The Sacramento Short Sales Nobody Wants

It’s not surprising that I often agree to tackle the Sacramento short sales that no other real estate agent in Sacramento wants to handle. That’s because I don’t discriminate. As long as the seller’s situation warrants a short sale and this agent can see that short sale closing, I will list it, sell it, negotiate it and close it. If I don’t believe the short sale will close, I don’t accept the listing. Keeps life simple.

But what I think will close and what another agent in Sacramento believes will close is often two different things. That’s because there are agents who will not touch a short sale in which the seller owes money to more than one lender. These agents do not want to work on a short sale with two loans or more. They’ve been burned once or twice by second lenders so they automatically assume all second lenders are reluctant to cooperate with a short sale or they want to blackball certain lenders, which is so wrong.

Every short sale is unique. Every short sale is different. What a second lender might do in one transaction could be the opposite in another. Any Sacramento short sale agent worth her salt knows that it’s a defeatist attitude to automatically wish for the worst.

I’m thinking the reason that agents might lose enthusiasm for a short sale is because they probably haven’t closed enough of them. According to Trendgraphix, I have closed more than $65 million in short sales, more than any other short sale agent in the Sacramento seven-county area over the past 8 years. I’ve learned a thing or two negotiating this volume of short sales. The most important is not to be overly judgmental and to deal with the facts at hand. If it’s a little bit extra work for me, so what? That’s what I’m paid to do.

Just closed a short sale last month in which well-meaning buyer’s agents predicted disaster. They didn’t want their buyers to make an offer on the home because they thought the roof needed too much work. You know what? The roof never came up, and it sold FHA. The home inspector did not find any problems, either. Agents also thought the home was priced too high, yet it sold for a little bit more than its original list price. Other agents complained that the short sale had two loans and would take too long to get approval, if the second lender agreed at all because some agents had a bad experience with that particular lender.

The facts are we accepted an offer on October 18th, and we closed escrow on December 23rd. We had short sale approval from both lenders before the end of November. Plus, the seller pocketed $3,000 through the HAFA short sale program at closing. Everybody was happy, except those naysayer buyer’s agents who did not go to escrow due to ignorance.