And then yesterday, the East Bay Times published a front page story that clearly illustrates just what I mean.

For right below the paper’s masthead were two headlines — one proclaiming the Winds Have Shifted and another saying that For Sale Signs were springing up everywhere. The gist of the article was that housing inventory was on the rise throughout the Bay Area.

Yet, if you read my Feb. ’19 Local Solano Housing Market Update a few days ago, you know that that’s hardly the case locally, with housing inventory falling in 3 of Solano County’s 4 largest cities over the past 30 days.

This is a classic example of why it’s important to take those national and regional housing trend articles with a big grain of salt.

As I pointed out in my recent post, residential real estate markets are hyper-local and what happens in one area can often be quite different than what’s happening elsewhere.  Yet most of the stories you see in the national or regional news media are based on statistics covering a wide area.

The aforementioned article in the East Bay Times quoted a Zillow economist as saying ““There’s no doubt that the winds have shifted very rapidly in the Bay Area housing market.”

What’s more, despite what the Zillow economist might think, from a statistical standpoint there really is no such thing as a “Bay Area Housing Market.” There are many micro-markets within the Bay Area and each is unique and independent of the others.

It would be appropriate to lump Fairfield, Vacaville and Suisun into one market. And it would make sense to combine Pleasant Hill and Martinez for statistical purposes. But you’d never combine Benicia with Pittsburg and Antioch. Nor would you lump Vallejo, Walnut Creek and Danville in the same statistical bucket. So a blanket statement proclaiming an emerging trend for “Bay Area Real Estate” makes no sense.

The ‘winds of change’ may indeed be present in San Jose, as the East Bay Times article claims, but those winds didn’t shift at all last month in Benicia Fairfield and Vacaville, where the inventory actually dropped. And in Vallejo, those ‘winds of change’ were nothing more than a very slight breeze, as the following numbers from the past 30 days illustrate:

Benicia – 13 New Listings / 21 Into Contract (Inventory: -8)
Vallejo – 113 New Listings / 110 Into Contract (Inventory: +3)
Fairfield – 106 New Listings / 123 Into Contract (Inventory: -17)
Vacaville – 102 New Listings / 122 Into Contract (Inventory: -20)

The only ones who really know what’s happening in these real estate micro-markets are those who are in the market day-in and day-out. An economist sitting at a computer in another state can’t really know the subtle differences between the various real estate markets within the Bay Area.

But when the news media gets a news release from a respected economist, government agency or housing industry think tank, it usually jumps all over it and endorses its findings as proof of an emerging trend or change in the market.

A press release that arrives in early February quoting 4th quarter statistics sounds recent…until you stop and realize that a home that went into contract in August and closed escrow in early October becomes part of those 4th quarter statistics. And what happened in August, September and October isn’t going to tell you what will happen the following February, March or April.

So again…when you read one of those national or regional stories proclaiming some recent statistic as proof of an emerging trend, take it with a grain of salt. Rely instead on news that’s written by those who are intimately familiar with your local market to tell you what’s really happening.

I’ll be posting local real estate market updates and observations on an ongoing basis. So if you really want to keep your finger on the pulse of what’s happening in the Solano-Central Costa housing market, check back often.

We’ll keep you in the know.

The post I Said ‘Take It With A Grain Of Salt’…And Then Look What The EB Times Just Published! appeared first on .

If you’re worried that your agent may be not know what they’re doing, or worse yet, that they’re purposely hiding certain homes from you, that’s likely Not the case.

There’s probably a very logical explanation.

You see, when a home goes into contract, an agent has several different options when changing the status in the multiple listing service (MLS). They can enter it as Contingent-Show, Contingent-No Show or Pending.

With the first two, the buyer still has contingencies to remove (most commonly for inspections, appraisal & loan approval). Pending, meanwhile, indicates that all contingencies have been removed and the close of escrow is near.

But once our MLS transmits the listing statuses to the various public web sites, those sites reformat the data in their own manner. Some will continue to display the Contingent properties as though they’re still fully available.

Technically, a home that’s in contingent status could accept a backup offer, which would put that buyer in the driver’s seat if the current offer canceled. And for that matter, a backup offer could even be accepted on home that’s fully Pending.

However, a very small percentage of homes that go into escrow ever cancel. So while anything is possible, a buyer who’s banking on waiting for a home they love to fall out of escrow so they can move forward usually ends up sadly disappointed.

Nevertheless, when a buyer sees several homes online that are worthy of a visit, it’s often hard for them to accept that the home is really already under contract.

Real estate agents subscribe to a lofty Code of Ethics and are governed by the Real Estate Law, which is enforced by the Dept. of Real Estate. We’re required to show our clients any home that’s available for them see.

So if a home appears on a public web site even though it’s really in contract and you want to see it, as long as the seller is willing to let it be shown and would entertain a backup offer, you can certainly have a look. But by default, most agents provide information on homes that are fully available rather than promoting a list of homes that are already spoken for.

So if you see something online and wonder why your agent didn’t mention it, don’t jump to any mistaken conclusions. Your agent wasn’t trying to hide anything from you.

The post Why Your Agent Didn’t Tell You About That House You Saw Online appeared first on .

They did so to reset the Days-On-Market counter to zero, thus giving the illusion that every home which showed only 5 days on the market really had just been recently listed.

Back then, whenever I showed homes to prospective buyers in areas where this was a common practice, I’d always pull up a property history report for the homes my clients were interested in, so they could see how long the home had really been on the market.

Often, they would see something like this:

• 1/10 – Listed – New
• 2/9 – Withdrawn
• 2/9 – Listed – New
• 3/10 – Withdrawn
• 3/10 – Listed – New

And unless their agent pulled such a property history report, hundreds of unsuspecting buyers would assume that a home that showed up as a new listing truly was fresh on the market rather than having been relisted in the MLS as New every 20 or 30 days.

Thankfully, our MLS updated its rules a few years ago to prevent agents from “churning” their listings and misleading prospective buyers about the length of time the home had been on the market.

Today, our MLS reports show two figures — Days On Market (DOM) and Cumulative Days On Market (CDOM). The latter is a field that was added several years ago, which shows how long a home has really been on the market, even if the seller switches brokerages, which will reset the DOM number back to zero.

It was a change that was long overdue when it happened. Sellers loved the old way and many old-time real estate agents did, too. But today we live in an age where transparency is expected. And fortunately, buyers today don’t have to read between the lines. They can look at an MLS printout and see just how long a home has really been on the market.

So if you’re looking a homes and feel a sense of urgency about a home that looks like it just came on the market, be sure to look at the CDOM figure…for that’s the one that really tells the full story.

The post How To Determine How Long A Home Has Really Been On The Market appeared first on .

A balanced market favors neither the buyer nor the seller. It’s a market where a home must show well and be priced realistically in order for it to sell. But it’s also a market where buyers can’t afford to sit back and wait for prices to plummet.

In recent years, by late January the home sale market here in Benicia, Vallejo and the rest of Solano and Contra Costa Counties was already sizzling. Inventory was extremely low and buyers were fearful of another ensuing round of rapid appreciation that might price them out of the market. So multiple offers were common and you could feel the frenzy building week by week.

This year, inventory remains low, but not nearly as low as it’s been in January and February in recent years. And there’s been plenty of chatter in the news about an economic slowdown coming in the next few years.

Those factors have caused buyers to feel a little less sense of urgency. And it’s caused sellers to realize that putting a sign in the yard and tacking $20,000 to what a home similar to theirs recently sold for isn’t going to bring out a flood of eager buyers.

In a balanced market, some homes will still sell lickety-split. And some will still get multiple offers and go for more than the asking price. But those tend to be the outliers. The majority will take a bit longer to go into escrow. And there might be a round or two of negotiations before buyers and sellers settle on a price.

Buyers in this type of market have the luxury of being able to visit a home several times before making an offer. So there’s less need to “settle” and more of an opportunity to be sure this is the right home before making an offer.

That’s in marked contrast to the blazing-hot sellers’ market that gripped the local housing scene for most of the last five years. A year ago, if you saw a home that wasn’t exactly what you wanted but was within your price range, you very well might have made an offer right after the home came on the market.

For sitting back to wait for the perfect home at the right price was usually an exercise in futility. And even if that ‘perfect’ home did come on the market, you knew that 8-10 other buyers were probably waiting for the same thing and it would be bid up well beyond your price range anyway.

As I said at the top of this post, a balanced market really is the healthiest market of all. If 2019 plays out the way it’s looking right now, homes will still sell at a very reasonable clip but they’ll stay on the market longer. In a true balanced market, prices don’t change dramatically from month to month, much to the dismay of buyers who are reading too much into the market shift and expect the bottom to fall out.

It’s still early, so the market could shift in the coming weeks. Interest rates, stock market swings, economic sanctions abroad and consumer confidence all can have an impact on the housing market.

Yes, it’s starting to look and feel like a balanced market, but let’s see what happens over the next few months.

Check back often…I’ll keep you posted.

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As you’ve seen elsewhere in our Blog and probably seen or heard elsewhere, there’s a general impression that the market has begun to shift towards more of a balanced market — one that favors neither buyers nor sellers. But if you talk to some within our industry, there’s a bit of doom and gloom on the minds of many sellers.

Do sellers in Benicia, Vallejo and the rest of Solano County have reason to be concerned? Let’s look at the numbers.

Inventory

Real estate has always been highly sensitive to Supply & Demand. When the supply rises buyers have more choices and less urgency. When it drops, buyers feel the need to act quickly and negotiate less. Well when I ran the stats a few days ago, there were 42 homes on the market in Benicia, 165 in Vallejo and 150 in both Fairfield and Vacaville.

Those aren’t high numbers.

I became an agent in the mid-1990’s and I remember when over 200 homes were on the market in Benicia and over 1,000 were on the market in Vallejo. So by historical standards, inventory throughout Solano County is still extremely low.

It’s a bit higher than it was the last few Februarys, but those numbers were historical lows. In Benicia, which is where my office is located, I used to consider 80-100 homes on the market a good amount of inventory. Anything below that favored sellers and anything above that favored buyers. But over the past 10 years, it seems that an inventory of about 60 is about the tipping point.

In any event, I think it’s safe to say that we’re still well within a period of Low Inventory.

Days On Market

How long a home has been on the market has always been one indicator of market strength. Locally, between 41%-49% of the active single family home listings in Vallejo, Fairfield and Vacaville have been on the market for 30 days or less. Benicia is a bit lower at 29%. And roughly 1/3 of those active listings have been on market for 85 days or more.

In a blazing hot market, most listings would be in that less-than-30-days category whereas in a true buyer’s market, most would be well over 30 days. So the figures seem to indicate that Solano County is a pretty balanced market right now.

Sales Activity

One of the best ways of evaluating market strength, though, is by comparing the number of new listings to the number of homes that went into contract over a period of time. In a slow market, the inventory would climb and in a hot market, the inventory would drop.

Well over the past 30 days, here’s what the single family home numbers show for Solano County’s four largest cities:

Benicia – 13 New / 21 Into Contract
Vallejo – 113 New / 110 Into Contract
Fairfield – 106 New / 123 Into Contract
Vacaville – 102 New / 122 Into Contract

So as you can see, homes are indeed selling at a very decent clip The inventory dropped in three of the four cities, with more homes going into contract than new listings.

Even though the above numbers show a net drop in inventory in Benicia, Fairfield and Vacaville and a negligible increase in Vallejo, none of the net gains or losses in inventory are dramatic. And that, too, points towards it being a balanced market.

In recent years, the market picked up quickly after the first of the year and by now the market was quite hot. But for the first 10-12 years of my career, the spring buying market didn’t really take off until about President’s Weekend.

So if that former norm returns, we could very well see the market pick up steam in the coming weeks and all the talk about this becoming a balanced market could go by the wayside. But for now, it definitely feels like a balanced market. And the numbers seem to support that position, too.

I’ll continue to provide Market Updates on a regular basis. So check back often. And if you have any questions, feel free to contact us as we’re always to happy share our market insights and observations.

The post Feb ‘19 RE Market Update: What The Numbers Show In Solano County appeared first on .

As soon as they mentioned the word retirement, a light went off in my mind and I suggested that they consider doing a 1031 exchange, which would enable them to defer the tax on the sale. In order to defer the tax, they’d have to purchase another piece of investment real estate within a specified amount of time after their townhome sold, but if they executed the exchange properly, they could transfer the capital gains liability to the new property and defer paying the tax until they eventually sold that replacement property.

So I know what you’re thinking: If they wanted to pull the equity out of their current rental, why in the heck would they want to sell one investment property only to buy another? Why wouldn’t they just keep their existing townhome?

Well here’s where that light that went off in my mind comes into play.

You see, when they mentioned saving the money for retirement, I asked if they knew where they wanted to retire. And they immediately mentioned a rural area several hours north of the Bay Area. So I suggested that they use the proceeds from their townhome to purchase their future retirement home. Then rent out that house until they’re ready to retire.

But do so using a 1031 tax-deferred exchange, which allows sellers to transfer their tax liability to a subsequent property. It can only be used when you sell investment property and replace it with a like-kind purchase.

In a traditional 1031 exchange situation, you’re not eliminating the capital gains tax. You’re just deferring it until you eventually sell the next property. But when you move into a property that had formerly been a rental, the rules change.

Once you’ve lived there for 2 of the last 5 years, in the eyes of Uncle Sam it becomes your Principal Residence, which under the current tax laws allows a married couple to avoid paying capital gains tax altogether on up to $500,000 of the profit when they sell.

So…

Our clients sold their townhome and purchased their future retirement home shortly thereafter. When it was time to retire, they would terminate the lease with their new tenants, update the house to fit their tastes, sell their existing Bay Area home and move into their retirement property. Two years later, that retirement home would be considered their principal residence and all that capital gains tax that they had deferred from their townhome sale five years earlier would go away (as long as they didn’t turn it back into a rental later on).

What’s more, since it was now their principal residence, after living there for two years, they could sell that home and move elsewhere with no capital gains tax on up to $500,000 of profit).

Our clients’ circumstances were tailor-made for this type of transaction. They knew they wanted to sell their townhome, they wanted to use their sales proceeds for retirement and they knew exactly where they wanted to retire. But even if they weren’t sure about where to retire to, they still could have selected a place that sounded generally ideal with the understanding that after living there for two years after retiring, they could still sell that home and move elsewhere while wiping out all those accumulated capital gains taxes.

If you own one or more rental properties and are nearing retirement and know where you plan to retire to, following the path that our clients took could be like a dream come true.

It definitely was for our clients.

Disclaimer: Please do not construe this as tax advice, as I am a real estate agent and not licensed nor qualified to give tax advice.The purpose of this post was simply to explain the circumstances that proved to be beneficial for one of our past clients. Anyone contemplating a similar set of transactions should contact their tax professional for advice.

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Even though it’s been said you can’t believe everything you read, the truth of the matter is that most people do just that. If they read it, hear it or see it and if it seems like a reputable source, people will believe it.

I can’t tell you how many times a client has come into the office with a gloomy face after hearing about or reading some discouraging housing-related news. “I was brushing my teeth and heard that sales dropped 5% last month.” Or…”I saw a headline on Yahoo saying the market was stagnant.”

But we always remind people that when it comes to residential real estate, markets are Hyper-Local, which means that what happens in Nebraska, Florida or Iowa often has very little bearing on what’s happening in Benicia, Vacaville or Pleasant Hill.

By 2014, the recession was over and the real estate market was hotter than a firecracker here in the Bay Area. Prices were appreciating at a breakneck pace. Yet in Detroit and Cleveland, the recession still had a stranglehold on the housing market and homes were sitting on the market for months and months.

So the government’s housing reports back then, which combined data from housing markets nationwide, told a far different story than what we were experiencing here in the Bay Area.

Which is why it’s important to take much of what you read in the national press when it comes to housing with a grain of salt. And why it’s much more important to get your real estate news from local sources (such as this Blog!).

Even here in California or the Greater Bay Area for that matter real estate activity can vary from locality to locality. The market can be sizzling in the Silicon Valley but tepid in the Central Valley. Or it can be slowing in Marin or the Tri-Valley but brisk in Vallejo or Fairfield.

Simply put: the more hyper-local the data the more accurate the story.

The post Why You Should Take National Real Estate News With A Grain Of Salt appeared first on .

But what happens when there’s a lien on the property from a lender that’s no longer in business. In some cases, that can present a monumental challenge. Over the years we’ve had to tackle that situation more than once.

Before I go any further, if you’ve read some of my other posts, you know that I’m a big believer in finding out if there are any title issues before putting a home on the market. That stems from my years in the title & escrow industry, where I saw way too many sales fall apart due to matters which could have been addressed weeks or months earlier.

So as part of our normal pre-sale activities we routinely research the current condition of title and make sure our clients have current statements for every loan that shows up on the title report.

Usually they do, but every once in a while the seller says “Oh, I paid off that loan years ago”. Or, “That was before I refinanced that mortgage into a new loan.” As long as they have paperwork showing that the loan was indeed paid off or a copy of a closing statement from that refinance there’s usually no problem.

But what if the seller has no paperwork to verify that the loan was paid off?

And what if the lender is no longer in business, as is the case with many lenders who went under during the mortgage meltdown of 2008-2012? Even though many of those now-defunct lenders were taken over by other banks, getting a specific loan file from the old bank’s archives can often be an exercise in futility.

I recall at least three separate instances where our clients encountered such a situation.

One client was selling a home that had been in his family for decades and his dad had taken out a $25,000 loan years ago from the Mare Island Credit Union, which went out of business when Mare Island Naval Shipyard closed back in the mid-1990’s.

His dad had passed away years earlier and our client had no records of that loan. Nor was he even aware that the loan ever existed. What’s more, no one knew what happened to the credit union’s records when it closed its doors.

Ultimately, the chief title officer of the title company we were using made a decision to underwrite the file based on the size and age of the loan. Since no foreclosure proceedings had ever taken place, the title officer made the assumption that our client’s dad probably had paid off the loan as agreed before the credit union went out of business. Fortunately, we tackled this before putting the home on the market, which enabled the buyer to avoid what otherwise would have been a very bumpy escrow ride.

Another client had purchased a home years earlier using a combination of FHA financing, grant funds and junior financing from several different non-profit housing organizations. When we got the title report we noticed that there were five (yes…FIVE) different loans on the property. Our client, who was planning to sell, pulled out a huge file folder that she hadn’t looked at since she moved in, but we only came across four loans. There was no mention of a fifth loan.

Our first thought was that one of the lenders might have broken up their loan into two separate liens. But that turned out to be wishful thinking.

So after a lot of phone calls and emails, we ran into a dead end on that fifth loan, which had been originated by a non-profit that no longer existed. And none of its board members were around anymore.

Ultimately, we discovered that the City of Benicia had gotten involved several years earlier and had engaged the services of a local law firm to try to unravel everything. In the end, the city provided our title company with the necessary documentation and the assurance that it was now in control of loan payoffs for that mysterious fifth loan.

This too was all accomplished before putting the home on the market. Had we waited until we were already in contract to unravel all of this, it would have been a lengthy, nerve-wracking process — and one which probably would have caused the buyer to cancel and move onto another less complicated transaction.

The third situation that comes to mind was also on a loan that would have been paid off several decades ago. As you might surmise, this lender was also no longer in business. It had been sold to different bank, which had merged with yet another bank years ago. Our title report still showed that old loan as an active lien. The owners of the home had both passed away and their kids were handling the sale. Though they were certain mom and dad had paid that loan off when they purchased the home, they couldn’t find any records to document it.

The kids searched high and low in hopes of finding a payoff statement, reconveyance certificate or the original Note marked Paid-In-Full. But they came up empty. So this case also went to the title company’s chief title officer, who ultimately, came to the same conclusion as the title officer on the aforementioned credit union loan. This loan in question was also for a small amount, so the title officer concluded that in the absence of any foreclosure activity, the loan must have been paid off back in late 1980s. And the title company removed that lien so that escrow could proceed.

Two morals to this story:

One, don’t discard old closing statements, reconveyance certificates or promissory notes marked paid-in-full UNTIL you have proof that the reconveyance has been recorded (you can check with the county recorder’s office…or Contact Us and we can try to obtain a pdf copy for you).

And, Two, before putting your home on the market, make sure there aren’t any phantom liens clouding your title…and if there are, make sure they’re removed  BEFORE going on the market.

Getting into contract is hard enough…the last thing you want is to lose a dream buyer due to a long delay caused by a title flaw that you could have resolved before coming on the market.

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A national expert comes out saying interest rates are going to skyrocket. A government report says that home sales were down two months in a row and economists are calling it the beginning of a housing slowdown. A self-proclaimed market guru notices an increase in inventory from the same time a year earlier and proclaims the market has changed.

Whenever I read one of these stories or hear a so-called expert make a bold market-has-changed statement, I always take it with a grain of salt.

Over the course of every year, there are usually market bursts, where activity seems to be on the rise and market drops, when activity seems to suddenly wane for no particular reason. Whenever this happens, I always hear many of my real estate colleagues wondering if the market is changing.

What’s more, many agents get caught up in their own reality and consider that what they’re experiencing is identical to what every other agent in their market is experiencing. And that’s often not the case. There have been periods where business is slower than normal for us while someone sitting several desks away in our own office is busier than ever. And a month later, it might be just the opposite, as we’re in the midst of three or four escrows while a nearby colleague is bemoaning a lack of business.

So when people suggest that the market has changed due to something they’ve noticed in recent days or weeks, my answer is always, ‘check back with me in 6 months.’

The stock market can change almost overnight based on a single comment or concern spoken by a prominent public figure. But many stock market trades are made by automated computer systems that react and make buying and selling decisions based on some economic algorithm.

There are no algorithms in residential real estate. Buyers and sellers react based on hopes, needs and desires. Housing markets don’t shift overnight. They do so over a matter of months.

So when something unexpected occurs, it’s human nature to wonder if this is the beginning of a long-term change in the market. But quite often, they are just temporary blips in the market and all that chatter about the market changing disappears a month or two later when things return to the way they were.

You really have to wait six months to determine whether the market has really changed. A true trend will evolve over time. And a trend is far different than a blip or a bump.

Last year, the Fed signaled that it would start raising interest rates and between summer and the end of the year, mortgage rates went from the low 4% range to just over 5% in some cases. The prevailing premise was that they’d continue to go up this year.

But recently, the Fed switched its thinking based on its long term view of the economy. And interest rates have settled back about to where they were a year ago. To illustrate:

Feb. ‘18 – 4.39%
May ‘18 – 4.62%
July ‘18 -4.72%
Oct. ‘18 – 5.00%
Dec. ‘18 – 4.64%
Feb. ‘19 – 4.45%

So if you were making an assumption that rising interest rates would slow the housing market, between July and October that would have seemed believable. But now, rates are pretty much right back to where they were a year ago, which means that all that talk about rates skyrocketing was nothing more than knee-jerk proclamations from “experts” who think their crystal ball is clearer than everyone else’s.

So the next time you read about a recent trend in the housing market, take it with a grain of salt for the time being. If it’s really a shift in the market, the trend will continue to develop. And six months later you’ll be able to look back and know for sure.

The post Has The Market Changed? (Check Back With Me In 6 Months) appeared first on .

So from the moment we activated our real estate licenses back in the 1990s, we’ve made it a habit to look for potential title flaws ahead of time. Fix them when there’s still plenty of time to do so and nobody gets gray hairs or loses any sleep. But wait until you’re in escrow to try to solve a problem and things can get very dicey.

I mention that as a prelude to a story about a sale we were involved in a few years back. We were representing buyers in a transaction that almost self-destructed shortly after we opened escrow due to a very unusual title issue. But it was something that could have been detected months before the home ever came on the market had the listing agent examined the condition of title ahead of time.

The owner had passed away four or five months earlier and her children were handling the sale. The offer was signed by one of the children, acting as successor trustee, as his mom had held title in a living trust.

Or so he thought.

It wasn’t until we got a copy of the title report that we saw a potential fly in the ointment. It showed the mom’s name as owner but didn’t indicate that it was in a trust. I called the title company, figuring it was just a clerical error by one of their title examiners.

Unfortunately, after double-checking it, they reaffirmed that title had never been transferred into mom’s trust. The solution, according to the escrow officer, was simple: just have mom execute a new deed putting the home into her trust.

Just one problem…mom was no longer alive.

Suddenly, a seemingly minor problem turned into a huge problem. For since the home wasn’t in the trust, the seller was likely looking at a lengthy and costly probate process. And our clients would either have to wait for probate to conclude or pull out of the deal and find another home.

When I broke the news to the listing agent, she immediately called the seller, who insisted that the home indeed was in mom’s trust. He had met with an attorney several months earlier and said he had seen a copy of the deed putting the home into her trust.

Well here’s where the matter really went kaflooey.

He brought in a copy of the deed. But when we looked at it, we saw that the recording stamp was from Contra Costa County. And the home was located in Solano County.

Since a deed must be recorded in the county where the property is located, this deed was not “of record”, so the title company couldn’t insure our buyer’s title. And you can’t get a loan without title insurance.

So essentially, the deal was off.

But not so fast.

Our escrow officer explained the situation to the Solano recorder’s office and after discussions with various department heads, Solano unexpectedly agreed to take a copy of the document from Contra Costa and record it in Solano County.

Thankfully, because of our escrow officer’s relationship with the county recorder’s office and because the recorder’s office used common sense and realized that no one was trying to do anything fraudulent, the deed recorded, the title company was able to issue title insurance and escrow closed.

I’d call this a comedy of errors were it not for the fact that there really was no humor in any of it.

The first error was by the attorney who drafted the deed. He should have known which county to take the deed to for recording. The Contra Costa’s recorder’s office was also at fault, as it never should have accepted the deed. Had they rejected it and advised the attorney why, the attorney could have fixed the problem right away by taking the deed straight to Solano County.

Had the owner’s son noticed the Contra Costa recorder’s stamp while mom was still alive, she could have signed a new deed for recording in Solano County.

And finally, had the seller’s agent obtained a title report up-front, she likely would have discovered the error and they could have addressed the problem before putting the home on the market.

But instead, everyone endured about a week of uncertainty and frayed nerves shortly after escrow opened.

This is no knock on the legal profession, but this isn’t the first time that we’ve encountered situations where an attorney prepared and recorded documents for a property owner that years later caused major title issues.

So I’ve always been an advocate of checking your title whenever new documents have been recorded, just to make sure things were done right, so you won’t encounter title problems later on. If you discover an error right away, it’s easy to correct it. But discover it after the signer has passed away and something that seems like a small pebble in the road can quickly turn into a huge boulder, just like that.

The moral of the story — if you’re planning to sell, make sure all your ducks are Really in a row before putting your home on the market.

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