Regulation for REALTORS Listing Short Sales
With regard to short sales, shouldn't there be some type of mandatory certification and a minimum number of completed deals for possibly a higher certification? I had one of my oldest friends from Houston approach me about short selling her home. She has no real hardship, but the property values have fallen in her neighborhood, and she has had 2 children since she bought the home 5 years ago.
Her local REALTOR suggested she go ahead and buy another home while her credit was still good and she hadn't missed payments. Then once that had closed, she could try to short sale her house with no REAL hardship or just let it go to foreclosure. Yes, this was her REALTOR's advice!!!
As a broker and former owner of a SS negotiation company FOR real estate agents in 18 states, I've literally successfully completed and negotiated 500+ SS in the past several years. I instructed her to ask her REALTOR the following questions.
1) How many short sale listings have you had?
2) Of those listings, how many have you successfully closed?
3) How many short sales have you completed where you represented the buyer?
4) How many times have you worked with my lender, and what do I need to know specifically about that process with them?
5) What training/certifications have you attained in the area of short sales?
It's funny when friends get involved, and they come to you because clearly, you are the expert. Then they choose to listen to the ding dong agent in their area. I will never get it... I'm not sure exactly what questions she DID ask him, but he said that he had experience in short sales and has a team to help her. WOW. WOW. WOW.
That doesn't quantify anything! I advised her to find an expert in the short sale niche because I had seen too many agents bauch the deal. But because this REALTOR just wants commission on both deals, they will say anything to get the deal. It kills me. TREC desperately needs to establish some type of minimum training in this area of short sales and then hopefully establish a SS broker designation after a certain number of closed deals.
What's worse is that the agent is encouraging fraud, and we wonder why we are where we are today. Sometimes you just have to step back and let the chips fall as they may. It's definitely difficult when it's regarding someone you care so deeply about, but all we can do is educate and be transparent about our own experience and specialties.
I can''t tell you how many investors I talk to on a weekly basis that are wanting to get into short sales NOW based on some Guru''s product from a few years ago. Most guru''s are teaching techniques from what happened a few years ago and don''t change what they are doing for today''s market. The same thing goes for realtors. They take a MCE course and now feel qualified listing short sales and applying traditional real estate basics to the listings (full price listings, status updates, and playing games with real buyers) when they need to be working to get their client out of a bad situation.
You can make money in short sales, but its not a short process! New, magically, certified realtors and new investors have to quit drinking the punch and work with those professionals who have done short sales for years or otherwise they are wasting their time, their buyers time, and more importantly, their clients/sellers time and credit.
Scott
My MLS Comparative Sold Summary shows 9 completed short sales since 11/04/2010
COMPLETED Short Sales of 2 bed 2 bath condo''s in a First Class Grade A building that rents for $900 a month. There are still 3 available listed short sales, but my comps are $50,000, which is way below what they are asking. I think the SELLERS might have a heart attack if an offer came in 10 days before XMAS. This when the seasoned veteran investors are doing their buying.
David Cooper email **Please See My Profile**