as additional pluses, buying a home offers a tax shelter of sorts through the magic of qualified write-offs. In all things financial, we must always consider the tax ramifications. After all, death and taxes are the proverbial two guaranteed things in life! So, this is another way that homeownership is a better choice than renting. You may have less responsibility toward your home and more freedom of mobility as a renter, but at a staggering loss of potential financial gains over longer time periods.


Now for the obvious setbacks compared to renting: primarily, you had better like where you live, unless you bought the house with the intention to rent it out to others, or improve it then re-sell it (AKA "flipping it"). Otherwise, if planting roots is not what you want to do, then a mortgage on a house will be difficult to pay off in a short time period, and hinder your ability to move around more freely. The next downside to buying a home instead of renting can be the cost of doing so, in some cases, because owning a home can cost more each month than renting. You get what you pay for, as with everything else, so this is not a big surprise. Now, it is possible to buy a condo or smaller house for a resulting mortgage payment that would be similar to the cost of renting an apartment each month (depends on the mortgage term, rate, and how much money was put down, of course), but if you want to own a 3 bedroom house, for instance, it will take a higher payment each month. That usually includes the principal, interest, taxes, and insurance costs each month (also called the PITI). Having a long term home loan requiring payments like this can be daunting to some, which is why it is important to remember that buying a house involves paying extra for a higher quality living situation, and you should only choose this option if it is right for your longer term objectives! You will own the house when you buy it, of course, which will grant you the homeowner's bundle of rights that renters do not enjoy. This simply means that you would have the right to sell the property again, rent it out, make certain allowable improvements to the property, and within the realm of local laws and (if applicable) homeowner's association rules, do whatever you wanted with the property, and even decide who gets to set foot on your land. That's the difference, in brief, between owning property and just living there as a renter. To some, this added status means a lot, while to others it only matters that they are allowed to use the property, and actual ownership is less crucial to them, so again it comes down to your personal preferences in this regard.


To sum it all up, you can see that each method of living has its advantages and drawbacks, so it depends entirely on you! In our great nation, we have the freedom to decide which method suits our needs the best, and as with any freedom comes responsibility. As long as you accept the responsibility of planning your life properly, the decision about whether to rent or buy a home becomes incredibly easy! Then it just depends on your current capability to financially support whichever living situation you've chosen, but Premier Midtown Realty can help you whether you wish to rent or buy. Click here if you have decided to rent your next home, and we can help you make the best possible choice in Midtown Sacramento living. If you are ready to have your very own home and would like to find out how to get pre-qualified with one of our trusted lenders (then the fun part - go house shopping), click here to learn more about buying your next home with the benefit of a skilled Realtor on your side. Buyers don't (in most cases) pay their Realtor out of pocket, as it is traditionally the seller who pays the buyer's agent for their services. Pretty cool, huh?

Now that you have a way to carefully look at the "rent vs. buy" conundrum, let us help you make the next step if you are ready, and find your new home!


Premier Midtown Realty: "Your Partners in Midtown Sacramento & Central Valley Real Estate!"

Ryan Wagner, California Real Estate Broker. CA BRE license # 01968073.