Do You Know WOT WOT?

Pool at Hotel Molokai

An expression used in Molokai is wot wot; it’s a slang phrase for being informed about something and knowing what to do. Like knowing which end is up. I tried to explain it to my husband but his brain could not wrap around it. He kept asking about a punch line. There is no punch line. It’s kinda like telling somebody that they should know “what is what” after they’ve been in the business for a few years. The thing about wot wot is not everybody knows. When you come to a Sacramento REALTOR for advice, though, that agent should know wot wot.

That knowledge of wot wot is what keeps your transaction running smoothly and without a lot of complications. That’s not to say we can always anticipate exactly what an underwriter might come up with that could cause a problem in a file, which is where most of the woes in real estate today seem to originate.

Hotel Molokai Hawaii

We had an underwriter disclose yesterday that because a home was transferred into the name of a nonprofit organization as a charitable contribution prior to the end of the year that now that file is being treated like a flip, even though it is not a flip. Flip transactions require an additional appraisal.

In another transaction, the buyer, unknown to any of us except to his mortgage lender-slash-buyer’s agent, is on title to another property. By all rights, he probably should NOT have received a preapproval letter because that mortgage would have showed up on his credit report, and somebody, like his loan officer, probably should have questioned it. In this particular instance, the original borrower, who apparently could not qualify first go-around, is now trying to qualify for a refinance to remove the co-borrower.

There is no way the listing agent in this transaction would have known any of this information or could have determined it at time of offer acceptance. But it would have made a difference in the how the negotiations were handled had this bit of information been received by the agent.

So, while your Sacramento REALTOR may very well know wot wot, we don’t have a crystal ball to predict all the things that can delay a closing. But we move closer to it every day.