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Elizabeth Weintraub
Who is Your Short Sale Bank POC?
Sparked in part, no doubt, by the National Mortgage Settlement, short sale banks have appointed a Point of Contact (POC) for most short sale negotiations. These individuals are generally the go-between for both the Sacramento short sale agent and the short sale seller, but they can also be appointed solely for the benefit of the short sale seller. And I use the term “benefit” loosely.
The short sale bank POC is a person — God knows where the bank found them: sleeping on cardboard under a bridge, leaning up against the wall in a soup line — who acts as a liaison for the borrower, typically a person of whom the seller can ask questions. And, if the POC doesn’t know the answer, the POC will make it up. Hey, that’s what they are here for. I will gladly pay you on Tuesday for a hamburger today.
They are also responsible for reading the notes in the file. Notes are generally as good as the information supplied upfront by the real negotiator, the person which some of us are not allowed to speak to anymore because some short sale agents have not been that polite, I suspect. If there are no notes in the file, it becomes even more difficult for the POC to soothe worried souls. Or, the POC could also read another file and pull information from an unrelated situation because after all they are all the same, aren’t they?
None of these POCs ask for permission to contact the borrower. They pull the borrower’s personal information and phone number from bank records. If a seller has changed any of this information or put a “do not call” into the file, the POC either cannot figure out how to call or is prohibited from calling. One of such individuals called me as I was heading out the door to catch a matinee in Chicago of Million Dollar Quartet during my holiday vacation. Said he could not find the seller’s phone number and asked if I would be so kind as to pass along his contact info to the seller. Yeah, I’ll get right on that. I’m not about to ruin her holiday, too. She can hear about it during banking hours.
This is a guy who could have looked at the listing agreement to get that information. Note to self: stop putting that info on the listing agreement because these guys might actually catch on. The last thing a Sacramento short sale agent needs is for the POC to call the seller to call to ask why the bank doesn’t have the . . . you fill in the blank of the name of the document. In most cases, the docs are in the file and the short sale bank POC is mistaken. Maybe some short sale agents fall down on the job, but let me tell you, this Sacramento short sale agent ain’t one of ’em. Being a POC, I suspect, is a thankless job because it deserves to be a thankless job.
REDC Threatens B of A Seller on Turkey Day
An unnamed person at Bank of America confirmed for me last week that the bank is indeed pulling its HAFA and Cooperative Short Sales in-house — which is music to any short sale agent’s ears. And not the crappy kind of music like Barry Manilow, but more like early Beatles, before Yoko Ono messed everything up. And not just to this Sacramento short sale agent, but every short sale across the nation is putting down her pumpkin-pie laden fork and giving thanks to the decision by B of A to do away with its third-party vendors like REDC for these short sales. With any kind of short sale, though, these miraculous changes don’t happen over night. As a result, we are stuck with REDC for a handful of Cooperative Short Sales still on the road to Pocatello.
I have asked negotiator, let’s call her Mao, through Equator over and over and over to clarify for us whether she is negotiating a Carmichael short sale as a Cooperative Short Sale because everything about this particular short sale has gone sideways. It’s not being handled at all like a regular Cooperative Short Sale. This negotiator has ignored all questions. Then, on the day before Thanksgiving, she gave us 24 hours to send her financials or she would close the file.
24 hours on Thanksgiving Day!
Yes, on Thanksgiving Day, instead of celebrating with his family, a seller scrambled to pull together financial documents he was promised he did not need to submit. I suspect part of this request is due to the fact that Fannie Mae changed its guidelines on November 1. But even so, it is inexcusable that a representative for Bank of America would purposely cause a borrower, a client of Bank of America, such grief on Thanksgiving. This negotiator has continued to ignore requests, too.
I will say, Mao, do you realize this is a preapproved Cooperative Short Sale? And she will say: Remove the incentive from the HUD. Again: Mao, are we on the same page that this is a preapproved Cooperative Short Sale? Instead, she will ask how much the seller is willing to contribute. She outta lay off the eggnog.
It’s a good thing that Bank of America is getting rid of REDC. It’s just a shame it’s taking them so long to pull the plug.
Start Small on Thanksgiving
When you get to be my age, you are grateful for opening your eyes in the morning. The obvious message that this sends is it means you’re still alive. A second benefit is my eyeballs were not glued to my eyelids, which can happen now and then without any warning — even so, I don’t always stop to consider whether my eyeballs might be glued, which means when I pop them open, they could stick and tear. But most mornings my eyes are perfectly normal, which they were this morning, so that’s the second thing I am grateful for. Check. All limbs accounted for. Nothing ate me in the night or crawled into bed with me. Check. I threw back the covers, sat up, rolled my feet to the ground and nothing hurt, everything worked — it’s a great Thanksgiving!
We are visiting my inlaws who live on acreage with horses, about an hour from Chicago. And yes, we have company staying at our home in Land Park taking care of the cats. It’s almost winter here. It’s not like our scenery at all in Sacramento. I might think it’s a bit dismal in Sacramento in the winter — what with the fog and bare trees and all, but it is no comparison whatsoever to the fog and trees around here, all of which have lost their leaves. It’s really dismal — no greenery anywhere. I am grateful for my Sacramento camellias, azaleas and holly tree.
I mention this because some people find it difficult to find things to be thankful for on Thanksgiving. I’m not one of those but I know people who are. My advice is to start with the simple things in life and work your way up. May you find an abundance of ways to be thankful today. Happy Thanksgiving.
Photo: Aerial over Chicago
Why Would an Agent Sell Short Sales?
You might be one of those people who could not in a million years fathom why a Sacramento short sale agent would want to specialize in short sales. There are days I ask myself that question. And there is nobody to talk to about it. My husband doesn’t want to hear it. He doesn’t want to hear it any more than my other types of complaints such as why can’t I buy pieces from the new Eileen Fisher Resort Collection at the Eileen Fisher website? Why can’t other department stores such as Macy’s, for example, sell Eileen Fisher online?
Here you have a designer with her own website and she doesn’t sell all of her designs on her own website. Not only that, but you cannot buy those designs on any other website. It’s like a big secret. They send out a catalog but consumers can’t buy featured items. How sneaky is that? What you have to do is call Eileen Fisher to find out which department stores near you carry which particular garments, and then call those stores to order. You would think it would be difficult for Eileen Fisher to increase her sales volume in that manner because, let’s face it, it’s kinda nuts.
But I accept that because I sell short sales, I guess. I am surrounded by insanity. I seem to function well in that kind of environment, which is kind of scary when you think about it, not to mention, it makes me want to go screaming into the street. Yet, I seek out that kind of frustration through the very act of accepting short sale assignments and listings.
For instance, I am well aware of the torture of a Bank of America FHA Short Sale. Still, I continue to list and sell them. I can’t stop. I know I shouldn’t look at a train wreck but I do. Just yesterday a negotiator told me that her QA department would kick out a HUD because it was drawn in accordance with RESPA. Apparently, Bank of America thinks nothing of violating RESPA. It routinely tries to change the way items are listed on the HUD — and are required by law to be listed on the HUD when the buyer obtains financing. It makes me wonder how does she ever do any FHA short sale for Bank of America when she cannot read a HUD? Does she make the other agents she deals with so frustrated that they end up breaking the law just to stuff a sock in her? How does she keep her job?
Moreover, where does Bank of America find these people? Do they pull them out of soup lines? Hire them out prison mail rooms? What hideous crime must a person commit to go to work on FHA short sales at Bank of America? Whom do they need to offend to be demoted to the FHA short sale team?
I suppose they could go to work at CCO, but then they would suffer a worse fate because they would have to live in Tennessee. A negotiator at CCO told me yesterday she received permission to look up the sellers’ loan on the Fannie Mae website but it was not listed there. Except that it was. I’ve been telling her for 2 months the seller has a Fannie Mae loan and, as such, Fannie Mae will not authorize a payment above $6,000 to the second lender. I sent the negotiator the preapproval letter from Fannie Mae on Fannie Mae letterhead, but that was not good enough. Finally, I downloaded a screen capture of Fannie Mae’s Loan Look Up website that showed the seller’s name and address to prove that it was indeed a Fannie Mae loan. I turned the screen capture into a PDF and sent it to CCO. The approval letter appeared like magic moments later.
See, that’s how I do it. Eventually things work out. Eventually they see the light. It doesn’t mean they will change. I’m not looking for anybody to change. I just want that short sale approved. My sellers are counting on this Sacramento short sale agent to be successful for them. I am not about to let them down.
It’s Just Business, Nothing Personal
I hear some agents grumble that Elizabeth Weintraub is one tough cookie, but I am actually an extremely happy-go-lucky Sacramento real estate agent. Even though every day selling short sales is a fresh new day in hell. I look forward to it. Bring it on. Hey, ask any of my clients. They’ll tell you I am cheery almost to a fault, always anxious to help or to explain something. I suspect agents equate my toughness with my non-tolerance for purchase contract violations. I practice zero tolerance for possible breaches of contract.
For example, our purchase contracts state by default that all earnest money deposits are to go into escrow within 72 hours of the sellers’ acceptance. It’s right there in paragraph 3A1 on the first page. That means we expect the deposit to be in escrow. It doesn’t matter if it’s a short sale or a regular sale for a seller with equity. You make an offer on a home, you put your money into escrow. No exceptions. After 35-some years in this business, it’s simple: you’re a buyer or you’re not.
An agent from the city of Davis objected to this a while back. He did not want his buyer to release his deposit. Or, maybe his buyer didn’t want to release. Said they don’t do that in Davis. What? They don’t close escrow in Davis? That hasn’t been my experience. In either case, that’s not an offer we considered. Because that’s not an offer. It’s just business, nothing personal.
I don’t enjoy advising sellers that we need to cancel buyers from a purchase contract. But, if a buyer does not perform, I will suggest that the seller submit a Notice to the Buyer to Perform, and follow that up with a cancellation. It makes no sense to be in escrow with an individual who is not acting like a buyer. Another buyer could not produce his updated proof of funds last week to buy a short sale. He could not produce the document because that document did not exist. He gave us all kinds of excuses and reasons and promises. It was noise. A buzzing in my ear. T’weren’t tinnitus.
This did not mean he could not close escrow, either. By the time we received short sale approval, he probably could have found the money somewhere. In his mattress. His wife’s checking account. A deal in the back alley, maybe. But we don’t operate on wouldja, couldja, didja. If you can’t show us the money, we will cancel your short sale. It’s just business, nothing personal.
