What Sort of Terms Make a Good Sacramento Short Sale Offer?

A good Sacramento short sale offer meets bank requirements.

Because agents rarely write a Sacramento short sale offer nowadays, especially if there is a similar home that can close escrow sooner, it is not unusual for an agent to overlook how a seller and her listing agent may view the terms submitted. In fact, now that I think about it, many agents, it seems, tend to ignore the other side of the transaction. They don’t always think ahead or consider how the offer might be received, you know, they seem incapable of predicting how the seller may react. They just know what they hope to accomplish when they barrel forward, guns blazing, and then wonder why their offers are continually rejected. Must be somebody else’s problem, not theirs.

Usually there is a little bit of give and take when negotiating, except for short sales. A Sacramento short sale offer is a whole different animal, yet some agents treat it like a regular sale. It is not a regular sale. Everything is subject to bank approval. The biggest mistake that buyers and their agents make is to think the bank gives a crap about them, and they apply all sorts of weird thoughts to the process like the bank is desperate or their offer is in the bank’s best interest, both of which are crazy. They think like Donald Trump and assume the world revolves around them.

We analyze every Sacramento short sale offer to try to predict the likelihood of the transaction closing. I share with buyer’s agents the fact no agent over a 7-county area during the past 10 years has more closed short sales than Elizabeth Weintraub. Not to brag about my track record, no, my point is to set aside any fears that the short sale could blow up or somehow not close. When I accept a short sale listing, I take it because it fits criteria to close. When I discuss a Sacramento short sale offer with my seller, we examine the buyer’s ability to stick with the transaction, rise to the occasion (if required) and to close.

The types of terms that make a good purchase offer for a Sacramento short sale agent are the buyers’ strong commitment to the short sale process and amount of flexibility. This means being willing to wait for approval, even if that approval will take 3 months or longer. Our reasoning lies with the fact the clock for foreclosure is almost always ticking. If the short sale buyer skips out on us, we might not have enough time to sell to another buyer. Banks won’t always postpone a trustee’s sale.

We also prefer buyers who can close within 30 days. Buyers who are strapped for cash, need down-payment assistance or closing cost assistance are not always a good candidate for a short sale because:

a) short sales are sold AS IS, meaning any lender-required conditions are generally satisfied by the buyer, and

b) not every short sale bank will give away a big chunk of its profit to the buyer as a closing cost credit, and

c) there are a number of fees many banks refuse to authorize, which means the buyer must pay those fees.

No money? The short sale cancels. Further, if the sales price is the top sales price the buyer can qualify for, that buyer will be hosed if the bank demands a higher price. Our seller’s market in Sacramento is appreciating. Due to the time lag for short sale approval and due to some banks’ inabilities to hire credible BPO agents who turn in screwed-up values, that sales price could increase. If the buyer has zero flexibility, that’s not a gold-standard Sacramento short sale offer.

You might wrongly presume after all of this that we don’t accept VA offers, but we do. We love VA buyers and will work with VA loans all day long, providing the buyers are committed and meet the criteria of a good Sacramento short sale offer.