Couldn’t sleep. Quite angry today. I am going to post all the details that I am aware of to try and get the word out about these guys. Address of the listing is 4107 Tim St, Bonita Ca. Listing agent is Don Pelletier of Keller Williams. Short sale negotiator is Jim Sullivan of Blue Anchor Advisors. When you search for Blue Anchor, it directs you to Nationwide Short Sale Solutions based in Florida. Their website does not list an address or DRE license number. Searching for a DRE license number in Ca. for Jim, Blue Anchor, or Nationwide came up empty. Jim is not authorized to perform any kind of real estate transaction in Ca. Even though Don Pelletier is suppose to be my agent, in six months of “representation”, I have spoken to him on the phone twice and had some email interaction. Never met in person. I’ve also had some dealings with his subordinate, David Weintraub, also only through email and phone. I believe they did this intentionally so they could claim plausible deniability if needed. Now for the scheme. There is one outstanding mortgage at 637K on the house. Taxes have not been paid in 2012 and 2013 totaling a little over 3K. In conversations with Jim, he had mentioned that they had an “investor” that had been in negotiations with the bank. The “investor” had decided to drop out, but their negotiated price at $371K was still good. This was strange to me because I thought they had submitted my offer for 456K back in Nov. 2012. Why would the bank accept an offer for 371K over one for 456K? Turns out my offer was most likely never submitted. Of course when I heard that I could get the house for 371K, I became somewhat blinded and decide to mostly ignore the little voice saying this sounds a little too good. Of course the caveat was the payment of 45K to Blue Anchor to help settle the “secondary liens”. When I asked Jim what specific liens were on the property, he became evasive. Now, I’m ignorant of real estate law, but it seemed weird to me that I would be paying 45K to a 3rd party with no ownership interest and trusting them to pay off all the secondary liens. Searching records, only the 3K in property back taxes has come up as a secondary lien. Again, I wanted to believe the deal was still legit, so I reasoned as long as things are done through a title/escrow company, I should be covered. But when Don filled out the original sales contract, he also specified the title and escrow companies to use. I do not know how extensive this scheme is, so I’ll leave it at that. Hate that I let the prospect of a good deal somewhat cloud my judgement. The old saying really is true. If it’s too good…
There is one more catch. When I submitted the original offer, Don had me open up escrow and deposit 5K. Hope there are no issues with getting my money back. Thanks to everyone for providing input and assistance. Yes, I do plan on filing a complaint with the DRE.
