Not every seller is cut out to do a short sale. It takes a certain breed. Because there are never any guarantees. What a bank did yesterday it might not do tomorrow. So, if some supposed Sacramento short sale agent tells you he or she knows exactly what will happen, you better run like the wind. Nobody knows for certain. All we can do is guess-estimate.

Some things, however, are almost like writing on the wall. Like a hard-money loan in third position on a California short sale. You know where those third loans generally come from? Sources such as Key Bank. Key Bank financed a lot of swimming pools for Premier Pools. Even as late as 2007, many home buyers were still buying a home with 80 / 20 combo financing and then putting in a pool. You think a short sale with 2 loans is tough? Try 3. I've closed several like this recently, and they were all long, drawn-out battles.

Somebody is gonna pay in these situations.

I just closed a short sale in Roseville that I've sold 5 times. Buyers refused to wait. This short sale had 3 loans. Tomorrow, it would have been listed for two solid years. Unlike other Sacramento short sale agents, I don't abandon my listings and withdraw them from MLS just because it takes a little bit of extra work. Just because a buyer flaked or a lender says no, I keep on fighting the fight because eventually it will close. Or, at least that's what I believe will happen, and then it generally does.

But a seller has got to commit to the short sale process from the beginning. Some sellers don't know what they signed up for, so I try to explain a little bit up front if I suspect the process will be complicated. How does one prepare for the unknown? It can be like crawling through the desert without water and hallucinating mirages. Like digging your way through a Minnesota snowbank in the winter without gloves or shoes and watching your breath morph into snowflakes, nose-snot icicles. There is no way to prepare for that. You just say to yourself that no matter what happens you will keep on keeping on.

Before you embark on a short sale, ask yourself if you have what it takes. Take internal inventory. Because you might need to draw on that strength.