I believe that anyone who works on and closes Short Sale Listings has had one of these, but mine occurred last week and we finally got it CLOSED!  The trick with short sales is to never give up!  This one had it's own unique challenges, each one of course seeming as though we would not overcome it, but in the end we did and everyone is happy!

It began with an Elk Grove listing in the West Laguna area...beautiful 2 story home with a gorgeous pool and backyard.  The seller had not worked in the past year and had stopped making his payments a couple of months before contacting me.  It was listed at $425,000 and within 30 days we had a cash offer at $385,000 to close in 2 weeks of the existing lender's acceptance of the short sale.  Seems pretty easy so far.  At this point we start negotiations with the existing lenders - both loans were with Morgan Stanley.  After about 3 months of negotiations and of course, making sure we still had our buyer with us in the transaction, we received an approval letter on the short sale from Morgan Stanley...toay this seems like the easy part!

At this point, we should have been closing in 2 weeks time...well, the seller decided to move out to southern California and the buyer started completing their inspections.  Upon the seller vacating the property and prior to the buyer's inspections, somehow this beautiful pool turned green and some of the pool equipment was stolen!  After negotiations back and forth the buyer decided they were getting a good deal and they would hang in there.  It's now the middle of September...and we think we are getting ready to close.  Our close of escrow date on our approval letter is September 25th.

The seller signs his papers and thinks he's done...he is starting to tell us at this point that after this is completed his attorney has suggested he file bankruptcy, so he will be doing this on October 1st.  The buyer is out of the country at the time, but comes back from their trip and signs their papers, so now escrow is only waiting for the funds to close - approximately $375,000 to be wired to escrow.  After a few days of waiting, the escrow officer hears that a portion of the funds or about $220,000 will be wired right away.  She receives this money and then we are waiting on the rest.  Of course, at this point we are at our September 25th close of escrow date with Morgan Stanley, so we have to get an extension.  We get our extension and are awaiting the remaining funds.

Morgan Stanley has set a Trustee Sale date of October 6th and remember the seller thinks he is filing bankruptcy on October 1st.  Well on September 30th we still don't have the remaining funds to close.  The wire was supposedly coming from China or Afghanistan - the selling agent didn't seem to know for sure - and for some reason the funds were held up in New York, by Homeland Security?  At this point the seller agrees not to file bankruptcy yet as he does not want both a bankruptcy and a foreclosure on his credit report.  Now we just have to get an extension on the Trustee Sale, which we do.  Last Thursday the funds finally came in to close this escrow and on Friday morning we recorded! 

The seller is happy, the buyer is very happy and we have closed another successful Elk Grove short sale!  The moral of this story?  You must be persistent and be ready to face the challenges that come your way if you want to be successful at helping sellers with their hardships.  NEVER GIVE UP!

For more information on Short Sales

If you are a seller and wish to contact us for a FREE consultation regarding a possible short sale on your home, please call us at (916) 230-0371 or send email to Lori@ModeandDurhaM.com.

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Lori Mode and Bruce Durham, Keller Williams Realty in Elk Grove, CA

               www.AllElkGroveHomes.com