Listing a Sacramento Short Sale From Anywhere in the World

The problem with some short sales today is if they take too long to negotiate, the value of that short sale could go up and the bank could want more money. This was not a problem with Sacramento short sales in 2012, but this year some banks are asking for updated BPOs before the 90-day mark. Not to mention, once a short sale is approved and falls apart, there is no guarantee the next go-around will mirror the first. A smart Sacramento short sale agent knows this and takes precautions.

We are closing a short sale next week that came into my sphere sometime around Thanksgiving of last year. The seller called to complain about his agent — for what, I don’t recall — and asked if I would agree to take his listing. He had approval from the bank, too, but at the last minute something went haywire. I agreed to take the listing once the seller and his listing agent terminated the existing listing and removed it from MLS.

I should point out that the reason a seller is unhappy with a real estate agent sometimes lies with the seller and not the agent. I am typically hesitant to pick up a listing from a disgruntled seller because that seller could be the problem. One thing being in real estate for so long teaches me is there are a lot of nut-jobs in the world and people who don’t take their medication. On the other hand, about 90% of all Sacramento agents sell fewer than one home every two or three months, so what does that tell you? But, in this particular instance, my gut instincts told me the seller was not at fault. I told him to let me know when he was ready to go on the market.

You know what day he was ready to go on the market? Christmas day. Yup, Dec. 25th. And there I was: lounging about in my gorgeous overwater bungalow, watching the waves gently lap the piers, gazing at brightly colored fish swimming about under my glass floor. I was on vacation at Rangiroa, the second largest Atoll in the world, located in a remote chain of archipelago islands called the Tuamotu in French Polynesia. This is a place where it’s a miracle we were able to connect to the internet through satellite. It was a slow connection, and proved too much to smoothly connect to CAR’s antiquated ZipForms.

Even though the internet was sporadic, I received the email from the seller asking to go on the market. I managed to whip up all of the required listing documents through a combination of working with my dedicated team members and emailing forms to prepare and forward. One of my team members volunteered to go over to the home on Christmas and shoot photos and send them to me. I then uploaded all of the documents to DocuSign, my seller signed, and we went on the market the day after Christmas.

You can count on Elizabeth Weintraub. I take care of my clients no matter where I am in the world.

. . . Part II of this Sacramento Short Sale to follow on Monday.

photo: Gauguin’s Pearl Farm on Rangiroa, by Elizabeth Weintraub