- Sacramento Real Estate Adventures - Your Sacramento Real Estate and mortgage blog!

Back in April, my out of town investor client put an offer in on a duplex in Fair Oaks. It was a great little deal and we were able lock it up in contract while we waited for the short sale approval.

About 7 weeks went by before the short sale was approved! I was thrilled by the turn-time and was excited to move forward to close this deal.

To put it bluntly... this was the best and most efficient part of this escrow!

You see, as the buyer's agent, we have to depend on the listing agent to coordinate the short sale with the seller's bank(s).

This particular agent probably won the prize for the biggest liar I have ever met. I tried and tried to wade through his lies... trying to maneuver around them so I could get the escrow closed.

• First he submitted for a short sale approval with an inaccurate HUD (his seller would need to bring in 4k).
  
• Then he told me not to worry... he could get the bank to fix it right before we close... go ahead and do your inspections.
  
• Then he encouraged my buyer not to do his inspections and deliberately avoided turning on the power to the unit so we could do our inspections.
  
• Then he said he did not know the seller moved a tenant into the vacant unit after we were in contract.
  
• Then he said he personally inspects the property 2 times a week.
  
• Then he said he could not call the bank to get help with the short sale approval, but could only communicate via email.
  
• Then he say that he has calls into the lender and left several messages for the negotiator.
  
• Then he told his broker we were the ones delaying this file. That he and the seller were covering the 4k difference the whole time.
  
• Then he got the denial from BofA (as I suspected you would) and asked me to contribute to the 4k deficit.
  

I finally realized that this particular agent just could not get this deal done. It's not that the bank would not approve it... this agent just didn't know what the heck he was doing. That part would have been OK and we could have worked through that. The part I could not get past was the lies. If you are not going to be honest with me... we just can't do business together!

I am afraid that this particular out of town listing agent's challenge with integrity will result in his soon departure from our industry!

The good news is my clients are in the process of negotiations on a new duplex. The duplex is on a nicer street and has an additional bathroom per unit than the previous escrow. It's also bank owed.... so we can get escrow closed quickly!

Sometimes things work out for a reason!