Equator Agents Initated 1.17 Million Short Sales?

On DSN this morning Equator reported that agents initiated 1.7 million short sales through their platform over the last 24 months. 

Here's my question....How many resulted in a successful sale?  I am sure their sofware can identify why a file was closed in the system, ie: sold, or closed without resolution.  

They went on to say that 150 Billion dollars of assets (short sales and REO's combined) were processed over the last 8 Years.  Ok now I am confused.  8 Years ago we was 2003-2004 in my world and I sure do not remember many short sales or REO's in the pipeline until 2007-2008.  Am I wrong?

Is this just another hype to sell their new REvolution platform that may charge agents an annual fee or per transaction fee to process their Short Sales & REO's?  Remember Platinum Equator membership that cost $500 annually? 

What is your experience?  As a percentage, how many of your Equator originated short sales have closed?

Attention Squatters

Go Directly To Jail

Attention Occupy Idiots:  You are getting very bad legal advice if you think you will squat in any bank owned foreclosures.  If I find you in my property here is what I will do, First I will have you arrested under a citizens arrest  for breaking and entering and criminal trespass.  When I rekey my properties on behalf of the lender I do a time stamped dated video log with a witness that shows the house is vacant and posted NO TRESPASSING ENTRY BY PERMISSION ONLY.  So even if you tear it down I have a record I can take to court.  Second, if you place utilities on at any property without the express written permission of the owner you are committing fraud, and again I will make sure you are prosecuted. 

This house does not belong to you nor are you going to be allowed to squat there and wait around to be evicted because I for one have a copy of the laws on the books you are violating and I guarantee you will have a roof over your head and bars on the doors and windows.

All you REO Brokers and Agents out there need to get copies of both statutes for B & E and Criminal Trepass and do not take the local PD's spin that this is Civil.  It is a criminal act and you should make them lock these morons up. 

It appears as though technology has escaped our Government Service Enterprise vendors at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and HUD.  Why are they still by passing qualified Brokers & Agents that would do a far superior job servicing their REO's in favor of Brokers and Agents from over an hour from the property?  Yet their spokesman and women tell us all at 5 Star, REO Insider, AREAA/NAHREP,  REOMAC, etc  conferences that they do not allow listing agents to be more than 10 miles from the property and promise to add more qualified agents to their selection process only to have us fill out countless applications and provide tons of paperwork and then freeze us out again .  Wonder what mapping system they are using. Even MY CROW DOES NOT FLY THAT CROOKED!

How many of you are seeing this same continued practices in your area?

Recent reports put the shadow inventory of foreclosures at near 6 Million units.  Of those the Governments Service Enterprises Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, HUD, and alike own approximately 48% of those foreclosures. 

What I have seen in the past 30 days is alarming.  Those houses are flooding on to the market at between 20-30% below the last sold comparable in the same neighborhood.  They are not trashed beat up fixers.  On the contrary if they are in poor condition these agencies are hiring contractors to put in new appliances, carpet, paint, and do many other repairs to meet minimum FHA standards. 

It also appears that there may be other back room deals which have the banks that took bailout and TARP money.  Bank of America was allowed to sell thousands of their non performing Countrywide loans to Fannie Mae and others.  The non GSE lenders appear to have slowed their foreclosure processes and release of REO homes to a crawl.  Do we think that this may have to do with the blow out the Government is now pushing their REO's to the head of the pack?

Is this happening in your town? Check your MLS and see how many GSE homes came on the market in the last 30 days and take a look at the asking prices. 

I was reading an AR blog this morning about how much a Short Sale Specialist thinks BPO Agents are pricing property incorrectly. My comment back was He Who Lives In Glass Houses Should Not Throw Stones.  Who prepared the CMA to list the short sale in the first place?  What makes that different from the BPO? There are no rules to a CMA.  It is completely up to the agent who can pick and choose which properties to include. I am a member of multiple MLS systems and only around 10-20% of the current Short Sale properties on the market are even remotely close to market value as compared to the comparables.  When a Short Sale Agent under prices a property to get it shown it is not only a violation of our Code of Ethics it borders on lender fraud. It throws off all the statistics for that area.  I get why you do it, it is difficult to ask a buyer to wait months for an answer from the lender unless you give them a screaming hot deal as an incentive.  That being said please note that BPO agents must follow rules similar to an appraisal and we MUST bracket our comparables or our BPO's ot they will not be accepted which is why many of our appraisals are coming in lower than the offer price.  

I think every agent should take an appraisal class taught by appraisers.  This would give both the CMA and BPO agent more knowledge of how the appraisal process works.  This would go a long way to having intelligent conversations with the appraisal review at the underwriter level when your apprsisal comes in low.  An appraisal can be corrected if your case is strong enough. I have done it on many occasions.  So know your stuff and speak their language is my suggestion. If you get two appraisals on the same property will they use the same comps?  Will they be the same price?  Absolutely not.  Appraisals are still an "opinion of current market value based on historical data".  It is not an exact science.

If a seller is about to loose thousands of dollars on a low appraisal or low BPO then they might just want a second opinion and pay $450 for a second appraisal to back it up.  Heck for that matter they could hire two BPO agents for $50 each and submit that to strengthen their position.

As for BPO agents not pricing property correctly.  The SELLER still prices the property no matter who the SELLER is, not the agent in the end. 

Let's start with the fact that around 80% of the short sale listings should not even be on the market for the reasons listed below and more. This weekend I showed several properties.  The clients had found a short sale listing on the Internet that I was not going to show them for several reasons as follows:

1. Agent is part time and has done exactly 4 transactions on the last 2 years. 

2. Seller is non owner occupant and is involved in a buy and bail, eaving the house in half finished remodel.

3. Agent has two offers that they did not reveal and left the property active while going away for a long weekend.

4. When questioned agent revealed that they did not even have a negotiator and had not submitted any paperwork.

5. The propery is priced lower than current market value. 

Of course this is the ONLY house that the buyer is remotely interested in buying because it is such a "great deal"

It is hard enough to make a deal rock in this market but when you add all the reasons listed above there is little chance that the buyer will do anything but waste their time.  They will get so wrapped up in this property that when it falls apart they will blame, you guessed it, me the buyer agent.  They will either buy nothing or move on to someone else.  I tried to explain as politely as I could that this is NOT my hobby.  Selling real estate is what I do to feed my family. 

Buyers:  You are not being misrepresented if your agent will not show you a certain property.  We are only looking out for you financinally, emotionally, and fiscally.  Wasting your time and ours is just that a waste.  We can smell a bad short sale from a mile away.  Trust us we do this for a living all day, every day.

Quick question:

  How many of you have dropped your old static web site in favor of an interactive blog site?

I passed my brokers exam back in 2001 after having practiced real estate for over 10 years working for franchises, chains, and independent brokers.  Once I struck out on my own I needed to figure out not only how to make a living but also how to make a difference.  The National Association of REALTORS offers many different Designation Courses so I looked at each one to see what would benefit both my business and my clients. 

The first Designation I obtained in 2001 was the CRS -Certified Residential Specialist which required both educational and experiential qualifications.  This took me about two months to complete and I was then and am still proud as a peacock to join what I feel is a very elite group who take their career in real estate seriously.

It was not until I obtained my second Designation also in 2001 which was my ABR -Accredited Buyers Representative that I truly found my niche and passion.  Buyer Representation is a very overlooked specialty.  A Buyers Representative has to be more creative and resourceful because they do not have listings to use to locate a buyer.

Face Book Posts, Blogging, B2B contacts, Homeownership Seminars, Attending Any and All Local Government Meetings ie: City Council, Board of Supervisors, Board of Education, wearing your badge and ABR pin are just a few ways to get the word out that you want to represent buyers.

Any other buyers agents out there that would like to give us some new ideas on this specialty?  How do you find buyers other than open house or advertising a listing for sale?  What special services do you offer?  Which Social Media works best for you? 

Depending on what State you live in it takes more than 1500 hours to become licensed to cut someones hair.   Yet recently we have had resistance and difficulty getting real estate professionals to sit still for one day to learn a new skill or work on improving their current skills.  You would have to attend 250 of our one day workshops to get the same level of training that your stylist does when they take a pair of clippers to your head. My personal stylist goes to hair shows and conferences to learn new ways to cut, color, and style my hair not only to keep current but to make more money learning new processes.  

Back in the dark ages (20 years ago when I was learning and hoaning my real estate skills) I attended workshops, seminars, events, retreats, etc that were 3-5 days long and cost thousands of dollars.  The trainers were not always selling me some program or coaching but when there were I was glad to buy.  For every dollar I spent over the years I am 100% certain I made thousands of dollars in return. It is my tradmareked slogan and I believe it with all my heart  "LEARNING EQUALS EARNING".  

Brokers and Managers tell me that they will not support outside trainers because of their exceptional in house training but in the very next breath they tell me how their agents are independent contractors and that they can not force them to attend the company training all while they are also telling me how much their businesses are off because of the bad market. ARGH. Sure the web provides much in the way of information for free.  Death By Powerpoint Webinars are wonderful for quick specific subjects but without live interaction, role playing, practice, and questions and answers you may just be short changing your real esate career and your earning potential. 

First rule of Real Estate, Location-Location-Location,  First rule of  earning success Training-Training-Training.

This morning I received an offer from Raj at Incubator, Inc to do BPO's for $18.00.  Are you freaking kidding me? I am a professional and I do not work for minimum wage. 

I have watched the fee for BPO's drop like a stone over the last 3-4 years. We were paid $50-100 which was a reasonable fee for our time and information.  I attribute this low ball practice to starving agents that are willing to work for less than minimum wage rather than go out and actually prospect for business. Now our Association's have come up with a BPO Certification Course that costs $125 + $199. What a deal! If we are true professionals we would ALL turn down this work and tell these bottom feeders to take a hike.  Which BTW is exactly what I did. Another brand name company is offering $15.00 for what they are calling desktop BPO's.  They want 5 comps listed and 5 sold comps accompanied by full agent detail MLS printouts (in most areas completely against the rules of the MLS)  for each one, again bracketed comps.  Do you really want to sell your MLS info that you pay dues and fees annually and monthly to do proper market analysis and marketing for $15.00?

This coupled with bracketed AVM model that actually drive a BPO agent to tweek the comps to serve some alternative purpose than actual neighborhood value by skipping the house next door and jumping to the next area that fits makes this a loose-loose proposition. California agents beware, this activity is against the law.  It is illegal in CA to prepare a false BPO so not only is this low ball practice costly it may be illegal.

Stop the madness and JUST SAY NO to low ball BPO's.  On Independence Day I asserted my Independent Spirit and I told Incubator to "hatch a new plan", if you know what I mean.  Happy 4th to you all.