Update on My Short Sale: Loan Doc Signing and Closing Day! Crazy Closing Story

Well it has been about 4 months since my client has made an offer on her first home, which happens to be a short sale and yesterday was her final loan signing at the title company! It was a very long road and there were times along the way that seemed like her purchase was never going to happen. But we did it and she is going to fund on Monday, August 4th and record and close on that same day! I will be very happy handing over the keys to her new home.

Issues Along the Way:

Seller's Lender: We came upon many issues with the seller's lender, Countrywide Home Loans, who had trouble at first receiving and faxing our purchase contract and the seller's workout papers, then it was hard for them to assign a "negotiator" for the case, then that negotiator was not available at the days we called, then 3 and a half months down the line, they sent us a fax stating that they would accept the short sale, but the fax was never received by the listing agent, but that the fax did exists and it would confirm Countrywide's acceptance of our short sale, with conditions of course. The listing agent had to be on the phone with the seller's lender for hours at a time because they would usually put her on hold in order to get the negotiator or fine some documents. When we did get the acceptance fax back, it stated that we had to close by the 28th of July, but we received the fax on about the 7th of July! So we had to scramble and get our lender to work asap. We did not make the initial closing date of course, so we had an extension with the seller's lender, they granted the one week extension---at a cost of course!

Easements: As my buyer was doing the home inspections and going through the disclosures, we noticed that there were a couple easements running through her future property that needed to be clarified. Of course the title company was suppose to clarified any issues or problems stated in the preliminary title Report. But the officer who did the title search for the title company was out sick until the end of the week, and this was about a week and a half before we were initially suppose to close. So I went to the county recorder's office myself and tried to accelerate the process of clarifying one particular easement where it stated that Humboldt County had an easement across the property, but it did not clarify where that easement was on the property, my client and her parents thought that it could mean the county had an easement across the entire property, which would be bad because then the county could come in and take her house that was sitting on the property...in all truth and common sense, I did not think this could happen, but the wording describing that easement was so vague, that we wanted to be sure before my buyer made the purchase. Days later my buyer and I were running all over Eureka to various county departments trying to find the answer. We ended up at the County Engineering office where their real estate specialist was about to pin point and locate the exact spot on the property that was pertinent to the easement. The easement, we found out, was only about 5 feet deep into the property and ran along the front part of the property in case they needed to put in a side walk or install underground piping. So that eased my client's mind and we continued with the purchase.

Our Buyer's Lender: It was going smoothly with my buyer's original lender, but when it was time to actually lock her interest rate, it was a different rate than what they had originally given her on her Good Faith Estimate, so my buyer was not very happy and she had to shop around for a more local bank so that she could talk with them face to face instead of on the phone, the original lender was an out of town one. My buyer and I again ran around town (with a week and a half left till closing) to the various local banks and credit unions asking about their loan programs, rates, and whether or not they could meet the anticipated closing date. We found one credit union that was able to give her a better rate and lower points, but they could not guarantee or even come close to meeting our strict closing dead line. My buyer finally got in contact with the loan officer for her bank where she has her savings and checking, US Bank, and the loan officer was very straight forward and did not promise to meet the deadline of our strict closing date, but he said that he would do his best and that there was a great possibility of making the deadline. Fortunately for my buyer, we had already gone through the whole loan application process and had everything that the new loan office needed, from tax returns, to pay stubs to bank accounts. The only other issue we had was to transfer the appraisal over to the new lender. Well our new loan officer did make the deadline and my buyer signed her final loan docs yesterday, and we are set to close Monday morning. This gave us much ease.

Buyer's Vacation: My buyer at the same time, was suppose to go on a cross country vacation with her family, and she was suppose to have left the last 2 weeks of July and return on the second week of August. As you can see if you have read this far, this was the time period when all this chaos was occurring and when we were suppose to be closing escrow. So my buyer made the right choice and stayed behind to get the job done. Now that she has already deposited all her founds into escrow and signed all the final papers, she is scheduled to leave this morning on a flight to meet with her family out in the middle of the country somewhere. I wished her a great trip and thanked her for missing a major part of her family vacation to stay behind and get it done. I told her that I would have the keys for her when she gets back. She was not too worried and very happy.

The Good Sellers and Listing Agent: All throughout the whole process, the good part about this deal, besides closing on time, was the fact that the sellers were very cooperative with our showings and vacating the home on time. Usually this is a very stressful situation for sellers, they tend not to be cooperative and would fight with everything, but we were very fortunate to have such great and cooperative sellers and they even removed all the garbage and decently cleaned the interior and exterior of the house for my buyer. Another great thing was that the listing agent was very diligent and called the seller's lender consistently throughout the whole process to get answers, documents, and she stayed on the line with Countrywide sometimes for hours! So thank you Bev for working so hard!

Now I have two more short sale transactions to deal with, one where I am on the listing side, and the other, fortunately, the home has already gone into foreclosure and my buyer can work directly with the bank as the seller. For buying or selling homes and properties in Eureka, Arcata, Fortuna, McKinleyville, Crescent City Smith River, basically all of Northern California from Southern Humboldt County to the northest part of Del Norte County, feel free to visit my website at www.luckystarrealestate.com and call me toll free 866-875-2279.