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Is the Third Time a Charm in a Sacramento Short Sale?
There is a saying in the Sacramento short sale business that the third time is a charm. Agents who sell a lot of short sales might chuckle over this statement because it’s absolutely true. We don’t want to sell a home more than once, but sometimes, there is no way around it, no matter what we do. Apart from forcing a buyer we’ve tied to a chair in an empty warehouse to listen to Stuck in the Middle With You, we can’t really interrogate them.
OK, that was just a sick joke. But when you sell a home a third time, that’s where your mind goes and the sellers follow that thought process, too.
As the seller’s listing agent, I do comb through the supporting documentation sent by the buyer’s agents and try to make sense of an offer for my sellers. For example, I recently received a cash offer from an investor with proof of funds attached. In the proof of funds — which was outdated by more than 30 days rendering it unacceptable to a short sale bank — were a series of checks drawn in the sum of $1,000. The funds in the account were barely enough to buy more than one house. What does that tell you? Yeah, they promise they aren’t making other offers, and it’s possible they have a sick relative somewhere they’re routinely sending $1,000 checks to, but I kinda doubt it.
We closed an escrow last week that had been in the works since spring. This was a home in Antelope that was a short sale with two loans, one of which had been discharged, and then a third lien popped up during a title search. This was a judgment against the seller, so the home could not be sold without its release, and the short sale bank sure as heck wasn’t gonna allow payment of that. But I’m used to the tough deals.
We sold the home the first time to a buyer who appeared qualified. After we received short sale approval from both the first, Ocwen, and the second lender, GMAC, the buyers’ lender re-evaluated their financial situation. Somehow, that situation had changed, and the buyers no longer qualified.
We sold the home a second time to a cash buyer who was very eager to close. Somewhere along the line this buyer decided she was paying too much for the home because, after all, she had a sister who bought a home nearby who paid less. Didn’t matter to her that the homes were not comparable to each other, she canceled. Cash buyers can be fickle.
By the third time we sold the home, GMAC, the second lender, had sold the worthless piece of paper to a collection agency, so we had to get a new third party authorization, wait for a new account number to be assigned, and then submit to the new second lender. Plus, the seller had long ago vacated. We figured the judgment creditor would probably now want additional interest, but they were happy just to get paid, thank goodness. We received approval and closed last month, just after we discovered a water leak in the laundry room.
Like I said, the third time is a charm. If you want an agent who will sell that house again and again if need be, call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759. As a top Sacramento short sale agent, I possess a lot of patience.
Equator Starts the Day for a Sacramento Short Sale Agent
When it’s 5 AM in Sacramento, it’s 8 AM on the East Coast. I get a head start on my day by updating my Sacramento short sales before people start calling. However, I am finding it is increasingly difficult to write my blog uninterrupted on a Tuesday morning because all of the short sale negotiators in Equator are up and at ’em first thing. It’s like they don’t touch their computer all week or something. They wait until Tuesday. My inbox begins dinging with Equator emails at 5 AM. I could not imagine looking at a file only once a week, but that’s how some short sale negotiators seem to handle their workload.
Many short sale lenders are using Equator now for processing short sales. We’re all anxiously awaiting for JPMorgan Chase to join Equator but it doesn’t seem to be happening. I keep hearing rumors that Chase will be on Equator. First, it was last summer, then by this fall, and it’s just not a reality yet. But we do have the top 4, which are Bank of America, Wells Fargo, GMAC / Ally and Nationstar.
The thing with Equator — as I was explaining yesterday in my presentation to the ballroom of agents at Lyon Real Estate’s FRED (Fun Realtor Education Day) event — is it over communicates. It used to send agents emails containing specific messages and those messages were also kept in a property folder on Equator. Now, for some reason, Equator generates an email to tell a Sacramento short sale agent that there is an email in Equator. And when the agent gets to Equator, the email directs the agent to a task. Except the task is not really always a task. I prefer the old method because I knew what I was getting into before I got there. It’s not always worth it to open Equator. Sometimes, the messages are pointless.
Not only are some of the messages pointless, the messages can also be “system generated.” A system-generated message will say things like somebody is reviewing documents. But nobody is really reviewing documents. Yet, I am not about to complain about Equator. No sirree. I know what life was like for this Sacramento short sale agent before Equator, and I never want to go back there.
It’s bad enough that I have to work on Bank of America FHA short sales outside of Equator. I don’t wish that horrible experience on any short sale agent. I love Equator and an Equator short sale. I am Equator Platinum Certified, not only for short sales but also for REOs. I received certifications for both. I don’t handle REOs, but you never know, one day I might. I have belonged to Equator since its transformation from REOTrans. It’s a lifeline for Sacramento short sale agents.
