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Closing a Rocklin Short Sale With Ocwen and PNC
This story of a short sale involves a home in Rocklin that other buyers passed over, while still others offered silly-ass verbal lowball offers, and everybody complained about the condition, like I could do anything about it. It was owned by a somewhat off-center, very charming guy who, according to his account, managed to ward off 24 trustee sales. His hardship was rock solid and he seemed to have a genuine interest in selling as a short sale, so I agreed to handle the sale for him.
I guess he had tried with some other Sacramento short sale agent but got nowhere with it. He was feeling a little leery, too, I could sense. The first thing I asked him to do was take down the bunker-style divider separating the back of the home from the front. He was reluctant because it kept his air conditioning bills low, but hey, sometimes ya gotta make a choice. Sell your home and pay a higher AC bill or not sell your home. Besides, he could always replace the army blanket after a showing.
At first I thought maybe I’d find an arsenal of army weapons or something on the other side, but it was just a television and table and a cute cat. The house was a little messy, but I could also see he had made an attempt to pick up things and clean for my visit. You’ve gotta choose your battle in a short sale. I waited while he dug through his boxes and boxes of stuff to find me the financials we needed, we signed all of the paperwork, and I shot the best photographs I could, under the circumstances.
Almost a month went by before we received a bonafide offer. When I say bonafide, I mean an offer from a buyer whose agent has promised not to write any more offers for the buyer and a buyer who has agreed to wait for short sale approval. Those are the two elements we need to close escrow. A bonafide buyer and a professional agent. The rest are moronic time-wasters. It was a really good deal for a buyer who wanted to get into an upscale neighborhood in Rocklin. I’ll bet they picked up 15% or more of equity for free.
The seller had not made a payment in 5 years. Sometimes these types of short sales result in foreclosure because the bank is tired of dinging around and decides to seize the home because it’s profitable. Contrary to what the public believes, banks make money on foreclosures. But an Ocwen short sale is a little bit different in that I believe Ocwen is still in government receivership, so we pushed the government program: HAFA. The second was PNC, often a pain in the butt for inexperienced agents to deal with who will run for the hills when they see PNC, but its loan had already been discharged through a former bankruptcy.
I figured the bank had already lost the paperwork, so I gathered the bankruptcy documents I knew they would request and a few other docs. The seller was very cooperative throughout the ordeal, which always makes my job easier. Under it all, he was really a sweet person who cared for his frog in the pond, a dog and a cat, and who just needed help. We finally received HAFA approval about 60 days later, which gave the seller $10,000.
The problem then was the seller had no credit and no money (until it closed) and no place to move.
The thing about bankruptcy, though, is it wipes the slate clean. You can’t file again for another 6 1/2 years, so people will lend you money, albeit high interest rates, but you can get it. The seller found a job, then a mobile home, sold off most of his possessions, and moved just in the nick of time. I asked him to make sure to clean the home so the buyer would not get mad at the buyer’s agent. Did NOT want to hear the buyer was upset at closing. Because buyers will the blame their buyer’s agent, even though it’s not the buyer’s agent’s fault.
This Rocklin short sale closed like a charm on Friday. The home was so clean it astonished the buyers. They could not believe how beautiful their new home appeared to them. My seller got a fresh start, a new life, and that neighborhood in Rocklin got new homeowners. That’s a good ending to any story. It makes what I do worthwhile. When nobody else will take on a troublesome short sale, this Sacramento Realtor will do it and close it.
Tuolumne Meadows and a Rocklin Short Sale
One of the things about hiking in the wilderness is it gives one time to reflect. With me, though, I tend to think about my Sacramento short sales. Other people might reflect on the purpose of life, why we are here, where we are going. But I think about why so many people seem to believe that discharging mortgage debt in bankruptcy makes that debt go away, because it doesn’t. It’s secured debt. This must happen because some bankruptcy lawyers don’t fully explain to clients how real estate works. Or, maybe these lawyers don’t understand real estate?
In the case of a Rocklin short sale that just closed, I think the lawyers were betting on a foreclosure. When a foreclosure takes place, title is involuntarily transferred. But if the bank doesn’t foreclose, title will stay in the borrower’s name. Not to mention, the other twist, if a second mortgage is discharged through bankruptcy, only the liability is discharged; the debt remains until it is released. Enter the short sale solution.
Try explaining to an energetic and knows-he-is-right borrower that his debt is still there. It’s hard to say yes, your debt was discharged, but your obligation still exists. Those are words coming out of an agent’s mouth that make no sense to them. Because, gosh darn it, their lawyer said it was discharged. You know what? I am not a lawyer. I’m just a Sacramento short sale agent who will do your short sale for you if you want to do it.
That Rocklin short sale was a Bank of America Cooperative Short Sale. The bank had called the borrower, and it was the bank who explained to the borrowers that foreclosure had never taken place. Yeah, 3 years later; they still owned that home in Rocklin. The bank did not want to do a deed-in-lieu, either. It wanted the sellers to do the short sale, and it would pay the sellers to do it. The sellers found this Sacramento short sale agent. I’ve closed a lot of Cooperative Short Sales through Bank of America, and I knew exactly what to do.
We faced a few challenges. There was that slight problem of the water being shut off. Oh, and no other utilities, either. Did you know that Placer County will place a temporary water meter on the property for $300? A temporary water meter will allow a home buyer to do a home inspection. The sellers chose a VA buyer. Buyers who obtain VA loans often get the short end of the stick when trying to buy a home because sellers and some agents tend to believe that VA loans are nothing but trouble when just the reverse is true. Why is that? Why do we say we honor our veterans and then do the opposite thing by rejecting their purchase offers?
That’s what I was thinking about yesterday as we hiked to Elizabeth Lake in the Tuolumne Meadows at Yosemite National Park. It was straight up for 2.3 miles. Totally silent. You could pause on the trail to catch your breath — it’s over 8,000 feet in elevation — and hear a sound in the distance. It is a low hum, and sounds a little bit like freeway traffic, but you know there are no roads nor freeways nearby. Then you realize it is the sound of the wind through the tree tops. If you stand still for a few more minutes, the gust of wind heading your direction will arrive and blow through your hair. You’re connected to nature. There are no cellphones, no computers, no bank negotiators, no short sales.
Then, an older fellow comes bounding down the path, wearing a button-down shirt, shorts and hiking boots. He’s talking on his cellphone about his prostate. Discussing his doctor’s diagnosis and at least acknowledges the existence of other people within earshot by telling the person on the other end of the phone that complete strangers are now privy to his medical condition. My first thought was you can’t get away from them. My second thought was who was his carrier? Why does he have service and I do not?
Photo: Elizabeth Weintraub, Elizabeth Lake, Tuolumne Meadows
