Out with the old, and in with the new...

In 2021 I became a real estate cliche: my professional headshot turned 10 years old. It is a little bit of a joke amongst realtors that many of us tend to use SUPER old photos of ourselves. I am not one to plaster my headshot all over everything, but, umm, my old image was taken when I was 33. Well, I am now 43. And while I am still really young by realtor standards despite my 16+ years in the business, a lot happens in a decade.

So I am 10 years older now. I still think I look like my younger self, but I don't need to live in my younger, less-wrinkled, blonde highlighted days. I mean I do want my new clients to recognize me the first time we meet!

I hate having my picture taken...so here's to hoping this one takes me into my 50's. And I am sure by then I will have more wrinkles and at least a touch of gray. LOL

Do I personally think it is a good time to buy property in Sacramento? Yes, and my husband and I just bought another property...

The million dollar question during just about type of real estate market seems to be "is now a good time to buy a home in Sacramento?" I feel there is no good blanket answer for this question since everyone has different motivations to purchase a home, comprised usually of some combination of personal and financial factors. But generally, yes I do think it is still an opportune time in Sacramento to purchase property. And last week my husband and I closed escrow on another property and we could not be more thrilled about it.

We purchased a cute fixer single family property in the Del Paso Manor neighborhood and will embark on a little renovation project over the coming weeks to restore the home to its former glory. 

Meet our second addition - Nugget the mini aussie!

I figured with all of the craziness surrounding election day tomorrow, I'd post some lighter stuff. Last year we added a sweet puppy to our family, Citra. Over the summer we decided she needed a sister, so in September we added "Nugget" to our family. Nugget is also named for a variety of hops used in beer brewing, just like Citra.

They are about as sweet as can be together...but don't let those angelic faces fool you. It's been a nonstop dog party at our house for the last 6 weeks! In fact it was very difficult to get them both to sit still for this photo! And they have both stolen my heart. Citra is 13 months old, and Nugget is 17 weeks old. Looking forward to double the sweet companionship.

Sacramento County Supplemental Tax Bills....triggered by reassessment events and they must be paid...

My husband and I bought another house in January of this year, and just finally this week received in the mail our supplemental tax bill from Sacramento County. 10 months later! Wow...when we bought our last house, the supplemental bill came within a month or so.

What is a supplemental tax bill? Well, one is generated when a property goes through a "reassessment event." Properties are reassessed when there is a change in ownership, significant remodel or addition, etc. A supplemental tax bill reflects the difference between the previous assessment amount and the new reassessed amount...this can be an increase or a decrease depending on the circumstances. Generally, unless we are in a market of significantly declining values, most supplemental tax assessments will be increases, and there will be money owed. (FYI, your house is NOT reassessed by the county if you refinance and the house appraises for a higher amount than your original acquisition value. This tends to confuse people, and it is not a reassessment event.)

In the instance of a change in ownership, the new property tax assessment is based on your acquisition cost. So for example, if you purchased your new home for $300,000, that is your new assessed value. If the previous owner's assessed value was $200,000, then there will be a supplemental tax billing based on the increase of approximately $100,000 in assessed value.

It's not super simple to calculate the amount you owe or when you will owe it though...depending on if the property was purchased during the first or second half of the fiscal year, there may be one or two supplemental tax bills and they may be prorated. Luckily the Sacramento County Assessor's office has an online supplemental tax bill calculator.

In my case, I have a supplemental tax bill for both fiscal years 2015-2016 AND 2016-2017. Boo! But it has to be paid...

For those people who pay property taxes out of an impound account (paid with your monthly mortgage payment), the supplemental tax bill is not paid by your mortgage company. They will not automatically receive a copy of a supplemental tax bill like they do your regular first and second installment payment bills. Sometimes a mortgage company will have collected enough from you during your payments to cover the cost of the supplemental bill -- BUT you must contact your mortgage company, provide them a copy of the supplemental tax bill and find out.

Do I personally think it is a good time to buy? Yes, and I just did myself again...

I get asked pretty frequently "is now a good time to buy a home?" As a Realtor I feel this is a bit of a loaded question, because everyone's personal and financial situation, what neighborhood we are talking about, price range, and other factors will play a large role in determining if and when is the right time for that person or family to buy a house...but very generally yes, I do think now is an opportune time to buy a home in Sacramento. Prices are increasing slowly and steadily (aka, sustainably, with no large spikes one way or another), interest rates are good (right now in the low 4% range), and the economy seems to be back on track in the Sacramento region.

So given all that, my husband and I just purchased a home in the summer of 2014. That purchase was a fixer property that we spent some time and effort remodeling. It was never intended to be a home we would live in long-term.

This last summer, we got the itch again and started looking to purchase either an investment property or another home for ourselves. We were lucky to find a great home that is a much better fit for our needs, also located in the Arden area. This home is a little dated cosmetically but we will add our own personal touches over time. It's a bit more space, with larger yard now that we have our dog Citra, and a better neighborhood. We will be turning our current home into a rental.

I am not a fan of moving, so after suffering through this next move, I think this is a home we will probably stay in a little while and our future purchases will likely be investment properties.

My personal experience with using home warranty coverage to make a major claim on my central heating and air system...

I have always been an advocate of home warranties, and I thought I would share my own personal experience dealing with a major repair claim that I had on my own home recently. The short version of the story is the experience was extremely unpleasant. Here is the long version:

So first off, some of you may be wondering: just what is a home warranty? Well, unlike homeowner's insurance, a home warranty policy can be purchased to cover the repair of items in the home that break and need to be fixed. So for example, coverage may include things like fixing a leaking shower valve, fixing or replacing a broken dishwasher, fixing or replacing a water heater, etc. Coverage from plan to plan can vary to include a lot or a little, and there is usually a small service call fee of $60 when a contractor visits the house.

So in my case, when my husband and I purchased our current home in June 2014, we negotiated in our purchase that the seller pay for a 1-year home warranty policy for us. During our first year of ownership, we used the plan to repair a leak under our kitchen sink, to snake a backed-up shower drain, and make a repair to our air conditioning unit when the blower motor stopped working. Generally those repairs went pretty smoothly: we placed a claim with our warranty company, within a day a contractor called to schedule a time to visit the house, and within a couple days of that the repair was complete.

After a year of owning the home, in June 2015 we paid to extend the plan for another year, primarily because our HVAC unit was really old and we figured we would continue to have repair issues with it. This brings us to current day...

In early December, we re-roofed our home. The job started on December 9th, and the roofing contractor had to temporarily disconnect our HVAC unit, which sits on our roof. When they reconnected the unit after the job was complete on December 11th, they could not get it to turn on. So....

On Saturday December 12th, we made a claim with the home warranty company. It was immediately assigned to HVAC Contractor A (not going to disparage anyone). Then for some odd reason, the next day on December 13th we were notified by email it was re-assigned to another contractor, HVAC Company B. HVAC Company B called the next afternoon (a Monday) and the soonest both the contractor and I were available was Thursday, December 17th. Ugh, I guess a few more days without heat is manageable. We had already gotten out a couple electric blankets and a space heater, had a fire in the fireplace. So inconvenient yes, the end of the world, no.

HVAC Contractor B came out as scheduled on the 17th and diagnosed we had a cracked heat exchanger. Our unit was toast! It was not a repairable item, especially for a really old unit. He said the entire HVAC unit on our roof needed to be replaced. Unfortunately he was a one-person operation and said the job to replace this unit was beyond his capabilities. He called into the warranty company that afternoon, reported our unit needed to be replaced, and said a new contractor needed to be assigned for the replacement.

So that evening we were notified by email that HVAC Contractor C was assigned to our file. Ok...I guess a few more nights huddled with electric blankets and space heaters wouldn't kill us. The next day the newly assigned contractor contacted us and asked to come out on Sunday, December 20th. And he did. The technician spent less than 5 minutes at my house, didn't even get on the roof to look, didn't look at our ductwork...said he had enough information to bid the job. Umm, ok? He said he would call in the bid to the warranty company.

On Tuesday, December 22, I had not heard anything from the contractor or warranty company and was getting a little concerned. We were approaching 2 weeks with no heat and it was the week of Christmas. I called the warranty company, and the rep there told me they were waiting on information from HVAC Contractor C. I called the contractor and they said they had sent everything over. I asked them to again. I called the warranty company the next day on the 23rd, and again they said they did not have what they needed. I left a voicemail for the contractor asking them to send it in. Then over the next few days we heard nothing...granted it was Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and then the weekend. We enjoyed the holidays with our family and tried not to think about how cold our home was.

On December 26th I left another voicemail for HVAC Contractor C. The warranty company's call center was closed. I escalated the situation by contacting a local representative of an affiliated title company. She tried to help but really could not do too much except give me a direct phone number for a supervisor at the call center. So I called again on December 27th. Let's say by this point I was pretty irritated. I got a warranty company supervisor on the phone. She then informed me that HVAC Contractor C had refused the job. WHAT!? I was irate. This process was taking a ridiculous amount of time. Until that point I had not mentioned I am a Realtor and referred clients to this company pretty frequently, but I let her know that and how awful and frustrating this experience had been for my family.

The morning of Monday, December 27th I called the warranty company again. The rep I spoke to told me another contractor, HVAC Contractor D had been assigned. I never received email notification of that...she gave me their contact information and I called the company immediately. To that company's credit, they were able to send someone out to look at the job within a few hours. Progress!! The technician arrived, spent probably 30 minutes getting up on the roof, taking measurements, etc. Much better. That afternoon I heard from the contractor that the complete replacement had been approved by the warranty company. YAY! There would be some parts of the project not covered by the warranty -- the warrant company would pay up to $250 of the permit, up to $1000 for new ductwork, and would not cover the $400 testing of the ductwork for energy efficiency...but everything else would be covered. It was about a $10,000 total project, so paying a small fraction of that was ok by us.

BUT...then another set-back. Instead of being able to start the job right away, the warranty company had to ship a new HVAC unit to the contractor. Huh? So they could not just go down to a local supplier and get a unit and install it...no they had to wait. It took another week to arrive.

On January 5th, HVAC Contractor D arrived and replaced all of our ductwork in the attic...and that day the HVAC unit arrived! YAY! But it was raining and since the unit had to be installed on the roof, we had to wait for a clear day. Ok, that's understandable. So on Thursday January 7th, the unit was finally installed. I came home that day to a warm house for the first time in a month. Hallelujah! But the drama doesn't end there.

Remember those uncovered costs?  The office manager from HVAC Company D called Friday asking for payment. Since the warranty company was covering part of the job and we were covering a small portion, I asked her to email me an itemized bill that showed exactly what the warranty company was paying and what we were paying. That email never came, and I arrived home on Friday evening to find a rep from the contractor standing in my driveway demanding payment. Luckily my husband and I arrived home at the same time because the guy was a little scary. He handed us a bill with three items on it: Permit $150, Ductwork $2,200, HERS Test $400.

The amount of the bill was more or less what we had expected, but the bill was not itemized as we had requested...AND, we had not been provided a copy of a permit, the work had not been inspected by Sacramento County and signed off, nor had the HERS testing happened. So the contractor was billing us in full for a job that was not yet complete. We had some unpleasant words with the guy in our driveway, and ultimately we wrote him a check for 10% of the job, and told him we would pay the rest once everything was indeed complete. We got a call over the weekend from the owner of HVAC Contractor D demanding payment again. We asked where the permit was, when the HERS test was scheduled, and when final inspection would take place. He claimed the permit was at their office, and it would be weeks before the HERS test and inspection. He then accusing us of never intending to pay them. Once we threatened to contact the Contractors State License Board for their behavior he backed off. That evening, Sunday the 10th, I checked online with Sacramento County -- they have an online permit look-up -- sure enough, no permit had been obtained for our job.

So on Monday, the 11th, my husband spoke with the contractor again...and that morning they had obtained the permit and they scheduled the HERS test and final inspection for Wednesday January 13th. Hmm, I thought that would take weeks to get scheduled? My husband and I think that if we had indeed paid in full when the contractor demanded payment a few days prior, we probably never would have heard from them again, and no permit, no HERS test, and no final inspection that we would have already paid for. So unprofessional. What a joke.

So at 8am this morning, the HERS test was completed, and by 10am the Sacramento County building inspector arrived and signed off the permit.

I'm still waiting for an itemized bill, and after speaking with the contractor again earlier, it seems they have over-charged us $400 for an extra duct. They charged us for 8 ducts instead of the 7 we have. So tonight, assuming the contractor provides a corrected itemized bill, we will pay them in full for the remainder of the job.

So I know this was a long story...while saving $8,000 on our new HVAC system was definitely awesome, I think that folks should be prepared for a long, drawn out process, and be prepared to stay on top of both the home warranty company and the contractor assigned to the job.

Meet Our Newest Addition, Citra the Mini Aussie...

For people who have followed my blog for a LONG time, you may already know that several years ago, I had a really sweet bloodhound named Harold. I was devastated when he had health issues and had to be put down. I have not had a dog since...until now.

Meet "Citra" who has been named for a variety of hops used in beer-making. She is a mini-Australian Shepherd puppy. She is 7 pounds now, and should grow to be about 25-30 pounds. On top of being extremely adorable, she is also extremely sweet and very smart. House-breaking a puppy isn't exactly the easiest thing to do, and she's rolling with it pretty well.

It's so nice to have a sweet dog again, and I look forward to many years of her companionship.

Got a residential electric vehicle charger for my own house...pretty affordable and pretty awesome!

This is pretty cool. Nearly 2 years ago my husband and I got a Nissan Leaf electric vehicle. He drives is primarily to work downtown and back, and mostly charges his car in the parking garage. A company called Chargepoint just came out with an affordable residential charging unit, so we took the plunge and had one installed in our home. This thing is awesome. The unit we purchased was the Chargepoint 25 32-Amp hard-wired model and cost about $500. They do make other less-expensive units as well...we purchased this one because it charges more quickly. We had an electrical contractor professionally install it for us. SMUD and PG&E both offer incentives to installing residential charging stations. We are loving this so far.

Think twice before financing home improvements using a Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) Loan...

A few weeks ago I listed a really cute home in the Tallac Village neighborhood. The sellers walked me through the house and showed me around. I took note of the dual pane windows, updated kitchen, central heating and air, drought tolerant landscape, composition roof, and all the other nice amenities the house had to offer. Then I asked the million dollar question: "have you financed any of these improvements?" The seller had indeed financed the new artificial grass using a Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) loan. Yikes. Alarm bells were ringing in my head.

She then said, "Oh, but don't worry. The PACE loan will be transferred to the new owner!"

Umm, no.

A PACE loan allows a homeowner who meets the eligibility requirements to finance energy-efficient home improvements, and make payments via the twice yearly property tax billing. Examples of the types of work that can be done to a home are solar, central heating and air, dual pane windows, lighting, a roof, low-water-flow plumbing, insulation, artificial turf, etc.

Let me just say that I have some negative thoughts about PACE loans. There is a lot of room for confusion among homeowners who use this program. This is the perfect case in point.

While in theory, a homeowner may transfer a PACE loan to a buyer, there are two big-time flaws in this concept.

First, what homeowner wants to pay the market value for a home and assume a loan for part of the improvements that made the home worth that amount of money? Nobody. That's a raw deal. Let's just assume for a minute that the $7,000 that the seller of this property financed to pay for artificial turf (yes, that's right $7,000) increased the home's value by even half that amount: $3,500. The house may have been worth $271,500, and the market value is worth maybe $275,000 now after adding the value of artificial turf. Why would a buyer pay $275,000 AND assume a $7,000 loan? No buyer in his/her right mind would do that. (And for the record, I do not think this sort of improvement actually increases a home's actual value that significantly)

Second, and where the real trouble lies, is that lenders will not place new loans on properties with existing PACE loans. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and FHA all consider PACE loans to be "superior" liens. Fannie, Freddie, and FHA will not put a loan on a property and be in the "second position" to ANY loan. Including a PACE loan. PACE loans, because they are attached to a property tax bill, survive foreclosure. A regular second mortgage or Home Equity Line of Credit will not survive a foreclosure.

So while the PACE loan administrator (a company called Ygrene in Sacramento) may allow the transfer of this debt to a new owner, this is highly unlikely to happen unless you happen to sell the house to a poorly advised, all cash buyer. And that ain't happening.

So what does this mean for homeowners? It means if you have a PACE loan, it's going to have to be paid off when you sell. AND, it will have to be paid off if you refinance. Bet that wasn't made clear to you by the contractors pushing this financing for services they were trying to sell you, was it? It wasn't to my seller. And thankfully, we had this conversation early in the selling process, and they have more than enough equity to pay it off with the sale.

Let me share one other anecdote from personal experience as well. I am in the process of re-roofing my own home. My husband and I got five bids, and one of the contractors was trying to sell us on using PACE to pay for the roof and how it was like getting "free money" since we could pay for it over 10-15 years and via the property tax bill. That company's bid was THE HIGHEST, and the highest by about $7,000. Wow. A $20,000 bid, for a roof we are paying $11,000 for is insane. And I would argue that a lot of folks will overpay and not question a contractor's bid when they are financing the cost it over 10-15 years in this "free money" scam. Food for thought.

My advice? Stay away from PACE loans. Or at least be sure to read the fine print and really know what you are getting.

Nextdoor - the Social Network for your Sacramento neighborhood...

Not sure how many of you have discovered Nextdoor, but it's a useful social network for your neighborhood. I hadn't heard of it until recently. My husband and I just bought a new house earlier this summer, and at the urging of our mail carrier, we joined our local Nextdoor.

It's really cool. You will see a variety of items of neighborhood interest -- anything from requests for contractor referrals, announcing a garage sale, requesting a local babysitter for the kids on Friday night, the local high school fundraiser, notification of a vehicle break-in, a suspicious person in the area, etc.

I'd highly suggest joining Nextdoor! I've found it to be very valuable.

Thinking about painting your home? Invest a few dollars in some sample paint first!

Now that the majority of the interior projects are complete on the house we bought this summer in Del Paso Manor, my husband and I painted the exterior of our home a couple weeks ago. And probably much like anyone else who decides to paint their home, we spent some time collecting paint chips from a few paint stores before narrowing down our selection.

We wanted to paint the body of our house blue, the roof eaves and trim white, and add some red accents. And we picked out some paint that we thought would look amazing on our home. Turns out we were wrong about it looking amazing. It looked amazingly awful, a la a circus tent.

If you are planning to paint your home, or even just a room, I'd highly suggest getting a few actual samples to actually paint on your home first, before you invest several hundred dollars in paint. Thankfully, we spent $10 and purchased a small sampling of the three colors we chose, and painted a section of the side and some trim near our front door. Because if we had purchased 20 gallons of what we had originally picked out, we would have ended up with "that house" on the street that our neighbors refer to as "that Southwest Airlines house."

Once we decided those were not the colors we wanted, we went back to the drawing board and got some more samples with a little more color variety. Ultimately we decided to paint our house a richer, darker blue, with a richer, darker maroon accent. Thankfully my husband was willing to get his hands dirty and take on the exterior painting project, so we rented the equipment...and he and I spent the better part of a couple weekends prepping, masking, and painting the house. There's still a little touching up to take care of, but overall we are happy with the results. I'm hoping that our next home improvement project isn't until after the new year...it's a lot of work!

How to inexpensively update your 1950's bathroom...

As the home improvement party continues on the house my husband and I just bought, I thought I would share what we did to update our hall bathroom. Our Del Paso Manor home was built in 1955, and is pretty original. Our hallway bathroom had a newer vanity, however the walls and floors were bright pink tile, and the bathtub was powder blue. I'm sure in 1955 this was really awesome, but my teenage step-sons who will be primarily using this bathroom were not thrilled with the color scheme.

The existing tile and tub were in excellent shape, so instead of spending thousands of dollars demolishing and remodeling the hall bathroom, we spent about $500 to apply an acrylic color coating over the tile. We chose all white -- however there are other colors to choose from. It really cleaned up the appearance of the bathroom, and after adding a slightly contrasting wall color, a patterned shower curtain, this bathroom looks much improved! We hired a contractor to do this for us, however home improvement stores sell do-it-yourself kits for less than what we spent. We may decide to remodel this more extensively in the future, but this definitely looks great for now.

Yes, I can confirm for you that buying a home is indeed exciting!

I wrote a few months ago about my very first home buying experience in 1998. Well it's been an exciting couple of months as my husband and I have been working on another purchase; our first home together! We just closed escrow this last week on a home in Del Paso Manor. Our one year wedding anniversary is coming up on July 6th. This was a nice gift to each other.

It's been a while since I was my own client, and I have to say, it's a mixed bag of stress and excitement. I'm glad it's over so now we can start the fun part -- remodeling! We bought a house that is in its original 1955 condition, complete with bright pink and blue tiled bathrooms...so it will be fun to see the transformation over the next month as we do some repairs and renovation before we move in.

Every home owner starts as a first time home buyer at some point...myself included!

I vividly remember when I purchased my first home in 1998. I was young; a full-time college student, working a full-time job, and I had a small chunk of money that my parents told me I should use as a downpayment on a home. Homes were not really advertised on the internet at that point, and I looked through the newspaper for homes that looked interesting. I found my Realtor by calling about one of his listings. He was the only agent who took my inquiry seriously...others had blown me off. I didn't know where to start in the process. I just knew I wanted to buy a house.

Sound familiar?

This Realtor had the patience of a saint. I was not a big time client looking to spend lots of money but he still took time to work with me. He walked me through the home buying process from start to finish, and answered all of my questions. I had no idea what I was doing, and figured I might only go through the process a couple times in my entire life. He matched me to a great loan officer and helped me get pre-approved for a loan, listened to what I wanted, and showed me properties that matched my criteria. My Mom tagged along as we looked at property and helped me ask questions. After a couple months, and looking at a dozen or so properties, I ended up buying a bank-repo condo in Fair Oaks. It wasn't perfect - I immediately repainted many of the walls, and replaced the HIDEOUSLY UGLY electric blue laminate kitchen counters with white tile. But it was all mine.

That's me in the photo up top, the day I closed escrow, standing in front of my unit holding a housewarming gift. The other photo is at my housewarming party when my friends helped me break in my new BBQ. I was SO excited! Little did I know at that time -- years later -- I would get my real estate license and help first time buyers on a daily basis. Remembering my first home buying experience, I vowed to be like the agent who so patiently helped me with my first purchase.

So, if you are reading this -- know you are on the right track. The first steps involve reaching out to a Realtor and finding someone who is a good fit to help you with your home search. In conjunction with connecting with a Realtor, you will need to find a great lender to get pre-approved for a mortgage loan. I work with several outstanding loan officers I can refer you to who also work with lots of first time home buyers in Sacramento. The loan officer will help you establish your home purchase budget based on your income, explain all of the different loan programs available to you, see if you qualify for any downpayment assistnance, let you know how much your downpayment, closing costs, and monthly payment will be. Your Realtor will help you establish which neighborhoods you are interested in, what kind of home you are looking for, and what features are important to you.

Once you have laid the ground work for your purchase, the fun begins and you can start house hunting...there's a lot more from there that your Realtor and loan officer can review with you in person.

Just remember -- have fun, ask questions, get advice when you need it, and know that your home is out there. You just have to go find it. =)