Home Buying / Selling

The first step in a short sale is to craft a simple hardship letter.

Writing a hardship letter tends to invoke anxiety. I ask my short sale sellers to send me their draft before writing a final hardship letter, so that I may offer a few suggestions and maybe a couple of tweaks to improve the letter. Almost every hardship letter is too long. It doesn't need to be more than one page. If somebody died, for example, you don't need to describe the months and days of intensive medical care leading up to that person's death, or the financial toll and emotional distress it caused. You can just say my dad died, and he had been helping me to pay the mortgage.

More Articles by Elizabeth Weintraub:

• Reasons to Do a Short Sale
  
• How to Avoid Short Sale Mortgage Fraud
  
• Why Buy and Bail is Wrong

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_{At the time of writing, Elizabeth Weintraub, BRE # 00697006, is a Broker-Associate at Lyon Real Estate in Sacramento, California.}

Might it make more sense to rent out a house over selling it?

In some markets, it's almost impossible to write a contingent offer, that is an offer that is conditioned on selling your home. So, one way around that dilemma is to qualify to own two homes at the same time and buy a home without selling your house. Some people might find it easier with fewer complications to rent out a house. If you can find the right tenant.

More Articles by Elizabeth Weintraub:

• How to Sell a Rental
  
• Alternatives to Home Selling
  
• Why Your Home Isn't Selling

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_{At the time of writing, Elizabeth Weintraub, DRE # 00697006, is a Broker-Associate at Lyon Real Estate in Sacramento, California.}

Some real estate agents are reluctant to hold an open house, and with good reason.

That's because in many neighborhoods, open houses don't really have a benefit. If you looked at a pie chart of who benefits from the typical open house, the little slice of pie that the seller gets might only be a sliver. There are plenty of other people who benefit from an open house, though. It's just that, sometimes, there is no benefit for the seller. Doesn't that make you wonder why agents hold a house open?

More Articles by Elizabeth Weintraub:

• How to Hold an Open House
  
• Open House Etiquette for Sellers and Buyers
  
• Preparing for an Open House

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_{At the time of writing, Elizabeth Weintraub, DRE # 00697006, is a Broker-Associate at Lyon Real Estate in Sacramento, California.}

In many major metropolitan markets, home buyers who are utilizing the financing of a VA loan are having a super difficult time trying to buy a home.

Some sellers and their agents think they can do much better than a buyer with a VA loan, so they'll either not offer that type of financing option in the terms for sale or they will pass over that VA offer for a conventional or even an FHA buyer. It's extremely difficult if not almost impossible in some markets to buy with a VA loan. It's not fair that VA buyers get penalized for trying to buy a home. Haven't our nation's veterans and active duty military been through enough?

More Articles by Elizabeth Weintraub:

• Top 3 Loan Approval Mistakes
  
• How to Buy a Home Subject to an Existing Loan
  
• 10 Rules for Working With Agents

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_{At the time of writing, Elizabeth Weintraub, DRE # 00697006, is a Broker-Associate at Lyon Real Estate in Sacramento, California.}

Years ago, proof of funds was rarely an issue when buying a home.

Nowadays, being asked to provide proof of funds is more common and expected. It's not enough to do business on a handshake. Sellers want to examine every aspect of an offer to try to ensure that it will close. Smart buyers will not send sensitive information to the sellers such as their bank account numbers or Social Security numbers when releasing proof of funds documents. It's just never a good idea to send more than what is required.

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• 5 Essential Home Buying Tips
  
• Coping With Home Buying Stress
  
• Do You Need a Real Estate Agent?

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_{At the time of writing, Elizabeth Weintraub, DRE # 00697006, is a Broker-Associate at Lyon Real Estate in Sacramento, California.}

Selling a rental home can present a different set of challenges over, say, selling your own home.

Part of the difficulty in selling a rental homes lies with gaining the tenant's cooperation. Many tenants adopt the attitude of WIIFM: What's in it for me? They don't want to move. They don't want to be interrupted or inconvenienced. Sometimes, I suspect that tenants might forget who actually owns the home. Not to mention, there are also tenant-landlord laws to follow. And taxes? Did we talk about taxes?

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• Home Selling on a Budget
  
• Preparing a Rental Home for Sale
  
• Weintraub's Home Staging Video

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_{At the time of writing, Elizabeth Weintraub, DRE # 00697006, is a Broker-Associate at Lyon Real Estate in Sacramento, California.}

Before I studied log homes, everything I knew about them consisted of what I saw in the movies.

You chop down a tree, cut off the branches, round out the edges, notch the log and try to put it together with other logs. Except there is much more to it than that. For example, how do you make sure no little varmints like rats or snakes can squeeze through the spaces between the logs and creep into your bed at night?

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_{At the time of writing, Elizabeth Weintraub, DRE # 00697006, is a Broker-Associate at Lyon Real Estate in Sacramento, California.}

Not every buyer has funds to pay for closing costs, so it's not odd to ask a seller to help, especially with the buyer's non-recurring closing costs.

What's kind of interesting is if a seller agrees to pay, say, an amount equal to 3% of the sales price toward closing costs, sometimes buyers think if their closings costs are less, the sellers should just pay them the difference. It doesn't work that way. If the closing costs are less than the amount of the credit, it's to the seller's advantage, not the buyer's. To avoid confusion, a seller might want to agree to pay UP TO 3% of the sales price toward non-recurring (and maybe recurring) closing costs, or, whatever percentage is agreeable between the parties.

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• Telling an Agent Your Highest Price
  
• When is Your First Mortgage Payment Due?
  
• How to Overcome Home Buying Obstacles

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_{At the time of writing, Elizabeth Weintraub, DRE # 00697006, is a Broker-Associate at Lyon Real Estate in Sacramento, California.}

Seller's markets can make buying and selling at the same time a very difficult task.

Whether you think it's good or bad, the real estate markets in many parts of the country are experiencing a strong seller's market. Low inventory, meaning very few homes for sale, makes it an even stronger seller's market. This means that many sellers are sitting in the driver's seat, and these sellers are in control. They can make demands that buyers will have to meet. But what does it say for sellers who also want to buy? What does this mean for sellers who want to sell a home and buy a new home at the same time?

More Articles by Elizabeth Weintraub:

• How Much Does it Cost to Sell a House?
  
• Home Buying Before Selling
  
• Home Selling Before Buying

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_{At the time of writing, Elizabeth Weintraub, DRE # 00697006, is a Broker-Associate at Lyon Real Estate in Sacramento, California.}

When buyers find out their offers for short sales are not getting accepted, they can begin to wonder if they should hire a short sale agent.

I know this because they call me. It's not a secret that I sell a lot of short sales in Sacramento, but I primarily represent sellers. Yet, this experience does put me in a unique position to know what happens in just about any kind of short sale. I can pretty much predict how long it will take and what kinds of problems we should try to avoid.

Moreover, I realize that kind of information can be helpful to buyers. So, I can understand why it might be a good idea for buyers who want to buy a short sale to find a short sale agent to help them.

More Articles by Elizabeth Weintraub:

• How to Find a Short Sale Agent
  
• 6 Things to Know Before Buying a Short Sale
  
• How to Write a Short Sale Offer

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_{At the time of writing, Elizabeth Weintraub, DRE # 00697006, is a Broker-Associate at Lyon Real Estate in Sacramento, California.}