Elizabeth Weintraub • Sacramento Short Sale Agent • Land Park

It's hard to think like a crook. Part of the problem is crooks are often not very smart. I mean, if they were smart, they would think of some other way to make a living than to be a crook. Because there are other options, you know. You don't have to turn to a life of crime to pay the bills.

I'm not talking the guy who shows up to rob a bank and leaves evidence of his home address at the teller's window. Or the burglar who breaks into your home and leaves his cell phone on the kitchen counter. These are the types who might pull on an inside-out t-shirt from a laundry basket and consider themselves well dressed. The kind who have crap for brains. I'm talking about the kind of crook who thinks he or she is much smarter than everybody else yet this person is still a crook.

There are a ton of crooks in real estate. Sometimes, they come out of left field and you never see them coming toward you. These types are generally very charming individuals. They could sweet talk their way into the Pentagon. Unfortunately, I have to continually be on guard for them because I am a Sacramento short sale agent. The short sale business, especially, is ripe for crooks. As a seller, it must be hard to know who to trust.

On the one hand, you've got banks like Bank of America making its SHORT SALE SPECIAL OFFERS. Sending out emails with splashy red lettering to short sale agents advertising a LIMITED TIME OFFER. It's called the SHORT SALE RELOCATION ASSISTANCE PROGRAM, and it pays $2,500 to $30,000. It's cash for a short sale. It's legitimate. The bank has been doing this for several years but never in such a big way as it is now.

So I wasn't really on guard yesterday when this agent called me out of the blue. He wanted to know if I was interested in handling a referral he wanted to give me for 1041 Havenhill Street. I looked up the property and we talked about it. I noticed it had FHA financing, so I began to explain how an FHA short sale works. He cut me off to say the sellers wanted more money.

Then, he began to explain how he had sold several short sales in New York. I'm thinking to myself how did he do that? Does he have a real estate license in several states? He launched into a proposed scenario in which the buyer makes a side agreement with the seller and agrees to pay the seller cash at closing. After all, he had done that in New York, he said. There was a pause in our conversation as I stared at my cell phone in amazement as my jaw fell open.

Short sale mortgage fraud. That's what he was proposing. I asked him if that was his idea of how to do a short sale -- to commit mortgage fraud? My phone suddenly went dead. He had hung up on me.

I'm not going into all of the reasons not to be a crook. There are plenty of them. Let's just look at one reason, if you can't think of any other reason. If you commit mortgage fraud to do a short sale and get a release of liability, that release can be rescinded. Which then totally defeats the whole purpose of a short sale. Don't try to think like a crook. You're too smart for that.

You wanna know what Sacramento short sale sellers wanna know? They all wanna know the same thing. Will their short sale be approved? The answer to that question if I am their Sacramento short sale agent is most likely yes. That's because I rarely get a short sale denied due to lack of hardship, and even those types tend to eventually close.

One of my readers mentioned in another blog that banks have 2 faces. That's a good analogy. There is the public face and there is the private, behind-the-doors face. The public face says we need to abide by our guidelines. Our guidelines state the seller must have a documented hardship to do a short sale. The private face says dump these underwater homes and get them out of our portfolio.

You simply have to give the bank what it wants. Dot your i's and cross your t's.

The key and the cornerstone to a successful short sale is the seller's hardship letter. I refer my sellers to that link I just placed on how to write a hardship letter. People often don't believe they have a hardship when they do. Take divorce, for example. At one point there were probably two people paying on a mortgage and now there is one person. That's a hardship.

If you have huge sums of cash sitting in the bank, that's cause for concern but not always a deal killer. You can have retirement accounts. Sellers often think that banks can reach out and grab their money but we have laws against that. There is a reason loans have security. If you have taken out a hard-money loan in which the bank has recourse in California, the bank still can't snatch your bank accounts or garnish your wages without separate legal action.

But that's why you should get legal advice before doing a short sale. Always talk to a lawyer. Then, hire the best darned short sale agent you can find. Be honest, be truthful, be focused, and you can close that short sale.

Everybody has their own way of dealing with chaos. And chaos is exactly what we have in the Sacramento real estate market right now. It's absurd. The market is so wild that I've taken to putting listings on the market at midnight now. No joke. I'm not slipping them into MLS mid afternoon, no sirree. Live at midnight.

Then I get everybody into position for the onslaught the following morning. Shields in position, Scotty. Our gravitational sensors are spinning. Warp drive has been knocked out. All power to forward shields.

This is because emails go out to buyers from their agents automatically. If a buyer is signed up for autoprospecting from MLS, he or she will receive an email with all the new listings and price changes. Wake up in the morning, grab your phone and there on your cell are new listings. There might be only one. We have very little inventory.

But you've gotta act fast if you want to a buy a home in Sacramento these days. Timing is everything. Don't go to work, for crying out loud. Call your agent, go see that home, write an offer and don't dilly dally.

Yesterday, an agent called to see what he had to do to write an offer for a Sacramento short sale. I gave him the lowdown and he said I'd have it in my email in 30 minutes. If the buyer had signed it right away, that buyer would have been in escrow. Because 3 hours went by and we received a really great offer from another buyer, which the seller accepted. By the time that first buyer's offer arrived, it was too late.

The day before, another agent called to say he had shown his buyer the home Monday night. This was Tuesday morning. Said he'd get the offer right over. By Tuesday afternoon, we had a full-price offer from another buyer that the seller signed. When you are a Sacramento short sale agent, like I am, you don't let grass grow under your feet.

When a short sale agent gets a good offer at a price the bank will take from a committed buyer, she suggests that the seller sign it. Because that's what makes the escrow close. I am in the business of closing short sales.

Why do people want to believe the bank is their friend? Those warm fuzzy days of friendly banksters are history. You especially can't believe what you hear from a bill collector such as Green Tree.

I know of Sacramento short sale agents who won't touch a Green Tree short sale with a 10-foot pole, but I'm not one of them. I routinely get Green Tree short sales approved. Even though Green Tree can be very aggressive. I hear from my Sacramento sellers how Green Tree treats them. They hound them to death.

Green Tree calls over and over to demand payment. And why not, it's their right to do so if the loan they are servicing has not been paid. What I object to is the outright lies told by Green Tree representatives. They know people will believe them. They know how to intimidate. They don't lean back in their fat-ass chairs to blow smoke rings in the air and squeeze stress balls for nothing.

See, the thing is a short sale seller is a responsible person. A non responsible person will walk away. A short sale seller is trying to do the right thing. This type of person has probably never been late with payments or had a single credit ding on a credit report until he or she tried to do a short sale. It's almost like throwing a baby mouse into a snake-infested den. The defenseless get devoured.

Speaking of which, have you ever seen a snake regurgitate? A snake's jaws open wider than you would ever imagine. You can watch the bulge in the snake's body move up the line in spasms. It's really a disgusting but fascinating event. I once saw a snake swallow a frog whole and then vomit it back up. The frog hopped away. A short sale seller isn't so lucky after Green Tree gets done with them.

Green Tree told a seller yesterday who had a Notice of Default filed in April that she was 30 days from auction. Its rep said there was no reason to go after a short sale. The agent emailed me to ask if she should pursue the seller for a listing. The answer to that question is no. But not because Green Tree lied and not because it's a Green Tree short sale, but because the seller is not motivated. A short sale agent is here to assist not to manipulate.

There is a federal law protecting consumers that says bill collectors are not supposed to lie. Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. But who enforces that law? Sellers have told me that Green Tree has pressured them to make a payment by saying their short sale will get denied if they don't. They get away with this crap. And they'll continue to get away with it as long as people continue to misplace their trust in undeserving sources.

How did Jamie Dimon, the chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, manage to lose $2 billion? You might ask why did the buyers of a Sacramento short sale cancel yesterday? Or, how did a Rocklin short sale go into escrow the day it came on the market? Why do people always want to know the why when the facts often speak for themselves. The "why" doesn't change the facts. It won't rewind the clock.

I had agents yesterday begging me to call them back and explain why a short sale was no longer available. It was no longer available because it sold. It clearly showed Active Short Contingent in MLS. Who bought it, why they bought it, how they bought it, what difference does it make? It's no longer for sale. Quit clawing up my leg like baby kittens.

I don't know how Chase handles the rest of its business, but a Chase short sale has its own special set of circumstances. Yes, it is special. Very special. It's handicapped special. For example, Chase has its own special fax line where it can lose documents with the speed of light. I'm told there is no system in place to notify negotiatiors when faxed docs arrive.

I have had Chase HAFA short sales, for instance, that were beyond bizarre. In one situation, Chase approved the HAFA short sale at a price that did not make it a short sale. How is that for efficiency and brilliance? Yes, it approved a price that meant Chase would get paid in full and the seller would get an extra $3,000 bonus on top of it, plus cash in hand. From the government. If you want to sell your house, and you have a loan with JPMorgan Chase, maybe you should try to do a HAFA just to pick up a little extra cash. You don't have to have an underwater home for a Chase HAFA short sale.

In another, Chase threw a seller into HAFA who did not belong in HAFA. One of the driving forces behind HAFA is to offer a foreclosure alternative to those who are delinquent or about to go delinquent and need help. HAFA was not designed to reward sellers who don't need financial help. A seller who is solidly employed, current on his mortgage and has huge sums of cash sitting in his savings account is not a likely candidate for HAFA. Yet, Chase approved this short sale and handed him $3,000, too.

See, you can't make up this stuff. As a Sacramento short sale agent, you would not believe the stuff I see day in and day out. But do I have time to dwell on it? No, I don't. If you want to cancel a short sale, get it over with quickly and efficiently so I can sell that short sale one more time to a buyer who will perform. Don't cut off my toes one at a time. Just chop off my head and move on.

In closing, I'd like to add that Al Lewis hit it on the nose when he suggested that Bank of America should change its name. Like, to Bank at America, like real estate developers do. They "do this to make basic tract housing sound classier, i.e. the Lovely Manors at Decommissioned Bombing Range." He said BAC sounds like the bank has a spine. BOA makes it sound like a snake.

Maybe a slogan for JPMorgan Chase should be Chase After Your Money because we don't know where it is.

If mama ain't happy, nobody is happy. That's the motto they should print on greeting cards for Mother's Day. But then some wiseass might say that every day is mother's day. Just like they used to tell us that every day was children's day when we were kids, but we knew better. And, fortunately, there were plenty of things to do in Sacramento yesterday to keep mama happy.

Not that I have a mom anymore. I'm an orphan. And I'm not a mother. Although some people might disagree with that statement, especially some short sale negotiators. But that doesn't stop me from celebrating.

My assistant told me she had spent Saturday in Davis at the Whole Earth Festival, and it was still happening on Sunday. Leave it to the City of Davis to be a month late with an Earth Day festival. But that's probably because it was designed by committee. You know how those things go. We decided to hop over to Davis and see for ourselves. They had live music, vendors selling handmade trinkets, lots of food choices, no paper plates or plastic forks, and no alcohol. No diet pop, either. I could not get a Diet Coke for nothing. Not even out of a vending machine.

Hearing Me and Bobby McGee without the whiff of incense and patchouli oil, the scent of burning marijuana leaves drifting through the air, just seems weird. So is not holding a plastic cup filled with your own urine, I mean beer. But this is a family event, and we don't want your kids getting drunk or stoned. They can do that on their own time.

The highlight of Mother's Day, last night, we went to the Crest Theatre downtown Sacramento to see Lindsey Buckingham perform. Really lucked out with front and center seats. The poor guy had a heart attack after every song. He put so much into it that he had to crunch down on the stage, grab his gut, then his heart, pant a little bit and finally straighten up and wipe off the sweat. Some woman in the audience felt sorry for him and yelled: "Take off your jacket."

He wasn't that good looking. In fact, he looks just like my third husband.

Buckingham did a couple of Fleetwood Mac numbers but mostly his own stuff. True dat, he sounds like a 10-person band rolled into one. He plays like that, too. He had 12 guitars on stage, almost as many pairs of red shoes in my closet. We all have our passions.

It was a lovely Sunday, but I'm afraid that today it is back to work as a Sacramento short sale agent. I just had a negotiator at GMAC email me to say that because parties had divorced, the deed they had recorded a few years ago is no longer valid. She told me the deed had expired. If you're gonna hire somebody to work in real estate, don't you think GMAC should hire a negotiator who understands real estate? I swear, you can't make up stupidity any stupider than this. Happy belated Mother's Day, everybody.

Photos: Elizabeth Weintraub

One of my clients said to me the other day that he's afraid of me because he reads my blogs. He was half laughing but he was also half serious, I suspect. Of course, I find that sentiment hilarious. I do not think of myself as a frightening or scary person. Confident, but not overly so. Direct, but not insensitive. I have limitations. However, there is a line that most people won't cross because they know there are consequences.

Agents, especially, know there are consequences. The idea of consequences, I realize, is foreign to many people born after 1985, and to many Californians in general. I've said it before, the California mantra is: Dude, I flaked.

One of the most frustrating and unfortunate aspects of a short sale comes after we get short sale approval. This is when I explain, again, to the buyer's agent that the buyers are purchasing the home in its AS IS condition. There are no repairs. No further concessions. No renegotiations. The purchase price reflects the condition of the home. If a buyer didn't see the repair, didn't know about the repair, couldn't know about the repair, we don't care. Any repairs are at the buyer's cost and discretion.

Yet, that doesn't stop buyers from thinking they are special. That they deserve an exception. But it's not gonna happen.

Moreover, not only won't it happen, but it's not even smart to try. I've been in the real estate industry for more than 35 years. I've been a Sacramento short sale agent for the past 7 years. Do I look like I fell off a turnip truck to you?

The truth is it is more expedient to sell to another buyer than to try to get a revised approval letter based on repair estimates. Especially when the odds are against the repairs. I don't represent the buyer. I represent the seller. The sooner a buyer can get this through her head, the happier she's gonna be. There are no repairs on a short sale. None. Nada. No.

How many ways can I say it?

Yet, this morning I receive a repair estimate. The buyer expects the bank will allow a credit of $700 to replace a gas stove in this rental. Another $2,000 to fix a few holes in Sheetrock. Where do they find these people?

Maybe from now on I will send this link to every buyer's agent after short sale approval so they can pass it on . . .

It's like somebody turned loose all of the winged monkeys on a single day. There were so many of them flapping about yesterday that they were knocking each other out of the sky. Banging into each other. Boom! Splattered monkeys on the pavement. You might not know this, but winged monkeys lack the training to fly well in formation. They just go nuts when they are unsupervised. As goes the life of a Sacramento short sale agent.

You hand out short sale approval letters, and you'd think buyers and their agents would be ecstatic. But some of them take a wrong turn somewhere and end up in winged-monkey land. You say: pay attention and fly straight, and they instead buzz around in circles and speak in a foreign language: monkey gibberish. Nobody would believe what goes on in a Sacramento short sale unless she experiences the joy and delights for herself.

When we're not spinning straw into gold, us Sacramento short sale agents are fielding phone calls from neighbors. A bunch of neighbors called, one after another, to complain about a lawn of a short sale. My For Sale sign was in the yard long enough for neighbors to write down my cellphone number before somebody swiped the sign. I explained that the sellers lived out of town, and I would gladly pass on their message about how unhappy they were that the lawn wasn't mowed. Personally, if I was such an unhappy neighbor, I would be over there with my own lawnmower, but I'm obviously in the minority.

Instead, I tried to explain that they were free to call the city as they threatened to do. However, if they called the city to complain, after mowing, the city will also file a lien against the home. A very expensive lien. The lien would not be paid in escrow because the bank would not authorize it. The seller won't pay it because the seller doesn't have any money. The buyer won't pay it because it's not the buyer's lien.

Which means the home will go to foreclosure and sit boarded-up and vacant for many, many months. Maybe for years.

Although, the city will probably the lawn at least once a month or so.

But the neighbors will get stuck with a worse eyesore. An abandoned home.

What those neighbors do not understand is the bank does not own the home. Not yet, anyway. But they can sure push the seller into a corner if they want. All over mowing the lawn. They can push a seller right into foreclosure. You think your neighbors are your friends? Move out, don't mow the lawn and just watch how quickly they morph into winged monkeys.

I do what I can to stop phone calls from coming to my phone. It's not that I don't want to talk to people, it's that I prefer to reserve time for phone conversations with people who are part of my business plan. This imaginary business plan that I don't really have. The one that says I should talk to people who will produce income for my business. This plan that is in my head. If you're not part of that plan, then do not call me, or at least don't call me during the week and during business hours.

Somebody called me last weekend right after I woke up from a nap to inquire about a home for sale in Sacramento. I answered the phone a bit gruffly. I was gruff enough that the caller asked if this was a business line. I thought to myself, uh oh. I should not do that. I am typically a pretty cheery person. A potential client calling has no idea if I am sitting on the beach, at the grocery store or in front of my computer.

If I'm going to answer my phone, I should at least pretend to be happy that it rang. You think?

You call some agents and you can tell immediately they don't want to talk to you. I wonder why they answer the phone, then. Of course, when I answer the phone, it's not like I'm picking up a receiver that is attached by cord to a desk phone. I'm hitting the side of my head to trigger my Jawbone. The only problem with this is you can't really slap the side of your face if you want to slam down the receiver. There is a certain amount of enjoyment, a release, if you may, that comes with slamming down the phone. Take THIS, asshole!  Fortunately, I don't engage in too many of those calls -- I'm married now.

Nope, most of my calls are from people who need something from me. In exchange for that, I make money. I pay the mortgage and keep the lights on. It's either sellers who need to do a short sale and therefore need a Sacramento short sale agent, or it's media wanting to interview me (which in turn brings in clients) or it's buyers who want to buy a Sacramento short sale. I have about 70 or so listing signs in Sacramento, and those signs generate a lot of calls.

You've got to wonder, though, why a buyer doesn't have a real estate agent or why they call from a sign? We have the internet, so everybody and their Uncle Joe are looking at homes online. It could be a neighbor who is curious. It could be a visitor to the neighborhood. You just don't know. It could be a guy who doesn't want to commit to one agent. But the thing is if you don't latch on to a buyer's agent, you probably won't buy a house in Sacramento. Sometimes, I tell callers that. That's why I have a team to support my listings.

But if you're rude, nobody will talk to you. You know, one of my first jobs when I was 17 was in the smile-and-dial industry. I sold magazines over the phone. I was pretty darned good at it, too. People can tell if you are smiling when you are talking on the phone. That's rule #1. Agents should use it.

Anybody who knows me at all knows that I am a rebel. I buck the system. That's my nature and I'm unapologetic about it. I own that about myself. I am also a conformist. You have to conform to be a successful Sacramento short sale agent because you need to have systems in place, to do the same things in the same order over and over until it becomes second nature.

Like every morning I write a blog.

Thought I would begin this morning by writing about Patti Smith because we went to Mondavi Center for Arts last night to see her talk. Lecture is such a strong word. She talked. Read from her award-winning book Just Kids. Sang. Laughed. But as I logged on to write my blog, I immediately noticed I now have a restriction on the number of characters I can use in my blog title. It's half the number of characters for Twitter. Half a Twitter post. I don't like restrictions or being told what to do, unless we're all gonna drown and somebody is pulling me on to a lifeboat, I resist. See, I find this limitation irritating. It was forced on me. Without notice. I don't like it. 70 characters.

I do like Patti Smith. I went to see Patti Smith because we share a history, a time. I guess you would say she is one of my heroes. I wonder, though, if people want to know that they are your hero. I suppose if they never hear it, it's welcome news. But after a while, I bet it gets on your nerves. When I spot famous people in a restaurant, for example, I sometimes think about introducing myself, telling them how much I admire them, but then I think why. Who does it serve? They don't know me so why would they care what I think? The truth is I want to shake their hand so I can say I shook their hand. It's pretty self serving.

I am not going to change their life or make a profound impact on them because some person they don't know from Adam admires them. You see gushy fans fawning over a celebrity and you think what the hell is wrong with you?

Which brings me back to the performance last night at Mondavi. Patti spent the end of the evening answering questions. Or, at least it was supposed to be answering questions. But this is Davis. Self-importance, self-absorption as though the world revolves around those who live in Davis is pretty much the norm. People in the audience felt that they had to first establish who they were, why Patti Smith was important to them and rattle on about all kinds of crap before getting to the point of their stupid question.

The moderator hit it on the nose when he gave the rules for asking questions. He sounded like Alex Trebek. First: it has to be in the form of a question. And he ended with: there must be a question mark at the end. But even simple instructions like that were too darned difficult for the Davis audience to process or wrap their heads around.

Somebody asked whether we are losing readers to visual stimuli. Patti Smith said she was more concerned about the health of our planet, the plight of the bumble bee and our butterflies and birds. There is a lot to admire about that woman. I admired the fact she stumbled on stage dressed like a guy with gray roots in her hair. We all have our heroes. I admire the fact she colors her hair. It probably goes against her grain but you know she does it for herself and not for anybody else. I admire the fact she's willing to share parts of her personal life, to continue to take chances, risks, and yet retain a sense of humor. She's a good role model for your kids. For some of you guys in Davis, it's probably too late. But not for your kids.

The good news is, though, I managed to use every single one of my 70 characters to create a blog title. My job here is done.