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How to Avoid a Bad Mortgage Lender in Sacramento
You can reduce chances of getting a bad mortgage lender by staying local to Sacramento.
If you’re working with a bad mortgage lender, you probably won’t realize it until your file is submitted to underwriting and rejected. Because bad mortgage lenders, bless their little inexperienced souls, don’t generally mean to screw up your loan; you know, that’s not their intent. They should know the terms for which your loan will get rejected, but often they don’t. And to be even more objective, sometimes institutional lender guidelines allow for exceptions that mortgage brokers might not.
Let’s take Wells Fargo for example, just because that has been my most recent experience. As a top producer listing agent in Sacramento, I don’t work with Wells Fargo loan reps very often because most homebuyers in Sacramento choose to obtain their loan through a mortgage broker, and not a big box lender. They don’t like the impersonal service and mistakes they often obtain from big box lenders. Lenders all charge about the same rate. While you’ll always get those buyers who would throw their grandmother from the train to save 1/8% in rate while forgetting what happens when they bend over to grab the bar of soap, all the available lending money is pretty much the same big ol’ bag of money.
Still, I called this bad mortgage lender in San Jose when the first 3 weeks went by and my Sacramento seller’s escrow showed zero signs of closing. Let’s call that loan rep Dick, short for you know what. Dick explained the buyer could not qualify for a conventional loan because he had a short sale on his credit report from 3 years prior. The underwriter threw out the file. When I deal with these situations with our own buyers, we walk the file through underwriting for underwriting approval prior to even looking at homes, because conventional lenders are not required to make loans to people who had a short sale, and . . . the waiting period is 4 to 5 years, not three years.
In my opinion, this loan should never have been submitted for conventional financing due to the short elapsed period of that previous short sale.
But Wells Fargo did not disclose the short sale dilemma to us and, in fact, could not close this loan. I asked Dick why he tried to close a loan that did not fit guidelines in the first place. Because they make exceptions, he said. How many times have you gotten an exception? I pushed. A bunch of times. How many times, Dick? Would you say 10 times? Have you received exceptions 10 times? Well, yes. I don’t believe it. I’d say not only is he a bad mortgage lender, but he’s a liar, too.
The second time around, Dick at Wells Fargo suggested an FHA loan. FHA short sale guidelines are 3 years. However, unknown to us, the buyer was not intending upon occupying this property, even though the purchase contract stated he was an owner occupant. And let’s not even get into the fact his agent vanished for a while and I had to step in to help out the buyer. Of course, this FHA loan was not approved by Wells Fargo. The buyer lives and works in San Jose, not Sacramento, another fact undisclosed. You have to live in the home to get an FHA loan.
The only way I know that Wells Fargo rejected the loan is because the buyer received a rejection in the mail and contacted me when he couldn’t reach his agent. Dick over at Wells Fargo in San Jose could not be bothered to pick up the phone, call or send a text message. I contacted him using all 3 methods for four days straight. Usually, leaving voice mail messages and continuing to badger a bad mortgage lender will eventually get a response, but this time, nothing. No response. No phone call. Nada. The last time Dick failed to respond to me, the listing agent, or the buyer, he eventually would after I kept up the inquiries. This time, no. Communication should not be this difficult with these guys.
The buyer’s agent asked to extend while the buyer pursued a loan for investors. Nope, not doing it now. The seller will undoubtedly demand that you can cancel and submit a new purchase contract for the seller to consider, and the buyer will need to get approved through my recommended Sacramento mortgage lender. Unfortunately or fortunately — depending on how you look at it — my recommended mortgage lender could not approve the buyer because each desktop underwriting file, regardless of loan type, reflected a red flag. The buyer could not do an investor loan because then he would not have enough money to bridge the gap between appraisal and sales price.
I don’t know why bad mortgage lenders don’t see the same red flags. Maybe they look green to them, or maybe the mortgage guys aren’t wearing their glasses? Maybe they have canine eyes, and aliens swooped down at night to switch out their eyeballs? Dogs can’t distinguish colors between red and green. That’s the best explanation I have.
However, I did learn something new. There’s always a silver lining when you learn something new. Freddie Mac can now underwrite a file with a short sale after two years, providing the credit file is strong. If you’ve had a short sale on your record and want to buy a home in Sacramento, call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759, Lyon Real Estate. We close our escrows for our own buyers who’ve had a short sale because we don’t refer you to bad mortgage lenders.
Can You Get an FHA Loan on That Sacramento Home?
Many homes in Sacramento can meet guidelines for buyers to get an FHA loan.
Whether you can get an FHA loan on that home in Sacramento depends partly on the financing terms offered in the listing. And that depends on whether the listing was completed correctly by the listing agent. Some agents use templates; they don’t always proofread the documents before obtaining signatures and uploading the information into MLS, so they make mistakes. They might say a home is for sale with FHA terms when it is not or they might eliminate that form of financing when they meant to include it.
On top of this, if you ask the Sacramento listing agent if you can get an FHA loan on that home, some of those agents will undoubtedly not know the answer. If you ask if the listing is correct, the listing agent also might not recall whether she listed it with or without FHA terms. So it can be pointless to ask the listing agent these questions, and you also take a chance that the listing agent might tell you no, absolutely no FHA financing, when that could be a false statement as well. See the dilemma?
For example, take a condo complex in which many of the units are not owner occupied. In other words, the rental units exceed the number of owner-occupied units. That percentage alone is often enough to make the complex not a viable situation for an FHA loan, but that is not always the case. There are some complexes in which a buyer can obtain an exemption and still purchase the home with FHA financing.
The person to ask about that is your mortgage lender. I also know a Wells Fargo loan officer who has recently cleared underwriting with an FHA loan on a condo complex that is mostly occupied by tenants. That complex is not on the FHA approved list, either, so you can’t rely on that list.
If it’s a home that is listed without FHA terms, a buyer might consider whether she is willing to bring the home up to FHA standards in order to write an FHA offer that the seller will accept. Perhaps the home was built prior to 1978 and has peeling paint on the eaves. A buyer can offer to paint the eaves to get an FHA loan, relieving the seller of the liability and hassle, and that offer might go through.
But the one thing you don’t do is write an offer with an FHA loan requirement for a home advertised without those terms by assuring the seller you will take care of any issues and then later refuse to comply. Make sure you know what you are getting into when you initially view the home. If your agent can’t explain FHA repair guidelines to you (some cannot), ask your mortgage lender for assistance. Video record the home, note defects, tally the expenses and be fully informed prior to making an offer.
Be ready for a weird thing to pop up in underwriting because it can happen. But if you want the home, that’s what you do. If you need help buying a home in Sacramento, call the Elizabeth Weintraub Team at 916.233.6759.
Top 3 Tips for Buying a Home in the Sacramento Spring Market
Following Elizabeth Weintraub’s 3 tips are likely to lead to buying a home in Sacramento.
Before I talk about my tips for buying home in the Sacramento spring market, let me say that the Elizabeth Weintraub Team, our small band of rabble-rousers, are shaking up the real estate market in Sac Metro this spring. We ranked #2 for the month of March among all Lyon Realtors, and we have about 1,000 agents. We might have had the same type of production for February, now that I pause. February was so long ago, though . . .
Our Sacramento real estate market is moving fast and furiously. This means when a buyer finds a home to buy, he or she should make an offer. Among the many tips for buying a home that you can find online, probably the first tip you will read is for the buyer’s agent to call the listing agent and ask: how many offers do you have?
Top 3 Tips for Buying a Home in Sacramento This Spring
In this market, among the best tips for buying a home a home that I can provide is pay list price or better. I see buyers trying to negotiate like this is 1999 instead of 2016. I’m not sure if their agents have been sleeping under a rock or if the buyers themselves never watch the news nor read a newspaper. This spring real estate market is made up of no sellers, too many buyers.
The second tip is do not assume the listing agent will not receive an offer by the time your agent submits an offer. Just because there are no offers on the table at the time your buyer’s agent calls does not mean a half dozen might not show up between then, later and after your offer arrives. Don’t base your offer on the state of affairs at the time you write it. Base that offer on the future. Put your best offer out there because you might not get another chance.
There is no law that says a seller must counter all of the offers through a multiple-offer situation. Sellers are free to choose just the one offer that meets all needs. Some do that just that.
The final of my tips for buying a home in Sacramento this spring, you may want to pass on the cobweb agent and consider a professional buyer’s agent. All agents are not equal. Choose your buyer’s agent based on the type of lawyer you would want on your side if you had to go to court. If you wouldn’t want that agent representing you in court, don’t choose that type of agent to write your offer. Find an experienced agent who is busy in this spring market, and you’ll go into escrow.
Call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759. We serve four counties.
How to Find Listings in Sacramento
The days of posting paper listings in Sacramento are pretty much over.
It’s a good thing that I enjoy talking with people because I have a lot of buyers calling asking where they can find listings in Sacramento. They’ve been looking online at various websites, many which contain conflicting data on homes for sale, and they often think I am the listing agent. Sometimes I am the listing agent. I list a lot of homes in Sacramento. I’m a top producer. But more often than not they are finding the listing elsewhere, spot a name on that website they recognize, like Elizabeth Weintraub Sacramento Realtor, and they call me. Which is muy bien.
There are homes in East Sacramento that I seem to know more about than I probably should by now. Lots of calls on those listings. And another recently that has been on the market near Natomas for something like 672 days. It was first listed by an agent who has it listed now, but there was another agent in the middle who had it listed for a while. When the listing was withdrawn by the first (now present) agent, there must have been some sort of spiff because the listing agent left a photo of the chicken coup in MLS as the main photo and stripped out the others. Not only that, but the marketing remarks, an MLS violation, noted the seller had canceled the listing and did not wish to be resolisted [sic] to relist.
If I have enough time to talk with callers about their home buying needs, I will try to assist but some buyers don’t really want any help. They just want to call listing agents about listings, thinking the listing agent will force the seller to sell the home for less, which really doesn’t happen. That’s basically a myth. They also think they can find every listing in Sacramento and don’t realize they can’t. They will snort, “We’ve bought and sold homes before,” as though that means they thoroughly understand real estate in their small corner of the world, this complicated industry that I’ve been part of for more than 40 years.
The Best Place to Find Listings in Sacramento
Without a direct paid subscription to MLS or access through an agent who will set up a portal for them, buyers are stuck scratching the dirt for listings. Like a hungry chicken. Pollo hambre. It’s a lot of work to call agent after agent and ask about listings when the listings are not the agent’s listings, and the buyers don’t want to work with a buyer’s agent. They could simplify their lives, and make it so much easier on themselves to work with a buyer’s agent, but they seem hellbent on finding their own listings in Sacramento, which means they will miss some of the best homes available.
By the time they discover an outdated listing on a third-party website, that home might be sold. That’s how fast homes are selling in Sacramento this spring. Buyers should do themselves a favor and call a buyer’s agent to get listings matching specific criteria directly from MLS through a Sacramento Realtor. Or, they can continue to beat heads into the ground. Which is fine with us because it’s less competition for our own home buyers, whom we treat like solid gold.
The Best Day to Write an Offer on a Home in Sacramento
Presenting an offer on a home in Sacramento on Sunday might increase chances of acceptance.
Looking for the best day to write an offer on a home in Sacramento? It occurred to me this morning that I have not yet purchased airline tickets to Portugal and Spain for our fall vacation — because the best fares for international travel are typically 150 days to 225 days prior — which naturally made me start thinking about the best day to write an offer on a home in Sacramento. I usually prefer to postpone reservations for connecting flights because the airlines tend to alter a few weeks prior and it’s a fight to get back your original schedule. Sacramento is unfortunately a lousy origin for connecting flights, too, but regardless, I need to get cranking on those reservations now.
Timing is often crucial and knowing the right time can increase your benefits.
Of course, we all know the best day to go on the market in Sacramento, at least from a top listing agent’s point of view, and that day is Thursday at midnight. The best day to buy a home in always, hands down, right around Christmas time. The worst day to close on a home is the Friday before Memorial Day Weekend, primarily because everybody and their uncle is closing on that day so the chances of screw-ups are increased, plus buyers often pay a premium to movers then due to high demand. But when is the best day to write an offer on a home in Sacramento?
I propose that day is Sunday afternoon. For starters, many agents don’t work on Sundays, often for religious reasons some of which involve the adoration of rolling green hills and tiny little white balls, others go out of town, which means fewer offers and less competition in our hot seller’s market in Sacramento. The open house is most likely finished, and even if a buyer came through that open house and intended to buy the home, that buyer probably wants to sleep on it — the old snooze you lose scenario.
Further, the seller is most likely relaxed. Phones are probably not ringing, bosses aren’t demanding deadlines, kids aren’t screaming for dinner, it’s just a nice quiet Sunday afternoon — which in reality can be sort of a depressing time for some people. Especially for single people, I hear. Not in a Kris Kristofferson Sunday Morning Coming Down kinda way but just alone, isolated. A buyer could definitely brighten that type of seller’s afternoon by choosing Sunday as the best day to write an offer on a home in Sacramento! Imagine the elevated mood.
I know when I call sellers on a Saturday, for example, to discuss purchase offers, some home sellers might say they can’t talk because they’re working. What a coincidence. So am I, I might add. Yet, when I call on a Sunday afternoon, sellers are generally much more receptive to long discussions about the pros and cons of an offer and they tend to work with the offer. Especially if there have been no other offers during the open house.
Now that I stop to ponder, I put more listings into contract on a Sunday than any other day, so I’m fairly confident that Sunday could be the best day to write an offer on a home in Sacramento. What do you think?
