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What The End Of The Rainy Season Means For Some Benicia-Vallejo Short Sale Buyers
March 31st, 2011 categories: Buying, Foreclosures / Short Sales
If you’re buying a vacant short sale property in Benicia, Vallejo or elsewhere in the Bay Area, it’s important to know that we’re getting close to the time of year when what you see today may not be exactly what you see the day escrow closes.
That’s because in another month or so, we’ll be at the end of the rainy season, which means that the yards of many of those short sale listings will go from lush and green to dry and brown — and often within a matter of days.
Green Today, Brown Tomorrow
While the hills are still green and the ground is still moist from last week’s downpours, the warm, sunny weather of the last few days reminds us that we’re nearing the end of the rainy season.
In another month or so, it will be time to start watering, mowing and pruning on a regular basis, which often doesn’t happen when the responsibility falls on the shoulders of a short sale homeowner who’s already moved out.
If you buy and close escrow on a short sale between October and April, you usually get a free pass, since mother nature keeps things moist. But when the warmer weather arrives, unless someone’s there to water, fertilize, trim, mow, edge and pull the weeds, that lush green lawn you saw in March can quickly turn to a dry brown carpet by early May.
And if you’re buying a short sale, where you might be waiting two, three, four months or more for the seller’s lender to approve the sale, you could end up in a situation where a big chunk of the money you had allocated for carpet, paint, cabinets or appliances might end up going to unexpected landscaping instead.
It’s In The Contract, However…
On page 4 of the standard California purchase contract, it says that the seller shall maintain the property “in substantially the same condition as on the date of Acceptance.” But I can tell you from experience that many sellers lose interest in maintaining the property the moment they stop making their payments.
And while a buyer may have contractual recourse against a seller who lets the lawns die and the weeds grow three feet tall, most buyers realize that the odds of getting any money from of a judgement against a seller who can’t even make their mortgage payments are pretty slim.
Some buyers, therefore, ask the seller for permission to take care of the yards until escrow closes. But others are reluctant to spend time and money on yard care without any certainty that the seller’s lender is even going to approve the sale.
As the rainy season draws to a close, buyers who are nearing the close of escrow on a vacant short sale find themselves in a race against the clock — hoping that escrow closes before the yards die off completely. And those who are just starting out either have to resign themselves to possibly maintaining the yard themselves or realize that the nicely landscaped yard they see today may not be what it’s going to look like a few months from now.
Lawns & Trees Instead Of Granite & Windows
Last year, a client of ours purchased a home from a short sale seller which took over a year from the time the offer was accepted until it closed. In the spring of 2009, when he wrote his offer, the house was occupied and the lawns were lush and green. By the time he closed, the house had long been vacant and weeds were the only thing growing in the front and back yards.
To make matters worse, when we did the final walk-thru, we found a weed abatement citation stapled to the house. The seller willingly paid for the citation, but the buyer was still faced with an arduous landscaping job. He definitely wasn’t planning to landscape when he wrote his offer a year earlier, but it became an unfortunate necessity along the way, thanks to the seller’s lack of maintenance.
I wish I could say that this was the exception, but unfortunately, with vacant (and even some owner-occupied) short sale properties, yard maintenance is often not on the seller’s to-do list.
Don’t Let Today’s Green Hills Fool You
Right now, there are 56 vacant singly family home short sale listings on the market in Vallejo and Benicia. Plus another 75 such short sales are presently in escrow.
Today, thanks to the recent rainfall, there’s enough moisture in the ground to keep these yards green. But if you’re planning to buy a short sale and either aren’t yet in contract or don’t expect to close before mid-May, don’t fall in love with the landscaping unless you’re sure the seller is going to maintain or you’re planning to do that work yourself.
Otherwise, there’s a good chance that you’ll be in for a big and potentially costly surprise by Memorial Day.
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- Loan Mods Soon A Thing Of The Past?
- Obama’s Mortgage Plan: A Bitter Pill
- What Obama’s Plan Means To Solano Buyers & Sellers
