Adventures in Real Estate
Episode 1: Teamwork Saves the Day!
By Rachel Buller
Recently, a client and I had an experience that was a good reminder of the power of teamwork. My client’s home was under contract, so she put in an offer on a short sale listing. In a short sale situation, the bank that holds the mortgage has to agree to take less than the balance of the principal owed, so even though the seller agrees to the price, it still has to be “okay-ed” by the bank. This can sometimes take a very long time, but we knew that the bank had agreed to this price previously, so we hoped it would get done in time for my client to move in right after her house closed.
Even though we didn’t have short sale approval from the bank, we continued to move forward with the loan, inspection, and appraisal. During the inspection, a question came up that caused a hiccup in the process and the bank ended up canceling the file, so it had to be resubmitted by the listing company, causing another delay.
In the meantime, my client’s house was just about to close and she had moved everything out. All of her possessions were in a moving truck, which was costing her hundreds of dollars per day.
Oh, did I mention that the house was in foreclosure? Yes, it was… and it was due to be sold at the Public Trustee’s sale in two days. Because of the file being resubmitted, the bank hadn’t delayed the Public Trustee’s sale. So, here we were on the night before the Public Trustee’s sale, with my client’s old house closed, her stuff in a truck, and her new house about to potentially be sold to someone else in the morning. Talk about a nail-biter! We gathered our team together and came up with a way to buy it, if it came to that.
The next morning, we met downtown at the Public Trustee’s sale and waited. After about a half hour of hand wringing, and just 15 minutes before the sale began, we were informed that the bank had delayed putting this property on the auction block. What a relief!
The bank finally approved the short sale and we were able to close on the new house within a few days, so this story has a happy ending. It could have ended differently, but because my client, a dear friend of hers, her lender, the listing company, and I all worked as a team to address the challenges as they came up, we were able to accomplish our goal. Teamwork won again!
