Email Elizabethcooperative short sale
Let’s Talk Like a Pirate About Sacramento Short Sales
What do you say to a biker whose motorcycle is blocking your car? Probably the same thing you’d say to a short sale negotiator, but then I’m not Myrl Jeffcoat. And Myrl Jeffcoat would most likely not be talking to a short sale negotiator regardless of how great of a Sacramento REALTOR Mryl might be because Myrl doesn’t particularly want to do short sales. Myrl is not a Sacramento short sale agent like insane REALTOR Elizabeth Weintraub, but that doesn’t mean she can’t appreciate the horror stories.
Since it was International Talk Like a Pirate Day yesterday, Myrl and I went to lunch in Land Park to celebrate. We parked in front of The Golden1 over on Broadway. The security guard made me re-park my car more efficiently because it was his job to stand in front of The Golden1 to ensure that there are at least 3 parking spaces at all times in front of The Golden1. I suppose he’s also there to shoot the little old ladies from Target who might try to rob the credit union. I hear that bank robberies by women are on the rise, and I’ve got to say you’ve come a long way, baby. Or, maybe men just want things done more efficiently. Hard to say. I’m not gonna argue with a security guard who gives me a free parking spot in front of The Golden1. I deal with short sale negotiators day in and day out, and you just give them what they want. You don’t argue.
Although, yesterday, a negotiator at AMS called; she was a bit flustered. AMS is a third-party vendor for Bank of America, which is my favorite, favorite, short sale bank. Oh, say what you will about B of A, maybe it’s simply the devil I know, but I love doing Bank of America short sales. This negotiator had asked previously for the seller agency. It had not been uploaded to Equator because there was no task for it. She had opened tasks for 2 other things but not the seller agency.
I thought this for a minute, and it dawned on me that this negotiator most likely had no idea what a seller agency was, so why did she want it? I asked her. She wanted it because the buyer’s agent had sent an extra copy with the offer, and the extra copy was not signed. Her job is to get signatures. I took the time to explain agency disclosures. How they work. Why we sign them. And asked if the seller had signed agency disclosure on a document with the buyer and the buyer’s agent. Yup, they had. So we were good, and she did not need another document. Once the negotiator understood this, she withdrew her request. This short sale was submitted for approval.
On the other hand, after lunch at The China Buffet, Myrl and I started to walk back toward my car. Myrl stopped at the bar, adjacent to The China Buffet. She stuck her head in the open door and announced that the owner of a motorcycle was blocking a vehicle in the parking lot. She demanded they remove it. At first, I wondered why Myrl cared about somebody else’s car. It seemed like she was about to provoke a biker who was drinking at noon inside a bar. Myrl is a lot smarter than that. I looked again at the vehicle. It was a Mercedes. I used to drive a Mercedes but I bought a new car last year; although German, it is not a Mercedes.
Oh, wait.
Well, I pondered the situation and decided I did not know Myrl. Nope, I believe this woman is a complete stranger to me, and I would keep right on walking. Yes, I believe I will walk across the street and stand on the sidewalk to see how this plays out. You know, she watched me park in front of The Golden1. She watched me walk back to my car and move it to a spot that made the security guard very happy. And now she was yelling at a biker in a bar. Perhaps she should talk like a pirate about Sacramento short sales and that will get her out of that bar alive.
This is one of the reasons I really enjoy hanging out with Myrl Jeffcoat. There is never a dull moment. Unlike this other short sale with Bank of America. It’s an FHA short sale, so it’s not in Equator and is a whole other animal. We’ve been working on it since February. Let’s just say the HUD procedures at B of A are a tad flawed but they can’t be the king of all short sales. I’m grateful for the traditional and the Cooperative Short Sales. The FHA short sales are the price to pay for those. It’s a tradeoff.
Our negotiator at Bank of America promised after all of these months she would approve the short sale on Wednesday. Said as soon as we got her the extension from Citimortgage (there is a second loan who approved months ago), she would issue the approval. We were so excited. We emailed her to remind her of her promise to send the approval letter. In exchange, we received this email (I kid you not):
I will be out of the office starting 09/19/12 for an undetermined amount of time. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact New Negotiator assigned to the file. Customer Service phone # 866.880.1232.
I can see that it’s time to Tweet the Bank of America Social Media Team. Arrr, me mateys and drunken sailors. Yes, let’s talk like a pirate about Sacramento short sales.
Tweet the Bank of America Social Media Team
The Bank of America social media team gets 2 thumbs up — and 10 toes, too. Is your short sale stuck in a big black hole? These guys are lifesavers. It was a brilliant move by Bank of America to put a social team out there to help short sale agents because God knows we need the help. If you ask employees at Bank of America, they will tell you in more ways than one. It depends on who you’re talking to and on which side of the fence you stand.
Just yesterday I was talking with a Bank of America third-party vendor at Service Link about a Cooperative Short Sale. She asked me why the seller did not want to do a HAFA short sale. I could hear she was writing down the answer because she repeated back to herself each word I spoke very slowly: Rather Poke Out Eyes.
The Twitter team for Bank of America is my ace in the hole. I hate to wear out my welcome mat but it seems that I end up sending a Tweet to them at least once a week or so. I imagine they have a super tough job, so I try to be especially nice. After all, by the time a short sale agent sends a Tweet to Bank of America, that agent is probably pretty frustrated. I suspect the social media team is specifically trained to listen to rants, screams, tantrums, and that’s just at hello. I bet they get beat up a lot. Resilient bunch. Bank of America, you should give those guys a raise.
There is only so much the social media team can do. What they can’t do is get a short sale approved. They can’t fix a mistake made by a negotiator, and there are plenty of those to go around. What they can do is get the negotiator to call this Sacramento short sale agent.
A few days ago I needed the BPO for a Cooperative Short Sale. I knew the BPO had been completed the first week of August, but this is where Bank of America falls down on the job for these Cooperatives. That BPO needs to be communicated to the listing agent so we can put the home on the market at the preapproved price. But Bank of America vendors tend to withhold that information until they get darned good and ready, if ever, to send out the valuation letter. Trying to get it out of them is difficult at best. That’s the last piece of data I need to put a Cooperative Short Sale up for sale.
After I sent a Tweet to the social media team and spoke to them, the negotiator called but I was on the other line. She left me a voice mail with her phone number. I immediately called her back and waited a few hours. No response. See, I know how this goes. The negotiator won’t respond for another 48 hours, if she responds at all. But the Bank of America social media team follows up. My guy called back to see if I had connected. Now, if I had told him that the negotiator called and left a message, he would have checked off the box on his list and said his job was finished. Instead, I said I had not spoken to the negotiator. That was the truth.
My social media guy looked up the records. It says right here that she called you and left you a voice mail, says he. Yes, that is true, but the negotiator did not tell me the amount of the BPO, which is the question I asked. I needed to know the BPO amount. I asked: Can you please get me that BPO amount? Because I have been waiting more than 30 days to get this information and I cannot proceed with this short sale until I obtain it.
Ten minutes later the negotiator from DTS called with the BPO amount. Eureka! I love these guys! Got a problem with your Bank of America short sale? Send a Tweet to BofA_Help through Twitter.com.
Welcome to the Sacramento Fall Home Selling Market
The Fall home selling market in Sacramento starts today! Aren’t you excited? Many people don’t even realize that Sacramento has two real estate markets. Some concentrate only on Spring home selling without realizing homeowners get a second chance to sell in Sacramento, and that season starts in the Fall, the day after Labor Day weekend.
After the vacations are over. After the kids are back in school. After it’s no longer considered cool to wear white, that’s when your real estate market in Sacramento takes off. The only problem with this is the market was already steamin’ hot in August. It’s a seller’s market in Sacramento, for those of you who have been living under a rock. It’s no longer a buyer’s market and hasn’t been for some time.
The conditions in Sacramento are tough, almost as tough as driving down the hill from Lake Tahoe after Labor Day in crawling bumper-to-bumper traffic. I swear, we probably would have been better off if we had turned off at the intersection and drove out of our way to Jackson than continuing to inch along Highway 50 from Tahoe. We have tough conditions in Sacramento because we have about 10% of the number of homes for sale that we had 5 years ago. Mix that with low interest rates, below 4%, and throw in first-time home buyers on top of cash investors, hit the chop button, and you’ve got a blender full of something inedible.
I’m doing my part to help. This Sacramento REALTOR has a handful of new listings today hitting the market. Fresh-faced and scrubbed. Priced right. First-come, first-serve. We don’t play favorites. There’s a home in the Pocket that’s been pre-approved by Bank of America as a Cooperative Short Sale. There’s a newer home in Natomas under $150,000, offered as a short sale. How about a hot little number in Arden Manor as a starter home? We also have another Cooperative Short Sale with 4 bedrooms near Elk Grove, passed over by a confused soul. Coming attractions this week include a home near College Greens that is a traditional sale, offered by a seller with equity, and a third Cooperative Short Sale in East Sacramento’s River Park.
I tell Sacramento home buyers to look on my website for new listings, and to stay away from the dated inventory they find elsewhere. But do they listen? What do you think?
Bank of America Cooperative Short Sales vs HAFA Short Sale
Don’t ask a third-party vendor for Bank of America whether a Cooperative Short Sale is better than a HAFA short sale. Because I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts the vendor will pick the HAFA. Doesn’t matter whether it’s DTS, REDC, AMS, and so forth, all the acronym companies, they’re all the same. Call me silly, but that’s what I see happening, even though the HAFA is not necessarily the better option. It’s possible that Bank of America would push / promote HAFAs as well because there might be more money to the bank through a HAFA.
When I open a Cooperative Short Sale in Equator, the first thing that happens is my requests for a Cooperative are ignored. The third-party vendors pursue the HAFA. I send emails that say do NOT review this for HAFA because the seller wants to pursue a Cooperative Short Sale. Then, I ask the seller to call the customer service number and repeat over and over Cooperative, like a mantra. If the customer service rep says HAFA, the seller is counseled to say “No, Cooperative.” Yet, the bank opens a HAFA anyway. You’ve gotta ask yourself, why is that? I’ll tell you why I think they’re doing it, and it’s not because they’re stupid, although you may disagree. It’s because there is probably more money in it for the bank.
Is the HAFA better for the seller? Speaking strictly for a California short sale seller the answer might be no. Let’s make it clear I am talking about a streamlined Cooperative, a short sale in which Bank of America has delegated authority to approve without financials. I have a certain Cooperative approved, and Bank of America is telling the seller that in order to do the Cooperative without financials, the seller must be 90 days delinquent to satisfy this particular investor. But in a regular Cooperative short sale, the seller is better off with the Cooperative over the HAFA.
Especially if the seller qualifies for the HIN Cooperative Short Sale, because that minimum payment starts at $5,000 and can go up to $30,000. A HAFA short sale maximum payment is $3,000. However, you can combine the two types of short sales, when you get right down to it, if you’re willing to submit financials and tax returns, and I’m getting approval on one of those in a few weeks.
But if you’re not willing to hand over your sensitive personal information and you just want to do the Cooperative Short Sale without financials, the Cooperative beats HAFA in the PITA classification every time. Some types of Cooperative short sales pay $2,500. Even when you take into consideration the $500 difference vs the PITA, let me tell you, a Cooperative short sale wins hands down. In fact, the only thing worse than a Bank of America HAFA short sale is a Bank of America HAFA Fannie Mae or Bank of America HAFA Freddie Mac short sale — with Freddie Mac HAFA having the slight edge for winning the crawling-through-broken-glass-naked award because it doesn’t use the ARASS.
If you’re got a choice, pick the Bank of America Cooperative short sale. Your Sacramento short sale agent will thank you. Your mother will thank you. Your doctor will thank you. And you’ll sleep better at night.
