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Elizabeth Weintraub
The Value of an Experienced Sacramento Real Estate Agent
Do you ever wonder about the experience levels of some of the professionals you pay? Not to knock medical assistants or dental hygienists, but don’t those TV ads trying to lure deadbeats educate aspiring students bother you somewhat? They make me want to ask my doctor’s assistant where she went to school and what she did before she became a medical assistant. Most of us probably want to believe our doctor’s assistant went to college, earned a degree, on top of fulfilling a calling to the medical profession, a passion to help people, and is dedicated to medicine. I don’t know if you get that with a 6-month course and education financing through HSBC.
Yet many people would never in a million years ask a Sacramento real estate agent how long she has been in the business. They are about to spend or receive the most money they will probably ever see in one lump sum in their lives. Do they check out the real estate agent they are about to hire?
Not that length in the business is a sole determining factor because a person can be a real estate agent for many years and do no business at all. Holding a real estate license doesn’t make a person a real estate agent. Renewing said real estate license doesn’t make a person a real estate agent. I’m not a big fan of the alphabet letters either. The certified-whatever designations. That’s probably because many years ago I was involved in the seminar business, and I know that seminar companies are in the business of selling seminars. In other words, an agent can pay for a real estate designation. It doesn’t mean the agent learned anything. It also doesn’t mean the company that awarded the designation taught an agent anything.
Real estate agents learn on the job. End of story. They learn by selling homes in Sacramento, for example. The more homes a person sells, the better that real estate agent becomes — or you would hope. An experienced real estate agent is a different kind of real estate agent.
Every real estate transaction is different. That’s what makes being a Sacramento real estate agent exciting. It’s what motivates me to turn on my computer and go to work every single day. It’s always something new. A new challenge, new people, new events. And when you throw a short sale into the mix: an opportunity to practice patience, improve tolerance and to solve difficult problems.
Everybody is welcome to hire a novice, but why? Novices will cry and moan and say everybody has to learn somewhere. But do you want them practicing on you? You have a choice when you hire a real estate agent. We’re not all the same. I will close over $30 million in sales this year. I sell more than 100 homes a year — so I must be doing many things right. I believe experience is important. If it matters to you, let’s get together. You can read client reviews of Elizabeth Weintraub and decide for yourself. I have pages of recommendations. What you see is what you get.
The Problem With Pricing a Bank of America Cooperative Short Sale
The problem with our recent elections is not really who won or lost. Well, maybe for some of you, it is. The problem, the way I see it, is we had too damn many things to vote for. Too many Propositions and Politicians. I mean part of the reason we have propositions on the ballot is because the men and women we send to Congress can’t seem to do their job so they have to take it to the people. Like we know anything. We’re just people. We’re a Sacramento short sale agent, or a Raley employee about to lose retirement health insurance benefits or a state worker hungover from furloughs.
We don’t know anything, and we don’t wanna know anything. Don’t tell us what crap is in our food. If our tomatoes are walking Frankensteins, we don’t wanna know. Just keep us in the dark. So, why anybody in their right mind would trust us — the people — to make decisions that affect the entire state, is beyond me. On top of that, they did give us too many darn choices. My ballot was 4 pages, for crying out loud. On one page, I had to select 15 people in one category alone. Who are all those people? I don’t know. Do you know? I’m not responsible enough to vote. Isn’t this why we elect people and send them to the legislature? To vote on stuff for us? Why do we have to do all of this work?
I tell you what, on the surface those arguments sound plausible, don’t they? About as plausible and logical as what goes on behind closed doors at some of our short sale banks. Let’s talk about one of my favorite subjects: Bank of America. Bank of America does really odd things sometimes. For a while there, I thought they were on to something as I continually look for trends. One trend was to price a Bank of America Cooperative Short Sale below market value. That was a brilliant move by Bank of America. Seriously. It was smart strategy. That strategy welcomed bidding and pushed up the sales prices of our Sacramento short sales.
My last 8 or 9 Cooperative Short Sales were priced this way by the bank. We’re in a seller’s market in Sacramento, so it makes sense to let the market dictate price. However, the bank got drunk on its power. You think Diane Sawyer was tipsy? Take a look at the new strategy employed by Bank of America for its Cooperative Short Sales. If they aren’t throwing back a shot of whiskey before picking a sales price maybe they’re smoking pot. Could be pain pills. Yeah, that’s probably the problem. Oxycontin. Gets ’em every time.
Why else would Bank of America price a short sale at $260,000 when the BPO agent told them $245,000? I know this because I called up the BPO agent and asked her. Not to mention, the BPO agent was off the mark. She saw the home but didn’t take into consideration the lack of upgrades or its condition. Nevertheless, the fact remains the bank disregarded the BPO. It plucked a price from the bucket of don’t pass go and don’t collect $200. Does the bank not want the home to short sale? Does the bank think buyers are stupid? What’s the reasoning? Where is the logic?
This particular home sat on the market for 2 months without an offer. In one of the hottest real estate markets in Sacramento’s history! Thank you, Bank of America. The solution? We lowered the price, sold the home, and then raised the price back to the point Bank of America demanded. Then, we presented our offer to the bank. That’s why the sellers chose this Sacramento short sale agent. To work around problems like this. Thank goodness I don’t work in Congress.
How Many Short Sale Offers Go To The Bank?
Short sale agents and yes, even lawyers, sometimes struggle with proper protocol regarding the handling of short sale offers. If you’re new to the short sale arena, you might not even know who is a party to a short sale. You might think the bank is a party to the short sale. I’ve yet to see a spot in the purchase agreement for a short sale bank to sign. Banks are a component as a contingency but the short sale bank is not a party to the short sale.
Even sellers get confused. I’ve had sellers ask over and over if the bank is paying the costs of the sale. It can be argued that the costs of sale are reducing the net proceeds to the bank, and that part is true. But the bank does not own the property. This is the thing people forget. The seller owns the property, and therefore the seller is paying the costs of sale. The bank is interested and approves the costs of sale only because if costs can be reduced, the bank’s check goes up.
The short sale is contingent on bank approval, but the bank does not sign the short sale offer. The bank approves the purchase offer agreed to between the buyer and seller. Unless the Sacramento short sale agent signs an agreement with the bank to get the bank the highest price possible, the parties to satisfy are the seller and the buyer. Of course, a wise short sale agent knows the bank will base, in part, the decision to approve the short sale on the BPO. This means the agent submits an executed purchase contract that will meet market value.
It’s a major mistake to believe that the short sale banks expect to receive every offer submitted to the seller. The bank wants to see the offer that is sufficient to net the bank an acceptable amount. The bank wants to see the offer that the seller and buyer have accepted. The bank wants to see the offer from the buyer who is qualified, committed and dedicated to closing the transaction. If a short sale agent sends a bunch of offers to the bank, it signals the agent is clueless, and the bank will most likely reject all of the offers.
Death Qualifies for a Short Sale
I suspect you’ve landed on my blog with the thought she is NOT going to talk about death and a short sale. But you would be incorrect or maybe you just don’t know me very well yet. I’ll talk about anything I darn well feel like on my blog. If you’re not interested in matters surrounding death, all I’ve got to say is you are going to be very surprised one day. That old grim reaper is hanging around and not just around us old people. You can’t escape it. One day you’re laughing and joking with friends, and the next day, bam, somebody is dead.
You just hope it’s not you.
I haven’t seen very many dead people myself. Once, driving along the Biz 80 freeway in Sacramento, I saw an upside-down Corvette. The windows were open. The driver was still in the car, shirt unbuttoned and this huge stomach was bloated and bare for all the world traveling by to see. I guess it took paramedics a long time to get there. They were probably stuck in a traffic jam on the other side of the road. Because even people on the other side of the road were slowing down to gawk. You don’t want to look but you do. It’s kind of human nature. I felt sorrow and horror for this dead person in the Corvette.
If this guy in the Corvette had a home that was upside down, the same as he was, his joint tenancy partner or tenants in common partner could sell that home as a short sale. Because death qualifies for a short sale. Even if his heirs were not on title to the property, they can use death as a qualifying factor to get rid of the house. Doesn’t matter if it’s Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac or which bank is servicing the loan. There is no getting around it, death qualifies for a short sale.
To do a short sale involving a dead person, you need a recorded copy of the death certificate. It might take a while to get the death certificate, especially in Sacramento. I guess it depends on where the person kicked the bucket. If a person died in the hospital, I hear you get a death certificate a lot faster than if you came home and found your ex-husband dead in bed. That’s what clients tell me. I don’t have any first-hand experience myself.
But I do have a lot of first-hand experience selling short sales in Sacramento. I’m a competent and veteran Sacramento real estate agent. I am, in fact, working on two separate short sales this week involving spouses who have passed on. These are different than a strategic short sale or a short sale involving loss of income, for example. There is a lot of grief and bereavement. Pain. People need to talk. I listen. I’m not just in the real estate business. I’m a person, too. If somebody has died in your family and you need to sell that Sacramento home as a short sale, call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916 233 6759. I know what to do. Remember, death qualifies for a short sale.
Bank of America FHA Short Sale Approved
Wow, a Bank of America FHA short sale started in December of last year finally closed escrow in November. It took 11 months to close the sale of this Rancho Cordova home. And this was an escrow in which the seller hired and paid a lawyer to negotiate. They did this before they called me. I was hired solely to sell the short sale, not to negotiate, which is a little odd but OK. I do whatever my clients want.
A representative from the Sacramento law firm called the Bank of America negotiator at one point almost every single day. It’s not just a Sacramento short sale agent who struggles with the B of A FHA Short sale processes. Lawyers can fare even worse.
I’ll tell you who has the hardest job in all of this. It’s the buyer’s agent. It’s that Sacramento buyer’s agent who is saddled with the job of having to call that potential homeowner every week or so to explain what’s going on. These agents have to give plausible reasons for the delay yet continue to build hope in their client’s heart. It’s not an easy job by any stretch. Half the time the buyer’s agents don’t know what’s going on because nobody tells them anything. They are not allowed to talk to the short sale bank.
I understand how difficult that job is, and that’s one of the reasons I post my updates online. Yeah, right on my website, you can read Sacramento short sale updates. Buyer’s agents and their buyers can access daily updates. Each property is identified by the street name without the house number. No personal information of either the seller nor the buyer is divulged. It’s mostly actions committed by and requested by the bank so all parties to the transaction can monitor the movement. My Sacramento short sales do not fall into a black hole. Anybody and their Uncle Joe can see that I am constantly on top of my short sales. I am held accountable for my actions.
Which is more than one can say about Bank of America and its FHA short sales. Unfortunately.
You see, there is nothing that I can really do about a Bank of America FHA short sale. Especially when I am not negotiating it. I am not an agent who farms out her negotiations to another short sale negotiator. I care about my clients too much to do that. (Although, sometimes it is necessary to bring in a lawyer, but that’s rare.) I do my own work. I am hands on. As a result, I have learned that I can lessen the damage, the heartbreak, the disappointments by not putting that short sale on the market until we have the Approval to Participate from FHA. That’s the only way I have found to shorten the 8- to 12-month wait for approval on an FHA short sale at Bank of America. After receiving the Approval to Participate, that wait is only 4 to 6 months, and that’s not half as bad.
