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Elizabeth Weintraub
Working as a Sacramento Agent on Aloha Time
Working in an Aloha state-of-mind should be recommended for all Sacramento real estate agents who are stressed out, overworked and exhausted, because it’s pretty much impossible to get all excited or worked up over normal day-to-day crap when you’re in Maui. I much prefer to be a Sacramento agent on Aloha time. Much of the time I do not let external factors bother me one way or the other because I am too busy to allot time to focus on minor irritations. Out of sight, out of mind, work on the next task at hand, is my motto.
There is always something new and exciting on the horizon. Just this morning, a red-crested cardinal landed on our balcony railing. I grabbed my cellphone to shoot a picture. Problem is with the ocean and palm trees behind the balcony, the cardinal was washed out. The picture didn’t turn out very well. But the cardinal will be back. We have another week here, and the odds are I will have another opportunity to catch the cardinal in a photo. Because I am a Sacramento agent on Aloha time in Maui.
Barbara says motivation is somewhat complicated for her. She knows, for example, that she needs to make what could be construed as an uncomfortable phone call to a guy she doesn’t really want to speak to, so she looks out at the ocean and temporarily spaces out making the call. But she is excellent at prioritizing tasks. Her list of people she needs to call is laid out in front of her, and her fingers finally whip across the face of her cellphone, and she does the deed. She is a Sacramento agent on Aloha time.
Because no matter what happens, she will work it out. If not right now, perhaps in an hour from now or maybe tomorrow. No big deal. We’re definitely working on Aloha time. Bring it on.
Closing an Escrow Against the Odds
I may have been riding ponies and yelling giddy-up last night but this morning my birthday is over and I’m just another old fart whose day of glory has passed. No more 20-year tawny for me today, me — who had the brilliant thought that if one glass was a fine way to end the evening, a second glass might be even more fun. Instead I have built-in radar that says, nope, you, young lady, need to go directly to bed, do not pass go, do not collect $200. Put that head on the pillow, NOW.
I am thankful for my built-in radar because it keeps me out of danger. I have pretty good gut instincts as well which I, at times, rely upon. It’s the reason we closed an escrow on Friday that probably would not have otherwise closed this month.
This was a transaction initially scheduled to close within the first week of June, not the end of June. Mid stream, the mortgage lender switched the financing from conventional to FHA because the buyer did not qualify. The underwriter discovered a foreclosure on record some 7 years past for one of the buyers and disqualified the buyer. Yup, guidelines can make provisions for waiting periods but underwriters can do what they want.
Then the file sat at the lender because everybody thought somebody else was working on it, or at least that’s the mortgage lender’s story and he was sticking to it. He went so far as to pull out the my-grandmother-died card, or wait, that might have been another transaction and these are probably guys without grandmothers, I may note. I dunno. What I did know was I had a very unhappy seller due to the financing for the buyers. She expected to close. She had to make another mortgage payment she wasn’t planning on making. She asked me for options.
The solution she liked best was to sell the home to another buyer. So that’s what we did. We signed a back-up offer with a second set of buyers and issued to the first buyer a Demand to Close escrow. The buyer’s agent was horrified. Said she had never received a Demand to Close escrow in all of her years in real estate. It won’t be the last, I offered. Not in this real estate market. The lender has the ability to make any file a priority, and it may as well be ours. They managed to pull a rabbit out of the hat and closed.
My 62nd Birthday in Maui
I forgot it is my birthday when I got up this morning in Maui. Completely slipped my mind until I noticed a couple of Happy Birthday emails. This is what Maui can do to you. Oh, yeah. I’m 62 today. I am happy any day that I open my eyes after waking up. Today isn’t any different, but it does mean another year has gone by and I am looking forward to the next — sort of like one’s own personal New Year’s, without the horrible drunk people passed out on your living room floor.
Just about every year now, I try to take a mid-year vacation around my birthday and let that celebration roll on past the Fourth of July. The only thing that’s uncomfortable about that kind of planning is our poor cats are home with the pet sitters to deal with the awful sound of fireworks, hiding under the bed with their little kitty paws over their ears. That scenario is not gonna happen this year, though, because my wonderful husband is at home in Land Park, tending to their kitty needs and hearth.
He goes away every year with “the boys” from college to various spots where guys like to go, which often involves visiting frisbee golf courses and playing board games. I prefer to sit quietly and stare at the waves rolling in. Barbara Dow, my team member, enjoys that leisure activity as well. So, the two of us are now in Maui, watching the sun slowly rise to the east. We will lie on the beach, slathered in sunscreen (seems like it defeats the purpose), toes wiggling in the sand and read books after books.
Barbara and I have taken up temporary residence on the top-floor corner suite at the Fairmont Kea Lani, with a wrap-around balcony that presents a magnificent 180-degree view of the ocean. The symphony is warming up as the sun rises higher. I can now hear not only mourning doves but the chatter, tweets and chirps from the entire string section — not a leaf blower around.
Perhaps after a lazy nap on the beach mid-day, we’ll check emails and go for a stroll along the water. Who says you can’t have a restful vacation and keep tabs on your work at the same time? Only people who aren’t in love with their careers. It’s like having the best of both worlds. I just tell clients to please allow for the 3-hour time difference between Maui and Sacramento.
FSBO Seller to Agent: Will You Find a Buyer for My Home?
As a busy Sacramento real estate agent, I receive all kinds of odd calls during the day, but probably the strangest call I received lately was from a FSBO, a for sale by owner, who asked me to find a buyer for her. Now, I know the way I was supposed to answer that question, the way a real estate agent who is hungry for listings might do it, but I couldn’t bring myself to stoop that low.
I was supposed to say sure, I would help her find a buyer, knowing that there was no way in hell I would. Then I would email her and talk about the market and other sales in the neighborhood, and day by day, week by week, I would wear her down until she is so damn tired of trying to find a buyer all by herself that she will turn to me, the real estate pro, and list. Because that’s how it works with FSBO sellers.
No, thanks. I’m not wired like that. Instead, I leveled with her. She didn’t like it one little bit. There are a lot of people in the world who just don’t want to hear the truth because it’s not the version they expect.
But you know, I wasn’t the person who called this real estate agent and flat out stated she had no desire to hire me as her listing agent because she wasn’t planning to hire any listing agent, and starts off by implying she has no respect for the job that I do because any person with a for sale sign and a hammer can slam it into the yard to find a buyer, but she wanted my help anyway. Oy. I tried to explain this was the wrong way to go about it, but she didn’t want to hear any of that.
I asked if she knows where buyers come from? No, she didn’t. Well, obviously not because she was calling to beg me to bring her a buyer. Buyers come from a listing. When a listing agent puts a listing into MLS and across the Internet, that agent gets buyers. That’s the way it works. No listing in MLS, no buyers.
Another reason she has no buyers and has taken to calling complete strangers from the Internet is because she thinks that agents who do have buyers are dying to work with her. No, they are not, and in fact, they go out of their way not work with a FSBO if they don’t have to and have a lick of common sense. They don’t want the liability, and they certainly don’t want the extra work that comes with trying to close an escrow with a FSBO seller who is unrepresented. Whoa, she was very unhappy and told me that was not true.
Well, between a person who has been in the business for 40 years selling homes, and a FSBO seller who is so desperate she is calling random agents to try to find a buyer, I think we know who has a better handle on the real estate market and the way things work. But you know what, I am on my way to Maui this morning with a team member for a little R&R in an oceanfront suite at Fairmont Kea, and you know what they say? Hair today gone to Maui. And my hair looks great!
Closing a Short Sale with USAA
Closing a short sale with USAA when the loan is in second position and a hard-money loan is a lot different than closing a short sale with USAA when the loan is a first mortgage with this lender. If you don’t care about reading the particulars, then you might want to click the back arrow on my blog to read a more amusing piece because this one will give you nightmares.
I met with the sellers in February at their beautiful home in Natomas. They were the last holdouts of that community. Everybody else who bought when they did has since sold that underwater home and moved away. The neighbors who paid half a million are gone and replaced by college kids who party on rent free in the rentals recently purchased by their parents for about half that price. The demographics are remarkably changed.
They recalled our conversation later, the images and words still vivid in their minds. This would not be an easy short sale. It would involve stress. It might be tough. I gave it to them straight. But I believed it would close. I have not lost a short sale for a long, long time. It’s why people know me as the best Sacramento short sale agent in town.
The first lender was Green Tree and the investor Fannie Mae, easy to work with for a first mortgage. But the second lender, USAA, was much more difficult. I am used to the way lenders submit demand letters for much more than they are willing settle for, as that’s often a normal method of operandi. We negotiate a bit and they settle. But not USAA. They asked for an astounding amount of money, and issued an approval letter based on that amount, which is basically worthless.
Because the investor was Fannie Mae, the maximum they could receive was $6,000. California Civil Code 580e prevents the sellers from making a contribution or being required to pay anything extra above the proceeds of sale for the short sale. We argued. Eventually, we had received what amounted to as 4 rejections from USAA, each asking for a ridiculous amount of money to settle.
By that point, even my faith was beginning to tremble. I had to wrestle with do I tell the sellers or don’t I? I finally concluded they should know that we had a good chance it might not close. That was not a piece of information I should shelter them from because it was not my place to withhold those pertinent facts. It didn’t mean I was giving up by any stretch, but they needed to be prepared, just in case. They deserved to know my thoughts. Everything I had read about USAA indicated that USAA would not bend, but you can’t always believe online crap, especially from agents who don’t close very many short sales.
I pushed forward though. I sent a 5th request for short sale approval and explained all of the reasons why. Then, it was like an awakening in the Biblical sense. Trumpets playing. Clouds parted. And angels appeared. OK, I overslept. But the fact remains that USAA approved the short sale and accepted the $6,000 payoff. They just needed to deny it 4 times first, most likely in accordance with guidelines. We closed last week.
