Email Elizabethtahiti
A Day in Tahiti is One Day Too Long
You know the adage if a tree fell in the forest? If you don’t know that something exists, you might form your perceptions around that which you do know, because you’ve got nothing else to go on. Your reality is formed by your own beliefs and experiences. And in that way we all create our own reality, regardless of whether you realize it.
For example, when I was in my 20s, I used to think a great vacation experience would be to stay at a place like the Disneyland Hotel. To have room service, a real soft bed (instead of a waterbed) and peace and quiet. Today, not so much. That’s not because I’ve turned into some other weird haute person, it’s because I’ve discovered there are other options that don’t involve sharing your space with 50 million other people.
There is a place in French Polynesia that is home to one of the largest atolls in the world. An atoll is a place where the island has sunk in the middle and all that is left is the coral reef, which has long ago died and today is covered with sand, grass, plants. I swear, the weather is perfect; the water turquoise, brimming with tropical fish; and the resort boasts a small string of modernized and updated over-water bungalows.
I can see why a day spent in Tahiti is a day too long.
There is a first-time home buyer I referred from Sacramento to an agent in another town where I don’t work. The home buyer sent me a dramatic email a few days ago, begging for a new agent. The reason she did not want to work with the agent I referred to her was because the agent refused to answer her questions about the ethnic make-up of a neighborhood. No matter how we explained it to her, the buyer could not understand that federal Fair Housing law prohibits the discussion.
This is an agent to whom I will definitely refer more business.
When the Short Sale Bank Says No
You know the people I have empathy for? Is it my inlaws stuck in Chicago or my sister and niece in Minnesota who are enjoying those not-so-balmy temperatures? Or, is it the house sitters who are taking care of our home in Land Park? Nope, it’s those buyer’s agents in Sacramento who emailed some 20 offers yesterday for a home in Elk Grove. I answered email after email late last night after we landed in Tahiti. Explaining how many offers we received and how the seller is leaning toward accepting a cash offer. But the best news I got was not the short sale approval on yet another short sale in Elk Grove (which also arrived via email), it was the fact we received an extension from CCO Mortgage for my seller who is dying.
Short sale bank CCO at first said it would issue no such extension and would, in fact, start the short sale over if we could not close by December 20th. Sometimes it does not pay to take NO for an answer. I wrote a letter to the negotiator, set forth a plea for an extension, and the “absolutely no extension declaration” turned into a yes, here is your extension!
My Elk Grove seller is not a short sale though, which is another reason that buyers are climbing all over each other to buy that home. The dilemma is should the seller take a cash offer without an appraisal contingency or a financing offer? That’s a decision she needs to make. A cash offer will probably not yield as much cash as a financed offer as buyers who choose financing will pay more. They’re not forking out hard cold cash; they are financing that price increase. Of course, if the home doesn’t appraise for a ridiculous price, it doesn’t matter what a buyer offers to pay if it won’t close due to a low appraisal.
But how many offers does a seller need? Excuse me, there seems to be a large pelican-like bird on my deck that I need to check out. This is the view I woke up to this morning. Helps to put some of these dilemmas into perspective. All I have to say is Thank You, RBS Citizens Bank . . . and I hope my Elk Grove seller makes her decision soon.
