We hear it everywhere...AR is no exception...."Short sales take sooo long to close...." and the whine goes on and on and on....and the agents who have waited tooo long who didn't bother to learn if the listing agent had any short experience or was sitting at their desk waiting for the lenders to call back....add to the chorus...more whine....
If you as a lister...have listed a short sale and turned it over to a non-communicative third party "negotiator".....you have lost control of the transaction and may not in the end, be saving the seller from foreclosure or the buyers get the home they thought for the price they thought...when was the last time you heard from them...,?
If...Short Sale listing agent...YOU are charging yourself with the responsibility of keeping in communication with the lender or lenders...do you have time to do a thorough job ? How often do you talk with them ? Are you persistent and get the kind of answers that let you know the transaction is actually making progress and not being stalled ?
Are Realtors who do not do short sales well....actually giving the process a bad name ? You can BUY a listing...even a short sale listing....and when you don't know what you don't know...you hurt everyone in the transaction and the reputation of the profession....and the housing market. If you can't do it well..just Do Not....Refer it to someone who can.
Sally K. & David L. Hanson, ABR, CDPE, CSS, e-Pro,ILHM, REDS
Excellent advice, Hansons. One needs to be in front of the lenders consistently. The squeaky wheel and all. And you need to be persistent to move up the ladder. They are swamped and don't care. There is no incentive for them to get deals closed with the exception of one less file to follow. It's called job security for them. Keep that in mind.
I know but this is hard for many agents to accept when so much of the market is going to short sales.
I just wish folks would take the time to educate themselves on the process it would help us all and mostly their clients.
One of the things we do to help both agents and buyers is have a handout available at the property to explain the process...real-a-cation !
Sally and David, it is so true. There is a lot more at stake when a Realtor takes on a Short Sale listing, just to get the listing. You must be skilled at handling a Short Sale or the outcome can be disastrous; foreclosure. And as we all know foreclosure stays around for many a years. So how can a Listing Agent who isn't knowledgeable take on such a challenge without considering the consequences; to me, it's awful. We know that they're thinking just about the money in hopes of a sale but little do they know that the likelihood of a sale won't happen if you don't work your tail off to get a sale to closing as it is quite different from a typical real estate transaction. So you're right...refer it out for everybody's benefit; primarily the homeowners benefit.
It doesn't benefit your reputation a great deal if you list and can't sell or close either....A manager was heard to say " We covered short sales in a sales meeting...everyone knows how to do them now." It's like saying you rode in a car once and now you can drive it...