Email ElizabethTwo Sacramento Homes Closed on Tuesday
As good fortune has it, I managed to close two more escrows yesterday, which resulted in another two Sacramento homes closed. I’m on a streak this week. One closing was a home in Land Park, a cottage in Upper Land Park. We weren’t too certain that the buyers were closing when they signed the purchase contract. I’m not sure what the hesitation was about, but when I have that gut feeling, I listen to it. The sellers had made a deal with the buyers that we would not change the status in MLS from active to pending until the buyers removed their inspection contingencies. They had already been there and done that when a previous buyer had developed cold feet a few days into escrow. So, we left the listing as active, pending rescission, for a few weeks.
The strangest thing happens when a buyer spots pending rescission as a status modifier on an active listing. It’s like a switch goes off in their heads. Like, maybe they ate Chinese food and an hour later are starving. They might not ever want to look at this home, but the minute they see somebody else might want it, they are desperate to buy it, and it doesn’t seem to matter what it is or where it is located. As a result, we had a decent back-up offer within days, just in case the existing offer went sideways.
But the offer didn’t go sideways. The buyers removed their contingencies and we closed, just like clockwork. The sellers are ecstatic and so are the buyers.
In the second escrow, well, what can I say? It was an Elk Grove short sale that had emerged from bankruptcy. It was a short sale that should have closed last year. We received a perfect offer, after a few others blew up, and our new buyer was willing to mow the lawn, turn on the utilities, and even replace the electrical meter and A/C unit, which had been swiped. The only problem was we could not close because we did not have the final discharge from a previous bankruptcy. The bankruptcy was discharged two years ago, but it was never closed out in the court.
How much of a problem can that be? Huge.
The lawyer told us it would take 30 days. Every month, she was hopeful the file would close out. Except it did not close out. We finally tracked down the Trustee of the Court to get the straight scoop. The trustee had to send out notices, wait 3 months for checks to clear, along with a bunch of other court-related stuff. It took us 8 long months to close out the bankruptcy, which had already been discharged. If a lawyer tells you a bankruptcy will close out in 30 days, you might want to get a second opinion, just sayin.
The buyer was a trooper. He really wanted this house. So, did a bunch of other people who continually wrote and called and begged to be a back-up offer. We’ll pay cash, they cried. We’ll wash your car for a year. No, not really, but that was the unspoken sentiment. I waited for the chocolate-covered strawberries to arrive at my office, along with a bottle of champagne, but it never came.
I’m pretty lucky, when our buyers go into escrow, they tend to stay there.
Every Sacramento real estate closing is different. That’s what makes this business so much fun and exciting. Some closings you pull out your hair. Some, you don’t. But at least these two Sacramento homes closed without any further drama.
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Getting Ready to Sell a Tenant-Occupied Home
If a client needs me to tell a short-sale bank to #*%$-off, I have no problem doing so. I can be as tough as the next guy, and probably much more decisive. In a moment’s flash, I can size up the situation, analyze it, choose the appropriate reaction and, bam, just do it. But decide whether to carry an umbrella when it’s sprinkling outside, no can do. It’s a struggle. It’s more than a matter of take the umbrella or leave it, in Sacramento, it’s do I open the umbrella or do I wait until I am soaked?
There is a fine line between being a wimpy wasp or a tough-as-nails Sacramentan, I’ve noticed. For one thing, it’s perfectly OK to stick a travel-sized umbrella in your bag if it’s rainy weather. It’s another thing if you’ve got to stick your hand out to determine whether it is actually raining hard enough to open the umbrella. That’s why you see so many suited guys downtown running in the rain, umbrella clutched under their arm and a newspaper over their head. They don’t want to look like a wimp. They’d rather look ridiculous.
Kind of like I looked, standing on the steps yesterday and holding a clipboard over my head when it was raining. Yes, I had an umbrella in my bag but it seemed pointless to open it. I had not expected the tenant to lock the gate between the house and the street, but fortunately there was a doorbell right there on the wall, and fortunately, she quickly came out to let me inside.
This Sacramento real estate agent was inspecting two houses on a lot in Midtown that will most likely come on the market this week or next, depending on whether I rouse the sellers from cruising the beaches on vacation in Maui. When I first called one of the tenants, she was very reluctant to let me visit. Why, she needed more than a few hours of notice, and she hadn’t cleaned the house. She didn’t know if she would be home, no, probably, she would not be home, and she wasn’t sure when she ever would be home, if I wanted to know the truth.
I assured her it was OK. I would visit the house next door. Oh, and did I mention that most likely an investor would buy the property, so she could probably just stay on as a tenant if she so desired. I let her know that when I finished inspecting the home next door, I would stop by, and if she was home, that would be cool, and if she wasn’t, that would be OK, too. I’d just catch her some other time down the road.
After I completed my initial agent inspection and shot photos of the first house, I walked over to the second house and knocked. Oh, my goodness. She was home. Imagine that. Somedays, I’m just lucky like that.
Rain in Sacramento and Short Sale Woe
An unusual thing is happening in Sacramento today. It is raining. There is a Delta breeze in the morning, which is usually reserved for late afternoons and early evenings. The temperature is 65 degrees at 9 AM; it’s cold. I kind of like it. It’s a bit like short sale woe.
I miss the romanticism of thunderstorms and afternoon summer rain. We don’t get that kind of weather in Sacramento; it’s not like the Midwest. There is always some tradeoff in life. If you want to live in Sacramento where it’s sunny all of the time, well, you put up with the fact that it just doesn’t rain often in the summer.
Some things you just accept because there isn’t much you can do about it. Like starting a short sale over. Yes, that kind of short sale woe. I know agents who will throw in the towel when the short sale lender says no. But I don’t give up. Because I know that the no answer means I most likely need to repackage the short sale in the manner that will cause the lender to say yes.
I’ve had my share of temporary declines, but a rejection doesn’t mean no short sale; it’s not short sale woe for me. It is very, very rare for this Sacramento real estate agent to completely lose a short sale because a bank would not grant approval — I can count on one hand the number of times it has happened. Most of the time, a short sale is lost not due to bank rejection but because the seller gives up. The seller just can’t go on. I understand that sentiment, too. I would never try to force a seller to continue in a short sale when the seller has run out of steam. But if you want to get to closing, I’m your agent.
I plan to enjoy the rain today. Even though it makes my hair frizz. Maybe, if I’m really lucky, I’ll spot a rainbow!
Closed a West Sacramento Short Sale With 2 Loans
One of the common questions I hear from buyer’s agents when calling about a short sale is they want to know how many loans are secured to the property. I don’t know why they ask this information because a) they don’t know what to do with the answer, and b) it is also online, if the agent would just click on the APN link in the MLS listing. I suspect they ask that question because they read it somewhere or heard in a short sale class that they should ask that question. They also might be misinformed about what happens in a short sale with 2 loans. The think it’s troublesome, for some reason.
The problem with handing out that information is some agents will mistakenly advise their buyers not to write an offer on a short sale with 2 loans. They do this because they don’t understand how short sales work, and have heard that junior loans can be a problem. Sometimes junior loans are a problem but certainly not all of the time.
I just closed a West Sacramento short sale with 2 loans. Like most short sales these days, it takes about 90 days to get approval and another 30 days to close. The first lender was Nationstar. I’ve also heard agents say they would not do a short sale with Nationstar. See, that’s the problem with blanket assumptions. They are not true. In fact, I have never had a problem with Nationstar and this Sacramento short sale agent has close hundreds of short sales. Maybe I’ve been lucky, and maybe my day will come, but the proof is in the pudding, as my mother used to say. I don’t know what that means, btw. What exactly is in the pudding?
In any case, this West Sacramento short sale also had a second loan with Webster Bank. No problem, there, either. We opened escrow on February 14th and received a counter offer on March 20th. Met the terms of the counter and received short sale approval on May 20th. Closed less than 30 days later.
So, please don’t avoid a short sale with Nationstar or even a short sale with two loans. Now, a hard-money second loan, well, that’s another story for another time. That success depends on several factors; also NOT impossible.
Cindy Amrine Case is No Test of the Homeowner Bill of Rights
An article that’s been making the rounds online — some with permission and some postings that were clearly just swiped from the Sacramento Bee — concerns a supposed violation of the Homeowner Bill of Rights law regarding dual tracking. Now, not being your average Joe citizen, this Sacramento real estate agent has read the Homeowner Bill of Rights Law in its entirety. And not being a lawyer, my opinion of this law is not to be considered a legal opinion; instead, it’s just a logical interpretation that any rational person of normal intelligence would most likely draw.
The Sacramento Bee article is about a woman and her family in Citrus Heights who are being evicted because their home on Twin Park Drive was sold on the courthouse steps to a private investment group. The owner, Cindy Amrine (Sherr) hired a lawyer to file a lawsuit against Bank of America, claiming that the bank had no right to dual tracking because of the Homeowner Bill of Rights law.
I’m not saying that lawyers take big wads of cash to file lawsuits and get paid whether or not they win the case, because everybody knows that is a fact. In fact, in this instance, I might even go so far as to say the lawyer knows she won’t win but is filing the lawsuit in a sole attempt to get a settlement for her client. It’s true, sometimes banks will pay money to settle a lawsuit, even if the bank is not guilty. It’s the way our legal system works. One doesn’t have to be guilty to pay off a plaintiff. One can simply decide it’s less expensive to bribe the plaintiff to drop the lawsuit than it is to defend it.
What I find interesting about this case is that people are incorrectly assessing this case as a “test” of the Homeowner Bill of Rights law. That law says a bank is permitted to practice dual tracking during a short sale. It’s right there in black and white. The law also says dual tracking must stop after a short sale approval letter is received, but in this case, there was no short sale approval letter, according to the story in the Bee.
I researched the property history online. The home went on the market in early March. Toward the end of April, it went to Trustee’s Sale and the pending short sale canceled. The Notice of Default had been filed the summer of 2012. I can see where the short sale agent did not expect the home to be sold out from under the seller. But we all know — those of who work in short sales — that the foreclosure department of Bank of America has nothing to do with the short sale department. The departments don’t engage with each other.
For the uninitiated though, I offer this bit of trivia for you. The Homeowner Bill of Rights law stops dual tracking during a short sale beginning January 1, 2018. Read it and weep. I predict this lawsuit by Cindy Amrine will absolutely not change how short sales are handled in California, you can count on it, on all 10 fingers. It does bring awareness that dual tracking is wrong.
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