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.

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.

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.

Everything you do and say will be used against you. But that's how life is even when you're NOT under arrest. You can't walk through a shopping mall without those sitting at outdoor tables judging you. Oh, they might not wink, wink, nudge each other, but they have thoughts in their head. They're thinking: man, who let him out of the house dressed like that, or I wish I had her butt or where did that kid get a sucker as big as his head? Human nature, you can't stop it.

Perception is all around us. Sometimes, it's real and sometimes it's not. The best you can do is try to manage it. Get outside of yourself and stop thinking about other people and start considering how they view you. This is particularly important when you are a Sacramento short sale agent and trying to help your buyer to purchase a home.

Everything, from the tone of your voice to your written word paints a picture. I'm not trying to make you paranoid, just stating facts.

While emailing a seller of a Sacramento short sale yesterday, I mentioned something that struck me odd in correspondence from an agent. The seller concurred. The seller also brought up a negative aspect that resulted from a personal encounter with the buyer and buyer's agent. It was a feeling based on something that happened during the encounter. I suspect it does not fare well for those parties. I have the same feeling.

Some of us pay attention to what goes on around us.

You should, too.

I'm not perfect. Nobody is. I know there are probably days in which I unwittingly rub other people the wrong way, but I figure I have enough goodwill going around to see me through. Not everybody, btw, can say that.

Because I sell so many homes every year, I am in a unique position to watch what happens in the market across the Sacramento four-county area. Not only am a busy Sacramento short sale agent, but every so often I list and sell a home in which the seller has equity. I get a real mix; although my concentration, due to the market, is basically short sales. I will most likely, based on present production, close more than 100 homes this year without much trouble.

I was talking to an agent a few days ago who used to work at Lyon Real Estate but jumped ship. She was complaining about her production, saying she closed last year around 30 sales. That's 3 times the production of a successful agent. She shouldn't be frustrated, but she is because she's set high goals for herself and did not achieve them.

She wanted to know if I have changed my life, maybe bought a bigger house or upgraded my lifestyle since I started working at Lyon Real Estate. The answer to that question is why would I? Bigger isn't necessarily better. Going into debt because I can isn't really smart. Why are we sold the bill of goods that we need to keep buying crap and upgrading our lives? At what point does your life become unhappy due to the non-purchase of material items? Maybe we should just turn off the TV.

What I see in Sacramento is people are still uneasy. We were one of the hardest hit housing areas in the country. Eyes are on us to see if we are recovering. A recovery here might give hope to the rest of the country. California often leads the way -- what happens on the West Coast tends to move East.

The good news is I see stabilization. The bad news is I don't see recovery. See, recovery happens when prices go up. For prices to go up, prices have to rise. For prices to rise, appraisals have to justify that increase. Appraisals are not going up. If anything, appraisals are coming in low. Most people get a loan. Buyers who don't get a loan pay cash, and those cash buyers are not paying over market value. You've got to exceed the last market value sale for prices to go up.

Still, it's the investors who will probably lead us out of the recovery. The investors who pay cash. And those investors are not willing to go over market value. Not yet. Because they can still beat out first-time home buyers who are struggling with a 3.5% down payment and an FHA loan. There is a hierarchy to loans, an attractiveness or mortgage loan advantage that tends to govern whether your purchase offer is accepted.

While I am receiving multiple offers for many Sacramento short sales, I am not receiving over market offers from cash investors. In fact, many cash investors still operate under the illusion that cash is king. If a home is priced properly, as a listing agent, you don't worry about the appraisal. So, cash is not always king. In fact, sometimes cash is a deterrent because it's hard to predict whether that cash buyer will hang around long enough to close.

Is the recession over? Is the market recovering in Sacramento? Real estate agents want you to believe it. Your neighbor wants to believe it. You, in fact, probably want to believe it. In this piece 10 Ways to Know if the Housing Market is Improving, we in Sacramento are not hitting half of those recovery points.

Stop selling your buyers and start selling yourself, I want to tell buyer's agents. But it's not really my place to say it. I'm just a Sacramento short sale agent. I represent sellers. I refer buyers to my trusted team members and work exclusively with sellers. My job is to get the bank to accept their short sale and close that puppy. I do it quickly, efficiently and quietly, without a lot of drama, if I can help it.

But this seller's market is taxing on everybody. It's really hard on sellers. Oh, you might think it's all fun and games when people come over to your house to ooh and ah over its beauty and decor. But after a few days, even fresh fish begins to stink, as the saying goes.

Last night a seller asked if I could remotely disable the lockbox to stop agents who don't check MLS for showing instructions from using it. That's a feature I don't have. We used to be able to set the times a lockbox was accessible from our computer, but Supra changed that for us, or at least for me. So, while it's an interesting thought, it did once used to be reality. It's frustrating that I can't turn on and turn off my lockboxes. I bought the suckers, and they ain't cheap. It might also be a brokerage restriction.

Yet, this morning I am still receiving offers for a Sacramento short sale. This should be in escrow already but the sellers are struggling with the decision of whom to choose. Like any seller, they ask their agent for advice. I try to be impartial and analytical for them, and help walk them through the process of selection. Anything I know, I share. If I know the agent, I share what I know about the agent.

Because bottom line, we're not only in escrow with the buyer, we are in escrow with that agent. I'm looking for an experienced agent. An agent who knows how to explain an AS IS short sale. An agent as dedicated to the wait for short sale approval as the buyer. That's the kind of buyer's agent who closes escrow. That's all we want to do is close this escrow and let the sellers get on with their lives.

I think back to a short sale buyers fought over recently. That winning buyer's agent made the following statements:

• If the bank wants more money, my buyers will pay it.
• I won't call you for updates or bug you as I have set my buyer's expectations appropriately.
• We will wait for approval regardless of how long it takes.
• We will not ask for repairs or try to renegotiate after you get short sale approval.
• I have closed many short sales for many buyers.

That's the agent I want. That's the agent my sellers want. If you're hoping to buy a short sale in our Sacramento seller's market, this is the kind of agent a buyer should want. An agent who communicates.

That's what Jackson would say if he were a real estate agent. Jackson is my cat, see below.

Can you tell me how many offers you have received? That's the question I hear over and over when I answer my phone. That's because I am a Sacramento short sale agent. No wonder agents don't want to answer the phone. I want to say what difference does it make? Didn't you see the scores of agents and their buyers standing on the front steps of that home waiting to get inside? Can't you see it's been in MLS for two whole days which means we probably have 2 dozen offers? Have you been sleeping under a rock and just now discovered it's a seller's market in Sacramento?

And just how many offers does a short sale seller need anyway?

You need one. One committed buyer. One committed and qualified buyer. That's it. You don't need two dozen buyers to sell a short sale in Sacramento.

The problem that arises is when buyers see the possibility of multiple offers, they go berserk. Their agents go half nuts, too. They feel desperate and work themselves into a frenzy. What can they do to buy this home of their dreams? They do the one thing they can think of which is offer a higher price. They'll go up $20,000 or $30,000 if they have to, which might be 10% to 15% over list price.

When list price is market value, the home won't appraise for a higher price. Stop making absurd purchase offers. When you do short sales for a living, like I do, you know it is a royal PITA to go back to the short sale bank and try to get a lower price when the buyer's appraisal comes in low. Low appraisals are happening despite the seller's market. Sometimes, the bank won't revise the approval letter, and then your short sale can blow up.

Some agents think this means that with a cash offer it is OK to go over list price. Because there is no appraisal. But that's because the agent is short-sighted. The agent is not thinking down the road. What happens to the Sacramento short sale agent and her sellers if they submit an extremely high cash offer to the bank and the buyer doesn't close? Maybe the buyer loses her job, or dies, or simply walks away because another shiny object caught her attention.

Will the bank be receptive to a lower-priced offer at that point if this transaction cancels? Think about it. The only thing we want to do is close that Sacramento short sale. Surely, an agent and her frenzied buyer can come up with something other than price to make the offer attractive. And I don't mean cash under the table, either. I had an agent propose that yesterday and told her we don't even want to see an offer from that buyer. No funny business; no short sale mortgage fraud, people!

On which hill do you wanna die? That's an expression I sometimes apply to my business. Because sometimes you've gotta take a stand, especially when you're a Sacramento short sale agent. But taking a stand has consequences. If you're gonna do battle, you take a chance on being killed. Not literally, of course. So I choose my hills for my battles. I can't always choose my battles because adversity goes hand-in-hand with Sacramento short sales. No way around it.

But the hill on which I'm gonna die, you betcha. And there's a good chance I'm not gonna die. I like to pick the hills where I have the advantage. Where I can see the opposition coming from miles away. And maybe I have an arsenal tucked away on the other side of the hill that is out of sight. I'll wait until the negotiator gets up close to the bottom of my hill and then I might drop a bag of flour on his head and follow that up with a blast from the garden hose. You don't know what I'm capable of doing.

To the negotiator, I am one of 500 files. To me, the negotiator is one of 100 files. See, the odds are in my favor. Plus, I care more. I care about the seller; I care about justice; and I care about closing the transaction -- 3 things the negotiator does not care about. Again, there is more in my favor.

You may think short sales should not be adversarial, but I wish it wouldn't rain so much in Sacramento over the winter. If we don't get rain, though, we suffer. We need rain.

I know there are agents out there in Sacramento who simply roll over when the bank's short sale negotiator tries to kick them in the head. These agents don't want to deal with negativity. They are like a millipede. You poke them with a twig and they curl up.

Take the natural hazard disclosure, for example. In California, the natural hazard disclosure is required by California Civil Code, and the seller must give it to the buyer. You'll find the verbiage in Sections 1103 to 1103.14. Sellers have to buy the disclosure from a disclosure company, and that can cost $99 to $125 or so. Bank negotiators don't always understand California law so they try to exclude this fee from the HUD. But it must remain.

You Sacramento short sale agents should not back down from this. You give us all a bad name when you do. Yeah, it's $100. But the next thing is 500 bucks or 1,000 bucks or 10,000 bucks. I say protect your sellers and go to bat for them. Do things the right way and not just the easy way.