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Elizabeth Weintraub
A Bank of America Short Sale Counter Offer
Before I talk about a Bank of America short sale counter offer, let’s address this Lady Gaga thing. I mention it only because if I received an engraved invitation, I would decline to attend an event to watch Lady Gaga in a bottle strip to her undies and get a tattoo. I would not go even if I was invited through a last-minute text message. Surely, there are better things to do, no? Like, take out the garbage before your house starts to stink or get a pedicure. But this Lady Gaga thing was a huge black-tie event attended by celebrities as a debut perfume launch. It hurts my eyes to even read about it.
But maybe that’s why I am a Sacramento short sale agent and not running around with the likes of Jason Wu, Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan. I have many more exciting things to do like talk to third-party vendors at Bank of America about counter offers. What is a Bank of America counter offer? Well, for starters, it is not exactly a counter offer, which confuses a lot of Sacramento sellers. I try not to use jargon when talking with my clients, but sometimes it slips out, and for that I am truly sorry. I am not sorry that I didn’t go to the Lady Gaga event.
A short sale counter offer is issued by Bank of America or a third-party vendor representing Bank of America through Equator. It is a formal response to all of the fees noted on the HUD and submitted to Equator by this Sacramento short sale agent. See, if the bank can reduce some of the fees, that will increase the bottom-line net to the bank. Plus, investor guidelines state acceptable and non-acceptable fees. Some of the fees often contested are miscellaneous title services such as doc prep, courier, notary and some don’t want to authorize payment for recording of the deed. Sometimes they reduce the escrow fee.
In Sacramento, it is customary for the seller to pay the escrow fee. But in other parts of the country and California, the escrow fee is often split 50 / 50 between seller and buyer. It is not unusual for the bank to place a maximum cap on the amount it will authorize. In many instances, that amount is $750.
There are also negotiators at the bank who do not read the net sheets we send them. They instead read the HUD, and the HUD is very confusing to many people. Ever since the RESPA change a few years ago, we’ve been fighting battles with bank negotiators who insist that credits to the buyer are not allowed — when the credits shown on the HUD are not really a credit to the buyer at all. Sound confusing? Imagine how the bank negotiators feel.
Yesterday I spotted a city transfer tax fee of almost $600 that the negotiator had removed from the HUD. When fees are removed, it means the buyer has to pay them. Because of SB 458, the seller cannot pay fees the bank refuses to authorize. So, I questioned the negotiator. I asked her why it was removed because it was a standard and customary fee paid by the seller in Sacramento. This fee is based on .275% of 1% of the sales price. It can amount to a lot of money, in this case: six hundred bucks.
Turns out the negotiator thought it was a buyer credit on the HUD. After I explained that there were no credits at all on the HUD, the negotiator put that number back into the list of authorized fees and approved it. I wonder if she would like a bottle of Lady Gaga’s new perfume?
Photo: used with permission bigstockphoto
Tweet the Bank of America Social Media Team
The Bank of America social media team gets 2 thumbs up — and 10 toes, too. Is your short sale stuck in a big black hole? These guys are lifesavers. It was a brilliant move by Bank of America to put a social team out there to help short sale agents because God knows we need the help. If you ask employees at Bank of America, they will tell you in more ways than one. It depends on who you’re talking to and on which side of the fence you stand.
Just yesterday I was talking with a Bank of America third-party vendor at Service Link about a Cooperative Short Sale. She asked me why the seller did not want to do a HAFA short sale. I could hear she was writing down the answer because she repeated back to herself each word I spoke very slowly: Rather Poke Out Eyes.
The Twitter team for Bank of America is my ace in the hole. I hate to wear out my welcome mat but it seems that I end up sending a Tweet to them at least once a week or so. I imagine they have a super tough job, so I try to be especially nice. After all, by the time a short sale agent sends a Tweet to Bank of America, that agent is probably pretty frustrated. I suspect the social media team is specifically trained to listen to rants, screams, tantrums, and that’s just at hello. I bet they get beat up a lot. Resilient bunch. Bank of America, you should give those guys a raise.
There is only so much the social media team can do. What they can’t do is get a short sale approved. They can’t fix a mistake made by a negotiator, and there are plenty of those to go around. What they can do is get the negotiator to call this Sacramento short sale agent.
A few days ago I needed the BPO for a Cooperative Short Sale. I knew the BPO had been completed the first week of August, but this is where Bank of America falls down on the job for these Cooperatives. That BPO needs to be communicated to the listing agent so we can put the home on the market at the preapproved price. But Bank of America vendors tend to withhold that information until they get darned good and ready, if ever, to send out the valuation letter. Trying to get it out of them is difficult at best. That’s the last piece of data I need to put a Cooperative Short Sale up for sale.
After I sent a Tweet to the social media team and spoke to them, the negotiator called but I was on the other line. She left me a voice mail with her phone number. I immediately called her back and waited a few hours. No response. See, I know how this goes. The negotiator won’t respond for another 48 hours, if she responds at all. But the Bank of America social media team follows up. My guy called back to see if I had connected. Now, if I had told him that the negotiator called and left a message, he would have checked off the box on his list and said his job was finished. Instead, I said I had not spoken to the negotiator. That was the truth.
My social media guy looked up the records. It says right here that she called you and left you a voice mail, says he. Yes, that is true, but the negotiator did not tell me the amount of the BPO, which is the question I asked. I needed to know the BPO amount. I asked: Can you please get me that BPO amount? Because I have been waiting more than 30 days to get this information and I cannot proceed with this short sale until I obtain it.
Ten minutes later the negotiator from DTS called with the BPO amount. Eureka! I love these guys! Got a problem with your Bank of America short sale? Send a Tweet to BofA_Help through Twitter.com.
About Digital Signatures for Short Sale Banks
It’s not just short sale banks that don’t like digital signatures. It’s pretty much all banks, except the government. It’s hard to believe that here we are in the fourth quarter of 2012 and short sale banks are refusing to accept digital signatures on a purchase contract or any legal documents. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we have a lot of fraud and crooks, and it’s hard to control every aspect of a transaction — to filter out the possibility of mortgage fraud, but give us a break. If we wanted to forge signatures, I suppose it’s pretty easy to do.
Real estate clients love DocuSign, which is the digital service this Sacramento agent uses to put deals together. They can check their email for the notification from DocuSign. Then, they click on the link in the email which takes them to the DocuSign website where their document is awaiting perusal and signature. They choose a signature they like and they adopt that signature by clicking on it. Every place in the purchase offer that requires an initial or a signature, they just click. It’s like magic. The initial and / or signature is applied right there on their monitor. It doesn’t get any easier.
After the purchase offer is executed by all of the buyers and the listing agent, the digital service sends a completed copy to all parties. This process saves a ton of trees. It’s all electronic. It makes sense to do business this way.
Yet, the short sale banks won’t accept a digital signature. Nope, they make you print it out, sign and initial with an ink pen, and then fax the documents so they can more easily lose those documents. You would think the fax number would at least be an efax number so the documents would go to an email account, but no. They go to an old-fashioned fax machine and fall out all over the floor, where somebody walks by, kicks them, sends them scattered, until the night cleaning crew shows up to sweep them into the trash. This is how we do business at the big banks.
Even the government, like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, accepts digital signatures. Why can’t the short sale banks?
What It’s Like to Be a Sacramento Home Buyer
Where does a Sacramento home buyer get her information? She talks to friends, family and coworkers. Maybe she dabbles around at the Sac Bee website on her cellphone but she’s pretty much focused on her life, her own situation. Just like anybody else. She puts on her pants one leg at a time, brushes her teeth, worries about her job, feeds the cat or walks the dog and doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking about the state of the real estate market in Sacramento. That’s because she is not a real estate agent. She is a Sacramento home buyer looking for Sacramento homes.
It’s up to real estate agents to explain to potential home buyers what the market is like in Sacramento. Tell them what they can expect. I tell it to them straight. I figure it’s better that they be prepared than shocked. Don’t need anybody having a heart attack and dropping dead at my feet. Maybe this is NOT the time for them to buy a home. I know I would NOT want to be a home buyer in Sacramento today. That’s the truth. Because there is tremendous competition for the same homes. It’s an extreme seller’s market. Many buyers, little inventory. Many all cash buyers who will outbid an FHA or VA buyer. Multiple offers are normal right now. This is a sizzling hot market!
I spoke to an agent yesterday who told me she had submitted an offer for her buyer and the listing agent said her offer was #18. The funny thing about this situation is the listing agent was holding out for more offers. Why? Why on God’s green earth would a seller or an agent need to collect more purchase offers than that? Talk about misery. If one can’t find an acceptable offer among 17 offers, I hate to say this, but something has gone horribly wrong with the agent, the seller or both. Another agent lamented that he had not had an offer accepted for any of his buyers for more than 30 days, and he writes 4 to 5 offers a week.
Sacramento buyer’s agents are suffocating.
I’ve had buyers call me directly and ask if they can get an edge by working with a high producing Sacramento listing agent. I guess they figure they’ll go where the homes are rather than waiting for the listings to come to them. It’s a desperate situation. Buyers need to prepare for disappointment. A Sacramento home buyer might not be able to buy her first choice or even her 10th choice. She needs to slap on that steel armor and keep her eyes on the horizon. Above all, don’t give up. Align with an experienced Sacramento REALTOR.
It is possible to buy a home in Sacramento. I see happy home buyers go into escrow every week! In addition to hitting refresh on that MLS link, home buyers can also check my Sacramento short sale updates to see which listings are coming live. Voodoo dolls, prayers on your knees, salt over your shoulder, whatever you’ve got — use it.
The Length of Time for a Sacramento Short Sale Listing
Home sellers don’t always read everything they sign, especially a real estate listing agreement. But I think it’s important for people to know what they are signing, so when I meet with sellers in Sacramento, I explain the purpose of each document. Sometimes, I can sense that they wish I would simply shut my trap and let them sign. They often don’t care. They just want to put that Sacramento home on the market and get it sold. They want to know where to initial and where to sign. Beyond that, it doesn’t much matter.
If I am meeting with a let’s-hurry-up-and-sign-these-stupid-documents-seller, I do point out a couple of things, nonetheless. That’s because I am sensitive to the mistrust issue. They don’t know this Sacramento real estate agent, but they have had friends tell them not to trust real estate agents. They’ve heard the stories. It’s unfortunate that I am in an industry that generates mistrust like this, but it exists, and I’d be foolish to ignore it. I don’t ever want to give any client any reason, regardless of how minute, to mistrust me because, believe it or not, I am actually on my client’s side. I want what is best for them.
So, I take a moment to point out when signing in person the length of my listing agreements. I don’t want a seller to discover it later and freak out. The term of a listing agreement is negotiable between the seller and the Sacramento listing agent. Having said that, I have my own practice of how I do things. I know what works and what doesn’t for me. I don’t vary my standard of practice. If a seller wants me to do something differently than the standard way I do things, then they can hire a monkey. There are monkeys for hire in this business. They can hire a monkey who will leap from tree to tree and do somersaults in the air for them. Maybe their home will sell and maybe it won’t. If they want performance and a guarantee on that performance, then they will let me explain how I do business and list with me on my terms. Over 30-some years, I’ve earned that right.
Especially when it comes to a short sale. I consider myself to be an experienced short sale agent. People know my name in Sacramento. I’ve closed hundreds of short sales in Sacramento. But I can’t guarantee that a short sale will close in 90 days. There are too many variances. Things beyond my control. I do my best to reign them in and prevent crap from happening, but I can’t guarantee that it won’t. This means I take my short sale listings for a year. Yup, 12 months minimum. Not because I think it will take a year but because I don’t know. Every short sale is different. That’s actually insurance for the sellers that I won’t bail on them. I won’t jump ship and leave them stranded. If a buyer cancels, I’ll find another buyer. If that buyer cancels, I’ll keep on finding buyers until we close.
But if a seller doesn’t want that kind of dedication and level of service, then by all means, list with some other Sacramento short sale agent.
