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One Year to Close Chase FHA Short Sale in Carmichael
Chase FHA short sale in Carmichael closed 12 months from listing.
Whose problem is it when a Chase FHA short sale takes more than a year to close escrow? I get so many calls from home buyers wondering why is that Carmichael short sale still for sale month after month, and I feel like telling them to go look in the mirror. Yet, this home I only sold 3 times, so that’s about right, on average it works out to about 4 months for each buyer. I am one of the few agents in Sacramento who will handle a short sale, which is why I have sold more short sales than anybody over the past 10 years.
That’s because I don’t need it to close in 30 days or 60 days to pay my bills, like some agents. If the lender messes up, I can fix it; plus, I’ll still stay dedicated to the transaction. I don’t bail when the going gets rough. If the buyer cancels, I’ll find another buyer. I don’t give up. I don’t take no for an answer. There is always a way to close a transaction, even a Chase FHA short sale.
We listed this home a year ago. Got a buyer, all documents submitted to the lender right away, and we received the Approval to Participate in the FHA short sale program in record time. Things were looking up. We postponed the trustee’s auction a couple of times and were on the verge of getting the approval letter when the buyer suddenly canceled after 6 weeks. And that’s when the file started to go head downhill.
Sold again immediately to a set of investors represented by their mother, a real estate agent. We burned through 5 negotiators for this Chase FHA short sale when things became very twisted and convoluted. Just as we were about to receive approval, the negotiator at Chase realized the buyer’s agent was related to the buyer and she denied the file. The solution, of course, was for the buyer to be represented by another agent, but the mother said no way, Jose. If I can’t get paid, we’re not closing.
Yeah, way to win Mother of the Year award.
The buyers canceled and we found new buyers and put them into escrow. Submitted all of the paperwork. Then, for some unknown reason out of the blue, Chase decided to approve the first set of buyers as long as the mother substituted a new buyer’s agent. The mother finally gave in, hired another agent, unwound the cancellation and we got approval. Eureka. The poor buyers whose offer we submitted was ignored by Chase. How do you like those apples? Chase approved the wrong file.
We moved through the home inspection and were getting ready to close when the investor buyers and their mom for unknown reasons abruptly canceled. Maybe their mother found them a deal she could get paid more on? Stranger things have happened. I went back to the second set of buyers who were shoved aside by Chase to ask if they were still interested. Their agent said far as he was concerned, they are still in contract. So we moved ahead with them.
Just as we were ready to fund, the negotiator at Chase noticed the buyer’s lender and the buyer’s agent had the same address. So he denied the closing. Conflict, he said. Chase gave the impression it did not want to approve the short sale, but I knew they would. The bank was just inept. So the buyers hired a new buyer’s agent and prepared again to close. This time the negotiator objected to the seller signing on the wrong line and asked to have the arm’s length resigned.
But you know, it closed yesterday. At the 11th hour. Just before the expiration. It closed at the same price we started at a year ago. So when you see a short sale has been on the market for a long time, this is probably what’s going on. If you need a Chase FHA short sale to sell, I’m the Sacramento Realtor who can get it done. Call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759.
What Crazy Thing is Going on With That Carmichael Short Sale?
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.
Catch This Listing When Touring Homes in Carmichael for Sale
6243 Gena Court, Carmichael, CA 95608 is one of very few homes in Carmichael for sale.
An affordable pocket of homes in Carmichael for sale can be found just north of Madison near Manzanita. It’s maybe a mile and a half from the freeway, so close enough for commuting but far away enough to have no freeway noise, which is unusual in itself for Sacramento. It can be difficult to buy a home that is located far away from the rumble of cars tearing down the freeway.
I present to you a short sale among the homes in Carmichael for sale. We also do not have very many Sacramento short sales on the market anymore, not like the old days of 2011, before the market hit rock bottom. We have 1,869 residential homes for sale in Sacramento County and only 52 are short sales.
This cute-as-a-button home in Carmichael is situated on a cul-de-sac, a big circle with no through traffic, which makes it a somewhat more quiet area without so many cars. It features 3 bedrooms, 1 1/2 baths and is a little over 1,100 square feet. The layout is amazing and it seems much larger.
Spacious living room at 6243 Gena Ct in Carmichael.
You enter into the living room, adorned by crown molding, a wood-like laminate floor and a space large enough for a corner office. The kitchen is a long galley, open on each end, with a dining area in front of the sliding glass doors to the back yard. The yard is fenced, and the playset stays, in case you have children. There is also an enclosed dog run but it faces the west and can get hot during the day, according to the seller. If so, there is a doggie door into the garage.
6243 Gena Court, Carmichael, CA 95608 is offered as a short sale, listed exclusively by your Carmichael Realtor Elizabeth Weintraub, Lyon RE, at $229,000. Please call 916.233.6759 for a private showing. Just so you know, I hold the dubious honor of having closed more short sales over a 7-county metro area in Sacramento than any other agent.
Can This Carmichael Short Sale Be Saved?
A short sale home in Carmichael closed escrow this week that might not have closed at all if it had fallen into the paws of some other Sacramento short sale agent. But fortunately, the seller called me. It was kind of like a story that could be printed in a national magazine. Remember those magazine articles from Ladies Home Journal: Can this marriage be saved?To be honest, I wouldn’t read the story, you know, I’d just say NO and throw the magazine back on the table in the doctor’s waiting room. Well, this is a version of what I call: Can this short sale be saved?
It had everything set against it except willing participants. There were a lot of drawbacks. See, as a Sacramento short sale agent, I know that the secret to closing a short sale is to correctly assess the situation upfront and address potential issues. Here were some of the issues with this particular Carmichael short sale:
- Green pool
- No water service
- Charged-off first mortgage
- Second Bank of America mortgage
- Seller had no additional funds
Not to mention, the comparable sales could go either way. Up or down. It was a non-conforming Carmichael neighborhood with a mix of expensive and entry-level homes. That meant we could have difficulties with a BPO. There was also a slight odor from a cat. All the ingredients for a challenging short sale.
My first and foremost duty is always to the seller. We had to figure out a way to close this short sale with the least amount of problems and try to put some cash into the seller’s hands. We had to make sure the delinquent water bill did not become a lien, because in a HAFA short sale the seller cannot pay a recorded lien from the relocation incentive, but a seller can pay a utility bill. An agent who doesn’t do a lot of HAFA short sales would not know this fact.
We also needed to clean up the pool because the buyer for this house would most likely be an FHA buyer. You can’t get an FHA loan with a green, slimy pool. To clean up the pool, we had to turn on the water. The water had been shut off because nobody lived there anymore and the bill was a few months overdue. Another requirement for a HAFA relocation incentive is the seller has to occupy the property. The seller can do a HAFA without living in the home but she won’t qualify for the incentive if she’s not physically living in the house.
However, the icing on the cake with this short sale was the fact the loan had been sent to charge-off. The new lender was not a participant in HAFA. That meant the seller could not do a HAFA short sale. So, that idea was a moot point. On top of all of this, the short sale would be delayed because the second was held by Bank of America. This meant dealing with Equator for the second just like it was a first, except it wasn’t. Archaic procedure for a second mortgage. 90-day escrow period minimum. Every time I turned around, an obstacle presented itself.
Another Sacramento short sale agent might not have listed this short sale. I couldn’t do that to the sellers. The sellers were some of the nicest people you’d ever want to meet. Sweet, kind, caring. They had a strong attachment to the home. There was an emotional bond. It was not easy for them to sell this house. But I knew we just had to find the right buyer. There is always the right buyer for a home, even a home scented by a cat with kidney disease.
It took a while but we found a buyer. The sellers borrowed money from relatives, worked out a deal with the water company and shocked the pool. It was a struggle to keep the utilities on. People don’t think about what sellers have to go through to sell a short sale when they no longer live in the home. They have to pay for utilities in 2 homes. Many people can’t afford the utility bills for one home much less 2 homes. They have to protect the home and check it after showings because careless agents can leave doors unlocked, which is a disgrace in itself.
I was able to work out a compromise with the new first lender to pay an incentive to the seller even though she did not qualify for a HAFA short sale. It was enough to repay her relatives, pay the remaining balance of her water bill and ease other expenses. The lender gave us a break on the BPO due to the cat odor. We got approval from both lenders. And perhaps the nicest ending was the seller met the buyers the day it closed and was able to talk with them, show them how to operate the pool, listen to their ideas for home improvement projects and gracefully exit. That’s the ideal ending for every short sale: a graceful exit.
