Email Elizabethbest sacramento short sale agent
Losing the Attitude Helps to Keep it Real in Sacramento Real Estate
Ya gotta lose the attitude to keep it real in Sacramento real estate.
A home seller from Lincoln mentioned yesterday that he has sold a handful of homes over the past couple of years and bought a home about a year ago, and he has never had such a smooth and easy transaction as he did selling a short sale through me. I called to congratulate him on closing his short sale. I sold the home almost immediately, it comped by the bank at the sales price, and we received a very fast approval, within about 10 days. He sounded almost astonished that he could say that his short sale was so much smoother than compared to a regular transaction. I guess you could say he was very pleased with my performance as his short sale agent.
I try to let buyer’s agents know when they call me that I am very experienced with Sacramento short sales, because that fact will tend to put their minds at ease and calm any fears their buyers might have about buying a short sale. Because after all, why would you buy a short sale if you could buy a home that was NOT a short sale — as a regular home would close much sooner. And there aren’t as many short sales nowadays as there were a few years ago. People need reassurance, and I get that.
The words I never utter, under any circumstances, are: don’t you know who I am? Because that sounds so pretentious, self-absorbed and sorta cocky. That’s something that Reese Witherspoon would say and did, evidently, when pulled over by the cops for speeding. That’s something a mortgage lender asked the other day when he whipped off an email: Do you know who the clients are? Doesn’t he? I guess it’s not Reese Witherspoon. I offered to let my transaction coordinator look it up for him. Even though his boss earlier that day had admitted they were no longer the mortgage brokers on that particular transaction. Criminy, guys, let it go. Try losing the attitude.
I say to people I have a dubious honor — because I don’t really know if it’s an honor, it wasn’t something I set out to achieve — but when I looked at the numbers, they were staring me in the face. The numbers from Trendgraphics reflect that I have sold more total short sales in a 7-county area than any other Realtor in Sacramento, a record that has continued to grow since 2006. That’s in addition to my regular real estate business in Sacramento.
Still, it was nice to hear from my home seller in Lincoln that I had exceeded his expectations. It doesn’t matter to me who my clients are — short sales or million-dollar owners — I treat each and every one of their files as though it is the one project I’m working on. It’s just the way I’m wired.
The Dangers of Hiring the Wrong Short Sale Agent in Sacramento
The best short sale agent in Sacramento is Elizabeth Weintraub.
Enjoying a reputation in the real estate industry as a Sacramento Realtor with integrity (and a person who gets the job done) has been very helpful for my clients because it means my listings carry weight. What do I mean by that? It means an agent doesn’t have to worry when he or she spots a listing with the name of Elizabeth Weintraub attached to it. By the very nature, Elizabeth Weintraub listings relatively assures buyer’s agents that their transaction will conclude without drama or a pile of complications. If that particular home is a short sale, all the better; no fear, it will likely close.
I received short sale approval on a fixer home in West Sacramento a few days ago, which I forwarded immediately to the seller. He was completely stunned that I had received the approval so quickly, within a few weeks — especially due to the fact that his short sale had been initially rejected only a few days ago. It needed one little tweak to qualify, and we submitted revised documentation that addressed the particular protocol demanded of us. Some other agent might have thrown in the towel after the rejection. I don’t take no for an answer.
The thing is some home owners are really suspicious about their lenders. They make up all sorts of stories to fit any given situation, perhaps to help them cope with the confusion and utter bewilderment often apparent at certain lending institutions. Some sellers are paranoid and believe their banks employ sabotage. Bank employees can be crafty but they’re no Robert Durst. If you haven’t seen that HBO 6-part Documentary, The Jinx, I encourage you to watch it because it will leave you feeling creepy for days, which is better than feeling your bank is out to get you.
My seller said that many agents were vying for his listing and calling him to list his home. He interviewed a handful of real estate agents but he kept coming back to my name as the best short sale agent in Sacramento. I’ve sold more short sales since 2006 than any other real estate agent in a seven-county area. This guy and his family needed a professional who would get the job done, and said he didn’t want to take any chances so he hired me, and I got his short sale approval. The seller said he did not think another agent could have done it. His situation was complicated.
Short sales are all a little complicated. Yesterday a fellow called to say he was parked outside his new home, which he found on Zillow. Well, that home is closing escrow in a few weeks, so it’s not his new home. We chatted for a while and discussed how he’s living in a rental that is a short sale and thinking about buying it. He wouldn’t tell me who listed that home but continued to insist the agent, a property manager, was a “very experienced short sale agent” because the agent, most likely, had told him that. There’s a sucker born every minute, according to PT Barnum.
Who is the lender, I asked. Did the agent tell him that with Nationstar as the lender, the home is going to an online auction where another buyer can swipe the home? Nationstar short sales are animals onto themselves. Unless the investor is Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, that’s where Nationstar short sales go these days. Then, he admitted he had submitted an offer through the agent-slash-property manager, and was in escrow. He has a fiduciary, which means all further questions need to be directed to his agent. I can’t interfere. Our conversation ended. I doubt that guy is buying a house, though.
Thoughts About Green Tree Short Sale Collections
A Green Tree employee at that notorious debt collection agency offered a vile suggestion to a homeowner in Elk Grove. This homeowner is a single mother with financial struggles, like many other suddenly divorced underwater homeowners in Elk Grove. It’s tough enough to raise children on a dual income much less a single salary. When she tried to explain her budget woes to the debt collector, Green Tree said: You should feed your children macaroni and cheese.
Where do they come up with this stuff? I have to suspect that it’s not in the script because if Green Tree compiled a script — and I’m not saying whether management does or doesn’t as I have no idea, but you’ve got to think that it does hand employees a script of objections — that script would be much more nasty. I suspect the person who made that statement figures a Mac ‘n’ Cheese diet?is a viable solution because it would be a solution in his or her own circumstance.
That kind of thinking probably stems from the same sort of person who might think it’s OK to chain your children to a tree in the backyard when you go to work. Who needs to afford daycare when you’ve got a 50-feet elm out back?
Sometimes short sale sellers hear from Green Tree that if they don’t make a payment, that Green Tree will not approve their short sale. Which is not a true statement. It’s a lie. The short sale department and the collection department are separate.
Green Tree debt collectors are not that different from debt collectors who work at any other collection agency. They will still call a borrower at work and hound. They apply pressure. They aren’t always very nice. Maybe they feed their own children macaroni and cheese as a sole diet? How happy can they be with their own lives if they have to spend all day on the phone calling delinquent borrowers and trying to squeeze a payment out of them? What a horrible job for these poor souls.
What would happen if people refused to take jobs like that?
If you need to do a Green Tree short sale, I close my Green Tree short sales and can offer suggestions to help ease your transition from underwater borrower to free-and-clear relief. You can call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759. It doesn’t cost anything to do a short sale, and I’ll never tell you to subsist on macaroni and cheese.
When To Ask an Agent About the Real Estate Commission
When the first question out a potential seller’s mouth is how much is your commission, that sends an agent a subtle message that either the caller has never sold a home or thinks the only thing that matters, i.e. differentiates agents from one another, is commission. I deal with both of these issues in my own way. Which means I address it head on and early and first, because any misconceptions about how a Sacramento real estate agent operates needs to be cleaned up immediately if I am to proceed with the conversation. If the caller is searching solely for a discount agent, they have misdialed.
This is not to say there are not people who shop for a real estate agent the same way they shop for a new pair of shoes. They want to find those Tori Burch boots on sale, but that’s not gonna happen. If you want the hottest new boots from Tori Burch, you pay the price. If you want a knock-off, you go to Wal-Mart. When callers initiate a discussion about commission, they sometimes are very astonished at my take. I make them laugh, like this guy yesterday who chuckled: Well, you are persuasive.
Because I believe it. I believe my words because my experience backs them up. I do tend to get my clients more money, and they do tell me I don’t get paid enough when they pay full commissions. I keep them out of trouble. I don’t let buyer push them around and rob them of their hard-earned equity.
After I got this guy howling in fits of laughter yesterday, then he drops the bombshell to say he needs to do a short sale on both of his properties in Davis. Holy toledo. I exclaimed, You hit the jackpot with me. Because he did. There is not another real estate agent in a 7-county area in Sacramento who has sold more short sales than I have over the past 8 years. I am still the top Sacramento short sale agent, even though short sales are no longer in vogue. For the past few years, I have continued as a top producer who mostly sells regular listings. I’m about as well rounded as you will find for an agent who started in the business in 1974.
And the place for the discussion about real estate commission in a short sale is no place. There is no reason to highlight commission and argue ad nauseum. The bank will authorize the amount it will authorize and, in almost every instance, it is full commissions. Because our American banking institutions realize that a good real estate agent is worth a full commission. It’s not like the commission comes directly from the seller. It is paid from the proceeds of sale, and it is money the bank doesn’t receive. Banks care more than anybody about bottom-line profits, yet they authorize a full fee. Imagine that!
If our banks believe real estate agents are worth a full commission, why doesn’t everybody get with the program? Why are there still people out there who who are shopping for a discount agent when they really need a full-service agent to sell their home? It’s because they don’t know any better and nobody has ever shown them otherwise.
Dangers of Hiring Any Old Realtor for Sacramento Short Sales
All Sacramento short sales are not the same, and a seller should not just hire any old Realtor he or she can find to do a short sale. I can’t express the sentiment enough that if you need to do a short sale, you owe it to yourself to hire the best Sacramento short sale agent you can find because you have no idea, and I mean seriously absolutely zero idea, of what can happen in a short sale, but a specialist does. A specialist can prevent some crap from ever taking place to start with.
For crying out loud, Sacramento short sales are traumatic enough without lopping a second or third helping of pain on top of existing angst and agony.
In this next short sale I’ll share with you, the seller had hired some other agent in Sacramento to do his short sale. He called me because he hadn’t heard anything from his agent for a while and wondered what was happening. Asked if I would be so kind as to go over to his house and check it out because he lived out of town.
Tahoe Park is not that far from Land Park where I live, so I drove over but not before I checked his listing in MLS. Lo and behold, the listing was still listed in MLS as “expired pending” status, which is not allowed. It meant there was an offer of some sort, most likely expired as well but not necessarily; however, the listing itself had expired and there was no longer any agreement between the seller and the listing agent. The seller insisted that he wasn’t even aware they were in contract.
First thing I noticed when I arrived at the home in Tahoe Park: there was no sign in the yard. The place looked forlorn. Lockbox was there, but no sign. There was another lockbox, too, the kind attached to the gate by a preservation company hired by the bank, which meant a side door was drilled out. It would appear that the short sale agent had simply given up on this client and forgotten about the listing. I retrieved the key from the lockbox, inserted it into the lock and slowly pushed open the door. There was something on the floor in front of the door. God, I hoped it wasn’t a dead animal. It was a pile of old mail and a FedX envelope. I called the seller and he asked me to open the FedX envelope. Dated in September and this was February. The letter from Bank of America informed the seller his short sale was denied.
And this is how I came to list an FHA short sale with Bank of America in Tahoe Park last February. I’m not certain the previous agent even realized this was a HUD-related situation.
After MLS removed the expired listing and allowed my listing entry, the previous buyer’s agent called to submit the same lowball offer she had previously submitted. As a top Sacramento short sale agent, I know it is not necessarily in the best interest of the seller to submit a lowball offer on a short sale. Not only that, but since it’s an FHA short sale, two things must happen: #1) the seller needs to receive an ATP from HUD, without which the sale will go nowhere, and #2) HUD will prepare a formal appraisal, not a BPO, and the offer price must meet or exceed the net expected.
The agent appeared highly agitated and frustrated that I could not advise the seller to take her buyer’s offer, especially since the seller had previously accepted an offer from that buyer. Well, that was part of the problem, the offer was too far below the comparable sales. Would her buyer like to increase the offer or does the buyer believe banks are handing out short sales left and right like toasters?
It took a while to obtain an offer that would meet HUD’s guidelines and to meet the seller’s expectation of commitment duration. FHA short sales are not processed quickly and can take months and months. On top of this, since the sellers no longer occupied the home and had moved away, we needed to obtain a variance from FHA because the reason for moving did not fit like a round peg into a round hole. That’s how the government works. No square pegs in round holes allowed without a variance.
But the long and short of it is we got the ATP, we got the variance, and we closed the escrow in September. I know this without hesitation, and the truth is if the seller had not finally hired a top Sacramento real estate agent who used specialized knowledge to close this sort of FHA short sale, he’d have a foreclosure instead on his record.
