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Why the Buyer Matters for a Natomas Short Sale Offer
A good Natomas short sale offer involves a committed buyer.
Although it is rare nowadays to list a short sale because there are so few in Sacramento anymore, it doesn’t mean I change how we handle a Natomas short sale offer. The same rules apply, same principles and same practice. I know there are other listing agents who might grab the first Natomas short sale offer that comes along, but that’s not how I advise my sellers.
Having sold more short sales than any other agent in a 7-county area over the past 10 years, my experience as a top Sacramento short sale agent speaks volumes. We don’t want to drag the process out any longer than necessary. If the buyer refuses to conform to the practices we put into place, they are not a viable buyer for us. It blows my mind that buyer’s agents fight us, but they often do. They don’t think ahead, they don’t stop to consider the harm they cause, to the seller and the listing agent and everybody else in the transaction, when their buyer is not fully committed to the process.
But that’s true about a lot things. They want the world to conform to them and not the other way around. We don’t work with buyers like that. If they want to make unreasonable demands, submit lowball offers, fail to deposit earnest money, they can go make somebody else’s life miserable and not my seller’s.
We spent 8 days working with a buyer’s agent, who was wonderful, and her buyers, who were lovely and qualified, before going into contract. The buyers started out by asking for a shorter time period. We expect a commitment for 90 days and, if we get it done sooner, we look like heroes. But short sales can sometimes take 3 months. My experience has shown if a buyer won’t commit to 3 months, they are not candidates for a short sale. They are the type who might bail when the first shiny object diverts their attention.
They also thought the list price was negotiable. I am so freakin’ skilled at estimating market value and what a bank will take, that my sellers can rely on my estimate. If anything, prices could go up, not down. Eventually, though, after 8 days of negotiations, the buyers elected to accept our terms and our price. It was worth waiting for the buyers. It meant they were worth fighting for with the bank.
Sure enough, we got short sale approval for the parties within 6 weeks. We were also able to obtain a 10-day closing extension for the buyers since Trump’s FHA loan policy changes at the last minute messed this up. These buyers were a perfect match, and that’s what you need to close a Natomas short sale offer. We closed escrow yesterday, and the buyers now own a delightful home for $225,000 in Natomas. The most important component of many short sales is the buyer, next to choosing the right listing agent, of course.
How A Nationstar Short Sale with Freddie Mac Closed After 6 Months
Even small children are excited to close a Nationstar short sale © Big StockPhoto
You won’t find one Sacramento Realtor in town who wants to sell a short sale home three times, but every so often, despite precautionary measures on the part of the listing agent, it can happen, and definitely was the primary cause of yet another short sale home taking 6 months to close escrow. It’s generally not the short sale banks. It’s the crummy buyers and, yes, even their buyer’s agents are often to blame for failing to vet the buyers.
We put this Nationstar short sale home on the market in mid April, during the hottest time of the year in Sacramento that one can possibly sell a home. It still took 2 months to get a list-price offer. Idiots were submitting lowballs, pushing, demanding, when the comparable sales clearly supported a higher price. Finding the right buyer takes longer this year but eventually one shows up.
When we received a list-price offer, we discovered the mortgage had recently been sold to Freddie Mac, which meant we could no longer do a HAFA short sale, which was our first choice. But it was also good news in a way, because having Freddie Mac as the investor meant that this Nationstar short sale would not move to the auction process, which often can mess up things 10 ways from Sunday. We really dislike those Nationstar auction scenarios. Many delays and they never seem to work.
Freddie Mac asked for a slightly higher price and the buyer foolishly canceled. A month later, we found another buyer and went back into escrow. That buyer never deposited funds into escrow, for some reason. The seller gave the buyer a Notice to Perform and when the buyer failed to meet the terms, the seller canceled the buyer. It was during this negotiation with Freddie Mac when we discovered that although the sales price was fine, the net was not, which meant we had to reduce the amount the second lender would receive to meet the demand.
At this time, close to the end of September, we found our third buyer. This buyer was cash, fully vetted and invested in closing. The second lender let us know it needed to net more than our revised offer of $3,000. We added the small difference to the buyer’s contribution rather than raise the price, but the first lender rejected that idea, still we had to try to for the buyer’s sake. In the end, we added the difference to the sales price and everybody now seemed excited to close except, the day of closing, both banks rejected our final HUDs.
The new arm’s-length agreements that both banks produced allowed for a rent back from the seller, which is a new twist in short sales. Rent backs used to be prohibited. The sellers needed to rent for 30 days, had deposited funds into escrow and that’s what the banks objected to, primarily because the negotiators are not really trained in how to read HUDs. The Nationstar negotiator continued to insist that the rent was part of the proceeds, when it was a deposit from the seller.
Credits, debits, the process hurts their little heads.
Good thing this was a cash transaction, and we were not required to comply with RESPA, because we moved the rent deposit to a credit on the buyer’s side of the HUD. Both banks approved the HUD, with only 45 minutes left in the day to record. Which we met. Under the wire, successfully closed another Nationstar short sale.
