Should Buyers Walk Away From a Sacramento Short Sale? Maybe not.

Sacramento short sale buyers, 2 months ago, wrote an offer for a property that is listed by an agent in southern California. This agent rarely answers his phone or returns phone calls. After offer submission, the agent told me that my buyers' offer was the highest offer submitted and promised to let me know if that ranking changed.

After day 30, I began calling the agent every week for an update, but never received an update, apart from the fact that "we're waiting." During one of our last conversations, I asked the agent if my buyers' offer was still the highest, as I noted the property had gone "pending" and was no longer in "active contingent status." Sometimes, even though they're not supposed to, some agents change the status to stop the phone calls. I reasoned if the status change was due to too many phone calls, there may be other offers.

At this point, the agent refused to tell me. He said it was unfair to the other buyers. Hey, I didn't ask how high the offers were or to name a price; I simply wanted to know if my buyers were still in first position. But he wouldn't budge. I always let buyer's agents know how they rank. But not everybody operates like me. The thing that bugged me the most about this was the agent had made a promise and then reneged.

I relayed this information to my buyers and, against my advice, they elected to withdraw their offer. I sent the withdrawal of offer to the listing agent with a note explaining that if only he would have disclosed their rank, they would have waited.

Low and behold, 2 weeks later the agent called to ask if the buyers would come back if their offer won short sale approval and whether it was all right for him to call me if that happened. I felt like saying, "Hey, knock yourself out," but I didn't. I said, "Sure."

You guessed it. By the time of short sale approval, all the other buyers had vanished. The bank issued a counter offer to my buyers, they countered (rescinding their cancellation) and we should receive short sale approval next week.

The lesson here is you never know what will happen on a short sale. It pays to have a little patience, even if the listing agent is uncooperative.

The Short Sale Savior, by Elizabeth Weintraub, available at Amazon.com

Photo: Elizabeth Weintraub

Elizabeth Weintraub is an author, columnist for The New York Times'-owned About.com, a Land Park resident, and a Land Park real estate agent who specializes in older, classic homes in Land Park, Curtis Park, Midtown and East Sacramento. Weintraub is also a Sacramento Short Sale agent who lists and successfully sells short sales throughout Sacramento. Call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759. Put 35 years of real estate experience to work for you.