We have an excellent contact at the California Veterans Administration and today, I wanted to tell you about a great loan product they can set you up with if you're a veteran looking to buy a home.

There are some subtle differences between a normal VA loan and a California Veterans loan. Most brokers in town can issue a normal VA loan; they're just insured and guaranteed by the federal Veterans Administration.

The cool thing with the California Veterans loan is that it's actually California bond money financing the loan. Nobody will sell the loan and it won't be serviced by some other company. In fact, it will be serviced right here in Sacramento at the California Veterans Administration, which we call Cal Vet for short.

When my dad became disabled, they actually continued to make the payments on my folks' property.

It's definitely a good product that I'm personally familiar with because my folks had one many many years ago. When my dad became disabled, they actually continued to make the payments on my folks' property.

With a normal VA loan, the rates can actually adjust two or three times a day. Until you're under contract and locked in, the interest rate can go higher or lower frequently. You also have to worry about time frames. If you're looking to buy a new home that's under construction, there might be four to six months of construction. With a VA loan, your contract is locked, so you don't have to worry about your interest rate rising during that construction period.

Another advantage comes with the homeowners insurance aspect. With a VA loan, your structure insurance is actually covered in your loan. All you'd need is a renter's policy to cover your contents, which saves you more money off your monthly expenses.

Have you heard the good news? We have a tremendous new VIP Buyer Program designed to reward buyers like you for choosing us to help you buy a home. Here’s what we’re offering.

You can earn a $1,500 closing credit if you buy a property from us that’s listed by us but isn’t yet on the MLS. This type of listing is sometimes referred to as a ‘pocket listing.’ This is a great opportunity for you to save money while buying a house that’s perfectly suited to your needs without any competition.

You can also earn a $1,000 closing credit if you buy one of our listings that’s actively listed on the MLS and a $500 closing credit if you buy any listing through us that’s not one of our listings but is still listed on the MLS.

“

This program offers many
great incentives.

”

As always, all of our buyers get their new houses re-keyed, because we’d never want you to move into a house without knowing who else has access to it.

In addition to these things, our VIP buyers also get to choose from one of four services:

Free carpet cleaning.

Four hours of moving help, which can be delegated and arranged according to your preferences.

Four hours of housekeeping, from either the house you’re moving from or the house you’re moving to.

Four hours of organizing help in your new home.

A lot of folks have been calling me lately and asking me what’s in store for 2017, so today I’d like to share some of my market predictions for the new year.

First off, Realtor.com just classified the Sacramento area as the fourth-hottest region in the nation for 2017. They’re citing the fact that saturation of home prices in the Bay Area is driving investors away from there and into our neck of the woods. Other factors for this buyer influx include the high price of rentals and past foreclosures being wiped off of many people’s credit histories.  

Even though interest rates are high right now, they’re still very low in a historical context. Right now, they’re hovering just above 4%, but they’re expected to increase as high as 5%. Appreciation is expected to be in the 5% to 8% range, but that will depend on where you’re located and what price point you’re in.

“

Our area should experience an influx 

of buyers.

”

First-time home buyers are still having a tough time finding affordable housing, so any inventory below $350,000 should move pretty quickly. That price point will move up as high and fast as the market will bear. We also see that the luxury, high-end inventory above $800,000 has a lot of traction and should attract a lot of activity.

Our team is hiring, and we’d love for the right person to join us.

Why work for us? Let me tell you a little bit about what we do and what we can provide for you. We like to divide our business into three categories: before, during, and after.

Our “before” category is the time in which we generate leads and contacts before we get into contract, whether it’s a buyer or seller agreement. We do our lead generation through Google pay-per-click, Facebook, Zillow, Trulia, mail-out campaigns, and postcarding. On our team, you would no longer have to create these items—we’d create them for you.

The “during” category is the time in which we’re in contract with a client. We have a management process for this, as well. We would provide a transaction coordinator for you, along with all the information you want or need for educating your clients.

Finally, the “after” category is the period after escrow closes where we provide all the information and gifts for your buyers or sellers so you can stay in communication with them. We will also supply the CRM contact management system. With RE/MAX, you’d not only get the four webistes that they provide, but you’d also have access to our two lead generation sites: www.greaterrosevillehomes.com and www.besthomesandestates.com. You would have access to these sites and be able to send them out to your clients and contacts.

Our mission is to build great relationships with the people that you already know or the people that you want to get in contact with.

“

If you’re just looking for transactions,
you wouldn’t be a good fit.

”

What’s the rub? I’m going to be completely honest with you—I don’t want every agent or salesperson to call me. I’m not looking for a salesperson. I’m looking for a consultant. I want someone who’s more interested in helping people and bringing value to those they become associated with. That’s what we built our business on, and that’s the path we want to continue to follow.

We’re looking forward to doing more than 200 deals next year and growing our team to be able to help 200 different families. If that sounds like something you’re interested in, we’d love to talk. To contact us, you can either click on the ‘contact’ button, reply to this email, or just give us a call. I look forward to talking with you soon!

Now that we’re in the middle of fall and approaching the beginning of winter, what can you as a homeowner do to prepare your house for these seasons?

Your first order of business should be to check your smoke detector batteries. Many new homes are either electrically-wired or have smoke detectors with the new 10-year batteries, but there are still plenty out there that only work with 9-volt batteries. I generally advise people to check them at the time changes, which is twice a year.

I also recommend checking and replacing your furnace filters at that same interval. This will help your furnace to be much more efficient by getting rid of the dust and animal dander that accumulates inside it. Now’s even a good time to turn your furnace on to exhaust that burnt dust smell that lingers around it after long periods of inactivity. This is especially important if you own a rental property, as this will save you from any inconvenient maintenance calls down the road.

“

Don’t put off your maintenance
chores any longer.

”

We’ve all been through a power outage or two this time of year, so it’s a good time to locate your flashlights and put them in a place where everyone in the house will know where to find them. It also wouldn’t hurt to keep a couple candles in strategic locations. Make sure they’re safe candles and not the kind that can be easily knocked over.

Any and all maintenance items you planned on doing over the summer, whether it’s unblocking some drainage or sealing something that was allowing some moisture intrusion, should be done so that any accumulated moisture doesn’t do serious damage to your foundation. Here in Northern California, we’re pretty spoiled by having a dry summer, but it never hurts to be prepared.

What is the advantage of using RE/MAX?

I’ve chosen to associate with RE/MAX as my brokerage of choice primarily because it gives me great brand awareness. This means when I’m listing a home like yours, it will get a lot more exposure. We actually have five different websites we can market through RE/MAX:

http://thesilvateam.com/

http://www.remaxgold.com

http://global.remax.com/

http://www.theremaxcollection.com/

http://home.remaxcommercial.com/

“

Listing with RE/MAX means your
home will get more exposure.

”

There are more than 104,000 agents who work with RE/MAX in 6,986 offices in 95 different countries. We know the importance of networking in today’s market, and our ability to network is unrivaled. Even if you’re relocating to another state or city here in California, we can reach out to a RE/MAX agent in that city or state in order to help you. I would even go so far as to personally screen those agents to make sure that they’re competent to handle your business.

RE/MAX likes to claim that nobody sells more homes than they do, and the data from the National Association of Realtors backs that up.

I was recently asked if now is a good time to buy a house with school back in session for the kids.

Oddly enough, it's a great time to buy a house. Contrary to what many believe, typically in the summer, people are traveling and going on vacations. Now, suddenly a lot of people are back and focused on getting back into school and moving before the holidays.

“

Fall is actually a great time to buy
a house because of the market.

”

Just today as I shot this video, there were 312 new listings in Placer County this month with 185 properties sold. You can definitely see how accelerated the market is right now.

If you've been thinking about buying or selling a house but weren't sure about the timing, I'd be glad to answer any questions you have. If you have any questions at all about real estate or our market, I'd be happy to answer those questions, too. Give me a call or send me an email. I'd love to hear from you!

Welcome to our new website, GreaterRosevilleHomes.com! I hope you enjoy it. We spent a lot of time making it a comprehensive site so you can find the exact home that you are looking for.

Be sure to click on the advanced tab when you set up your home search. The filters there will allow you to be as specific as you can. One of our customer service representatives can also give you a call to make sure that you are setting your search up correctly.

“

All of the properties on our website 

are active homes on the market.

”

This site will give you unique, up-to-date real estate information. Unlike Zillow and Trulia, all the properties on our website are active on the market.

If there is any way we can help you, please let us know. In the meantime, enjoy the website. I look forward to hearing from you!

One of my pet peeves as a listing agent is when I get a request for repairs, and the item was clearly visible when the offer was written. Right away, I get pretty upset, and I let the agent know that the repair was visible and should have been in the offer that their buyer made. We don't like to receive a bunch of requests after we're already in escrow.

Health and life safety are the main issues we're concerned with. It's important that a seller passes a healthy and safe house onto the buyer.

“

Health and safety are the main 

issues we're concerned with.

”

When we get that request for repairs, we'll address it with you, the seller, and only address the issues that pertain to health and safety. If there is an electrical issue or mold or termites that were brought out by the home inspection, we'll address those too. We'll also find the most inexpensive contractors to take care of these issues, because your money is very important to you and us.

I'd love to go over requests for repair in more detail with you, if you're curious. Give us a call or reach us through the "Contact Us" box and we'll get right back to you. If you have any other questions about real estate or topics you'd like to see covered in a video, let us know in that same box. Thanks for watching!

I wanted to take a minute today to talk about something I'm really passionate about - real estate photography.

Putting it plain and simple, most real estate photography just sucks. It looks like it was taken with an iPhone and doesn't even utilize the full 25 pictures allowed by the MLS. The most important thing with bad photos is the location and arrangement not making sense to a buyer. You've probably seen it in a listing and found yourself wondering where this or that bedroom is, why you only see pictures of one bathroom, and so on.

“

”

We hire a professional photographer here in Roseville for our listings, and he generally gives me about 35 to 40 pictures to choose from. We do a walkthrough video tour as well so potential buyers can see exactly how the house flows and how each room relates to each other. For unique properties requiring aerial views, we actually use a drone. We recently had a unique property with a canyon behind the house and very dramatic views that we wouldn't have been able to capture without the drone. We had another that was just off the ocean, and we were able to show how close the home was to the ocean with a drone fly-in.