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Tweet the Bank of America Social Media Team
The Bank of America social media team gets 2 thumbs up — and 10 toes, too. Is your short sale stuck in a big black hole? These guys are lifesavers. It was a brilliant move by Bank of America to put a social team out there to help short sale agents because God knows we need the help. If you ask employees at Bank of America, they will tell you in more ways than one. It depends on who you’re talking to and on which side of the fence you stand.
Just yesterday I was talking with a Bank of America third-party vendor at Service Link about a Cooperative Short Sale. She asked me why the seller did not want to do a HAFA short sale. I could hear she was writing down the answer because she repeated back to herself each word I spoke very slowly: Rather Poke Out Eyes.
The Twitter team for Bank of America is my ace in the hole. I hate to wear out my welcome mat but it seems that I end up sending a Tweet to them at least once a week or so. I imagine they have a super tough job, so I try to be especially nice. After all, by the time a short sale agent sends a Tweet to Bank of America, that agent is probably pretty frustrated. I suspect the social media team is specifically trained to listen to rants, screams, tantrums, and that’s just at hello. I bet they get beat up a lot. Resilient bunch. Bank of America, you should give those guys a raise.
There is only so much the social media team can do. What they can’t do is get a short sale approved. They can’t fix a mistake made by a negotiator, and there are plenty of those to go around. What they can do is get the negotiator to call this Sacramento short sale agent.
A few days ago I needed the BPO for a Cooperative Short Sale. I knew the BPO had been completed the first week of August, but this is where Bank of America falls down on the job for these Cooperatives. That BPO needs to be communicated to the listing agent so we can put the home on the market at the preapproved price. But Bank of America vendors tend to withhold that information until they get darned good and ready, if ever, to send out the valuation letter. Trying to get it out of them is difficult at best. That’s the last piece of data I need to put a Cooperative Short Sale up for sale.
After I sent a Tweet to the social media team and spoke to them, the negotiator called but I was on the other line. She left me a voice mail with her phone number. I immediately called her back and waited a few hours. No response. See, I know how this goes. The negotiator won’t respond for another 48 hours, if she responds at all. But the Bank of America social media team follows up. My guy called back to see if I had connected. Now, if I had told him that the negotiator called and left a message, he would have checked off the box on his list and said his job was finished. Instead, I said I had not spoken to the negotiator. That was the truth.
My social media guy looked up the records. It says right here that she called you and left you a voice mail, says he. Yes, that is true, but the negotiator did not tell me the amount of the BPO, which is the question I asked. I needed to know the BPO amount. I asked: Can you please get me that BPO amount? Because I have been waiting more than 30 days to get this information and I cannot proceed with this short sale until I obtain it.
Ten minutes later the negotiator from DTS called with the BPO amount. Eureka! I love these guys! Got a problem with your Bank of America short sale? Send a Tweet to BofA_Help through Twitter.com.
The Length of Time for a Sacramento Short Sale Listing
Home sellers don’t always read everything they sign, especially a real estate listing agreement. But I think it’s important for people to know what they are signing, so when I meet with sellers in Sacramento, I explain the purpose of each document. Sometimes, I can sense that they wish I would simply shut my trap and let them sign. They often don’t care. They just want to put that Sacramento home on the market and get it sold. They want to know where to initial and where to sign. Beyond that, it doesn’t much matter.
If I am meeting with a let’s-hurry-up-and-sign-these-stupid-documents-seller, I do point out a couple of things, nonetheless. That’s because I am sensitive to the mistrust issue. They don’t know this Sacramento real estate agent, but they have had friends tell them not to trust real estate agents. They’ve heard the stories. It’s unfortunate that I am in an industry that generates mistrust like this, but it exists, and I’d be foolish to ignore it. I don’t ever want to give any client any reason, regardless of how minute, to mistrust me because, believe it or not, I am actually on my client’s side. I want what is best for them.
So, I take a moment to point out when signing in person the length of my listing agreements. I don’t want a seller to discover it later and freak out. The term of a listing agreement is negotiable between the seller and the Sacramento listing agent. Having said that, I have my own practice of how I do things. I know what works and what doesn’t for me. I don’t vary my standard of practice. If a seller wants me to do something differently than the standard way I do things, then they can hire a monkey. There are monkeys for hire in this business. They can hire a monkey who will leap from tree to tree and do somersaults in the air for them. Maybe their home will sell and maybe it won’t. If they want performance and a guarantee on that performance, then they will let me explain how I do business and list with me on my terms. Over 30-some years, I’ve earned that right.
Especially when it comes to a short sale. I consider myself to be an experienced short sale agent. People know my name in Sacramento. I’ve closed hundreds of short sales in Sacramento. But I can’t guarantee that a short sale will close in 90 days. There are too many variances. Things beyond my control. I do my best to reign them in and prevent crap from happening, but I can’t guarantee that it won’t. This means I take my short sale listings for a year. Yup, 12 months minimum. Not because I think it will take a year but because I don’t know. Every short sale is different. That’s actually insurance for the sellers that I won’t bail on them. I won’t jump ship and leave them stranded. If a buyer cancels, I’ll find another buyer. If that buyer cancels, I’ll keep on finding buyers until we close.
But if a seller doesn’t want that kind of dedication and level of service, then by all means, list with some other Sacramento short sale agent.
Can a Sacramento Short Sale Agent Give Legal Advice?
Not only am a top producer who sells Sacramento real estate, but I also have a second job. I just returned from an About.com conference in San Francisco over the weekend. Some of you may not know that I write for About.com as its Guide to Home Buying, and I’ve been building and maintaining that website for 6 1/2 years. Whenever About.com hosts a conference west of the Mississippi, I try to attend. I always learn something new. One of the new things I learned at the About.com conference is Google no longer rewards SEO efforts in the same manner that it used to. Now, rankings are based more closely on authority. Which is excellent news for me. I’m not a big keyword stuffer.
But I am consistent. I write every day no matter what. I write about real estate in Sacramento and mostly about short sale transactions because short sales are what’s selling in Sacramento. I rank in the top 1% of agents at Lyon Real Estate, which is the largest independently owned real estate company in Sacramento. If I lose a ranking spot in Google to, say, HUD, it’s not that important to me. I am still found in the top 10 results on page 1 for hundreds and hundreds of real estate searches and real estate questions. To my readers, that makes me a real estate authority.
The problem with this is I am easily locatable. Thousands of people across the United States annually write to me and ask questions about short sales and real estate. I am a Sacramento real estate broker, so my phone number and email is in plain view. However, I am not a lawyer. I don’t practice law. I don’t give legal advice. Even if I know the answer, I can’t tell anybody. I sell real estate. I am paid a commission to sell houses, one by one. If I am selling a short sale, I am still paid a commission from the proceeds of sale. The law is very clear about what a real estate agent can and cannot do, and we can’t talk about legal matters with authority.
When I explain this to clients, they nod, say they understand, and then they ask me a legal question. Hypothetically speaking, you understand. Nope, still can’t answer it. If you need legal advice about a real estate matter, you absolutely, positively, without question, need to obtain that advice from an entity capable of giving it to you. That entity is not a Sacramento REALTOR. That entity is a real estate lawyer.
Will the bank release me from liability? Legal question. Does this short sale approval letter contain verbiage that protects me from a deficiency judgment? Legal question. Will doing a short sale stop the foreclosure process; how does SB 458 apply to me? Legal questions. If you don’t know the answers, you need a lawyer, not a REALTOR.
When I go to a client’s house, it’s to put that home on the market. I shoot professional photographs. I prepare my agent visual inspection. If there are ways to improve the showing condition, I share those thoughts with the sellers. Perhaps we want to do a bit of home staging or prepping. I generally find a good spot for the lockbox. We sign listing paperwork. We don’t discuss the legal aspects of the real estate transaction because I am not a lawyer. I suggest to all clients that they obtain legal and tax advice. Do they need it? I dunno. Maybe, maybe not. That’s for each client to determine.
If they need a terrific Sacramento real estate agent, they’ve come to the right place. I’ll get that home sold, and I guarantee my performance. Have over 30 years in the business. But I do not give legal advice. No reputable real estate agent would ever try to perform a service that she is not licensed to perform.
Make a Commitment to Your Sacramento Short Sale
If you’re committed to doing a short sale in Sacramento, you should be committed to the long haul, just like your Sacramento short sale agent. It’s kind of a two-way street. A seller promises to provide financial documents over and over until her eyes spin, and an agent promises to submit those financials to the short sale bank while keeping her personal opinions to herself. OK, maybe not that last part. The point is nobody gives up and splits.
An agent called me yesterday to say she had received short sale approval for a seller on a file she started working on about a year ago. She had struggles like we all have struggles. It was tough to get the home in marketable condition, and one of the parties to the short sale was not exactly cooperable. The agent had put the home on the market but could not open the short sale with the bank because she was missing documents. Her solution was to cancel the listing.
This is the thing about short sales and life in general. You can learn from your own mistakes or you can learn from somebody else’s. It’s easier to learn from somebody else. My suggestion to the agent was to put the home into temporarily off the market status, but don’t give up on your seller. Don’t look at the seller who isn’t cooperating, focus on the seller who is agreeable and committed to the short sale process. The other guy will come around.
Sacramento short sale agents have a responsibility to many parties in the short sale. As a listing agent, we have a fiduciary responsibility to the sellers. If there are two sellers, that responsibility extends to both parties, even if those parties are divorced and not speaking to each other. As a short sale listing agent, we have a responsibility to the buyer’s agent and the buyer, too. If an agent has reason to believe the short sale will not happen, the agent should not list that short sale nor present it for sale to the marketplace. It’s not fair to a buyer to sit in escrow week after week waiting for approval when it’s not gonna happen.
The agent took the home off the market and put it into limbo status in MLS. She continued to work on the short sale. She didn’t throw in the towel and walk away. She honored her commitment to the Sacramento short sale. It took a year but both parties finally cooperated and she received short sale approval.
I keep telling people this secret but they don’t believe me. The secret to a successful short sale is commitment. Don’t give up. Not every short sale will close the first time around. You might have to submit that short sale for approval a second time or a third time or a fourth time. My longest short sale was almost three years but we closed. It doesn’t matter how long it takes to close a short sale; it matters whether one is made from the material to see it through to fruition.
Make a commitment to your Sacramento short sale.
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
