The Dark Side of Certain Short Sales

There is often a lot of anger in Sacramento short sales. Sellers can get stuck in any one of the 5 stages of a short sale, but I see a lot of them who struggle to push past the anger stage. It festers and churns, like a supervolcano underground, and it might never erupt. Unresolved anger can eat away at a seller’s inner core. That anger needs to be released, and hopefully not directed at their Sacramento short sale agent. Sometimes, I gotta duck to move out of the way of that flying fry pan.

The anger manifests itself in subtle ways that is apparent to me when I walk through their homes. I spot it in the ripped out speakers from the ceiling, the missing light pendants over the kitchen counter, the big hole in the front yard where a tree once stood. People who are not angry do not remove fixtures from a home. Fixtures don’t belong to the homeowner, they are part of the lender’s security for the loan. I also see anger in the dirt and debris left behind. Some sellers don’t even vacuum.

Why are short sale sellers so mad? They are mad because they have to do a short sale. Unfortunately, people who are this angry come to a short sale often as a last resort and not as their first option. They are mad at their boss for letting them go. They are mad at their spouse and children because they are there. They are mad at their new employer for not paying them a higher salary. They are mad at politicians, the newscasters on TV, and Chevron, Safeway, VISA and Wall Street. But most of all, they are mad at their bank.

The 5 Stages of a short sale are the same as the 5 stages of grief:

• Denial: They don’t open mail from the bank, and they ignore the late notices.
• Anger: They don’t want to live in the home anymore, just hearing their bank’s name makes them cringe.
• Negotiation: They write a hardship letter to the bank, asking for a short sale.
• Depression: They feel hopeless and helpless and out of control while waiting for short sale approval.
• Acceptance: They find a place to move into, and begin to heal after the short sale is granted.

The sellers who never move past the anger stage are often the sellers the banks reject for a short sale. They are the sellers who blame the bank for the mess they are in. If the bank never made them the loan, they wouldn’t be underwater, so it must be the fault of the bank. (It IS certainly the bank’s fault for not granting a loan modification and taking forever to eventually reject them.) If they need to provide just one more document, they absolutely will not do it, even if it means the home will go to foreclosure, and their credit rating will tank for the next 10 years.

These types are not really homeowners who should be applying for a short sale. These are homeowners who are simply stretching out the inevitable. Which is foreclosure. Deep down, they know it. And that makes them even madder.

While Elizabeth is in Cuba, we revisit older blogs published elsewhere.