Last night I heard Ravi Shankar say: Every day goes so fast. My husband and I were watching the HBO documentary by Scorsese, Living in the Material World, about George Harrison. Shankar's words were echoing in my head. Where else had I heard that recently? Oh, of course, it was sitting at the kitchen table yesterday with my clients in Wilton. Mr. Seller muttered those words when he was scribbling off and rewriting the date on a property profile sheet.
I was commiserating with Mrs. Seller. It's hard to know what day or month it is much less the year. The older you get, the less dates seem to matter. You find yourself saying goofy things like, "It wasn't that long ago, maybe the early 1990s." You wouldn't even realize it was goofy and be happy to wander off in your ignorant bliss until some rude person points out that was 20 years ago, and reminds you that 20 years is a long time.
What the hey. I have patience. I have to have patience because I sell a lot of Sacramento short sales. My patience does seem to run a little thin with lenders who can't close escrow, though. It seems like there are more and more buyers who are falling behind with closings. Why is that? I'm thinking it's because of the cutbacks. Lenders have laid off so many people. They haven't rehired to meet the demand of our uptick in pending sales.
Few real estate deals seem to be closing in 30 days right now. Many of my escrows have required extensions and are dragging on. I prefer not to believe it's due to incompetence. Or worse, maybe they don't pay enough to attract top talent. It's across the board, too. It's not just mortgage lenders. It's all of the other industries associated with the real estate business and even those who are not, such as our favorite lovable jokers at the IRS.
I have one particular escrow, which is not a short sale but a regular equity sale in Elk Grove, that is now more than 30 days past due for closing. Why? Because the IRS needs to verify the buyer's tax returns, which were pulled due to an audit. The buyer wants this home so badly that she paid the penalty and fees without question. But nobody can get the IRS to verify her return in a timely manner.
This is the same IRS dude, most likely, who told me last year if we didn't return a document in one hour, he was closing the file. And he did. It was a short sale in which we needed the tax lien released. You can release a tax lien, you know, because in a short sale there is no equity to support it. One hour he gave us. One hour.
Every day goes so fast.
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