Elizabeth Weintraub • Sacramento Short Sale Agent • Land Park

One of my favorite restaurants in Sacramento is The Waterboy. I'm not alone in that opinion. Many Sacramentans love The Waterboy. What's not to love? Creative yet traditional cuisine, local ingredients, great wine selection, excellent service and convenient location in Midtown. I'm also a big fan of plush seats, and not every restaurant offers comfy bench seating like The Waterboy.

The abundance of glass windows provide a superb view of 20th Street and Capitol Avenue. Lights from other buildings and traffic twinkle. People mill about in the streets after dark. Midtown Sacramento comes alive when the sun goes down. I should mention that Chef / Owner Rick Mahan also does an excellent job over at OneSpeed Pizza in East Sac, but The Waterboy was here first.

When we were seated at The Waterboy, the waitress asked if we were celebrating a special occasion. I'm not so sure a waitress should ask that question because it implies that The Waterboy is not a place to have dinner on a regular basis. And it is. It's a fabulous local hang out. When my husband asked if I felt like a steak and offered up The Waterboy as an excellent choice for dinner, I agreed with him. But then I realized I had a gift certificate to The Waterboy.

I had forgotten that a client had given me a gift certificate. Just like my client had forgotten to mail it. I think he remembered that he bought it when he received a holiday card from me, which must have jolted his memory. Shortly after I mailed out my holiday cards, I received the gift certificate in the mail from him. The gift certificate was dated last August, right after we closed on his Midtown condo. So, Galen, if you're reading this, thank you, again.

I opted for an appetizer of house smoked salmon and ahi tartare, adorned with watercress, thinly sliced avocado, tiny olives and salsa verde. I realize raw fish isn't everybody's choice, but for those of us who love it, it melted in my mouth. The salmon was remarkably fresh and delicious.

When the waitress asked how I wanted my steak, I hesitated. I hesitated because I prefer steak medium rare. But I rarely get it medium rare. In fact, I'm almost afraid to order a medium rare steak when I dine out because it often arrives overcooked and medium. Inedible. Sometimes, I order steak rare, and then it either arrives all bloody and barely seared or it's perfectly medium rare. I figure I've got a 50/50 chance. But, because we were at The Waterboy, I had faith in the chef.

Sure enough, I ordered medium rare and I got medium rare. The steak was unforgettable. You can't go wrong at The Waterboy.

Photos: Elizabeth Weintraub, BlackBerry BOLD

If you work for the state of California in Sacramento, then you probably know that Gov. Jerry Brown is trying to cut in half the state's fleet of cars. He hopes to save $16.5 million from our budget by stopping the state from buying new cars and selling state cars that are not needed.

Naturally, as a state employee, it would make sense to buy a home in Sacramento that is close to the state capitol. Also, as a state employee, you probably are hoping to buy a home under your means, so you might be looking at short sales.

Do I have a short sale for you? You betcha. This is a short sale in Land Park. It's about 2 miles from the capitol downtown. A brisk clip would take about 30 or so minutes. I walk downtown all the time, and I live in Land Park. Many of the homes in Land Park are within walking, biking, skating, wheelchairing distance from downtown. I throw in that last little bit because I would hate to be accused of discrimination when that is not my intent. This home is also about 3 blocks from William Land Park.

This is a 3 bedroom, 2 bath, which is just under 2,000 square feet. It was built in 1941 and still retains much of the character from that era. The hardwood floors are beautiful and the room sizes are generous.

The first floor boasts a downstairs' bedroom, and the other two bedrooms are located on the second floor. The living room is big enough to support a piano, and the dining room is almost 200 square feet by itself. There is a breakfast nook in the kitchen and a built-in Sub Zero refrigerator.

Off the master is a balcony that overlooks 13th Street and the back yard. A nice surprise is the detached 3-car garage. It's sometimes difficult to even find a home with a garage in Land Park.

1300 8th Avenue, Sacramento, CA 95818, is offered exclusively by Lyon Real Estate as a short sale at $475,000. Call your Sacramento short sale agent and Land Park resident Elizabeth Weintraub for more information or a private showing at 916 233 6759.

Photos: Elizabeth Weintraub

If I am going to lose a short sale to foreclosure in Sacramento, odds are that short sale is probably with PNC Bank. I'll tell you why. Out of my last bunch of short sales with PNC, only one of them closed. Those are really lousy odds. Whereas my odds with a Bank of America short sale are much higher. I'm not 100% sure because I haven't checked, but my off-the-head guess would be I lose maybe 1 out of every 25 Bank of America short sales. My success ratio at getting to the approval stage with my Sacramento short sales is pretty high.

But what's with PNC? I know that PNC will do a short sale because I have done them. I'm not even talking about the original National City loans. Albeit, every single one of those PNC short sales was a battle and felt like going to war against the Taliban. Not that I have any personal experience with the Taliban, mind you. But I have found that PNC often demands a seller contribution, and that contribution is often astronomical as compared to requests from other banks.

A potential seller with a Campus Commons home called me last night to talk about doing a short sale. He has a first mortgage with PNC. It's not owner occupied. The loan has been refinanced, and it's a cash-out refi. His hardship letter will probably not reveal any severe fall-backs. He's pretty much hosed. I'm not saying it's impossible for him to do a short sale, but if he tries, he will probably pay for the privilege. Because it's PNC.

The last short sale PNC rejected was yesterday, a situation involving 2 purchase money loans with PNC, a first mortgage and a second mortgage. The seller documented her financial hardship. The first mortgage offered $3,000 to the second. The second demanded $8,000. The first would not let the seller -- nor anyone else -- contribute to the second mortgage. The lawyers pointed to California Code of Civil Procedure (C.C.P.) 580b, that should the first mortgagee foreclose, that lender would not be entitled to a deficiency judgment because both liens are purchase money loans.

Moreover, the lawyers argued, the California Supreme Court has ruled that when a senior and a junior loan are held by the same institution, the junior lender cannot consider themselves "sold out." As such, the junior lender is barred from recovery. Because both the senior lien holder and the junior lien holder are PNC Mortgage, you can't "sell out" a client who is also PNC.

But that's exactly what PNC did. PNC pretty much told the lawyers (excuse my language): Screw you and the horse you road in on. The negotiators at PNC are guerillas, abrupt and not very polite. Where does PNC hire these employees from? The World Wrestling Federation?

Photo: Big Stock Photo

From the highlights of the National Association of REALTORS® virtual townhall meeting, President Ron Phipps uttered these prized and profound words: “One of the things we’ve been sharing with lenders is that we need faster response on short sales. If you need to say ‘no,’ say it.” Mr. Phipps, as a Sacramento short sale agent and on behalf of short sale agents everywhere, I'd like to throw myself to the ground and kiss your feet, except I think I wrenched my back climbing over a seller's fence yesterday.

I have been saying the exact same thing to short sale banks for years. Especially the banks that grind out the short sale process. I tell them, Believe me, you won't hurt my feelings, just tell me if you don't want to do a short sale. We are grown ups. Don't make us sit in agony and suspense while you bicker over seller contributions that just aren't gonna happen.

I am in the middle of a Bank of America short sale that has been at the bank since last fall. Now, normally, I get approval on my Bank of America short sales in 45 to 60 days, which is tons better than the bank was doing a few years ago. But on this particular short sale, the bank is dragging its feet. It's a purchase money situation with a seller who has been forced to relocate. Should be a slam dunk, if there ever is such a cow, but no. I'm getting the feeling that the bank just doesn't want to do the short sale.

Now, I know Bank of America says in public over and over that it does want to do short sales and it wants to avoid foreclosure, and that's probably true on the bank's part. What Bank of America isn't telling you is its investors do NOT want to do a short sale sometimes, and they just can't come out and say it. For whatever reason.

Come on, Bank of America. Tell your investors to put on their big boy pants and man up. I'd say "woman up" but a woman would have no problem with this.

P. S. Hey, did you hear that we have 12,000 visitors in Sacramento today? They are here for the United Wine & Grape Symposium. Wine is a business that is enjoying sales growth. Even though grape production is expected to drop a bit when the 2010 numbers are released, demand is up. You know who's drinking all that wine -- the under-34 crowd in the midst of short sales.

If you think that by locking your gate you are keeping intruders out of your yard, think again. Maybe you're keeping the deer and the antelope at bay, but if somebody really wants to get into your yard, say, even a gym-challenged, almost 59-year-old, 5-foot woman, anybody can probably scale that fence, if she was smart about it. Well, yeah, determination counts, too. I am typically a pretty determined person.

A client asked if I would withdraw her listing from MLS last week. We had sold her home for $15,000 over list price because at the time we received an offer, she was ready to take her home off the market. You know human nature and how some buyers are, right? Sometimes they don't want the home until they find out they can't have it. Which is how this particular home ended up selling for $15,000 over the sales price. I figured the appraisal would come in low, but also believed the appraisal would at least meet list price and we could renegotiate later, if we had to.

Turns out, due to lovely HVCC, we got saddled with some yo-yo appraiser. He decided he could not figure out how to adjust the comps to allow for using updated homes that were smaller and on smaller lots. He didn't know how much to allocate for those minor kitchen remodels, so he ignored those comparable sales. As a result, the home appraised for $50,000 less than the sales price. It was for an FHA loan, too, so it had a case number, which would be pulled for the next buyer. We were stuck with the low appraisal.

The seller promised to leave the gate open so I could retrieve the lockbox. Sure enough, the gate was locked. The fence was a bit over 6 feet. If you're ever wondering about which way to nail the boards on a fence you're building, consider this. If the horizontal boards are on the outside, you would provide a stepping place for a person to put her foot before heaving herself over your fence. However, this fence had the good side facing out and the bad side on the inside. There was no place to put my foot. I don't do pull-ups for an exercise and therefore could not pull myself up the fence. Free weights are in my future.

I could have called the seller, but that would have entailed waiting 30 minutes or more for her to get over there, and I didn't have that kind of time. I could have gone back to my office and come back another day, but what the hey, I was already there. I was wearing sheared corduroy pants, an Eileen Fischer silk shell, topped by a Merino wool sweater. My shoes were cranberry patent leather with 3-inch heels. Did I let that stop me? I walked around the home but found no good access points.

The fact that the neighbors might call the police did cross my mind. But like a driver who often spins U-turns in the middle of the street by offering the excuse, "Hey, I'm allowed because I'm a real estate agent," I figured that excuse would also work for crawling over a fence. If I needed more of an explanation, I suppose I could also add that I sell a lot of Sacramento short sales. Surely, the police would have pity on me then.

I finally decided to partially climb a juniper tree in the corner. Put my toe on a protruded nail halfway up and literally pulled myself to the top of the fence by using a tree limb as support. The important thing here was I elected to rest after I was perched on top of the fence with one foot on the horizontal top rail and another foot on the adjoining top rail in the corner. I didn't care what passersby thought. Getting down was actually pretty easy, and I didn't scratch my shoes or tear my clothes. Best of all, my display key for my lockbox was still intact in my pocket. Bonanza.

Photo: Big Stock Photo

Do you have any idea how difficult it is to type with a squirmy kitten in your lap? I can't let my new kitty, Jackson, run all over the house yet because a) my other cats have not yet adjusted to him and b) he might scoot behind the refrigerator and not come out. He also likes to chew on things. Most recently he tried to gnaw on my printer cable and the charger cable for my Bluetooth. But I am bound and determined, regardless, to tell you about my new short sale listing near Elk Grove in Sacramento.

This 1990-built home is not located within the city boundaries of Elk Grove, but it is situated in the Elk Grove school district. It's in the Discover subdivision, just off Elsie and Power Inn.

It's a really cute home and ready to move into. You don't even have to paint it because it already has those coffee and cream colors you love. The living room and master suite sport vaulted ceilings, giving it an allure of spaciousness.

You get 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, and an attached 2-car garage. There is a fireplace in the living room and a breakfast nook area in the kitchen. All of the appliances are included, which means you get the refrigerator, washer and dryer, which usually are not included when you buy a home.

The back yard is super large, and the lawn has been replaced with newer sod. It's all squishy underfoot, but maybe that's because the automatic sprinklers had just been run when I walked through the yard. Or maybe it's because the sod is just setting root. Hard to say. But around the lawn is a manicured gardening area for trees, bushes and flowers.

8407 Stevenson Avenue, Sacramento, CA 95828 is exclusively offered by Lyon Real Estate as a short sale at $120,000. Call your Sacramento / Elk Grove short sale agent, Elizabeth Weintraub, at 916 233 6759 for more information.

Photos: Elizabeth Weintraub

Staying positive while going through a short sale can be a real struggle for some people. Short sales, whether they are taking place in Sacramento or Pocatello, are about the same anywhere in that they can take their toll. Some agents, after attempting a short sale, swear off and say they will never touch another short sale again. I've seen these guys hanging garlic over their desks and thrusting wooden crosses in the air when they so much as hear the word short sale mentioned.

Sometimes, sellers ask me to describe all the things that could happen in a short sale, all the likely scenarios. Why? For one thing, short sale sellers have enough on their plates. They need only to know what pertains to them. For example, if they don't have a hard money loan, then they don't need to hear about those consequences; we'll just focus on their situation. If they are doing a Wachovia short sale, then there is no reason to weigh the various possible outcomes of a Bank of America short sale.

While I try to prepare my sellers for worst case scenarios, most of the information I deliver is not doom and gloom. It is tailored to each seller's unique situation. Each short sale is different. As a Sacramento short sale agent, I've closed a bunch of short sales ever since this epic in 2006 seized Sacramento by the throat. I make it my business to anticipate tragedy and to try to head it off before it happens.

But I cannot accurately predict how much the short sale bank will ask as a seller contribution. That part is impossible. All investors have different requirements. It's not the bank that demands the contribution, it's generally the investors. They use a variety of measuring tools as well to calculate their loss and the predictability of how much a seller will pay.

I can tell you this. If you have not much of a hardship, lots of assets and disposable income, perhaps coupled with the potential for an even greater revenue stream down the road, the bank ain't letting you walk away. You'll have to give something. Maybe it's only a couple of months of payments; maybe it's paying on promissory note for the next 15 years. There is no free lunch in a short sale without hardship and with assets. But your short sale agent is your advocate and should have experience negotiating those settlements.

Hey, ask Jackson, my new ragdoll kitty. He says, "Shut up about short sales and talk about me." This is Jackson's 3rd day in the Weintraub household. He purred this morning when I picked him up. First purr! Today will be a good day:

Photos: Elizabeth Weintraub

The woman sitting in the window seat asked, "Why can't you find a cat in Sacramento?" We sat in the second row on a 70-minute flight yesterday to San Diego. She was going to visit her daughter in La Jolla, and I was heading for a sidewalk outside of baggage claim to stand in the bright sun for a few minutes before getting on another Southwest flight back home.

It was an enjoyable flight. No cell phones. No computers. Just 80 minutes of sitting quietly and not talking about Sacramento short sales. Oh, wait. I think I probably violated that last little bit.

I can't find a cat in Sacramento because I had set my heart on a flame-point male ragdoll. And I found that kitten in San Diego. I brought a carrier for him, and Southwest let me hand carry him on-board. He was very quiet and didn't mew at all during the flight. I figured between my other two cats, Pia -- the little one who used to be a breeding cat -- would be the one to naturally latch on to Jackson and nurture him. I worried that Pica, the cat who once spent a terrified night in the yard by mistake, would hate him. (In fact, when my husband found Pica in the yard, Pica bit his hand and caused it to swell up like a baseball glove.)

Turns out it's the other way around, though. Pica is excited and overjoyed to have a new baby brother in the house. Pia hates his guts. Hisses at him. Pia would kick his ass if I let her. But they don't get to be together yet. All three of them need time to adjust.

My husband is not allowed to play with Jackson, either. I know that sounds sort of cruel but otherwise Jackson would bond with him and not with me. He's only 8 weeks. He is so precious and tiny. Last night, as we were getting ready for bed it dawned on me that we did not have the right kind of cat litter. It's not the kind that Jackson is used to. So, my husband put on his jacket and went out to Target to buy clumping Tidy Cat. This is why I love the guy. My husband, I'm talking about.

All successful real estate agents have a support system in place. Can't name one who doesn't. I could not do what I do without my husband's assistance and support. He is one helluva a guy, and I am one very lucky Sacramento short sale agent.

Photos: Elizabeth Weintraub, BlackBerry Bold Camera below, Nikon above

We all know what happens when decisions are made in committees. Too many fingers in the pie, too many opinions and not enough cooperation. Throw in a few extreme egos, bad haircuts and tight shoes, and you've got a recipe for a brand new California short sale addendum. The new C.A.R. form, SSA, was released last November, shortened, revised, and is supposedly a cleaner form. But it's still confusing to a lot of real estate agents, especially to those who are not short sale agents. Which, amazingly enough, are the agents for whom this form was designed. Regular buyer's agents.

It's a good thing other agents trust me when I explain how to fill them out because practically every single short sale addendum that I have received for my Sacramento short sales has been incomplete, and the buyer's intention to release the deposit was messed up and not conveyed. But I had the opposite problem a few days ago when I wrote an offer on a short sale for a Sacramento buyer.

I don't work with as many buyers as I do sellers these days. But being a Sacramento short sale agent who lists short sales, well, that experience is very helpful when working with a short sale buyer. Because the short sale addendum contains defaults that are not necessarily favorable for a buyer. Unless an agent changes it.

If I had not changed the short sale addendum, the buyer would have been stuck with the following default items:

• Would wait 45 days for approval. No, we want a 60-day contract. Why is the default 45? How many short sales are approved in 45 days?
  
• Seller has 3 days to deliver the approval. No, the seller has 24 hours to send the approval letter.
• Inspections periods commence the day after approval. In this case, no, we want inspections to begin immediately because this is an older home with deferred maintenance. If there is something terribly wrong with this property, we prefer to know about it upfront and to amend the offer prior to bank acceptance.
• Deposit check withheld. To show good faith, we'll release the earnest money deposit to escrow upon seller acceptance.
• Seller can continue to market, accept offers and send those offers to the short sale bank. Hell, no. Well, unless I represent the seller and then hell, yes.
  

I presented the offer to the seller's agent. That listing agent did not understand that we were releasing the earnest money deposit to escrow, even though it was spelled out right there in the short sale addendum. We had to discuss that issue. It was still confusing even after she read it. Then, the agent said her seller would not remove Section 6 about accepting other offers. What? Is her seller not interested in selling to my buyer? Is the seller unwilling to make a commitment to my buyer? The agent did not understand. Finally, the agent gave up and just took my word for it.

C.A.R. -- do you have to make this form so danged difficult for non-short sale agents? The bulk of the agents who represent buyers for short sales?

Photo: Big Stock Photo

When I first heard that Bank of America was rolling out its "Cooperative Short Sale Program," I was under the impression that it was available to sellers without hardship. However, that is not really the case. The bank says sellers without a severe hardship will most likely be asked to make a seller contribution but it does want to see some change in the seller's situation between the time the loan was originated and today.

Bank of America is simply validating, in a way, what I've been saying all along, almost any bank will grant a short sale if a seller is willing to pay for the privilege.

I attended a special invitation webinar yesterday for Bank of America Cooperative Short Sales. I'll offer this service to my Sacramento short sale sellers. The main advantage that I see is we can save the buyer waiting time for approval, providing the sale is approved in advance of an offer, which is the purpose of the cooperative sale. It's to get Bank of America involved in the beginning of the short sale, to give the bank more control, prior to an offer. But it doesn't appear to really speed up anything. It's just like a HAFA short sale in that regard.

If an agent runs a seller through a Bank of America HAFA or the Cooperative Short Sale program, the bank collects the seller's paperwork, does a BPO, analyzes the situation and arrives at a list price, which may or may not be market. All of this takes time. The same amount of time, most likely, that a buyer would wait, except it's only the seller who is waiting when it's done in advance.

For a short sale buyer, it's great. It means a buyer will get a response in 2 weeks after submitting an offer on a Bank of America Cooperative Short Sale. For a seller, the drawbacks are the BPO might be too high, but a seller could run into that problem anyway, and #2, the wait is just as long. Oh, and in the event the short sale is denied, automatic deed-in-lieu. The benefits are a seller isn't sitting in the home on top of packed boxes wondering if the short sale will be approved, plus, the seller could receive a relocation allowance.

P.S. I have an answer for that nagging BPO problem, which seems to rear its ugly little head in almost every short sale. Why don't the banks get off their cheap-ass butts and order 2 BPOs, each from neighborhood specialists, instead of from any agent wandering around with a real estate license? I mean, what do you expect for fifty bucks? A full blown appraisal from a competent appraiser? You tend to get what you pay for, and most of it is crap.

Photo: Big Stock Photo