In the interest of time and my personal sanity, there are some emails I don't open. Just delete. I do it based on the title of the email. Like this morning, I received, "Open House in Del Dayo." Another was "Critical Eye Home Inspection." My favorite: "Sudden Values." Into the trash. But in the back of my mind I have this nagging suspicion that one of these days I will throw away a short sale approval letter.
That's because the approval letters often arrive looking like spam. First, the bank negotiator fills the title with numbers inherent in the loan. That might be helpful in their database but it means nothing to me or any other Sacramento short sale agent. A negotiator at Bank of America sent an after-closing-escrow message that referenced the escrow number and property address, and I thought to myself what a brilliant guy. There is somebody who thinks about his audience. This is what I love to see.
Most of my email messages reference the property address. That's because after closing, I file each email into my digital file. I find them by searching for the address. But it made me think, is that enough to get a person to open my email? Referencing the property address? Not if it's not their own address. However, if I had to find that particular email again and, say, I was searching for the email about removal of contingencies, it would be helpful to reference contingency in the subject line.
I know this because I received an email this morning from an agent who has not yet removed the inspection contingencies. Her 17 days for inspection has come and gone. We requested the contingency release for inspections a few days ago. The agent refused, saying she wanted to wait for the appraisal to make sure the home appraised at value. Yet, the purchase contract has a loan contingency in place until closing. We are not asking her to remove the loan contingency. If it doesn't appraise, that loan won't close.
Her buyers are in breach of contract. Just because it's a short sale doesn't mean the buyers can get away without adhering to the contract. The contingencies are the same for a short sale as they are for a traditional sale.
Nobody is ever so sure they are right as when they are wrong. And that's a pretty sucky place to be.
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Certified HAFA Specialist
Sacramento Real Estate Listings
Elizabeth Weintraub is an author, home buying columnist for 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 the four-county Sacramento area. Call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759. Put 35 years of real estate experience to work for you. Broker-Associate at Lyon Real Estate. DRE License # 00697006.
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Lyon Real Estate is not associated with the government, and our service is not approved by the government or your lender. Even if you accept this offer and use our service, your lender may not agree to change your loan. Photo: Unless otherwise noted in this blog, the photo is copyrighted by Big Stock Photo and used with permission.The views expressed herein are Weintraub's personal views and do not reflect the views of Lyon Real Estate. Disclaimer: If this post contains a listing, information is deemed reliable as of the date it was written. After that date, the listing may be sold, listed by another brokerage, canceled, pending or taken temporarily off the market, and the price could change without notice. It could blow up, explode or vanish. To find out the present status of any listing, please go to elizabethweintraub.com.
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8 Comments on Nobody is Ever So Sure They Are Right as When They Are Wrong
This is so true we must treat all contracts as binding and meet all contingency periods. Thanks for sharing.
Hi Elizabeth, boy... you hit the nail on the head for what I did this morning. I get up - check my email, check my email spam very carefully, double check my trash. Then recheck Everything before I dump the trash... YES, I am waiting for my letter from BofA. Happy Holidays, - Christine
Hi Elizabeth,
Excellent points and I especially love the title!
All the best for 2012,
And seems like when people kinda know they might, just possibly be in the wrong - that can be when they insist ever more loudly that they are right!
You write so well, and are so talented at what you do. I'm in awe of all the short sales you acheive as in our area a good number of buyer agents will do everything they can not to work with short sales because of the length of time it takes to close them....hopefully this will get better as more and more of the lenders are putting programs together to make the negotiations easier. What do you think of the BOA sell to investors to rent to former owners program? V
Hi Vanessa: I think with anything that Bank of America does it sounds like a good program at inception and it will take months to implement correctly, but eventually it will either work or it won't. Hard to say. I haven't had any luck with it, and they've been talking about it for a while.
Good morning Elizabeth!
I try and put a property address in my subject lines and one or two word description as well so I can locate the email again without having to open several to find it.
As far as the contingency release for inspections, I don't get that one either. I'm with you in that the loan contingency is still in effect so what's the big deal!
Have a great day!
The bar to be an agent is not very high so unfortunately too many agents do not know what the word contingency means.
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