This Carmichael short sale needs a 100% committed real buyer.

The reason I am writing this blog is so I can email it to buyer’s agents who call me with the question: What’s going on with that Carmichael short sale? Because it’s too convoluted and crazy to talk about otherwise. Yup, I also wanna see what happened in black-and-white myself because I can’t quite believe it myself. The good news is this home is now available to buy as a short sale in Carmichael, soon as as we get the cancellation from the buyers.

Our first set of buyers for this Carmichael short sale were just “practice” buyers. Not really willing to wait out the short sale process for an FHA short sale, which is like the horror of all horrible short sales, even though they promised. Next. My team and I fought and escalated and argued and got the trustee’s sale postponed.  New buyers entered the picture, investors, represented by their agent mom. Submitted offer, which clearly stated mom represented the buyers. Many lenders allow that relationship.

Three months later, the negotiator says nope. The mother cannot represent her children. When I relayed that new twist to the buyer’s agent, the response was not what one would expect for Mother of the Year award. Her immediate retort was she would tell her children to cancel. What? No, she could let another agent represent them. She didn’t know any agents. I knew an agent. I put the two together. But we needed the addendum to upload to Equator by a certain time or the negotiator threatened to cancel. I’ve had them do it. Nasty negotiators are not joking around with these deadlines.

Begged for the addendum over a day and a half. Called, left voice mails, sent text messages. Please, please. The agent did not make it a priority to get us the addendum. She sent it the following day, after the negotiator, as promised, canceled the file. The negotiator sent a note stating she denied the short sale. We canceled the buyers, returned the deposit and put the home back on the market. We were up against another trustee auction. Immediately sold to a new set of buyers. Fought and argued and escalated and yes, once again, got the auction postponed by the hair of its chinny-chin-chin.

The only problem was the new negotiator picked up the existing file where the previous negotiator had left off. Ignored our new buyers in contract on this Carmichael short sale. Even though I had uploaded the new offer, entered terms of the new offer into Equator, the new negotiator approved the previous buyers. The buyers who had been rejected were now approved. Never had that happen. Never. Now we had no choice but to cancel our existing buyers and notify the previous buyers.

Except, after further inspection of the home, the buyers, after all of this time, after everything that happened, decided to cancel. My sellers say there is a special place in hell for those buyers. By canceling at this late date, it is possible the new auction date will now be set and HUD will not allow another postponement. Of course, we will sell this again and submit a new offer, and argue and escalate and plead for the sellers. Because that’s what we do. That’s my job as the #1 Sacramento short sale agent in town.

It would be nice to get a little support from the other side, though. May I suggest that buyers who are not 100% committed to buying a Carmichael short sale perhaps should not enter into a contract to buy a short sale? Don’t be “maybe” about it, guys. Because those kind of buyers simply endanger hopeful sellers who are praying to do a short sale. Sellers don’t want to go to foreclosure simply because buyers flake out. If buyers don’t know what they’re getting into, they have no business buying a short sale.

The only shining thing in today’s world is the number of short sales in Sacramento have fallen from an all-time high in 2011 of making up 75% of the sales to about 10%. Thank goodness. My heart can’t always take it.