A Countrywide Short Sale in East Sacramento

I recently closed a double Countrywide Cooperative Short Sale through Bank of America in East Sacramento in which the seller received almost $17,000. He had been recommended to this Sacramento short sale agent by a former client who had insisted that he call me. That’s probably because I handle each of my short sales with focused attention. Because each one is different. See, another agent might have just listed this short sale and sold it without giving the seller any cash. But if there a way I can get my sellers cash without making them totally miserable in the process, I go for it.

This home in East Sacramento was also owned by a lawyer. I handle many short sales for lawyers, and I really enjoy working with lawyers. One of the super fun aspects of working with a lawyer is when I get to say that I cannot give legal advice. That tickles me to no end. At least lawyers understand this concept, though, and they don’t keep grinding me.

The minute I spotted the double Countrywide loans in the public records, I suspected this short sale would make a good candidate for the Cooperative Short Sale program at Bank of America. I don’t know if B of A specifically targets those old Countrywide loans, but if I were Bank of America, I know I’d want to get rid of them. It’s not bad enough that Bank of America is being sued by the Feds for Countrywide’s old HSSL (high speed swim lane) — a loan process of pushing loans forward, allegedly with little regard for accuracy or conformity — but the process had became known as the Countrywide Hustle, a practice carried on after Bank of America took over Countrywide. Bad on so many levels.

Still, we started this short sale in May of this year. A time of year so beautiful in Sacramento that it’s like living in Carmel without the prices of Carmel except, yeah, we don’t have any dogs running on the beach or a beach — just clay soil and skunks in the yard. By August, we finally had our Cooperative Short Sale agreement signed and approved. I don’t put my short sales like this on the market until we get the short sale preapproved. Why drag sellers and buyers through that process? I’ve learned over the years that it’s much better to just wait. After we got the approval, it took B of A another month to come up with the BPO. By mid September, we were ready for the market. Who says a Sacramento short sale agent doesn’t have patience?

However, the good news is once we had everything in place and received an offer, the bank approved the short sale in 3 weeks. Bank of America just zips along when finally in Equator, and receiving the preapproval for the Cooperative Short Sale upfront really speeds up the process. Plus, the seller received almost $17,000, which he wasn’t expecting. He was happy to simply short sale the East Sacramento house and to obtain a release of liability. The cash was simply icing on the cake.