Why Buyers Waited 6 Months for a West Sacramento Short Sale

Here is an example of a short sale in West Sacramento that sold at the end of October and could not close until the middle of April. It certainly was not the buyer’s fault, even though that is usually the case. It was not the seller’s fault, either, nor either of the agent’s. It was due to the lovely combination of an Ocwen lender combined with Nationstar as the second lender with MI on top of the cake. Those Ocwen / Nationstar combo short sales can be complicated to bring the two sides together, but it is generally much easier when Ocwen is the first and Nationstar is the second than the other way around, let me tell you.

Plus, as some lenders do, and I’ve been gripping about this practice until the cows come home but no legislators seem to do anything about it, and nobody else seems to care, is the second recently attached mortgage insurance. They do it after the fact when they know the home is underwater. There are companies that ensure worthless paper, and they make a profit. Why isn’t this against the law? If for no other reason, notwithstanding the profit on another’s suffering, is that on a combo loan, a borrower is promised there will be no mortgage insurance, as an incentive to buy using a combo loan package. Then, when the borrower is hurting, underwater, and struggling, the second lender slaps on mortgage insurance, which can help to mess up their short sale?

We received approval from Ocwen on this West Sacramento short sale in December, but Nationstar held out for more money. They managed to string out the process until February, at which point I went back to Ocwen and asked them to revise the approval letter because the HAFA now fell under the new HAFA short sale guidelines. It meant that the seller would have received $3,000 as a relocation incentive under the previous guidelines, but as of February 1 is now entitled to receive up to $10,000.

To get the seller the additional $10,000, we had to go through another month or so of waiting for Ocwen to revise its approval letter. The difference of $7,000 might not seem like much in the overall scheme of things, but it makes a HUGE difference to a person trying to start over with her life.

Bottom line, in this West Sacramento short sale, I got the sellers the newly approved $10,000 incentive, Nationstar got its demands met, and we closed. We are very grateful to the buyers for their patience in this ordeal. Not every buyer will wait 6 months to buy a home. But think about the price increases during that period of time! The buyer got an excellent price and a beautiful home in West Sacramento. It can be worth it to wait for that short sale approval.