Email Elizabethsacramento short sale agent
Major Bank Settlements Pay Cash for Short Sale
Can you get money for doing a short sale with Bank of America, Chase, Wells Fargo or Citimortgage? That’s most likely the question in the minds this morning of many past, present and future short sale sellers. You might get enough cash to take a French Polynesia vacation, you never know. The New York Times reports payments as much as $125,000 to reduce principal balances could be offered as a result of these bank settlements. And the bank I see paying out the most in Sacramento is Bank of America on those Cooperative Short Sales. Yup, banks will pay cash for short sale.
Remember way back when, when this Sacramento short sale agent suggested that Bank of America was actively dumping those old Countrywide loans? It seems I was right on the money with that call. If I spotted a Countrywide loan in a short sale, on that hunch alone, I routinely directed the seller to a Cooperative Short Sale. Never had a Cooperative that way rejected. I have probably initiated more Cooperative Short Sales on my own through Bank of America than any other short sale agent in town.
I recall one instance in particular. I was dealing with a third-party vendor, either REDC or DTS, don’t recall, there are so many. This particular third-party vendor was telling me we had to do a HAFA, and I insisted, no, it needed to be a Cooperative Short Sale, even though I was going out on the limb a little with that demand.
I was driving through Midtown Sacramento with the top down on my car, so it was hard to hear the caller on my Jawbone, but we argued for a good 14 blocks, all the way from J Street to Broadway. Finally, I suggested she call her supervisor to discuss because I didn’t want to hear from her again about a HAFA when this short sale was destined to be a Cooperative. Sure enough, a day or so later, the bank switched to a Cooperative despite the negotiator’s initial objections. That seller received more than $10,000 to do the short sale and no documentation was required. It can pay to disagree with an individual’s assessment. Because individuals aren’t always right.
For months, Bank of America has been releasing servicing. Sometimes, the service release happens smack dab in the middle of a short sale, which is a rude awakening. The bank needs to pay Fannie Mae $11 billion and needs to get that money somewhere, so it’s dumping its loan portfolios. Part of the problem with that is it’s reducing competition among lenders if Bank of America withdraws from the mortgage market. When competition is reduced, it hurts consumers.
It will be interesting to see how this all plays out. If you’re looking to see if you could be a lucky recipient of cash for a short sale, call this Sacramento short sale agent and I’ll check it into for you.
Photo: Flower of Tahiti, by Elizabeth Weintraub
Lunch in Vaitape
The thing about wearing a flimsy poncho in the rain while walking down the street in Vaitape is not that people look at you funny and laugh, which they do; it’s that the poncho sticks to your skin and makes you sweat. Profusely. Even though you may be a woman and you don’t sweat. Women perspire. Men sweat. But my husband is not sweating because he is soaking wet and is not wearing a poncho. He might even feel a bit morally superior but his passport is soaking wet and mine is not.
However, if I cared what people thought about me, I would not run around scaring them half to death by letting my hair do whatever it feels likes doing. In the rain, it feels like frizzing out. I’m sort of a cross between Bride of Frankenstein and Lyle Lovett. But do I care? No, I do not. I also do not care because I put up with enough abuse in my other life as a Sacramento short sale agent.
What I care about today is the enormous mosquito bite that appeared out of nowhere just slightly above where Ecuador would be if Peru was my naval. I did not put insect repellent on my stomach. And this is what I get for that oversight. A huge honkin’ mosquito bite that is causing me to want to rip the flesh off of my belly by grabbing the closest sharp object and scraping it off me.
We are having a wonderful time, regardless. Looking for lunch in Vaitape. Rain dripping down my nose as I tighten the strings around my little hoodie. We stop to admire a banana plant. Some 10-year-old boy with hair swinging down his back rode by on a bicycle and yelled “banana” at us, just in case we were too stupid to figure out that we were looking at a banana tree. We did not know where we were headed exactly, but figured sooner or later we would come upon the restaurant we were looking for, which would be Le St. James on the bay in Vaitape. How hard could it be to find a restaurant in a city with fewer than 5,000 people? Not very hard.
I include a photo I shot here for you. The prices are incredibly cheap for a $75 lunch as compared to dinners at St. Regis. All prices are quoted in Franc-er-roos. You can spend 20,000 Franc-er-roos quite easily for lunch. Maybe 30,000 Franc-er-roos for dinner. We split a dish of curried shrimp on angel hair pasta, downed 2 Coke Lights and I ordered the beef prepared four ways. Tartare, grilled rare, carpaccio and something called half-cooked that was actually half-cooked. The Le St. James Restaurant seems like a pretty decent place for dinner, too. It’s just that it takes a golf cart ride, then passenger ferryboat, then shuttle bus, then walking 8 or 10 blocks by taking your life in your hands though the center of Vaitape to get there.
But how often do you get to Bora Bora? And when you do, stop for lunch in Vaitape.
Types of Bank of America Short Sales
This Sacramento short sale agent closed a bunch more Bank of America short sales at year end. I seem to close more Bank of America short sales than any other kind of short sale in Sacramento, although I doubt there is a bank out there that I haven’t dealt with. It’s just that Bank of America seems to dominate. So, that means I am very familiar with Bank of America. Here are some of the variations of Bank of America short sales a short sale agent can do:
- Bank of America HAFA short sales
- The Bank of America Cooperative Short Sales
- The Bank of America Streamlined Cooperative (which are different than regular Cooperative)
- A Bank of America Fannie Mae short sale
- A Bank of America Freddie Mac short sale
- A Bank of America FHA short sale
- A Bank of America VA short sale
- A Bank of America Fannie Mae HAFA short sale
- A Bank of America Freddie Mac HAFA short sale
- A Bank of America Fannie Mae Cooperative Short Sale
- You will not be able to do a Bank of America Freddie Mac Cooperative Short Sale because Freddie Mac does not participate in the Cooperative Short Sale Series . . .
And this is just to name a few combinations.
But a few days ago, a negotiator threatened to return funds. That happens sometimes. Not that funds are actually returned, just that the bank threatens to return the wire, which means it won’t accept the final payoff and the short sale is not really closed even though the documents have recorded.
Why? Why would a bank do that? In this case, the closer suddenly noticed that a second borrower did not sign the deed to the new buyer. This was not an escrow mistake. This was done on purpose. The reason the borrower did not sign the deed is because the second borrower was no longer “on title,” meaning the borrower had conveyed her interest via a deed to the first borrower. The closer claimed legal things such as the recorded deed and the title insurance policy vesting did not matter and that the second borrower absolutely should have signed the deed out and be noted on the HUD. RESPA be damned, was the attitude.
See, this is yet another reason why banks do not belong in the real estate business. Not to mention, how did a file get all the way through the short sale process at Bank of America if this was an issue? It’s because it’s not really an issue.
Photo: Elizabeth Weintraub, tropical fish in lagoon at Bora Bora
NGR is Why Buyers Cancel a Short Sale
Buyers tend to cancel a short sale for NGR.
This Sacramento short sale agent rarely loses a short sale for any reason. Oh, sure, sometimes I will end up with a seller who pleads with me to put her out of misery and to let her home die a faster death through foreclosure, but thank goodness those situations are unusual and scarce. Most sellers want to do a short sale regardless of how painful. They are willing to pay the emotional toll to the troll known as the short sale bank negotiator at their lender’s bank.
My success rate is an open book. Anybody can go to my website and look at my closed short sale transactions for the year. Apart from all of my closed listings, visitors can also view the list of closed short sales in a separate link titled closed short sales in Sacramento. I close short sales from El Dorado County, to Yolo County, Placer County and all the way to the communities of Wilton and Galt in Sacramento. If it’s a short sale, you’ll probably find me there.
I attribute this success to 2 things. I don’t give up, so I don’t listen to the word No. And we try to qualify the buyers. To lessen the chance a buyer will cancel a short sale. A short sale is like juggling many different pieces with a future goal for everybody to all end up in the same place on a certain day, and yet each of those pieces is like a cat, wanting to go in its own direction. You want to juggle cats for a living? Welcome to the life of a Sacramento short sale agent.
We all want to reach that happy spot, the end of the rainbow. And yet, every so often a short sale ends up going back on the market, generally right after it’s been moved into pending status, upon short sale approval. When it does, buyer’s agents call me to ask why the buyer canceled. That’s a normal question but typically the answer is NGR. I’ve weeded out all of the ordinary objections upfront. After short sale approval, there is basically NGR to cancel.
Oh, but what if something is wrong? Like the furnace won’t turn on or god forbid should the bathtub fixtures not match those in the sink? Welcome to home ownership. The next house in 6 months could have something malfunction as well. You want the house, you buy it. You don’t want the house? Next.
I shot the photo on this page yesterday. It is the rainbow over Bora Bora on New Year’s Day. Welcome to 2013.
The Best Part for a Short Sale Agent
I’ll cut right to the chase. The best part of a short sale for a Sacramento short sale agent is at closing — but the reason why it’s the best part might surprise you. A fellow short sale agent friend in Virginia says one of her associates reports that she dreads closing a transaction. This agent says when a transaction closes, it means she is in the unemployment line. Out of work. Searching for new business. Depressed. That’s crazy. Because closing is the best part of the short sale for the short sale agent.
It’s not the money. Heaven knows it’s not the money. Short sale agents do 2 to 3 times the work in a short sale over a regular equity transaction for the same amount of money. Why would anybody in her right mind do 2 to 3 times the work for the same amount of money or, even less, because sometimes in a short sale an agent has to discount her commission or kick back some of it to make the deal work for the bank and the seller. What kind of fool would willingly do that? Who knocks herself out like that?
For starters, it’s because that’s where much of the business lies in Sacramento. Something like 1 out of every 3 escrows is a short sale. So, if an agent doesn’t work in the short sale end of the business, she’s missing a lot of business. If an agent specializes in short sales, like this Sacramento short sale agent, she gets a lot of business.
One thing is identical across the board. When the short sale closes, and I get to make that last phone call to the seller to say it has closed, well, that is truly the best part. I can hear the sighs of relief over the phone. The giddiness that it’s over. The happiness of being able to put the ordeal behind.
Because I am in French Polynesia right now, I have missed calling my sellers at closing. I have no cellphone in this part of the South Pacific. My TC calls to let them know; I send an email. But sending an email is not the same thing. It’s especially rewarding the last few days of the year, when sellers are worried about year-end reporting and income taxes like now. I had 4 closings on Friday and I’ll have another 6 or so on Monday. So, my TC gets all of the fun at the moment. She deserves it. She works just as hard and rarely gets to hear first hand how happy sellers are when a short sale closes.
Photo: Sunset in Rangiroa by Elizabeth Weintraub
