Watch Out For Blossom Valley Short Sales When The Seller is a Realtor

I was reading about short sales, as I do every Sunday morning on a great site for short sale information Short Sale Superstars. There was a discussion about a Bank of America Short Sale that had been approved, and then denied after the approval, a few days before closing. The reason:

The seller was a real estate broker and the listing agent works for the seller. The buyer used the listing agent to represent her.

Surprise Surprise, B of A said this is not an Arm's Length Transaction and rescinded the approval.



There are multiple things wrong with transaction so let me see if I can organize the problems coherently.

1. All short sales must be an Arm's Length Transaction and an affidavit needs to be signed by all parties saying they are not related to each other in any way. The listing agent works for the seller so that is not arms length.

2. The seller may be offered a closing incentive by the bank, but is not allowed to receive any money from the buyer. Since the buyer is using the the listing agent who works for the seller and would have received commission for the sale, a portion of which would go to the broker, then the seller is getting money from the buyer.

3. Again, since the listing agent works for the seller and would get commission from the sale, a portion of which would go to the broker, the seller would be receiving money from the sale outside of the closing incentive.

4. The buyer has agreed to a dual agency and is entitled to the information that the listing agent works for the seller and that this can cause potential problems with The Arm's Length Transaction.

I do not know if the seller was trying to pull something over on the bank, or if he was just not familiar with short sales but this was totally avoidable.

Buyers: get your own agent to represent you.

Sellers: If you are a broker, get a different company to represent you. If you are an agent, get another agent to represent you, not your broker, and ask the bank if it is ok to be represented by someone else in your campany first, not after you are about to close.

If you have any questions about buying or selling a short sale in Santa Clara or San Mateo County please feel free to contact me.

Marcy Moyer
Keller Williams Realty
www.marcymoyer.com
marcy@marcymoyer.com
650-619-9285
D.R.E. 01191194

Blossom Valley Pending Short Sales

Blossom Valley is a hot bed of short sales. It is one of the neighborhoods in the Silicon Valley that has not gone back to the values of 2007-2008. So many of the homes for sale right now are being sold as short sales since the owners have negative equity in their homes.

There are currently 196 pending homes listed as short sales.
There are 286 pending sales of all types.
The percentage of total pending sales which are short sales is 68%.
This is pretty impressive, but the big question is how did this happen?

I have a few theories.

Blossom Valley had some remarkable levels of appreciation early in the century, especially between 2005-2007. There are a number of reasons.
1. Easy money
2. Easy access to downtown San Jose which had ambitious plans for redevelopment
3. Good schools. At one point there were sections of Blossom Valley where you could get a home in a school district with a high API for less than any other neighborhood in Silicon Valley.
4. High tech companies close by including IBM right in the neighborhood.
Then the market crashed, credit tightened, San Jose gave up their redevelopment plans, major employment areas kept moving north to Mountain View, Palo Alto, and San Francisco, and Blossom Valley values plummeted in 2008-2009.

We are on the way up again, but many homeowners are still underwater. The inventory is now quite low. There are only 61 homes for sale right now, and 13 are short sales, or 21%.
If you are a seller, your home will sell, and quickly. If you are a buyer, there is a lot of competition, but the values are there.

If you have any questions about buying or selling short sales in Santa Clara or San Mateo County please feel free to contact me.

Marcy Moyer
Keller Williams Realty
www.marcymoyer.com
marcy@marcymoyer.com
650-619-9285