Elizabeth Weintraub • Sacramento Short Sale Agent • Land Park

I listed three more Sacramento short sales yesterday. At my last appointment, I turned to the sellers and said, "You know who I feel sorry for?" And Mr. Seller said, "Me?" Then, his wife said, "No, must be me." Well, the truth is I have empathy for all of my sellers. Doing a short sale is not always easy or pleasant. But in the end, it's a huge burden released from your shoulders. You feel like you can finally get on with your life.

But the person I feel sorry for is the person who has a phone number that is very similar to my phone number. I met her once. I even showed her property because we got to talking. It's hard to talk to me and not talk about real estate or Sacramento short sales. Her phone number is one digit different from mine. A digit that is very similar in size and shape to another digit.

This person has gone so far as to put a recording on her answering machine. It says: do not leave a message for Elizabeth Weintraub because this is not the phone number for Elizabeth Weintraub. Yet, agents leave a message. That's because agents hear: Leave a message for Elizabeth Weintraub. They think I have a secretary.

This unfortunate recipient of my phone calls called yesterday to complain that agents are calling her at least 2 to 3 times a day. They all swear they found my phone number in MLS. It's impossible, though. That's because MLS distributes information to listings directly from an agent's profile. My profile has the correct phone number. I copied the page of my profile and emailed it to this person. I sent her a copy of my last listing -- which she is surely receiving calls about in this hot market and it's not even a short sale -- and which clearly has my correct number.

If agents routinely reached the wrong phone number for me, they would call and tell me. I have not received one phone call from any agent about this. But I feel sorry for this woman who ends up with all of these misdialed phone calls. Misdialed. Is that a word anymore? Phones don't have dials today. Every so often, I get a call for her, but it's rare.

My solution is to offer these buyer's agents $100 for a copy of that listing with her phone number. That's because it doesn't exist. And I don't care how much these agents swear up and down her phone number is in MLS because it's not. I don't know if it's because most real estate agents are over 40 and that's when vision starts to go. Or, is it something else?

As I prepared to leave my listing in Elk Grove, Mr. Seller said, "You know why I chose you to be our Sacramento short sale agent?" No, my quirky sense of humor? My expertise and education? You like my hair? In part, Mr. Seller said it was my 35-plus years in real estate that impressed him. Also, didn't hurt that after he made his decision, he called a friend to ask which agent that friend would recommend and his friend said: Elizabeth Weintraub.

But a factor I hadn't counted on was he chose me because I'm female. Yup, because I am a woman.

He said, "Women care. Men don't give a" . . . er, a flying fig. Well, I'm not going there. No gender wars for me.

Although officially on the clock and therefore working, this Sacramento short sale agent did take a trip yesterday with family to San Francisco. We hopped on the Capitol Corridor train, switched to the B.A.R.T. at Richmond and stepped out into the wonderful world of Powell and Market. Around Sacramento, this is known as going to the City.

My sister and niece are visiting Sacramento from Minneapolis. That meant I needed to show them one of the most magical places on Earth -- the Nordstrom shoe department. The odd thing about the shoe department at Nordstrom right now is the fact it is filled with mostly Lady Gaga shoes, which really are nothing new because they originated with Elton John years ago. Where were these shoes when I was 21? On the other hand, you've got your flats. There is not much in between. If you want a 3-inch heel, you're pretty much out of luck.

Kinda like a Sacramento short sale. You've got your serious home buyers, and then the ones who like to throw offers at the wall to see which will stick. Not much in between.

It was a rather slow day yesterday for offers. Seeing as how Thursdays are the unofficial REALTOR® Day Off, I received only 3 offers on my short sale listings. One of them offered a $5,000 earnest money deposit from the buyer. When I explained to the agent from the Bay Area that he needed to a) read the attachments to MLS and b) read the confidential remarks in MLS, he responded to say his buyer would want to reduce the deposit.

He seemed to take umbrage when I questioned the authenticity of his offer. Is that how they write offers in the Bay Area? They just make up crap? When is a deposit not an earnest money deposit? Is that when it's written into the offer or when it's removed from the offer?

Photo: Adam Weintraub

The problem with closing so many escrows is my inventory dwindles. Happy sellers, yes. But if I keep this up, I'll be out of business! This happened because I went to Hawaii for 3 weeks and asked my potential new sellers if they minded waiting for me to get back. If they didn't want to wait, I could have listed their homes while I was on vacation (*yes, I do have systems in place for that), but they agreed to wait.

Now, I see the fallout of what happens when I don't regularly take new listings over a 3-week period. Especially when a bunch close. My overall inventory declines. As a Sacramento short sale agent, I need to keep listing. Keep selling new short sales and putting more pending sales into the pipeline. It's sorta what makes my world go around. What can I say? I'm a sick puppy. I really, really love what I do.

It seems like I've spent the last 3 days on the phone -- around the clock pretty much -- talking to sellers in Sacramento about doing their short sale. Every single short sale is different. Each is a custom situation that deserves a custom response for every seller. I'd rather take my time and do it right and end up with a seller who is thrilled with my performance than a frustrated seller.

In the midst of all this activity, it kind of surprised me yesterday to hear from a lender. A short sale lender -- and I'm not saying which -- called me to ask if I'd take a Sacramento short sale listing. This particular lender was happy with the way I handled a transaction last month and asked if I would do another. Every so often a short sale seller will call and say their lender referred me, but I've never had a lender call me directly before.

I'd say that's a good sign that I'm doing a good job. Wouldn't you? If you're looking for a Sacramento short sale agent, call me. Your lender probably would, LOL. If you get voice mail, leave a message or call back. I answer my calls. If I'm not on the phone, I answer my phone, too. 916 233 6759. Not to mention, I've got enough gumption to say that Elizabeth Weintraub is your Sacramento short sale agent. 

I've often said I would prefer to do a root canal than have to deal with an AMS Bank of America short sale. Well, this morning, lucky me -- I get that wish. I'm going in for a root canal at 9 AM and guess what? I don't have a single AMS Bank of America short sale in the works. This is my lucky day! That's my tradeoff. Root canal and no AMS Bank of America. Sounds fair to me.

This is what being a Sacramento short sale agent can drive a person to. To looking for a silver lining like this in my day!

I do, however, have a UTLS Bank of America HAFA short sale in escrow. It's one of those situations in which I'm pretty sure it's in escrow but I'm not absolutely certain because, for some reason, we can't get Bank of America to open the gates of Equator. They should do it. It's not a Freddie Mac HAFA. The negotiator does not respond to email or phone calls. The seller has tried repeatedly.

I sent B of A a Tweet for help yesterday. Usually I get a return call almost immediately, but this time the call came from an 818 area code, southern California, about 3 hours later. The caller couldn't hear me, and we were disconnected. I called back an hour later when I was in a place where I wasn't moving around but got voice mail. Left a message.

It was weird because the B of A Tweet asked for the best time to call. Except I had already put that best time to call in my Tweet. B of A also asked for the property address in the Tweet. In the past, I've been told that a property address is private information and not to include the property address in my Tweet.

Yeah, give me that root canal.

Krushchev's due at Idlewild. Car 54, where are you?

Among all of my Bank of America short sales that I do in Sacramento and, believe me, I do a lot of them, only the HAFA short sales are the problems. That's because only the HAFA short sales are farmed out to a third-party vendor. It seems that while Bank of America is paying out billions in bonuses for its executive staff while eliminating 30,000 employee positions, it actually does a pretty fair job with processing short sales. Too bad that excellence doesn't extend to the HAFA short sales.

Real estate agents everywhere in the world gripe and moan about contracts and paperwork. They hate it. They hate it because it's boring, tedious and it goes against the grain of what they are good at doing -- which is selling real estate. Few of us possess the traits that balance left-brain work with right-brain work. Those of us who have these traits are the types of agents who make a good Sacramento short sale agent.

That's because attention to detail and paperwork is crucial in a short sale. But so is the selling end. And you can't really have one without the other and manage to make any money in this business, unless you're born with that ability or can afford to hire the help.

I explain to my short sale sellers how real estate agents work. I tell them that in any given year, about 80% to 90% of the agents who belong to the Sacramento Board of REALTORS® close somewhere between 1 to 5 real estate transactions a year. On top of this shocking news, the odds are unbelievably high that when we receive an offer for my seller's short sale, that offer will come from this pool of inexperienced real estate agents.

Why is this information important? Because I need some way to explain how we end up with such crazy offers. And this is the only explanation I've got.

I received an offer this morning that was dated November 1st and has already expired. Page 8 of the C.A.R. purchase contract, in paragraph 29, lays out the time frame for offer acceptance. If the agent doesn't put his or her name in that spot, and doesn't fill in a date to be accepted, the purchase contract must be signed and delivered back to the buyer within 3 days (not the agent), or we don't have a contract. Today is November 7th. There is no agent named in paragraph 29. It expired 3 days ago.

The more glaring issues I see with purchase contracts involve Section 1A of the short sale addendum and Section 3. (Checking Section 3 puts the deposit in escrow, which my sellers require.) I am hopeful that the new SSA coming out this month will change the date in Section 1A to 60 days. Presently, it's 45 days. Agents don't know that they have the power to change it. Sometimes, they tell me their buyers don't want to wait 60 days or 90 days or whatever it takes to get the short sale approved.

Well, when that date comes and goes, their buyer is no longer in contract. On top of which, if they don't want to wait, may I be so bold as to suggest that perhaps these buyers are not candidates to buy a Sacramento short sale? You think? I've had agents beg me to allow them to sign the contract at 45 days. Like I have any control over when the banks approves the short sale? No, I don't. If the buyer doesn't want to wait for short sale approval, that buyer should buy something else.

Last night an agent called to say her buyers were foaming at the mouth to buy a Sacramento short sale. It was their dream home. She had just finished showing it, and her buyers would do whatever it takes to own it. They had to have it! Well, except for the part that they didn't want to offer the price the bank wanted. They didn't want to wait for short sale approval. They wanted 45 days in the SSA. I suppose we could go into contract figuring nobody is counting the days, and that's probably what many agents do. If it expires, who is to know?

That's a crummy way to sell real estate, though. Our clients deserve better. Those foaming-at-the-mouth buyers? They passed. Not away -- like they dropped dead or anything. They just didn't write an offer. Hard for agents to differentiate in this market, I suppose, between a rabid dog and a dedicated buyer. They are so similar.

There are some days that seem to be filled with stupidity. There's just no other way to put it. I expect a little stupidity here and there because that's how life is. You take the good with the bad. The smart with the stupid. The honest with the liars. But it can get a little overbearing at times and make an agent wonder: Is everybody drinking the same Kool-Aid?

An agent in my office told me about her experiences after a recent closing. She represented the buyers. Buyers who thought she should give them $2,000 of her commission because that's what buyer's agents do. Not. If they were my buyers, I would have said, "I think you've got it backwards. You're supposed to give ME $2,000 because that's what buyers do."

These buyers unscrewed all the light bulbs in the house and then called the agent to say the electricity wasn't working. When she showed up their steps with a box of light bulbs, they asked her to paint the house because they didn't like the color in front.

You just can't make this stuff up.

I have sellers who are asking me to sell their furniture for them because they don't want to move it. And it's a short sale. They most likely do not know that an arm's length affidavit prevents them from selling personal property to the buyer without disclosure. Moreover, much as I want to help them, I am a Sacramento short sale agent; my license does not allow me to sell furniture. I uploaded a full price offer for them to sign online, but they never looked at it, despite my pleas. Then, they asked me for a full price offer, and demanded that I be present for all showings. Why? I sent them a full price offer.

I received a bunch of offers yesterday for new listings. I explained to the agents that they needed to follow MLS instructions. When some of those offers were rejected, the agents asked whether my sellers had accepted an offer over theirs because they did not follow MLS instructions. You think?

I thought a BPO had been done on a home in Land Park. Come to find out it wasn't. The appointment had been set. But the BPO agent assumed, he said, that somebody would call him back to confirm. Why? I don't know. We told him to go. So, the lender closed the file in error. We had to beg and plead to get it reopened. I'm thinking the BPO agent blew it off because he didn't have a lockbox display key.

A prospective short sale seller demanded that I meet with her husband at his office without an advance appointment. When I offered to talk by phone, she refused. They decided instead to go to LA to enjoy some down time. She also had to take her Mercedes to the dealer for warranty work. I explained that the clock was ticking on her Fannie Mae default and it would go to trustee's sale if she doesn't hire a Sacramento short sale agent who knows how to deal specifically with a Fannie Mae short sale. She has no real hardship and, without experienced representation, well, she is headed for foreclosure. But, hey, she found a rookie. Bully for her.

We also made a third attempt to collect an earnest money deposit from a so-called buyer. My team member asked him to make his deposit payable to a certain title company, but he gave her a check payable to Chicago Title instead. She returned it and asked for a check payable to Title. He gave her a check payable to Escrow. She returned it. Next check was payable November 3 when it was October 3. This isn't stupidity. This is dishonesty. There's a difference.

Today is bound to be better. It's in the odds.

This may come as a shock to some of you, but I actually do turn off my computer at night. I do not sleep with my mouse under my pillow. My neck does not have a USB connection.

I realize that I tend to freak out prospective clients when I pick up the phone and call them within minutes of receiving an email. Barring that, I return emails almost immediately, providing I am not with a client. Well, unless my client is somewhere in Iraq, and I have a few of those in military service.

But sometimes I feel almost apologetic when a client says, Wow, I just emailed you. They don't expect a Sacramento short sale agent to respond to their inquiry, I suppose. I guess I'm supposed to here sit and study their email for a bit, maybe wonder if I feel like calling them. To respond right away is in my DNA.

I do two things in my Sacramento short sale business: I attract new business, and I close existing business. If there is an activity beckoning me that is outside of those two areas, I probably don't do it. That's how I am successful. It's a pretty simple formula.

So, it was out of the norm last night when I received a voice mail after 7 PM, just as I was turning off my cell phone, for me to actually turn my phone back on and listen to the message. It was also out of the norm for me to return that call, even though I could not hear the agent's name nor company because some of them mumble when they leave a voice mail. I want to say: Enunciate, people! What's wrong with you?

This guy picked up too. Said he was an REO agent. Well, why is he calling me? He was calling me to say that my listing on Iris Spring had gone to trustee's auction that morning, and he was the new listing agent for the bank. I stay on top of all of my short sales. I check the auction dates regularly. This bit of news did not make sense. Besides, my Iris Spring short sale in Elk Grove is a pending transaction. We already have short sale approval.

Nah, I was pretty certain this guy was mistaken. I asked him to double check the address. Sure enough, it wasn't my listing he was calling about. He said he saw the Lyon Real Estate sign and just assumed it was my listing. But it's not. It's some other short sale agent's listing that went to foreclosure. That's not where mine end up. Thank goodness. Talk about freaking ME out!

It's the law of the short sale universe, I suppose. That law is all I have to do is go out of town and short sale approval letters will arrive. Make that a holiday, like Labor Day, and those letters will multiply. What are those negotiators doing, do you wonder? They should be taking off, kicking back, grilling food black, instead of knocking out short sale approval letters, but there you go. They just found another way to irritate a Sacramento short sale agent. One more notch in their belt or cartoony-scratchy mark on the side of their car door.

But that's OK. I don't get annoyed. That's because I leave back-up systems in place. Things get processed even if I am not here in Sacramento.

With approval letters, comes my reminder to buyer's agents that the home is sold in its 'as is' condition. They tend to forget about it, and so do their buyers. After all, they probably haven't thought much about this short sale home as they waited for the approval. The approval can come anywhere between 6 weeks and, in some awful circumstances, 6 months.

At that point, the buyers schedule their home inspections. The problem that crops up with a home inspection is all of the utilities need to be turned on. A seller might not know if they are on. If they are turned off, the home inspector will have to come back. If the home inspector makes a return trip, you can bet that home inspector will charge for that return trip. Then, you have a very unhappy buyer. If the buyer is unhappy, then the buyer's agent is unhappy -- and if the buyer's agent is unhappy, then . . . you know what they say about crap rolling downhill?

The thing that some people don't know is if a home sits unoccupied for a long enough period of time, PG&E will turn off the gas. Yeah, you can turn it back on in the street, if the home inspector knows how to do it and wants to violate a few rules, but that's not the ideal solution. The ideal solution is to verify with PG&E that the gas is still turned on. Because apparently, they don't tell you when they turn it off.

I now tell Sacramento short sale sellers to put this on the checklist. After short sale approval is received, call PG&E to make sure the gas is still turned on. And for goodness sakes, please keep the sprinklers set to water. Don't turn off the sprinklers. When a seller signs a purchase contract for a short sale in Sacramento, the seller is agreeing to maintain that home in the same condition it was in when the buyer last saw it. Please don't let the grass die.

I am sometimes so focused on a seller's hardship letter that I might blurt out something I should not say. A seller might tell me that his job transferred him to the East Coast, which means he has to uproot his family, tear his kids away from their friends and school, and move to some horribly distant and barren land. And I'll say: "Perfect; that's great!" Then, I find myself backpeddling to explain why I said that because I would hate to come across as a person without compassion.

Because the truth is I do care. I am saddened by the misfortune that often accompanies a Sacramento short sale. As a Sacramento short sale agent, I talk with plenty of people who are suffering. Sometimes, they tell me they have no hardship, so they don't think they will qualify for a short sale. Much depends on their lender. If their bank is Bank of America, they probably will qualify because of the Cooperative Short Sale program.

I also explain that the loss of job security is a hardship. How many people in this day and age can honestly say that they are completely secure in their line of work? Well, besides a Sacramento short sale agent, I mean. I'm probably one of the few people with job security. I look out at the horizon, and I see short sales for as far as the eye can see. But regular people, sane people who wouldn't work a short sale if their life depended on it? What do they see when they look at their jobs? It's not pretty. Until the job market changes in Sacramento, short sales will continue.

If you're looking for a short sale that would probably make a great rental, here is a short sale in Antelope. It has 3 bedrooms and  2 baths, standard issue. Attached two-car garage. Central heat and air. Brand spankin' new carpeting, and some of the bedrooms have been painted. The master bath is updated, ceramic floor, shower, vanity.

This home is situated outside of the newer home subdivisions. It's like being in the country or maybe Rio Linda. The home was built in 1985, and it's about 1,362 square feet. The roof was replaced in 2003. It has a covered patio and fruit trees in the fenced back yard.

7854 Caber Way, Antelope, CA 95843 is offered exclusively by Lyon Real Estate as a short sale at $110,000. For more information, call your Sacramento short sale agent, Elizabeth Weintraub, at 916 233 6759. For a private showing, call Linda Swanson at 916 607 0111.

Photos: Elizabeth Weintraub

How many times have you heard that expression? It's not personal; it's just business. That expression would not exist if people were not so self centered, imagining that the entire world revolves around them. We can all be guilty of this behavior at times because it's human nature. We are the center of our own reality. It can be a shock to realize that nobody else gives a crap. But they don't.

The thing is if you're buying a short sale in California, your contract contains time periods for performance.  One of those important time periods is how long you have agreed to wait for short sale approval. That date is contained in the short sale addendum. If that date has come and gone, you no longer have a contract. You read this correctly: you're out of contract at that point. The seller can sell to somebody else. To another buyer.

If you want to stay in contract with the seller in a short sale, you need to extend that time period. If you don't want to extend the time period, then you need to sign a cancellation of contract to get your earnest money deposit released and to cancel the escrow.

For weeks, a buyer's agent had been lamenting about how tortured his buyers feel waiting for the approval from the mortgage insurance company. There is nothing I can do about MI. Once a file goes to review at MI, it's completely out of my hands. During the waiting period, however, I discovered the short sale addendum had expired.

If the buyers had not been so squirmy, I might have been tempted to overlook this just to get to approval. But squirmy buyers tend to equate to buyers who don't perform upon approval because they ran off to enter into a contract on something else. We gave the buyers 2 days to perform by signing the extension. They received a Notice to Perform. If they don't, we will unilaterally cancel them. Their buyer's agent takes exception. Well, it's not personal; it's just business.

Buyer's agents: check your short sale addendums to make sure your buyers are still in contract with the seller. If the time period has expired, consider extending that contract. Don't wait for the listing agent to contact you. It's your buyer, your job. If a Sacramento short sale agent has to send YOU the addendum, that agent might have already contacted several other buyers with a back-up offer who are ready to step into your shoes. It's not personal; it's just business.