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Elizabeth Weintraub
Commission-Gate and the Sacramento Real Estate Agent
Who knew that selling Sacramento real estate was likely to turn into its own little Commission-Gate? Over my past 40 years in real estate, this was a first for me. Now, we know buyers are a bit desperate vying for certain homes, and agents can be all over the map when trying to help them buy those homes, too. But holy moley, you don’t throw a bag of money at the listing agent, for heaven’s sake. No, I don’t want to see the gold watches pinned inside your coat, button yourself up and get outta here.
Let’s set aside the fact that it’s against the law, probably violates the Code of Ethics, and it breaches an agent’s fiduciary relationship with her seller, and look at what buyers or their agent — hard to say where the idea originated — were coming from. See, Mikey here really wants this house, see. Poor Mikey and his dame, they just wanna buy a house, and they know it’s uncool to be packing heat. They don’t wanna wear no bracelets, much less end up in the stinkin’ meatwagon heading off to the Big House; so, instead, see, they’re just gonna sweeten the deal with moolah.
I can’t believe a buyer’s agent asked this Sacramento real estate agent yesterday to accept a kickback on the commission. She offered 25% of her commission to me as a bonus if I would just get her buyers into that house. What?
Yeah, my jaw is still hanging open. I had to tell her to hang on her to cabbage and just write the best offer that her buyers could write. I’m nobody’s stool pigeon but I’m kinda floored that she had the gall to ask such a thing. Is this Chicago? What’s next? No, I’m not going there because sure as crap somebody will try to do it if I say it. I’m not putting ideas into anybody’s head, not even as a joke.
This market is not bringing out the best in people. Some real estate agents are becoming forgetful. To some, the Code of Ethics is something dark and murky, in their past; they’re too busy crawling over dead bodies to get to that pile of gold. We simply cannot set aside our professionalism because the market is hard or inventory is low. I find this kind of behavior troubling because it reflects poorly on all of us.
Is the Third Time a Charm in a Sacramento Short Sale?
There is a saying in the Sacramento short sale business that the third time is a charm. Agents who sell a lot of short sales might chuckle over this statement because it’s absolutely true. We don’t want to sell a home more than once, but sometimes, there is no way around it, no matter what we do. Apart from forcing a buyer we’ve tied to a chair in an empty warehouse to listen to Stuck in the Middle With You, we can’t really interrogate them.
OK, that was just a sick joke. But when you sell a home a third time, that’s where your mind goes and the sellers follow that thought process, too.
As the seller’s listing agent, I do comb through the supporting documentation sent by the buyer’s agents and try to make sense of an offer for my sellers. For example, I recently received a cash offer from an investor with proof of funds attached. In the proof of funds — which was outdated by more than 30 days rendering it unacceptable to a short sale bank — were a series of checks drawn in the sum of $1,000. The funds in the account were barely enough to buy more than one house. What does that tell you? Yeah, they promise they aren’t making other offers, and it’s possible they have a sick relative somewhere they’re routinely sending $1,000 checks to, but I kinda doubt it.
We closed an escrow last week that had been in the works since spring. This was a home in Antelope that was a short sale with two loans, one of which had been discharged, and then a third lien popped up during a title search. This was a judgment against the seller, so the home could not be sold without its release, and the short sale bank sure as heck wasn’t gonna allow payment of that. But I’m used to the tough deals.
We sold the home the first time to a buyer who appeared qualified. After we received short sale approval from both the first, Ocwen, and the second lender, GMAC, the buyers’ lender re-evaluated their financial situation. Somehow, that situation had changed, and the buyers no longer qualified.
We sold the home a second time to a cash buyer who was very eager to close. Somewhere along the line this buyer decided she was paying too much for the home because, after all, she had a sister who bought a home nearby who paid less. Didn’t matter to her that the homes were not comparable to each other, she canceled. Cash buyers can be fickle.
By the third time we sold the home, GMAC, the second lender, had sold the worthless piece of paper to a collection agency, so we had to get a new third party authorization, wait for a new account number to be assigned, and then submit to the new second lender. Plus, the seller had long ago vacated. We figured the judgment creditor would probably now want additional interest, but they were happy just to get paid, thank goodness. We received approval and closed last month, just after we discovered a water leak in the laundry room.
Like I said, the third time is a charm. If you want an agent who will sell that house again and again if need be, call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759. As a top Sacramento short sale agent, I possess a lot of patience.
Mobile Signers Make House Calls for Sacramento Home Sellers
Many home sellers in Sacramento do not realize that mobile signers make house calls. A seller is not required to make the trip to the title company to sign closing escrow papers. The title company, more or less, can come to the seller. Darn right, I can hear some sellers saying. Yes, it’s true, this Sacramento real estate agent works with a lot of grumpy people but that’s OK. I make allowances for people older than me. Younger though, all bets are off. You whippersnappers, you hop on your segways and skedaddle over to the title company, and no whining.
Even my sellers of Sacramento short sales can get a mobile signer to come to them at no charge, providing the bank will allow the notary fee on the HUD. Yet, any seller can utilize a mobile signer. Other sellers, though, generally have to pay a little bit extra for the service. Almost all title companies charge some type of notary fee, although it is not much. Some do not charge a notary fee and consider it part of the transaction built into the escrow fee. However, when a person drives across town to meet a seller, there generally is an additional fee for that service, usually around $125.
I have a lucky seller signing closing docs next week on a short sale and the mobile signer is coming to her house, and the seller doesn’t have to pay anything out of pocket. This woman is in her 80s. The mobile signer fee is approved on the HUD by her short sale bank. We build that fee into our short sales, especially to accommodate older sellers who find it difficult or irritating to drive.
Moreover, very busy sellers love mobile signers as well. Not only will the mobile signer come to your house, but you can meet the notary at a Starbucks or your office or even at the local bowling alley, if that’s where you prefer. There is no reason to have to make the trek into the title company to close escrow, if that’s inconvenient. Ask your Sacramento real estate agent how you can get a mobile signer to make a house call. Twenty minutes to sign docs and you’re done.
Why Buyer Feedback From a Sacramento Agent is Crucial
An agent who sells real estate in some other state said that he doesn’t “waste time” anymore responding to agent requests for feedback. His position is if an agent didn’t know enough about his marketplace or his listing, it was not that agent’s job nor anybody else’s job to educate the guy. You know, that kind of thinking seems sort of narrow minded to me. I’m glad he doesn’t sell real estate in Sacramento.
Agent feedback is often crucial on so many levels. Take for example the seller who thinks her home is worth more than it is actually worth. Watching days on market accrue might mean little to the seller. The seller might point her finger at the listing agent and demand to know why the agent isn’t doing more to market her home, when the real problem is the sales price is too danged high. Well, agent feedback, email after email after email, filled with buyer’s agents all saying the same thing speaks volumes.
Sometimes, an agent will point out a defect that nobody else can put a finger on. The listing agent might suspect there is something odd about the home, but neither she nor the seller can readily identify it. Not every person looks at a home in an identical manner. Take pet owners, for example. We don’t often notice smells from our own pets, but a person who doesn’t own a pet, bingo, they’ll immediately notice a scent.
Other times an agent might tell me that it was beginning to rain, so she closed a window. I can pass on that information to let the seller know we are looking out for her. It’s not just me, it’s my coworkers, the agents with whom I am proud to associate. We can all make each other look good and watch out for each other.
My clients appreciate the fact that I send them comments from agents who have showed their home. Is it too much to ask a buyer’s agent to share her buyer’s thoughts with a fellow agent? Especially when a seller has gone that extra step and allowed strangers into her home via a lockbox while she was at work. Lockboxes are a convenience for buyer’s agents, and sellers don’t have to utilize them.
I always try to provide buyer feedback to a listing agent if I am asked for an opinion. It only takes a second to click “reply” and type a line or two. I figure it’s a small thing, and it can mean so much to a listing agent. We’re all in this business together. No agent is an island, and I don’t care how successful she is. I hope the agent who refuses to give buyer feedback never finds himself in the position of listing a home.
Not Every Sacramento Home Buyer is a Buyer
Every Sacramento home buyer should enjoy the luxury — and it is a luxury — of working with a buyer’s agent who will check out the property records before writing a purchase offer for that buyer. A Sacramento buyer’s agent at the very least should examine basic details but so many do not. When a buyer wants to write an offer, a lot of agents will just write it without giving much thought to the possible consequences for a buyer. I suppose they might think it’s not their job or maybe they don’t know how.
An agent has many sources at her or his disposal to find this data. At minimum, even if an agent doesn’t run the comparable sales for the Sacramento home buyer — which for my team members would be inexcusable — the agent should check to see who owns the property. Is it one person? Is it a trust? Does the owner’s address match the property address or are the owners living out of state? A quick call to the listing agent would confirm whether two people are on title or if one of them is deceased. You know, just stuff that makes the entire transaction run smoother and gives the buyer enough information to make an intelligent decision.
A potential Sacramento home buyer called yesterday about wanting to buy a home along the river that is a short sale. He asked if moi, his newly found Sacramento real estate agent, would be willing to write a purchase offer for him. As an experienced short sale agent, the first thing I did was look at the tax rolls. I see that this is an investment property for the seller. The second thing I notice is his second loan is a gigantic refinance for many thousands of dollars, and the lender is National City.
National City is now owned by PNC. This makes it a PNC short sale. A second loan held by PNC, especially a hard-money loan that carries recourse in California, is a difficult short sale to negotiate. That’s because PNC knows it can go after the seller personally and try to collect the full amount of the loan should the home go to foreclosure. When the security for that second loan is wiped out, because it’s a cash-out refinance, that lender, you can bet, will pursue it.
If the seller is not willing to negotiate with PNC upfront in this type of short sale, well, the odds are it will not get approved as a short sale. If PNC approved the short sale, by law it must release the seller from liability, but it is not required to approve a short sale.
Not only that, but there is a trustee’s sale pending shortly. It is very possible that a seller who waits until the last possible minute to put a home on the market as a short sale prior to a pending trustee’s sale is not a seller who is willing to negotiate upfront, but you never know. Weird things happen in real estate every day.
Armed with this information, the buyer chose to move forward and write an offer because he decided that he had little to lose. He was prepared to be disappointed. I asked a team member on the Elizabeth Weintraub Team to prepare an offer for him. My team member explained that we need a preapproval letter to accompany the offer because the way to postpone a trustee’s sale is to submit a purchase offer. The bank will not allow submission of a purchase offer without a preapproval letter. An offer without a preapproval letter is not an offer. It is an incomplete offer and considered insufficient to postpone a trustee’s auction.
The buyer could not produce a preapproval letter. He was irritated about my team member’s insistence on it, too. You see, he had sold his own home as a short sale a few months back.
The buyer said fine, he’d find another Sacramento real estate agent to write his purchase offer. That was actually a very good idea on his part, but a wasted effort.
