Elizabeth Weintraub • Sacramento Short Sale Agent • Land Park

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. There is very little in between. Especially when it comes to short sales. As a Sacramento short sale agent, I close a lot of short sales. Our market is inundated with short sales. I've been specializing in short sales for 6 or 7 years now. As a result, I close a lot of Bank of America short sales.

In fact, I am very familiar with how Bank of America processes its short sales. I do whatever it takes to help Bank of America. Not because I am a stockholder and not because I have any great affinity for big banks but because helping Bank of America helps my clients. It helps my clients to close escrow.

When I receive a survey from Bank of America, I complete it and return it. Because if I don't, I'm not helping anybody. And there is no way I want to be part of the problem. I am greatly amused at the way Bank of America structures its surveys. It removes much of the feedback that could be helpful; it's geared toward positive comments. But I don't complain because up until lately I haven't had very many Bank of America short sale rejected.

Last month I had 2 Bank of America short sales declined because the sellers were current. That was unusual. But what was odder was there was no place on the survey form to check a bullet point that explained why. Being current on the mortgage was not an option for rejection. Neither was there an option for the number reason for a declined file -- the mere fact the buyer got tired of waiting for approval and split.

I mentioned that fault in the comments at the end of the survey. Sure enough, the next survey received listed 10 or 12 possible reasons for rejection instead of four. I was elated. Bank of America listened.

Then, yesterday, I discussed a common problem with a representative from the Bank of America Social Media Team. That's because I had to escalate a HAFA short sale file that is presently with UTLS. The negotiator was playing the HUD game. This is when the negotiator picks up the file to find one small fault so she can send an email about it and go back to watching General Hospital on her cell phone.

The latest demand was to change the property tax proration by 5 cents to match the tax proration on the worksheet. The representative from Bank of America said she would note this procedure and try to get it changed. She agreed that the negotiator should review the entire file and not piecemeal corrections. The bigger problem with this particular short sale is the BPO had expired and nobody at UTLS noticed it. It expired quite a while ago.

No sooner did I hang up the phone than I received a ding in my email from Bank of America. It had changed the worksheet counter by increasing the sales price. The negotiator based it on the existing BPO and market conditions, he said. What? The market in Sacramento is falling. Just then my phone rang. Before I could fire off an email message, it was the negotiator saying he simply wanted to keep the file active and not let it decline. I could reject the worksheet and counter, which I did.

I have great hopes that we'll see more improvement at Bank of America. Now, if we can just get them to stop putting a hold on the initiation of Equator files for HAFA review. It promised last year to stop doing that, but I've yet to see it. I wonder how long it will continue this practice after HAFA expires in December?

I get a lot of phone calls from buyer's agents in Sacramento asking me who the lender is on a short sale. They are wising up and realizing that not every agent in Sacramento who lists a short sale is likely to close that short sale except, perhaps, for me. So, their broker has given them a list of questions to ask a Sacramento short sale agent. The problem with this approach is they don't know what to do with the answers they get.

They think multiple loans is a bad sign, which is not true. They hear Bank of America and they shudder, which is also not true. Bank of America has stepped up to the plate over the years and dramatically improved its short sales. If you are a seller who has a Bank of America loan, you are actually sitting in a primo position and you might not realize it. Don't listen to the hoo-haw among the neophytes. Bank of America is a great short sale bank.

I close a lot of Bank of America short sales. There are different types of B of A short sales. Some are Fannie Mae; they could be Freddie Mac or even a HAFA short sale. It would not be so hot to do a Fannie Mae HAFA short sale or a Freddie Mac HAFA short sale, but those are another long story, which I can explain if I take you on as a client and you have such a loan.

They could also be a Bank of America FHA short sale or a Cooperative Short Sale or a traditional short sale. You've got almost as many choices for a short sale at Bank of America as you've got loan options. And they are all different. A client laughed as she got off the phone with B of A saying it's just like ordering a pizza. Do I want pepperoni or sausage?

If you'd like to know about a Bank of America short sale for you in the four-county Sacramento area, call this Sacramento short sale agent for more information at 916 233 6759. I'll say it again: I close Bank of America short sales. I know how Bank of America operates (it changes all the time). I stay on top of this stuff. You're in good hands.

Earlier this week I received an email from Bank of America about Bank of America short sale policy. I briefly looked at it and thought HA. Then I thought hahahahha. And I went on to do other things. That's because when I receive an announcement from Bank of America about a short sale program change or implementation, I know it will be a couple of weeks to a couple of months before it is instituted.

But this particular email was strange in the way it was worded. It said due to agent responses, Bank of America was making a change that is very detrimental to short sale agents. It made me wonder what kind of response did they get? What kind of short sale agent would ask Bank of America to make her life more miserable than it already is? We are not masochists in the short sale business, even though other agents might disagree with that assessment.

Bank of America said it was shortening its window of opportunity to slip in a new buyer when an old buyer cancels. How is shortening that window beneficial to anybody, much less to the short sale agent?

Bank of America will now give an agent only 8 days to find a new buyer when an old buyer cancels. It used to be 14 days. Maybe it was a typo? Or, maybe that change wasn't based on agent feedback after all.

This Sacramento short sale agent would prefer that Bank of America leave a file open for at least 30 days after a buyer cancels. That's because the BPO is still good for another 2 months. And sometimes properties are stigmatized when a buyer walks away. Others worry what's wrong with it when there is nothing wrong with it, and it can take 30 days to find another buyer. Why should the seller have to suffer and start over?

I've been receiving an inordinate number of short sale approval letters lately. It's really odd for this time of year. For some reason, lenders must be wanting to move into the new year with a big bang. I could see a bank pushing for a closing by year end, but pushing to close next year is peculiar. This is the first year in a long time during which I've received so many approval letters in December for my short sales.

I've heard real estate managers say that the reason agents should work harder in December is because sometimes they close more business in December than any other time of the year. On the surface that sounds like they're saying: forget holiday shopping, decorating the tree or baking cookies, go out and show homes. But that's not really true. Because if an agent is closing a lot of business in December, it's because she has worked her tail off in October and November.

Of course, for me, being a Sacramento short sale agent, it's different. The reason I am closing a lot of business in December is because I've worked my tail off all summer long. Some of my Sacramento closings right now were listed in June, July or August. I have a handful of 90-day listings but some are longer. It's the nature of short sales.

I'm in no rush to close. Ever. I do whatever it takes to make my sellers happy. Not every agent can do that. Some agents need to pay their mortgage or buy groceries from that escrow closing, and it's very important to them to close transactions immediately. But I figured out a long time ago that if an agent is going to sell short sales in Sacramento, the only problem with erratic pay periods is in the beginning. As long as one has closings in the pipeline and continually adds to them, an agent never worries about closings.

Focus on putting them in on the front end, and the back end takes care of itself. Simple recipe for success.

Plus, it leaves an agent room to micromanage some of the more difficult transactions. There are always those. I have a short sale right now at Bank of America, like many, that is in foreclosure. The auction date was set for November. The seller does not want to close until, let's say, January 15th. For reasons we won't go into. I explained that Bank of America does not issue short sale approval for more than 60 days out. In fact, the approval letters are for 45 days from issuance to closing.

Once we postpone the auction, the trustee's sale will move out 30 days. So, the way to get a January 15th closing is to extend the closing twice and postpone the auction twice. That's a little risky because the bank doesn't have to extend nor postpone. But the other choice was foreclosure. Ya gotta have faith, people, that the system works. Sure enough, we postponed the auction, and I just postponed it again. We got an extension, just got another one.

The only problem is the seller can't move until, say, January 15 and the closing is scheduled for, say, January 14th. The auction is January 15. Fortunately, I had a little foresight. I think I'll high-five myself. When I filled out the Short Sale Addendum to the Purchase Contract for Bank of America, I wrote in 1 day to move. I've always disliked that spot in the SSPCA because typically in Sacramento sellers move on the day escrow closes. The SSPCA doesn't provide for moving out on the day it closes, which is sorta stupid. You gotta pick either one day before or one day after.

Sellers dislike one day before. Buyers dislike one day after. Get with the program Bank of America, and change that form!!

Because I represent the seller, I try to choose one day after. Sure enough, in this situation, it came in handy. We will close on say, January 14th, and then the seller has one more day to move. Keeps everybody happy. And keeping all parties happy in a short sale is my primary objective. But man . . . the number of short sale approvals coming my way right now. If I were some other Sacramento short sale agent, I might want to say, stop, stop sending me all these approval letters. But not me. Receiving approval on a short sale is my highlight of any given day.

To learn about short sales, you have to work short sales yourself. You can't just sell a home and hope some third-party negotiator or some agent in your agent's office will do the short sale negotiation. Going that route is cutting a supposed short sale agent short and cutting her seller short, to make a pun. Your own agent should be your short sale negotiator. I've learned this the hard way early on in the game so you don't have to.

Oh, sure, some agents will say not having to do the short sale negotiation frees up their time to do what they do best -- sell homes. But the thing with a short sale is much of its success lies not only with the actual selling of the property and buyer selection, but with the lender negotiation. When you work with a lot of lenders day-in and day-out, you get a feel for the transactions and what makes each unique. When you marry that knowledge and expertise to your sellers and their particular property, well, it's what makes the short sale close.

If it were true that not doing the short sale negotiation frees up agents to sell more homes, why don't they sell more homes? I have almost 100 homes pending or already sold this year, and I do most of my own short sale negotiation. I have a few clients who pay a lawyer upfront to do the negotiation and lawyers do a good job; however, many Sacramento sellers hire me to do their negotiation and sell their home. There is nothing like hands on to get the job done right.

I'm not saying that third-party short sale negotiator agents won't get results. They close them, and they lose them, too. I am saying that it is much better to hire your own short sale negotiator and for that negotiator to be your Sacramento short sale agent. Cement that relationship, if you've got one. That's your best recipe for a successful outcome.

I was talking with another Sacramento short sale agent yesterday. She and I share similar backgrounds. While she might not do the volume of short sales that I close, she does enough to carry on an intelligent side of the conversation about short sales. I like her. We were discussing a Bank of America Cooperative Short Sale in which I received two approval letters. One gave the seller $2,500, and the other $3,000.

The difference between the two short sale approval letters was the letterhead. The first approval letter came from Bank of America Home Loans and the $2,500 incentive was mixed into the closing costs, not identified, yet the net matched the HUD. The second letter came from Bank of America Home Loans and Fannie Mae. It clearly stated this was for the Cooperative Short Sale program and the seller would receive $3,000 as an incentive.

One thing this tells me is when the investor is Fannie Mae, the incentive for the Cooperative Short Sale program is $3,000, not the standard $2,500.

The verbiage was slightly different and, of course, both letters released the seller from personal liability. What struck me odd, though, was the logo. In the second letter, Bank of America displayed the Fannie Mae logo on its letterhead, alongside its own. If you know anything about the two companies and about logos, this is kinda weird. I did not realize that Fannie Mae is in partnership with Bank of America. Where did all that government TARP money go?

Today I would like to talk about a Bank of America Cooperative Short Sale. This is an under utilized program offered by Bank of America for sellers of short sales. In some states, such as Florida, it's really ramped up. But in others like California, especially in Sacramento, there are very few real estate agents who seem to know about it. As a result, many are not offering this program to their short sale sellers -- because they don't know how to do that kind of short sale or even that this opportunity exists.

The beauty of the Bank of America Cooperative Short Sale is that is cuts through the crap. Through the red tape. It simplifies the procedure. It's a streamlined program. In some cases, there are no financials exchanged. But the best part is the bank pays the seller to do the short sale. I know this might sound weird and hard to wrap your head around, but it is true. Just like with a HAFA short sale, sellers get paid to do the short sale. The main difference between the two programs is after they close, with a Cooperative, the seller doesn't want to leap off a bridge.

I will say it again, you can get cash for a short sale through the Bank of America Cooperative Short Sale Program. Bank of America has turned itself around over the years, going from a bank that was overwhelmed with shorts sales to a bank whose middle name is short sale, which now makes the bank proactive. It's not perfect. There are still glitches, but it's nowhere nearly as bad as it once was to do a short sale.

When these particular Sacramento area clients called me to do a short sale, I recognized that they might be a candidate for the bank's streamlined program. I've closed others, and the requirements can vary, but it depends on whether the bank wants to do it as well -- whether Bank of America is the investor or if it's Fannie Mae. Fannie Mae qualifies. We listed the home and immediately received a bunch of offers. We turned down some over list price with financing terms because the home would not appraise, so there was no point to make extra work for everybody. Ticked off some agents whining about why we wouldn't take their offer -- because they're a moron, that's why. But I didn't say that.

The sellers insisted on meeting me. They lived out of town. I had already listed the home and completed my visual inspection. It was a mess. The carpeting had spots all over it. It smelled. The sellers were good enough to replace the carpeting. Usually, short sales are sold as is, but the buyer for that home would not have enough money to replace the carpet after closing. The home might not have even sold with the original carpeting.

They also painted the bedroom walls. Why is it that whenever a bed is against the wall for a long period of time, the wall gets all black? What leaves those kinds of marks on the wall? Maybe I don't want to know.

I really did not want to take time on the weekend to drive down to my office and meet the sellers. I use Saturdays to write for About.com, and I don't take appointments. And, believe it or not, this agent's blog you're reading who made Top Agent at Lyon Real Estate for last month? She takes off Sundays. Besides, like I told them, the last time a seller asked to meet me in person, saying they wanted to see my smiling face up close, also wanted me to serve their tenant with a 3-day Notice to Pay or Quit. That was the part those last clients didn't tell me. Their little surprise.

Nope, these guys really did want to shake my hand and meet with me in person. Although I do a lot of business as a Sacramento short sale agent with sellers I never meet, this couple would not feel right if they couldn't look me in the eye. So, we met. I spent a good hour assuring them I believed that their short sale would close. I don't list short sales if I don't think they will close.

Sure enough, Bank of America approved this short sale based on the seller's hardship letter. There were no tax returns, no bank statements, no payroll stubs, no 4506 or 1126. Just a simple explanation as to why they wanted the short sale. As we were close to closing, the bank had initially offered $2,500, but at the last minute decided to bump it up. We rushed through a revised HUD and closed with a $3,000 credit to the seller. I think that's because REDC realized it had sent the wrong approval letter. We needed an approval on Fannie Mae letterhead.

The sellers did not have bad credit. In fact, they were current on their mortgage payments. Their credit is so good they are refinancing their own home as I write. This was an investment property. It was not their personal residence. They also received a release of personal liability. How do you like those apples?

It would be nice if things worked exactly the way they are supposed to work, but they don't. Like this morning, I pressed the button to turn on my cellphone and nothing happened. You know the definition of insanity, right? Doing the same thing over and over and getting the same result? I pressed the button again and again. I'm not immune to insanity, obviously. In fact, we're on a first name basis. Hello insanity. Hello Sacramento short sale agent. See, it knows my occupation. That's how intimate we are.

But at least I have some common sense. And common sense says take the jacket off your cellphone, open it up, remove the battery and put it back. All is right with the world. T-Mobile jingle -- I love that sound! Know what else I love? Approval letters. Approval letters for short sales.

This morning, Bank of America sent me an email to say my short sale approval letter was in the Equator library. I went to the library. No approval letter. Was not in the library, not under offers and not under the second tab, either. I found the welcome letter and the worksheet, but no approval letter. Frowny face. They work those poor negotiators too hard at Bank of America.

I am losing count of the number of approval letters we've been receiving lately. I don't know why there are so many. It's not like the banks want to close by the end of the year because all of these approvals are for closing in January. Oh, well, January will be a good month, too. Maybe I'll be named the top agent at Lyon Real Estate for January, as well. That would be weird, to get top status twice within a few months of each other. But weirder things have happened.

For instance, my #1 top producing status is a direct result of my short sale business. I've been doing short sales for about 6 years. Probably 80% or more of my real estate closings are short sales. Some agents still think that short sales are horrible, and they don't want to do them. Or, if they do try to be a short sale negotiator, they farm out the negotiation process to a third-party negotiator. But that's not really being a short sale negotiator. You really need to be hands-on in this business. You can't count on anybody else to do the job the way you would do it.

The Bank of America short sale department knows that. Bank of America is making many changes for its short sales. It will probably take a while to get full implementation across the board, so give the bank a little slack. I've received notices in the past that said B of A was no longer sending approval letters directly to the agents. You had to go to the library to retrieve the approval letters. But I still receive some approvals in my email. And then, like this morning, I received a notice to go to the library, but it was not in the library.

I think I'll go look under the rug. 

Be still my heart. I can barely stand it. I just received the news from Bank of America, and I need smelling salts. I almost passed out on my desk. All of my prayers have been answered. OK, I haven't really been praying to anybody, but I have been yelping a lot about how horrible the HAFA short sales have been with Bank of America third-party vendors.

Now, Bank of America has made a change. Effective December 1, which is today, Bank of America will no longer outsource its HAFA short sales when they are opened in Equator with an offer. I'm stoked. Jazzed. Especially since the only kind of HAFAs I have been doing lately are the HAFAs submitted with an offer. The preapproved HAFAs take too long. There is no reason to get preapproved people -- and now, with Bank of America's new policy, there is even less of a reason.

The second thing Bank of America is doing is implementing a procedure it announced it was implementing a month ago, yet had not actually taken place. This procedure involves not putting the short sale on hold while reaching out to the borrower to confirm that the borrower does not want HAFA.

Now, short sales will begin moving through the Equator system immediately. If the seller wants to do a HAFA, it is up to the agent to submit the required paperwork within 14 days. If Bank of America does not receive the paperwork within 14 days, then the HAFA will not be open, and the file will continue to be processed as a traditional short sale.

How smart is that?

Knock me over with a feather!

No longer will I need to hear that the homeowner has not called in to reject HAFA, and then have to listen to the homeowner rant and rave about the fact she DID call in. This new process is so much easier.

Thank you, Bank of America!

Beginning next week, Cubans can buy real estate. They can buy a home to live in and a vacation home. Of course, they have to get their money from one bank at whatever rates and terms are offered for financing, but how is that any different than the U.S.? We basically have four major banks where home buyers get their money. You think we have myriad of choices in America but we don't.

Every day I wake up to new nightmares in real estate. That's because I am a Sacramento short sale agent. I see a lot of turmoil, confusion and stress. But I strive for a balanced life. Not everything in my world consists of buyers walking away from escrows or banks demanding unreasonable prices. Much of it is receiving short sale approval and closing. I celebrate victories and don't pay a lot of attention to annoyances, except to figure out how to turn them into happier moments.

I pulled a file yesterday out of the HUD game. A negotiator at REDC insisted I communicate with her outside of Equator. She actually yelled at me in all capital letters in one email for sending communication through Equator instead of to her. I thought that was very peculiar. One of the games that negotiators like to play is what I call the HUD game. This is when they open a file, look at the HUD, pick one number off the HUD and ask for a revision.

Then, they close the file. When they open it again a week or three later, they pluck another number, disallow it, and demand a revision. See, then they can go back to watching reruns of All My Children on AOL TV. This goes on for a while. I can understand one HUD revision, maybe two, but not 4 to 5 or 7. I won't play that HUD game.

I contacted Bank of America directly through Twitter and explained the problem. They know what I mean when I say it's like that movie Groundhog Day. Some of them have worked at REDC before. By early afternoon, I had my approval letter. The escalation team at Bank of America is superb. And just for the record, all communication should go through Equator. If a negotiator says otherwise, let that be a red flag. Equator is how Bank of America monitors the short sale process.

Let's hope Cubans fare better with their housing than the mess we've managed to make out of our real estate market.

Photo by Adam Weintraub, Badwater Basin at Death Valley, who will be home today!

I attended another Bank of America short sale webinar yesterday. I was hoping for some breaking news but it was stuff I already knew. With the exception of one little piece of information that I bet most other agents didn't catch. And they didn't really say what they are going to do with that. I'm always searching for that little gem that teaches me something new.

Here are some of the highlights; then I'll get to the down-and-dirty part:

• Single Point of Contact. The homeowner will now have an individual person to talk to at Bank of America. I suspect this is an attempt to stop conflicting pieces of information. You can call Bank of America and get one opinion. If you hang up and call back, you'll get a different story. Now you can get the wrong story from the same person over and over. Or not.
• Postponing a Trustee's Sale. The bank wants to see an offer at least 45 days prior to auction. Don't dump your 11th hour desperate attempts to save a home from foreclosure on Bank of America.
• Cooperative Short Sale and a HAFA Short Sale approval stop a foreclosure. Bank of America did not say the process stops a foreclosure; it said the approval stops the foreclosure.
• Delegated vs. Non-Delegated. If the short sale is delegated, Bank of America can make the decision to accept the short sale. If it is non-delegated, the bank will need to get investor approval.
• Specialized Negotiators. Bank of America has recognized the need to train negotiators how to do a Fannie Mae short sale and a Freddie Mac short sale. Requirements are different for both, and they are different than a traditional short sale.
• A Cooperative Short Sale is different from a Proactive Short Sale. I look for signs that a seller will qualify for a cooperative short sale when I take my short sale listings. I really like working on the cooperative short sales and my sellers do, too. I wish we had the type of program offered in Florida in Sacramento, but it might come.
• Home Transition Guide. This is the clincher. This is the website portal where I'm betting Bank of America will end up listing its short sale agents under community service referrals. I'm wondering how to get myself listed as a Sacramento short sale agent. I sell in a four-county area: Sacramento, Placer, El Dorado Hills and Yolo. I have team members to service our buyers.

Hey, Bank of America, get in touch with me. Send me a text message or a Tweet. Next to a Wachovia short sale, you are my favorite short sale bank in Sacramento! I recently bought stock in Bank of America! I close a lot of Bank of America short sales!

Do you want to know how many short sales Bank of America has done over the past few years? Here are the stats I picked up from the webinar:

• 2009 Bank of America short sales: 42,000
• 2010 Bank of America short sales: 93,000 to 94,000. I don't know why there is a 1,000 variance.
• 2011 estimated Bank of America short sales: More than 100,000
• 2012 Bank of America short sale goal: 60% over 2011, which means 160,000. Or a 380% increase over 3 years ago.

If you are a seller wondering about doing a short sale in the Sacramento area, call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916 233 6759. I close more Bank of America short sales in Sacramento than any other type of short sale. Believe me, Bank of America wants to approve your short sale, and I am here to get you there.