Back in February of last year, I got a call from one of the banks that I had listed a foreclosure for in the past. The guy had a friend who had a sister who needed help here in my area. After speaking with the sister I got in touch with the potential client.
At that time she already had her home listed with another agent, but was in the process of withdrawing the listing. While that was being worked out, I researched the property, got all the tax info, and pulled the current MLS listing. The home was currently listed at $249,900. There was no way I was going to be able to market this home for that. I got all my data and comps together to show her at our first meeting.
After meeting with *Sonia, and showing her my research, she was devastated. The other agent had never shown her what she was competing with. We talked for a while, and she explained to me that she was currently going through a bitter divorce. He had bought the home before they were married and it was just an ordinary builder's spec home. After thay married, they made some a lot of changes to the home.
They expanded the garage and turned it into a wonderful teen suite. It was a detached garage with a breezeway, so they enclosed the breezeway so that it would all be part of the house. The suite had 2 large bedrooms with large closets, a kitchenette with it's own fridge, sink, microwave, washer and dryer, a dining room, a full bathroom, and a living room. It also had it's own septic tank and well.
When all these changes were made, and the home was refinanced, the mortgage company decided to use both the husband's and the wife's incomes for the loan, but they only put her name on the note. So, now that they were getting a divorce, sorry-no-good-soon-to-be-ex-hubby gets off scott free and is no longer responsible for having to help pay for the house. This woman has twin teenage daughters and was making a $2000 a month house payment on a teacher's salary.
She struggled for months trying to keep from going into foreclosure. She spoke with people at the mortgage company on a weekly basis. We had the home priced as low as we could get it without her having to come out of pocket. I annoyed the mess out of other agents trying depserately to find a buyer. But, with the market as it was, and the competition as it was, we didn't get very far. The home was a GREAT home, don't get me wrong. It was cozy, well decorated, and spacious, but it lacked curb appeal. It was "just an ordinary builder's spec house". We were competing with custom brick homes and nice landscaping.
FINALLY, in late October, a lady from the mortgage company contacted me and said that we could start advertising the home for a short sale. We got all of the necessary documents together and by the middle of November we had the price down to $195,000 where we were starting to genearte some activity.
Early in December I showed the house to a couple and it was EXACTLY what they needed. We went back to the office and wrote an offer right then. A good one too. It was only $2000 less than asking price. I called my seller and she was ecstatic! By this point she had already moved out of the house and was renting closer to work. This was the answer to our prayers.
Since this was being advertised as a short sale, we had to have the lender's approval. I called the lady who had been handling this file, and to my surprise, she was no longer handling this file. She gave me the number to the new contact person on the file. I called him and left a message on his voicemail, and in the menatime faxed the offer to the number that was on his voicemail. He didn't return my call. This led to an ongoing saga of me leaving voicemail day after day with no response. I called and tried to talk supervisors or anyone that would listen. They all kept redirecting me to this man that would never return my calls. I finally tried to talk to the woman who had initiated the short sale in the beginning. She was SO rude to me! She shouted, "I already told you that I am not handling this file anymore. There is nothing I can do to help you!"
This was the most frustrating thing!!! Here I was with a ready, willing, and able buyer, and I couldn't get so much as an acknowledgement from these people that they had even seen this offer. I called every day, twice a day and left voicemails for over a month. By this time, the home had already started running in the paper to be foreclosed on February 4. The buyers were discouraged because I had no answers and they walked away from the deal.
On February 2, 2 days before the home was to be foreclosed on, "the guy" calls and wants to know if the buyers are still interested. Can you believe this %$&@? I called the buyers and they had decided to wait for their other home to sell. As you can imagine, my seller and I were both crushed. This had been very emotional for the both of us. I had formed a bond with *Sonia over the past year and I felt as though I had failed her.
On February 4, they went through with the foreclosure. That next week, the agent who would be listing the property called me looking for a key so that he could get in. I had already removed my lockbox and the bank had not had the home rekeyed yet. I was cooperative and talked to him for a little while and pretty much unloaded what I had been through over the past several months. He was really nice and listened to me vent. He also let me know that he would be listing the property at $174,000 if the buyers were still interested.
WHAT??? I felt as though I had been kicked in the stomach when he said those words. I had an offer sitting in front of them for $193,000 and they could not bother to return my call, and now they're going to list it for $19,000 less? This was insanity! How could they do this???
How do you deal with this? How can you spend a year working so hard for someone and not get emotionally tied up? How do these people sleep at night after putting someone through this? I for one don't understand it.
*Name has been changed as I have not yet obtained permission to use seller's real name.
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