The C Team

Archive for the ‘Real Estate Issues’ Category

This past week we were able to get bank approval on a short sale for one of our listings.  The Bank was Chase Bank, and to be honest, they actually got back to us in a fairly timely manner.   The thing that I am cautioning agents to be aware of is that they included a clause which the sellers had to sign stating that they accepted that they could be liable for the deficit on the original loan.

This was especially vexing to our clients, they had some very serious medical problems and the costs wiped them out financially, so they declared bankruptcy.  This particular house was included in the Bankruptcy as it was a second home for our clients.  An agent in our office had a client that was interested in this home, so we inquired of Chase what needed to be done to sell it, and were told by them to do a short sale, that they had not foreclosed on it even though it had been included in the bankruptcy.

Long story short, our clients did NOT sign this agreement, and they are willing to let it go into foreclosure as Chase would not remove the clause in question from their acceptance of the short sale price.  I am not going to blame my clients, they already have the Bankruptcy on their credit, they don’t need a debt reaffirmed on top of that.

I guess what I am saying, is make sure that you check these documents and explain to your clients that they really will find themselves at the Bank’s mercy whether or not they will be held liable for the deficit.  That is if the lien holder includes this type of conditional clause in their acceptance of a short sale price.

I will admit that this was the first time that we had seen this conditional clause in a short sale price acceptance, I will also admit that there are agents that do more short sales than we do, but in any case, you have to look out for your client’s interests, that is why they hired you!

If you’re looking to buy or sell real estate in Cedar City, Utah; please give us a call.  We would love to earn your business!

A judge in St. George, Utah effectively halted all foreclosures by Bank of America in the state of Utah.  Judge Shumate in a decision handed down on May 22nd stopped all foreclosure procedures by Bank of America until they adhere to Utah State Law requiring all mortgage lenders to register with the State, and have offices within the State.  This affects the mortgages that were issued by Countrywide that were purchased by Bank of America.

Here is the link from The Spectrum/Daily News:

http://www.thespectrum.com/article/20100607/NEWS05/100607004/BREAKING-NEWS–St.-George-judge-halts-BofA-foreclosures-in-Utah

The housing market must be big news in the State of Utah, either that or nothing else is going on.  Two days in a row has seen news articles on the housing market in the State.  Of course the State to most people, means the Wasatch Front, which is roughly the Ogden to Provo corridor which includes Davis and Salt Lake Counties.  Often Cache Valley (Logan), Park City, Heber City and Tooele get lumped in, it depends who is talking.  I grew up on the Wasatch Front, it is a great place!

However interesting the article, I am reminded that all real estate is local!  I found one part of this article especially interesting that is where Mr. Perry of Perry homes is stating that home and lot sizes will be “morphing” to smaller sizes.  The days of large sizing and financing every upgrade imaginable may be coming to an end in the housing market.  Any way, I did find it to be an interesting article, even if I believe that we have a different market than the Wasatch Front does. 

Here is the link:

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700025632/Utah-housing-market-challenges-builders-favors-buyers.html?pg=1

I know that there are differing opinions on closing gifts from different agents.  Some agents don’t feel that they should give closing gifts at all.  I am not even sure the real estate rules are everywhere, however, at our office we do give closing gifts.  The broker has accounts at several local restaurants, where we can give gift certificates.  They are a popular gifts for many of the agents.

Yesterday, Darcy had a brilliant idea.  I should say, yesterday, we delivered to a couple of our past clients one of Darcy’s brilliant ideas.  We have another past client that makes personalized picture frames and other crafts that can be personalized.  This idea is brilliant, in that it helps one of our past clients earn a little extra money, it keeps us in her mind, and it is a unique gift that our clients will always remember who gave them that picture frame.

That is one of the keys to this idea, we believe that a personalized gift, shows that you care more about the client than just recieving that commission check.  That and we believe that with something like a gift certificate can backfire on retaining a client. 

Chances are really good that a month after the client utilizes the gift certificate, they will have forgotten all about where it came from. The other thing that can backfire is that you become dependent on another businesses customer service skills to satisfy your client.  If your client recieves bad service or bad food, they are not going to remember you in a good light. 

This is a photo of a samle of the work that our former client does:

Photo and frame are both by Kailey Q Spencer.

She does many different sayings and types of things that can be incorporated into someone’s home decor.  Another thing that we found was effective is that instead of giving this to our clients at closing, we waited a few weeks then stopped by their houses and dropped off the gifts.  It was nice to be invited in and to have a little chat with our former clients. 

In this economy, we just believe that it is much less expensive to retain clients that we already have and get them referring us to their friends, than it is to cultivate new clients.  So we look at this not as a client gift, but as an advertising expense.

Darcy and I have a deal that we thought would sail through, a great buyer with her financing in place, a town home that she absolutely loves and an accepted offer from Fannie Mae.  The problem is that Fannie Mae doesn't actually own the home yet.  The home was included in the previous owner's bankruptcy which was filed just prior to the actual foreclosure.  

With all of the foreclosures on the market here and everywhere, the Title company initially thought that it was just a clerical error and that Fannie Mae probably owned the home, but that we needed to verify whether it did or not.  Apparently it doesn't, at least not yet, the bottom line is that someone screwed up!  Our buyer is a first time home buyer and was looking forward to the stimulus credit to do some repairs to the unit and was sure that she was going to miss out on this opportunity!

I am glad that Congress and the President agreed to extend this program, I will be honest, this is the only part of the bail out/stimulus package that made sense to me.  I would have agreed with money being spent on rebuilding infrastructure, but that is another topic for another blog.  Anyway, there is a sliver of silver lining for our client with this extension passing, now we have more than 3 weeks to get things worked out.

I do hope that no one else experiences this!  I am also very glad that we have Title Companies that really do a good job!  I guess that this is enough of a rant.  I wish everyone a great weekend!

I am not singling out any particular person, but I do think that being a professional has certain tasks that need to be followed.  I have mentioned several times that Darcy and I were out of Cedar City at the UAR Convention.  While we were driving up, Darcy, who answers the phone while we're driving because my job is to drive, received a phone call from a listing agent telling her that the property that our client put an offer on the previous Friday had gone into a Multiple offer situation.

This is great, we are on Interstate 15, 150 miles north of Cedar City, so she called and one of the great agents in our office, who agreed to meet with our client on our behalf as the broker was unavailable to fill out the clients highest and best offer.  This is great, Darcy had told the listing agent that we were out of town and that we would be back after the convention but to please call her either way the seller decided.  That way our client wasn't left dangling.

This happened on Monday afternoon.  On Wednesday Morning, Darcy was wondering why she hadn't heard from the agent, so at a break from the classes, she called the listing agent.  The agent said that our client's offer had not been accepted, that she had sent the agent from our office the fax.  We knew that this was strange, it was completely out of character for our friend at our office not to call us.  Darcy did indicate that she really would have liked a phone call from the listing agent.

Darcy then called our friend in our office, who was surprised to hear that he had been contacted by this listing agent about our client.  So he checked our box, and sure enough there was a fax in our box from the listing agent addressed to us stating that our client's offer had not been accepted.  How hard is it to stop and make a phone call??????  Is that the way that a professional acts?  I hope not!  Attitudes like that are sure to bleed into our customer service and, in this case, were we not also the client of the listing agent? 

It is unprofessional, in my opinion, which I know doesn't mean as much to anyone else as it does to me.  I do think that everyone in a similar situation would agree that if that is what being a professional in this industry is, than we have a really low professional standard!