The Chicken or the Egg in a Sacramento Short Sale

The bickering that goes on between lenders in a Sacramento short sale remind me of kids. Maybe that’s because we don’t really grow up, we just get wider. Like, I don’t wanna eat it, YOU eat it. I know, let’s make Mikey eat it. Except Mikey is now all grown up, living in New York and earning a living hawking ads. But you know where I’m going with this, right? I’d like to talk about when we have two loans on a short sale. That’s when we run into what comes first: the chicken or the egg?

The first lender in this Sacramento short sale doesn’t want to issue approval until the second lender issues its approval letter. Of course, the second lender doesn’t want to issue its approval letter until the first lender issues its approval letter. And we can go around and around and around until we’re blue in the face, but nobody is gonna budge. They’ve got their positions staked out, and by golly, they’re not moving.

In California, I have to side with the first lender. Because it makes the most sense for the first lender to be reluctant, and I’ll tell you why in a minute. But first, let’s look at the second lender. The second lender is in a position of jack squat. The second lender, especially if it’s a purchase money loan, will get wiped out in a foreclosure and end up with nothing. It is in no position to negotiate. The only position it has is to disqualify the short sale and stop the short sale from going through, but that’s like cutting off your nose to spit your face. It’s just plain stupid. The second lender stands to receive funds, generously donated, I should point out, by the first lender. Otherwise, it would get nothing.

The first lender gives up certain rights upon short sale approval that the second lender does not. Those rights involve dual tracking. It’s the only part of the so-called dual tracking law that affects a short sale, unless you want to wait until 2018 when the law really takes affect. It says that when a lender issues a short sale approval letter, the lender must stop all foreclosure action and the lender can’t move forward on a Notice of Default or even file a Notice of Default. So, give the first lender a break. Issue the approval letter.

Sometimes, the only thing you can do if the banks won’t see reason is to hope the second lender elects to sell the note to somebody else so you can start over with a new lender. In fact, maybe you want to give them a list of lenders who buy these pretty much worthless scraps of paper — these no-equity seconds? Of course, this is presuming the second lender didn’t buy MI, which is another story for another day.