Email ElizabethThe Remote Control Thorn from the Transfer Disclosure Statement
Before I share this amusing story with you about a transfer disclosure statement and remote controls for a garage door opener, let me preface it by saying this is not to single out any particular buyer’s agent in Sacramento because it could happen to anybody. You can’t examine my closed real estate transactions for the month and figure out who I am talking about because I have had a whole bunch of closings this February, but the story made me laugh, so you would probably like it.
To start with, I always advise my sellers when completing their transfer disclosure statement to think before they indicate how many remote controls they have in their possession for the garage door opener. I explain that they might want to put down one instead of two remotes, even if they own 2 remotes. The reason is often there is one person who is the last person in the house after it is sold. This person might go back to check on the house or pick up that last box of belongings, and when this person drives out of the garage and closes the garage door, this person tends to drive away with the remote control and not realize it.
It’s after escrow closes that this Sacramento real estate agent will often get a call from the buyer’s agent. The agent will demand that the seller provide restitution for the missing remote control because the transfer disclosure statement the seller signed promised 2 remote controls to the buyer and there is only one remote control. Most real estate agents I know do not want to deal with the issue of remote controls. We probably don’t even want to hear the words: remote control, yet we do. It’s like a thorn in our sides. That remote control thorn. It grows up out of cement all by itself without water or sunlight.
It all started with the closing last week of this particular home in Sacramento. First the buyer’s agent submitted a broker’s demand after closing asking for a higher commission split, although the commission was clearly shown in MLS. The agent said a speaker at the Sacramento Board of REALTORS meeting had recently explained that commission splits reflected in MLS are incorrect. That’s interesting. Because it is the commission in MLS that governs the transaction, so there is some sort of disconnect going on and confusion. That set me up for the question about remote controls.
The agent insisted that I had told her there were remote controls. Now, I know that I never talk about remote controls to buyer’s agents because, like I said, I do not much care for the remote control thorn. I don’t mention whether there are remotes, where the remotes would be kept, how many remotes the seller would own — I keep my mouth shut about remote controls.
I pulled out the transfer disclosure statement and looked at it. Sure enough, the box for remote controls was left unchecked. The line for the number of remote controls was left blank. The seller did not even disclose whether he had a remote control and, since he didn’t live in this house because it belonged to another family member, he probably did not have any remote controls nor any knowledge of their existence.
I sent the transfer disclosure statement to the buyer’s agent to show there were no remote controls conveyed with the property. The buyer’s agent sent me the AVID I had completed and insisted I noted there was a remote control. Under “garage and parking” I noted there was a garage door opener. I also said doors were stored in the rafters. No mention of a remote control. See, this is how miscommunication can happen in real estate. A garage door opener is not a remote control. It is a device secured to the ceiling that opens and closes the garage door when activated by a button attached to the wall or a remote control, but it is not a remote control.
The #2 Top Agent at Lyon Real Estate
Yowza, this Sacramento real estate agent received the #2 Top Producing Agent Award at Lyon Real Estate for 2012 yesterday — which, in case you’re wondering, does not mean I try harder — yet gazing upon it makes me wonder: where do old awards go to die? My awards fill up two shelves in my bookcase. Many of them are made from crystal or glass formed in pinnacle or other appropriately awardy-looking shapes. Then, there are the plaques. Some of my plaques go back to 1979, when the California Association of REALTORS named me one of 30 people in the state of California who qualified to earn the educational RECI designation, an acronym for Real Estate Certificate Institute, which, when C.A.R. discovered so few agents qualified for the designation or even cared to qualify for the designation, it discontinued the recognition, probably because there wasn’t enough money in the process for C.A.R.
The award for being the #2 Lyon agent out of 900-some is a gigantic engraved crystal vase. It has my name and the fact I earned the top 1% status of all agents at the company. It looks exactly the same as the Top 1% award I won in 2011 when I placed #5 in the company, except that vase is noticeably smaller. So, that must mean it’s a much bigger deal to be ranked in the top 3 agents than to be ranked in the top 5 agents, or maybe the company just had more money this year to spend on crystal vases. Not knocking being a top agent at Lyon, just wondering. It’s not like I can put flowers in the vases because that would be kinda tacky. You can’t really use them for a purpose. They have to sorta sit there and look pretty all by themselves.
I also picked up for the second year the #1 Top Agent Award for the Lyon Downtown office, although our office is actually located in Midtown Sacramento. This office was once located downtown a long time ago in the 1940s, but why change the name now, I guess. We’re just the Lyon Downtown Office, even though we serve Midtown, Land Park, Curtis Park and East Sacramento, as well as the rest of Sacramento and into Placer, Yolo and El Dorado counties. The size of the award is identical to the #1 Top Producer Award I received in 2011. But it’s bigger than the #2 Top Producer award from 2010 and the #3 Top Producer award from 2009. I guess it’s good to see the awards get progressively bigger as the years go on.
But after all is said and done, and I’m kicking up my feet on the deck looking out over the ocean as the sun sets, where will these awards be kept? Will I leave them behind in the states? Ship them to my niece? Box them up in the attic I don’t have? What do people do with old real estate awards?
Looking for a Sacramento Real Estate Agent for Listing Your Home?
Do you need a listing agent in Sacramento? I love winning listing presentations. I freely admit it. Even after all of these years in the business, the excitement is still there. If a Sacramento real estate agent did not like to win a listing presentation, I’m betting that agent probably works elsewhere and not at Lyon Real Estate. It’s not that I compete all that often because sellers and buyers just hire me; I’m rarely interviewed. I’m lucky and very fortunate in that regard.
In fact, when a seller called me last week to make an appointment, he mentioned that he planned to interview two other listing agents in Sacramento. I asked him why because most sellers go to my website, read all about me and then decide to hire me on the spot, and that’s what I told him, too, because it’s the truth. If you think that sounds a arrogant, it’s only because you don’t know me yet. It’s just confidence, not arrogance.
This confidence I display comes from staying true to oneself, not trying to be somebody I am not. Somebody once told me decades ago that if you walked like a duck, dressed like a duck (probably in those top hats and tails), talked like a duck, eventually you would become a duck. But he was wrong because I don’t quack, and nobody is shoving a tube down my throat to fatten up my liver.
When I went to visit with the seller a few days ago, I recognized a home on the corner I sold 4 years ago. I am familiar with that neighborhood. That particular home was a short sale, and I had represented the buyer. I figured I could call that former client and ask him to keep an eye on the home while it is on the market, providing I win the listing presentation. I get a little nervous when my listings are vacant, so it’s good to know buyers and sellers all over town.
We talked about the home; I listened to the seller’s story. Every seller has a story and reasons for selling. I like to make sure we are on the same page and I fully understand a seller’s expectations so I may fulfill them. Everybody has different things they want. I don’t want to second-guess how to make a seller happy, that’s for rookies. As we chatted, the seller shared that the person who would most likely be handling his estate sale also happened to have a real estate license. That’s not unusual as something like one in every 35 people in California has a real estate license. I made him smile when I said, “So I guess this competition is down to two real estate agents because you look like a man who is too smart to consider hiring a part-time real estate agent.” But, see, it was true.
I then went on to explain how I market real estate, my extensive online presence and use of mobile tools, which is where and how buyers are looking, many search for homes in Sacramento on their cellphones. I like to jump out in front of buyers so no matter where they turn, there I am. Hello. Hello. Hello. Would you like to see this fabulous home? You can’t get away from Elizabeth Weintraub online. Except maybe Facebook where everybody knows my name and is drunk all the time. I don’t know who all those people are on my homepage.
The other thing I mentioned is I am not a K-Mart agent, but I also tend to make my sellers a lot more money. I’m a really good listing agent in Sacramento. I earn my commission. Could he hire somebody cheaper? Sure. But why? Why take the chance your net will be less because the agent is less aggressive? I tell sellers not to be penny wise and pound foolish. If we’re apart, say, 1% on the commission, that’s a drop in the bucket as compared to the service the seller will receive from me. After all, this is a seller’s market in Sacramento. Anybody can stick a sign in the yard and find a buyer in this market. That’s a small part of the picture. What a seller needs is a Sacramento real estate agent who can move them through negotiations, into escrow, and out the other side to closing.
That’s the difficult part.
In fact, while I was at the home, a neighbor came over to say he would be interested in buying the home. Of course he would be. He thinks he can take advantage of the seller and be the only bidder. The seller will get the most money from exposing this home to the largest pool of buyers and hiring the most experienced and assertive agent he can find to market and negotiate and, that agent, I’m thrilled to say, is me.
This four bedroom, two-bath home in Sacramento will go on the market about the middle of March. The seller told me yesterday it will be listed by Elizabeth Weintraub at Lyon Real Estate. Woo-hooo!!! See? The excitement never vanishes in this business.
Adding Short Sale Buyers to the Deed After Approval
Requests to add or subtract individuals to a deed should never happen after short sale approval, yet it pops up more frequently than you might imagine. If you’re a short sale buyer, this advice is for you. People think because an idea occurred to them, they can make it happen at the last minute, and short sales are rarely in a position to accommodate these sudden changes. I know that short sale buyers don’t see the big deal. But it’s a huge deal. They don’t realize that the short sale bank probably approved only the individual(s) who signed the purchase contract with the seller. Do not try to add short sale buyers to the deed after approval.
The reason is if a short sale buyer wants to change the way she holds title on the deed, it’s almost impossible to do and still close within the required timeframe provided for in the short sale approval letter. One can’t just change from a corporation to husband and wife as joint tenants or from a couple to a sole individual without the short sale bank’s blessing. I had a short sale last month in which originally a husband and wife were holding title, then title changed to the wife as her sole and separate property and, after approval, financing restrictions required we revert. This was a Bank of America short sale and I suspect since the husband was originally noted on the paperwork, the bank was able to approve an additional name at closing without further ado. But this doesn’t happen very often. That was kind of a fluke.
Most of the time the approval letters contain the name of the buyers and, if the those names are altered, the short sale requires a new approval. Some banks make this Sacramento short sale agent start the process over. From the beginning. Because the bank did not approve John and Mary. The bank might have approved only Mary. It’s not as simple as you might think and short sales are not always logical. Not to mention, there is no guarantee that because a short sale was approved first time around that it will be approved a second time around or that the same lender will still be servicing the loan.
There are other complications to adding more short sale buyers to the deed at the last minute. It is possible that the buyer’s lender might not allow it. If Mary is taking title as her sole and separate property while obtaining a new first mortgage, her lender most likely will not let her add her son and daughter to the title without including them on the loan, which may mean they need to financially qualify. If she adds them to the loan after the transaction closes, she could be guilty of alienating title, which could be cause for acceleration: calling the loan due and payable. Moreover, the arms-length agreement Mary signs for the short sale lender might prohibit transfers within a certain numbers of days after closing.
For all of these reasons and more, the time to think about how you want to hold title when buying a short sale is when you sign the purchase contract. Don’t wait for short sale approval before you make up your mind or change it at the last minute because you could be asking for trouble. If you’re gonna do it, write up an addendum before approval is received and submit it with a new HUD during the short sale negotiation process. Please don’t try to add short sale buyers to the deed at the last minute.
Paperwork to Submit a Short Sale Offer
It’s not easy to get a short sale offer accepted in Sacramento. It’s the competition. Because the problem with changing MLS status from Active Short Sale to Active Short Contingent or Pending Short Lender Approval is a Sacramento short sale agent has one supremely ecstatic home buyer and probably 20+ or so disappointed and / or angry rejected buyers. People get mad when their offer is rejected. It’s not like your average home buyer in Sacramento is used to rejection, not like a real estate agent who deals with rejection as part of the job: like doors slammed in faces or buyer’s snorting, “I don’t want to talk to an agent; I was just looking,” click.
It occurred to me this morning that perhaps some buyers could increase their chances of short sale offer acceptance if all of the correct paperwork would be submitted with an offer. There are times I receive offers without the right documents, and sometimes I get offers with too much paperwork, and agents might toss in the kitchen sink with it.
Many agents have never written a short sale offer. I try to point agents in the right direction but not everybody appreciates my assistance for what it is, which is to try to help. I guess when faced with a made-up question such as is the listing agent helping us or trying to sabotage us, it’s easier to believe sabotage, but that’s the wrong default because the menu options are incorrect. There is no reason on God’s green earth for anybody to try to sabotage a buyer’s agent. None, whatsoever. If people think somebody is out to get them, I suggest they look in the mirror.
Here are the documents a buyer needs to submit with a short sale offer:
- The 10-page Residential Purchase Agreement, which includes the Buyer’s Inspection Advisory.
- The Short Sale Addendum. Without the short sale addendum, your offer is not a short sale offer.
- Agency disclosure.
- Proof of funds.
- Preapproval letter from lender.
- Copy of earnest money deposit.
You can squeeze by with items 1 to 3 and send items 4 to 6 at a later time, but it increases your odds of acceptance with all six items at inception. It is also helpful to send all documents in one PDF, not six separate files.
Paperwork we do not need at offer presentation are the disclosures. This includes the buyer and seller statewide advisory, lead-based paint, water-heater, and any of the other disclosures. Let’s save some trees. Let’s save a file to download, too. Some PDF files are so large they do not email. How would you feel if your agent sent all of that paperwork and it never arrived because the file was too big to transfer? I’d like to grab a megaphone and yell from the tallest hill here in Sacramento, where would that be, maybe out in Elk Grove? Stop sending these 95-page files, please.
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