Elizabeth Weintraub, Sacramento Short Sale Agent, 916.233.6759, Lyon RE

In life, there are always little twists that keep it interesting, wouldn't you say? For example, last week I was watching a HGTV show about a couple who were buying their first home somewhere in the Midwest. They had obtained an FHA loan. Because they didn't have the money for a down payment, their parents gave them the cash.

Of course, FHA requires a gift letter from the parents. This gift letter specifically states that the funds are not a loan but a gift. At the end of the show, the couple stood in front of the camera, talking about their home buying experience. The wife looked straight into the camera and admitted on national television that they had committed mortgage fraud. "Oh, we are paying them back," she laughed.

I imagine their real estate agent recoiled in shock.

Just like my Sacramento short sale seller was speechless yesterday. This is a hard working guy who lost his job, and the value of his condo fell to almost 1/3 of what he paid for it several years ago. He hired me as his Sacramento short sale agent to find a buyer. It took about 10 days to get into contract, which is an usually long time for my Sacramento short sale listings.

Yesterday, a negotiator from the Wachovia short sale department called to say the short sale was approved. Not only was it approved, she explained, but this transaction qualified for Wachovia's incentive program, meaning the agents would receive a higher commission than the amount Wachovia generally pays. In addition, the seller would receive cash to move.

I called the seller and left a message, saying I had unexpected news for him. When he called me back, I could sense the trepidation in his voice. He admitted that he had a pit in his stomach. But when I told him he would receive $2,500 for moving expenses, he was at a loss for words. "What do I have to do?" he asked, assuming there was a catch. Nothing. Just sign Wachovia's short sale approval letter and close escrow.

This is one very happy short sale seller right now.

Every so often, I have the pleasure of working with a home buyer who plans to use a VA loan to buy a home in Sacramento. VA buyers aren't as plentiful in the neighborhoods where I primarily work such as Land Park, Curtis Park, Midtown Sacramento or East Sacramento, which is why I don't write very many offers for VA buyers.

It's not like it was in the mid-1970s when the odds of writing a VA offer were 1 in 3. I think the last VA buyer I worked with was maybe 2 years ago. And she ended up buying a bank-owned home in Rosemont that had been on the market for about 6 months. Because the VA requires a pest completion (unlike most FHA loans), that transaction was particularly challenging, since the bank initially refused to pay for a clear pest. Throw into it the last remaining funds from a community grant program, unauthorized buyer repairs and a person suffering from a bipolar disorder, let's just say it was an escrow that I was thrilled to see closed.

A disturbing phenomena in Sacramento is the fact that VA home buyers tend to fall to the bottom of a lot of sellers' preference piles. Short and sweet, although unfair, very few sellers want to sell to a VA buyer. Foreclosure flippers may, because the VA doesn't have the 90-day seasoning requirements like FHA, but the truth is many sellers and their listing agents discriminate against VA buyers.

This is how VA buyers rank in priority among many home sellers in Sacramento:

1. Cash buyers
2. Conventional buyers
3. FHA buyers
4. VA buyers

Why do we treat the men and women who served and perhaps fought for our country like this? Why aren't VA buyers at the top of that list? Their loans are guaranteed by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs. Now, sellers are prohibited from discriminating against a buyer due to race, religion, color, sex, disability, family status or national origin. Yet, many sellers refuse to accept an offer from a credit-worthy VA buyer.

Against the odds, I found a home in East Sacramento for a VA buyer last weekend. It was on the market for only a week. We asked the seller to pay all of the buyer's closing costs. The negotiations were stressful for the hopeful buyers, but the good news is the sellers accepted the buyers' offer exactly the way I wrote it. It is very likely we will close before November 30th, too, so the buyers may qualify for the first-time home buyer tax credit.

I'd like to suggest that perhaps Sacramento home sellers should reconsider VA buyers and give them priority, especially in a multiple-offer situation. I believe we owe it to ourselves and to our country to elevate these buyers to the status they deserve.

Some home buyers and their buyer's agents have not figured out that the entry-level housing market in Sacramento is a seller's market, not a buyer's market. It's a seller's market because inventory -- the number of homes for sale -- has fallen and the number of buyers has increased. Two years ago, we had 14 months of inventory, meaning it would take 14 months to sell every home that is for sale. Now, we have 2 months of inventory. We had 10,454 homes for sale in September of 2007 in Sacramento County. September of 2009 had 3,243.

As a result, some home buyers are writing offer after offer and getting rejected. Part of the reason that these buyers are unable to buy a home in Sacramento is because they are writing offers on the wrong properties. I hate to say this, but the real estate market in Sacramento is not like a Macy's department store. Buyers can not leisurely stroll among the aisles and select merchandise that suits one's fancy. There is no time to casually drape garments over one's arm and ask to be shown the dressing room.

The Sacramento market is like a spring lingerie sale at Victoria's Secret. This is when underwear is dumped on a table at the front door and customers are grabbing, tugging and pulling on the same pair of panties like crazed maniacs, leaving pawed-through scraps for the rest of us. By the time you fight your way to the table, the only pieces left are large-sized, purple-and-pink-flowered panties. And the waistbands are torn.

Here is how I am getting my Sacramento home buyers into escrow:

• Before showing property, I check with the listing agents. I ask how many offers the agent has received and whether there is anything I should know about the property or the sellers that is not noted in MLS. I'm looking for seller motivation. I know that some other agents don't do this because every day I receive a report on my listings. This report shows who has accessed the lockboxes on my Sacramento short sale listings, and many of those listings are active short contingents, meaning we are in escrow. Those agents don't check with me beforehand.
• I look at the tax records to determine how long the seller has owned the property and the likelihood that a lower offer could throw that transaction into short sale status.
• I ask listing agents to delay presentation of an offer until my buyer has a chance to view the property. It's better for the agent's seller if the seller has the opportunity to compare 2 offers.
• I often eliminate those listings that are priced artificially low with few days on market for my FHA and VA buyers, because I know that competition will be fierce and those buyers are likely to lose out to a cash buyer. Instead, I look for overpriced listings with 30 to 60 days or more on market. I look for that diamond in the rough that nobody else can see.
  
• I write very clean offers, including points specified by the listing agent. I present those offers from a position of strength, highlighting why my buyer's offer should be accepted over another's; moreover, I make the listing agent's job easy. When the listing agent isn't faced with extra work and knows the buyer is well qualified and solid, that alone speaks volumes.

If you're looking for homes in Land Park, Curtis Park, East Sacramento, Midtown, South Land Park, or any of the core areas of Sacramento, give me a ring at 916 233 6759. I'd love to help you with your home buying needs in Sacramento.

Usually, the types of phone calls I receive from Sacramento buyer's agents are ripe with questions that are answered in MLS. But I understand that some agents don't print out MLS reports or skim over them so quickly that they miss important data. In an attempt to help them, I generally attach a document to my listings that contains tips on how to write an offer, especially on my short sale listings because there aren't very many Sacramento short sale agents in town.

In the confidential agent remarks, I make reference to the attached document and ask agents to please read it. However, few do. Or if they do read it, the information doesn't seem to register. You can lead a horse to water . . .

Yesterday afternoon an agent called, filled with apologies, repeating over and over that he tried to show a home that had an alarm, and the alarm was going off. He gave me the house number of, let's say, 1234. The house at 1234 is in pending status in MLS. Did the agent mean 1233? I have a listing at 1233 in active short contingent status with an alarm that is vacant, but 1234 is owner occupied.

It appeared that this agent did not know the name of the street. I finally pulled the address out of him and realized the agent had tried to enter my pending short sale listing at 1234. And the alarm was indeed activated.

The scenario most likely played out like this: The agent was showing homes to a buyer on this particular street when the buyer spotted a rogue For Sale sign. That home wasn't on his buyer's tour. So, the buyer asked to see the home. The agent, being unfamiliar with the neighborhood, did not know if the home was a new listing, a foreclosure listing, a short sale listing or even if the home was in pending status.

So, the agent did the unthinkable. Without calling the listing agent or the listing agent's office -- and the phone numbers were clearly visible on the sign -- the agent accessed the lockbox, knocked on the door, got no answer and simply used the key from the lockbox to enter the home. This set off the alarm.

In the interest of time, I gave the agent the cell phone number of the seller. A few minutes later the seller called me, wanting to know why the agent had entered his home without permission. Then he answered his own question, recalling what I had told him when I took the listing. Some buyer's agents don't read MLS. The seller didn't appear upset about it. But what if you were in the shower and somebody walked into your home? Or what if you were, um, otherwise preoccupied? I think I was more disturbed by it than the seller.

Possession of a display key does not give an agent the right to access a lockbox and enter a home without either reading the showing instructions in MLS or calling the listing agent. I'm wondering, maybe I should hide the lockboxes on my pending and contingent listings?

The file folder for my new listing in East Sacramento is decorated with artwork. I had left it on the coffee table while I walked through this darling 2-bedroom bungalow to do my agent visual inspection. One of the tenant's children used this opportunity to draw on my folder. The tenant was very apologetic, but actually, I think it adds a lot of appeal and character to an otherwise drab file folder.

This very pretty home was built in 1940 and oozes much of the original charm of that period -- scalloped trim work, hardwood floors, contrasting tiled kitchen counters and arched doorways.

Did I mention it is not a short sale, nor a foreclosure or a flipper? It's owned by a regular seller who has equity. There is a fireplace in the living room, a big formal dining room with a vintage light fixture and lots of windows. You'll even find an indoor laundry room, complete with a washer and dryer.

The big back yard features a 2-car garage and a patio with a built-in fireplace / BBQ.

Although the tenants are moving out at the end of October, you can tour this home by appointment on Thursday or Friday of this week, between the hours of 4:30 PM and 7:30 PM. Just call me or your Sacramento buyer's agent for a private showing. My cell is 916.233.6759.

Agents aren't listing very many homes in East Sacramento these days; our inventory is pretty thin. But this is a home that can close by November 30th, so first-time home buyers may qualify to get that home buyer tax credit.

763 53rd Street is offered exclusively by Lyon Real Estate at $329,000.

Elizabeth Weintraub, East Sacramento agent, 916 233.6759.

Photos: Elizabeth Weintraub