Because it's generally the investors who call the shots and not the short sale bank, some of my Sacramento short sale listings are not available to buyers who need their closing costs paid. A Bank of America short sale was verbally approved by the negotiator last week at the price submitted by the buyer, but the bank refused to credit the buyer 3% for closing costs.

We had room in the price to raise it. It would still appraise at the higher price. Almost all of my Sacramento short sale listings are priced below market and receive multiple offers, which drive up those initial offering prices.

So the buyer increased the offer to more than cover the concession and again asked for the closing cost credit. The bank rejected the short sale. Nope, said the investors, we will not give any kind of credit to the buyer. The buyer's agent was literally in tears.

Now, I know some of you are thinking that this doesn't make sense, but short sales don't always make sense. We had offered the bank an extra $10,000 above the accepted short sale price and asked for $9,000 back, but the bank refused.

The solution was to offer $10,000 below the accepted short sale price and have the buyer pay his own closing costs. Why did we do this? Because all the back-up offers are $10,000 below the highest offer.

I received an email from another Sacramento short sale agent this morning. She is in escrow on the same floor plan as one of my short sale listings. Except her offer is a bit below market. The bank refused to pay closing costs for her buyer as well, so she wanted to know how much my short sale sold for as it's in pending status. Apparently, her short sale bank was looking at the listed price of my listing and thinking it sold for that amount.

The thing is you never know what criterion a bank will use to support its acceptance of a short sale.