Closing escrow using a Deferred Sales Trust with Susan Trujillo

Susan Trujillo is a senior escrow officer at Orange Coast Title in Northern California. She started her career in the late 90s. She has exclusive training in escrow specifically in Northern California. The escrow officer is the liaison between the title department or title officers to help streamline transactions. She truly enjoys her career because she gets to meet different clients, buyers and sellers, and realtors that helped her get educated. She also enjoys her profession because of the variety of transactions she gets. So with that growth, she believed that brought her to what her career is now.

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Closing escrow using a Deferred Sales Trust with Susan Trujillo

Brett:

I’m excited about our next guest. She has become a good friend of mine, and she’s actually an expert when it comes to all things escrow. She’s a senior escrow officer at Orange Coast title here in Northern California, Orange Coast covers a lot of all of California, but especially Northern California, Susan is the go-to, in fact, we’ve done multiple deals together. And she is going to talk to us a little bit about her experience as an escrow officer, as well as in particular the deferred sales trust and some transactions she’s helped to aid in closing as a title professional. She brings over, I think, let’s see here, over eight or nine or 10 years in the escrow world. Since 2011, she started at Fidelity National Title, and then she went to Orange Coast Title in 2000. So please welcome Susan Trujillo. Susan, how are you doing?

Susan:

I’m doing well. Thank you, Brett.

Brett:

I’m glad to have you on the show and I’m excited to introduce our audience to you and maybe even potential clients that are closing the deferred sales trust or current clients closing the deferred sales trust. With that, would you give our listeners a little more about your current, your story, and your current focus?

Susan:

I started my career, actually a little longer than what you mentioned. But we met you know, closer to that period, but I have exclusive training in escrow, specifically here in Northern California. With that, the escrow officer is the liaison between our title department or title officers so it helps streamline these transactions, whereas Southern California title and escrow are handled separately in most cases, sometimes by the same company but there are many escrow only companies and title only companies in Southern California. But with the Northern California practice here, we again streamline and we get direct training for all escrow and the legal practices that we handle here, but doesn’t exclude us from handling the Southern California properties.

Brett:

Excellent before we dive in too much to the other technical part on the escrow different things, would you help our listeners get a little bit to get to know you a little bit more, maybe a little bit about your background, your story, and how you came to become a title professional?

Susan:

I started my career in the late 90s. And with that, you know, escrow officers groomed into this business with the specific training, the resale transactions, gather mainly the, you know, practice that we handle, I, you know, truly enjoy my career because of the difference of the clients, you know, we get a pool of people, geographically, I enjoy the one on one with the buyers and sellers, you know, our realtors help educate us as well and then we, you know, reciprocate that, but, you know, I truly, truly do enjoy it just with the, you know, variety that we get. each transaction is, you know, totally different, you know, they’re not cookie cutter. So with that the growth, you know, brought me to my career now. I grew up in the Bay Area. You know, beautiful part of California, I have two great sons. I enjoy golfing, you know, outdoor activities. And now, you know, being here, a neighbor of Brett Swarts in Roseville, you know, is another great thing that, you know, connects us.

Brett:

Totally a small world. So isn’t doing a deferred sales trust presentation at Orange Coast title, I think that was about three years ago, and came to the office at a presentation and then started to show it to do transactions over the years is slowly growing, and it seems to be growing every year. But that’s actually where I was originally from to mission, San Jose Fremont area kind of grew up with my dad’s Custom Homes room additions all throughout the Bay Area. That’s where we were at. But then I moved, relocated up to Sacramento with my mom, and have been here kind of ever since. And so it’s kind of cool to find out that Susan just moved to Roseville and I say, oh, where do you live, I’m like, Oh, my gosh, you’re like a mile from me. So we’re just around the corner from each other. So very small world. So, Susan, I want to take a step back and help our listeners to get to know you even a little bit better. You know, I believe we’ve all been given certain gifts in this life. And I believe these gifts, we will call them strength or superpowers. You know, I believe they’re their God-given gifts. But I believe these gifts will be given to us to be of help or blessing to others. So I’m curious, I want you to go back maybe to either the high school days, or the college days, or even when you’re the days have passed, what do you feel maybe was a gift that you were given and how do those gifts help how you help people today?

Susan:

I truly believe my gift is helping people and educating them. My mom was an elementary school teacher, and I kind of feel I have that gift of teaching others, you know, I like to explain things and helping them gain the knowledge of whatever it is that, you know, we enjoy doing. So, you know, if my biggest joy is cooking, and baking, so I just remember, you know, learning that having my mom teach me and then now with, you know, having sons and a grandson that can help cook, I really love that part of you know, just teaching others. And I think that really drew me for this career. I’ve done multiple trainings throughout the year with one of our business partners, Ontario Real Estate joined their educational center. And, you know, I just love that part, you know, this industry is so fast-paced that sometimes, you know, escrow officer gets wrapped up with just the Go go go and really doesn’t slow down to fully explain things. Sometimes under the gun, it’s just kind of the being told, and, you know, signed, signed, signed. But, you know, I really like to slow down the process and help with the education behind the transaction itself, just so that at the end of the day, you know, the information sticks with the client. And, you know, they gain it just as much as I do.

Brett:

Absolutely. And I can absolutely attest to that as well. I would say if I had to give like a sentence that can describe your level of service and help it’s really grace under fire, right. So there is a lot going on in escrows, especially when there’s stuff like deferred sales trust, and there’s, there are multiple people, there are different entities, and there’s different brokers and lenders and relationships. But I would say, Susan, you minimize grace under fire. And so I appreciate you sharing that you mentioned your mom is an elementary school teacher, I imagine she had a lot, she had to be a lot of grace under fire to write with kids that age. So that being said, I like to dive into the escrow part of things and becoming an escrow officer, and in particular, the deferred sales trust. We’ll touch on that here coming up. But just for background, I’m curious, Susan, how many deals do you say transactions have you helped close over the years?

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