Email ElizabethAbout 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.
Can a Sacramento Short Sale Agent Give Legal Advice?
Not only am a top producer who sells Sacramento real estate, but I also have a second job. I just returned from an About.com conference in San Francisco over the weekend. Some of you may not know that I write for About.com as its Guide to Home Buying, and I’ve been building and maintaining that website for 6 1/2 years. Whenever About.com hosts a conference west of the Mississippi, I try to attend. I always learn something new. One of the new things I learned at the About.com conference is Google no longer rewards SEO efforts in the same manner that it used to. Now, rankings are based more closely on authority. Which is excellent news for me. I’m not a big keyword stuffer.
But I am consistent. I write every day no matter what. I write about real estate in Sacramento and mostly about short sale transactions because short sales are what’s selling in Sacramento. I rank in the top 1% of agents at Lyon Real Estate, which is the largest independently owned real estate company in Sacramento. If I lose a ranking spot in Google to, say, HUD, it’s not that important to me. I am still found in the top 10 results on page 1 for hundreds and hundreds of real estate searches and real estate questions. To my readers, that makes me a real estate authority.
The problem with this is I am easily locatable. Thousands of people across the United States annually write to me and ask questions about short sales and real estate. I am a Sacramento real estate broker, so my phone number and email is in plain view. However, I am not a lawyer. I don’t practice law. I don’t give legal advice. Even if I know the answer, I can’t tell anybody. I sell real estate. I am paid a commission to sell houses, one by one. If I am selling a short sale, I am still paid a commission from the proceeds of sale. The law is very clear about what a real estate agent can and cannot do, and we can’t talk about legal matters with authority.
When I explain this to clients, they nod, say they understand, and then they ask me a legal question. Hypothetically speaking, you understand. Nope, still can’t answer it. If you need legal advice about a real estate matter, you absolutely, positively, without question, need to obtain that advice from an entity capable of giving it to you. That entity is not a Sacramento REALTOR. That entity is a real estate lawyer.
Will the bank release me from liability? Legal question. Does this short sale approval letter contain verbiage that protects me from a deficiency judgment? Legal question. Will doing a short sale stop the foreclosure process; how does SB 458 apply to me? Legal questions. If you don’t know the answers, you need a lawyer, not a REALTOR.
When I go to a client’s house, it’s to put that home on the market. I shoot professional photographs. I prepare my agent visual inspection. If there are ways to improve the showing condition, I share those thoughts with the sellers. Perhaps we want to do a bit of home staging or prepping. I generally find a good spot for the lockbox. We sign listing paperwork. We don’t discuss the legal aspects of the real estate transaction because I am not a lawyer. I suggest to all clients that they obtain legal and tax advice. Do they need it? I dunno. Maybe, maybe not. That’s for each client to determine.
If they need a terrific Sacramento real estate agent, they’ve come to the right place. I’ll get that home sold, and I guarantee my performance. Have over 30 years in the business. But I do not give legal advice. No reputable real estate agent would ever try to perform a service that she is not licensed to perform.
Personal Property is Not Free for the Taking in a Short Sale
A client described what it felt like to show his home in Sacramento as a short sale to buyers. It wasn’t pretty. He said he felt like he was standing up, trying to balance in a canoe, as he beat circling buyers with an oar to stop them from climbing into the boat. On the one hand, it’s nice that somebody wants to buy his home. On the other, it’s like a feeding frenzy.
For some sellers, it is painful to sell their home as a short sale. It’s not always a choice they come to make easily. After years of struggling, some reach the end of their rope and realize it’s a necessity. These sellers have often struggled through failed loan modifications, struggled with other family members and even struggled with their own conscience because a short sale doesn’t always feel “right” to everybody. When they finally make the decision to give up their home — and giving it up can feel like personal failure to some homeowners — they don’t need a buyer to come along and kick them in the gut.
What am I talking about? These are the buyers who feel it’s OK to ask the seller to leave behind personal items. Things like the refrigerator or washer and dryer, which are not fixtures. Maybe they want the dining room table or bedroom furniture. The sellers personal belongings are not part of the short sale. Non-fixtures do not remain with the home. If you spot a 1965 Mustang in the garage, don’t wet your lips and demand the keys. Don’t assume the sellers are vulnerable and will cave in to unreasonable demands. A Sacramento short sale is not a flea market. Everything you can see with a naked eye is not negotiable. Personal property is not free for the taking in a short sale.
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