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Short Sale Buyers Closed on Antelope Home With Free Equity
Happy short sale buyers are even happier after closing on a home in Antelope.
The short sale buyers who purchased my seller’s home in Antelope really lucked out on a terrific deal in several ways. As the top Sacramento short sale agent, of course I represented the sellers. The buyers were represented by someone else. We went on the market at the end of March, yet it took us 3 weeks to get an offer for this short sale. Even in a limited inventory market, there were still other homes in Antelope to buy that could close right away, so many buyers passed by this gem. Few want to look at short sales when there is an abundance of regular homes for sale.
Sitting quietly by itself in Antelope Trails among many grander and larger homes, this home seemed larger than it is. And it is larger. The strange thing about this home’s square footage actually affects many other homes in newer subdivisions. Not just in Antelope, mind you, but I have encountered this particular situation in homes in West Sacramento, homes in Lincoln, including homes in Elk Grove. The square footage can often be published incorrectly in the public records because builders made final changes to the floor plans without updating their own records.
This happens because maybe a builder offered a design plan that included a three-car garage but the buyers chose a two-car garage so they could utilize the extra interior space for an office. Or the plan called for soaring cathedral ceilings, and the buyers chose a master-suite retreat option that enclosed some of that space. Enclosing space on the second floor can also add square footage to a home. It’s an inexpensive option.
You might think: what is 300 square feet? These short sale buyers will find out when it comes time to sell. A simple way to figure the square footage benefit is if certain homes in Antelope, say, sell at $160 a square foot, an additional 300 square feet could mean another $48,000 in equity. The short sale buyers didn’t think about that when they trespassed on this property, poking around, peeking in the windows and then claiming the sellers had removed fixtures. You hear a lot of horror stories about short sales, but like I informed their agent, I don’t work with sellers like that. My sellers clean up their homes the best they can and are responsible people.
The short sale buyers who bought this home gained an extra 300 square feet or so on top of receiving a slight discount on price due to the waiting period. Free equity. With two loans, it can take 90 days to get short sale approval. These buyers also had a home to sell, but since most banks will not accept a contingent offer, I suggested that the buyers keep the sale of their existing home, if at all possible, out of the short sale offer.
Lots of moving parts and trust on both sides go into making short sale buyers close escrow. At least these guys didn’t mess up their credit report while they waited, like other short sale buyers I won’t mention.
A Sunday Afternoon for Pho, Lockboxes and Real Estate
Entrance to Pho Xe Lua, a Vietnamese Pho restaurant on Stockton.
When my husband and I were dating, he first introduced me to Pho, the Vietnamese noodle soup, while visiting Washington, D.C. It’s where he took me for breakfast. I thought he was a bit off kilter to want to eat soup for breakfast. My idea of a romantic breakfast was a fluffy 3-egg omelette, featuring plump tender scallops, spring asparagus and mozzarella cheese, not a bowl of steaming Pho, but it does grow on you. Especially since it gives me an excuse to eat jalapeños. Since then, we have been to many Pho restaurants, including the Pho Xe Lua pictured above, where we went Sunday afternoon for lunch.
Pho Xe Lua is one of the best Pho restaurants in Sacramento, and it’s located on Stockton, across from the Fruitridge shopping center. I ordered one of my favorite dishes, charbroiled shrimp and vermicelli. At Pho Bac Hoa Viet on Broadway in Land Park, you’re lucky to get 8 shrimp in this dish. However, at Pho Xe Lua, this dish was served with 18 shrimp on 3 skewers. The food was served super fast, and huge portions, more than I could eat. The only drawbacks were our drink orders arrived after the food, and my cafe sua da was a bit on the short side.
We were headed to Elk Grove so I could pick up a lockbox from a home that just closed escrow, and then off to Sport Chalet to buy snorkeling gear for me. Ever since that episode over Labor Day in Hawaii when I tried to rent snorkeling equipment and was refused due to “rough waters” and the hotel didn’t want to get sued, I have had buying snorkeling gear on the back burner. Plus, not every resort is like the one in Vanuatu that gave me the snorkeling gear when I checked in and I returned it when I left, and it was free. I’m going to Hawaii next week, and this time I am prepared.
Right next to the Sport Chalet in Elk Grove is a Pet Club store, where we found Fancy Feast Classic Chicken on sale at $11.00 for 24 cans. Fast math tells me we spend $165 a month on cat food to feed 3 cats. Doesn’t that seem like a lot of money to you?
As my husband began stuffing cases of cat food into our cart, my phone rang. It was a potential buyer for a home in Elk Grove. He pressed me for an appointment to tour homes in Elk Grove, and I asked if he understood that if the Elizabeth Weintraub Team shows him homes, that we will represent him and write the purchase offer. Oh, no, suddenly he had an agent, when he didn’t have an agent a few minutes earlier. Funny how when you put it that way to a home buyer, his memory improves.
Hiring a Bad Short Sale Expert Carries Consequences, Unlike Meeting, Say, Pope Francis
Margie Burgard, Pope Francis and Elizabeth Weintraub at Basilica Block Party
Another Sacramento Realtor might show you a photograph of the home in Elk Grove that just closed escrow, but I’m not just any ol’ Sacramento Realtor, as you know. Plus, when you have a photo of you standing next to, oh, let’s just say, the Pope, for example, well, you’ve got to share it, right? My sister Margie is on the left, and that woman with the crazy yellow hair — the result of a horrible bleach job at a salon on Riverside in Land Park, a hair salon, the name of which I shall not disclose but I won’t step foot in that salon ever again — that woman with the horrid hair, is your Sacramento Realtor. Plus, it’s a better photo than homes in Elk Grove with dead lawns.
We look pretty snazzy with Pope Francis, I have to admit. My sister just sent me that picture because I realized we had it shot last July when my husband and I were in Minneapolis for the Basilica Block Party. It’s not really the Pope, you know. It’s a cardboard cut-out. We could not get into see the Pope while at the Vatican, you have to reserve a Papal Audience months in advance. But this is second best thing, so we’ll settle for it.
Unfortunately, my sellers of the home in Elk Grove that just closed escrow had settled on an agent to sell that home before they were referred to me. If they had come to me first, they probably would not have been subjected to an almost year-long drama that went nowhere. The sellers had initially listed the home in March of 2014 with an agent who claimed to be a Sacramento short sale expert. At that time, they were current on the first mortgage and there was enough equity to pay off the first mortgage without including the first mortgage in the short sale.
For some reason, according to the sellers, the so-called “short sale expert” had reduced the price of the home to such a low point that it was not approved at that price. The sellers also claim that the “short sale expert” had not sent them the approval letter from the second lender but instead kept the letter from them for almost 6 months. Professionally, I have no idea how something like that could happen because it makes no sense and, if true, is against the law. But I checked the listing, and it was indeed listed about $50,000 below the approved price, and it was listed as pending expired, which was against MLS regulations.
I explained I could not do anything nor advise until the sellers and their short sale expert had parted ways. The sellers tried to cancel the listing, and the agent steadfastly refused. He felt that he’d put too much work into it, according to the sellers. Yet, if the allegations are true, he held on to the approval letter for a much higher price and did not share the letter with the sellers nor did he change the price and terms in MLS. The sellers said they had to threaten the agent and his brokerage to obtain the cancellation. They were furious. I would be, too. After the listing canceled, the old history listing contained fairly snotty comments about the condition of the property, stating it had all sorts of problems, that conventional financing was difficult and only cash would work. That’s like sabotaging the sellers in my book. What is wrong with some agents? Don’t answer that.
In any case, I wasn’t a party to any of that squabble, and we listed the home at a reasonable price we felt the bank would accept. Because of that previous listing, and given the fact the home did need a bit of pest work and a new roof, it took us 7 months to get a valid offer. I sincerely want what is best for my sellers. That previous listing hurt us a bit. We received lots of pretend offers and lowball offers and tons of showings, but we held out for that buyer we knew would pay the price we needed. The home sold at list price, I’m pleased to report, which was 15% less than the comparable sales — a fabulous deal for the lucky buyers! The buyers did not have to do any pest work nor put on a new roof to get a conventional loan. There were no lender required repairs.
We encountered a small glitch near closing. Because of the time that had passed, now the first mortgage and the second mortgage were both involved in the short sale. At the last minute, while I was in Minneapolis visiting my dying brother, the negotiator refused to approve the HUD because the buyer’s agent was crediting a small amount toward the buyer’s closings costs. We went around and around about California Civil Code 580e. I know that code inside out, and the basis of Senate Bill 458 that created paragraph E, and I insisted they approve the HUD, and their lawyers finally saw the light and agreed. So we closed. Just in the nick of time.
I just received an email last night from the sellers telling me I was right, they felt now that a tremendous burden had been lifted from their shoulders. They were very grateful for the referral to me. And this is what makes what I do worthwhile. But geez, I wish they would come to me first.
When Sellers Develop Emotional Ties to a Home
Tessa, Pica and Jackson watch Sacramento Realtor Elizabeth Weintraub work at her desk.
There is no better way to start the day in the life of a Sacramento Realtor than to begin by entering the term cat constipation into Google. Our diabetic cat Pica appears to be constipated. It wasn’t Tessa rolling cat poop balls around the house for amusement the other week, it was Pica trying to give us a message the best way he knows how. One of the feline sites about constipation even depicted cartoons of cats depositing poop in the litter box and my favorite: active regurgitation. It reminded me of the puking rainbow mouth you can do with Snapchat now. Cats, no matter how you look at it, are gross creatures.
At least they are quiet when my phone rings. But when I answer my phone, there is nobody else in my office area except these 3 cats, so they naturally assume I am talking to them. Even when it’s not my sweet kitty voice. Especially when I’m saying stuff like, this is the worst pest report I’ve seen in 10 years, or what do you mean you haven’t ordered the appraisal yet when the contingency release is due tomorrow? The three cats — they just sit there on the floor and purr. Or rollover to expose bellies to the ceiling.
This will be my memory when we eventually sell our home many years from now, when we’re old and feeble. Everybody develops emotional ties to a home. In fact, my client just asked for photographs this morning of her home in Elk Grove. I always offer to send my professional photography to my sellers so they have a keepsake album of their home. Just because they are selling a home does not mean they don’t have an emotional attachment to it. It’s hard to leave any home if you’ve lived there for a while because all of your memories of years gone by were created in that environment. Unless it’s a home of sad memories.
I have another client who would not go into her home when I showed up to shoot photographs earlier this year. She had too many unhappy memories and did not want to revisit them. She sat in her car in the driveway while I went inside to take photos. When I came out, she appeared severely depressed. I asked if she wanted a few photos of her children that I spotted lying on the floor. It’s not like I wanted to force her to go back inside, but I did want her to know that the photos were there and they might mean something to her. Not to mention, she probably did not want to leave them for strangers.
After she came back outside holding a few mementos, I talked to her for a while, explaining what I would do to sell her home. I don’t think she cared, so I stopped going into detail and just hugged her. That’s when she burst into tears. Selling Sacramento real estate is not about the numbers. It’s about the people. And preserving the emotional ties to a home.
Therapy Dogs, Suicide and Sacramento Real Estate
Therapy dogs are calming passengers at the Sacramento International Airport.
There are no safety guarantees in life and especially none in Sacramento real estate. For example, just when you think it’s safe to walk along the sidewalk in Los Angeles, a woman can fling herself out of a window with an intent to commit suicide and land on you. Will your insurance company try to assign contributory negligence to your claim because, in addition to looking ahead, and to the right and left, you neglected to look up at the sky?
This is a true story. A man was injured after a woman landed on him. She died. The woman jumped from the 11th floor of a hotel in Westchester and critically harmed a guy who was walking outside the Crowne Plaza Hotel at the Los Angeles International Airport, according to this suicide story in the Los Angeles Times. I mean, I worry sometimes about meteorites slamming into the earth but now I might have to pause and consider the possibility of human bodies falling from the sky.
A few months ago while driving Highway 99 to list a few homes in Elk Grove that afternoon, something fell from one of the overpasses on top of my husband’s car and put a big hole in his windshield. It could have been a squirrel for all I know except it would probably have to have been a mummified squirrel because there was no blood and the object was hard. It freaked me out a little bit, and then I realized I wasn’t driving my own car, heh, heh. Just kidding. No, wait.
Dealing with freaky things and stress is part of life in Sacramento real estate, I’ve come to learn over the decades I’ve been in the business. You just never know what will happen. You can only respond accordingly and professionally. I’ve noticed for some people, and by people I mean buyer’s agents, it means yelling, exploding and alienating everybody in the transaction. That’s just never been my style, and maybe that’s why I’ve lasted for so long. I accept responsibilities for my own acts and expect others to accept responsibility for theirs, although it doesn’t work that way for the other side.
Some people really need to calm down. I see they are also bringing volunteer therapy dogs to the Sacramento International Airport to calm passengers waiting in the terminal. It’s called the Boarding Area Relaxation Corps or BARC. The dogs are trained and brought to the airport by the Lend a Heart organization. They wear cute little vests that read: PET ME. It’s a good thing the dogs are wearing the vests because otherwise you wouldn’t know if they were a guide dog, and you can’t pet those kinds of dogs or their owners will bite you. I’ve tried, which is how I know this.
If only they could bring therapy dogs to a Sacramento real estate closing.
