A fellow Realtor sent me the following picture earlier today. I had to laugh because I think it is rather funny. I want to make it clear I am not making light of a person/family being foreclosed on or losing their home. That is an awful experience. I also want to make it clear I am not defending lending institutions.

I get that I don't know these people's stories but B of A stealing the home from them? Really? Here's what probably happened. They went late on their payment, possibly tried to do a short sale and it didn't get approved. Now, I could be way wrong but where in the note does it say anyone has to approve a short sale? Again, I am not saying just foreclose but they "stole" the home?

Here's the picture:

 

I'm not one of those fancy bloggers who can do creative text or other images. My text is above, and so is the picture. A story is a story.

I probably shouldn't even be blogging about this because it's just giving them more publicity but I haven't seen many people paint on their garage door "B of A just let me walk away from $147,000 in debt and did a short sale." Okay, maybe that's a tad long but you get the point.

Here's the thing. If you think you don't want to stay in your home call a Realtor (me)! Call me before you stop making your payments. Someone "stealing" your home doesn't need to be the end result.

 

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I have been getting a lot of calls lately from agents and brokers wondering about availability of our listings. I thought I would post this as a general help blog.

Our MLS, ARMLS, a few years ago added some subfields to help agents, both listing and buyer. For listing agents they don't have to always say we have a verbal acceptance or whatever; and for buyer agents-they don't need to call to confirm.

Unfortunately, not all buyer agents are aware of the statuses or understand them; and not all listing agents update them. With that said, it is not a required field but for those that use them correctly and consistently it should be respected.

In fact, as I am writing this I just got another call despite my MLS comments to not call me on availability, "Is it available? Do you have any offers?"

Here's what I don't understand. A home/listing is available until a seller signs something or agrees to it, so why ask both questions?

Anywho back to the fields..think of it this way. MLS has it taken step by step. Listing is active, listing agent receives multiple offers (nothing is approved (timelines are usually irrelevant)), REO Approval Indicated (someone has agreed to terms on the seller side (nothing is signed), Buyer Signed Addendums (Buyer has signed Seller Addendums (waiting on seller signatures).

It's pretty simple and straight forward but I understand not everyone sells REO.

Furthermore, please don't question why a listing is active with any of those subfields--it doesn't have to change to pending until seller signs the offer. AWC has nothing to do with any of those fields/actions.

You can ask me what the offer's terms are but you won't get any of the terms--I can't disclose them.

You can also ask me if it's available if I have an offer but I probably won't tell you. Again, rules are rules. I don't have to disclose it, probably won't, and why should we? It's irrelevant. The home/listing is available. Your client's offer should be what it should regardless. If there is another offer you will likely receive a highest and best counter response. It doesn't matter if there's 2 or 200 offers.

Bottom line-search by status, then look at the subfields-MLS put them there to help you and me. Lastly, staying on top of our industry's tools is meant to help you, not hurt. Use them to help you and your clients.

I am writing this blog for several reasons. The first being because I feel like ranting. The second because not enough agents understand that they are missing out on one of the simplest and most effective tools out there. And lastly because the consumer should know what their agent might be costing them.

I’ll get this out from the beginning. I sell REO properties so I’m lazy, I never answer my phone, I’ll get what’s coming to me when the market “switches.” For those of you that don’t know me I am a sarcastic person so that last comment was me being me—I am not lazy and I do answer my phone. I will leave the last part alone.

All of our MLSs are different so this is for Arizona agents using ARMLS. Here’s the thing—if you have access to a tool that can help make your job easier, wouldn’t you know as much as you could about it? Even the basics? As we all know—a seller doesn’t need to disclose if they have an offer or even offers. It’s up to them if they want to. Only till does the seller sign an offer truly make it disclosable. However, (and please remember this more REO related than anything) many banks want to give the buyer the benefit of the doubt, and ARMLS most likely created fields to help buyer agents, listing agents and buyers out by creating “subfields.” These subfields contain these categories, “Multiple Offers Received,” “REO Approval Indicated,” and “Buyer Signed Addendums.”

So I get this call today. “Is blah blah available?” Me “I’m sorry I’m not at the office to recall right now but if you refer to the listing we update our statuses as things change.” Agent “It shows available so it’s available?” Me “Did you review the subfields where it most likely indicates REO approval?”  Agent “Aaah, I see that now. So the list price is approved?”

I’ll stop there. I have a hard time being politically correct but I will be here. So “the list price is approved?” WOW!! No, wait…WOW!! Am I seriously being asked if a list price for a lender owned property is approved? Let me rephrase that so I don’t come across as not understanding—am I seriously being asked if this subfield which states REO Approval Indicated means the list price is approved? Even better, Brokers ask me this question too.

Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised because I get the question asked frequently. It just still shocks me that agents in this market don’t know how to read a listing. I guess if this is that person’s first transaction that’s fine.

Why would a field be made up that indicates a price on a bank owned property? Um, isn’t that what the list price is? I get that on short sales list prices are not always approved but this isn’t a short sale.

Here’s the bottom line—are you utilizing the powerful tools in front of you to your advantage? Or costing your clients their homes..or dollars in their pocket?

Fellow agents, what programs are you using with success? This is for text riders on signs allowing consumers/agents to text and receive quick/free info on the home's information. What difficulties are you running into? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

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