So youve had a few agents out and there has been some talk about selling your home as a Short Sale. You think that you have this short sale stuff down cold? Really ? Here are a few things that might not have come up in the conversations that you have had about selling your home Short.

Short sales must go through an approval process. There will be a lot of people involved along the way to that Short Sale approval and eventual closing , that is if your fortunate enough to make it. One such person will be the BPO agent. BPO stands for Brokers Price Opinion. It is much more detailed than that of a CMA or Competitive Market Analysis and a lot less detailed than the Appraisal. As the name implies it is an Opinion.

If youre a Seller you should know that know matter how good you believe your agent is the lender will still reach out for that opinion of value from the BPO agent.

The BPO agent will base there opinion of value using Current properties on the market, and recent Sales from a fairly tight geographic area all tempered by a a long list of the lenders guidelines. Square footage is one of those guidelines on the list.

Now some time ago in Portland Oregon the MLS decided to include all Square footage into the size of the home. Yup that includes Basements finished or not. Garages are not included. But did you know that a finished basement or even a finished lower level in a Daylite basement is not seen as living area or fully used in a BPO.

BPO standards use what is known as GLA or Gross Living Area which only uses liveable square footage above grade. Any lower level square feet may or may not be used as contributing value but not as a direct comparable for sturctures.

What that means is that if you have a 2000 sq foot home with a daylite basement havng 4 bedrooms and 2 full baths where two of the bedrooms and one of the baths is on the lower level in the eyes of the lender you have a 2 bedroom 1 bath 1000 sq ft home and all of the comps should be within 20% of that.

In addition when the BPO agent is looking for comps for the most part we do not use Short Sale Listings and in many cases we are not allowed to use them even as Solds.

Want to learn more and make sure your pricing your Short Sale correctly? Choose a Certified Distressed property expert CDPE for short. As a CDPE and active BPO agent processing some 50 or so BPO's per month I can guide you through the pit Falls. Give me a call or email me for a private no obligation conultation on what steps to take in preperation to selling your home Short.

Every body knows someone who has either SOLD their home or BOUGHT there home under a Short Sale circumstance. You may know or have heard the stories about people who have saved tens of thousands of dollars or in some cases even hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Well I am here to tell you those stories are absolutely TRUE!

But how did it happen and just what is this CDPE thing I have been hearing about? If you or someone you know are heading down that path to foreclosure the CDPE is someone you better get to know.

They may be your only hope! Find out Here!

Over the years I have worked my share of Short Sales. I always spent the time to qualify the Seller before moving forward. This just kind of seemed automatic to me.

Yet a couple of months ago a Buyer that I am working with called me about a property that she saw on my web site. Like most first time Buyer's Susie is real enthusiastic. And rightly so with this home.

It is surrounded by homes in the High $300's to upper $500's. Yet its sales price was only $209,000. I checked the listing and no indication of a Short Sale, photo's looked good as well.

Showing instructions are Call agent. I make the call on every number I can find leaving messages every where. Two days pass And I finally get a call back. I set the appointment and call the Buyer.

Just like the photo's this home is stunning at least for the price and area. It is hard to keep Susie from doing cartwheels in the Living Room.  Later that evening we write the offer, theorizing that the reason this gem is still on the market was the incompetency of the agent who takes 2 plus days to call back.

To be on the safe side I put a few caveats in the sale to protect the Buyer. Things like Sale is subject to Seller providing documentation of liens and or amounts owed on the property. In the event that the Seller owes more than a negotiated sales price Seller is capable and willing to bring cash in to close.

Got the agents attention on that one. Three days later the agent requests a meeting between the Seller herself and I.

It took 45 minutes to drag it out of them but the reality was the Seller owed almost $300,000 on the home. The listing agent had never asked the question.

To this date that the listing is still on the market. The agent has never had any communication what so ever with the two lenders. She drops the price on a regular basis it is now down around $150,000 or so.

It is absolutely true that the single biggest failure of Short Sales to close is often the Agent.

Who is to Blame for the economic chaos we find ourselves in today? We are, you, me, our friends and family members. We are all guilty without a doubt.

Here is why.

We choose to live in a sound bite society. Reacting to negativity with disdain. Our anger directed only towards each other. We talk about it daily with our friends, family and aquatiances. Do we take the time to voice those concerns to those who could make a difference (our elected representatives ) ? No we do not!

Instead we choose to fall back on our list of favorites " One person can't change anything" or " No one will listen to me " or my favorite " They are going to do what they want anyway ". These are all cop-out phrases.

We heard the words but we did not pay attention when President Obama said " Change will happen if you want it, but you need to Push me " or something to that effect!

The world has changed yet we continue to hide our head in the sand pretending that it has not. In the 1980's the number of Lobbyists were in the Hundreds. Since then it has exploded into the tens of thousands.

President Obama told us how to effect that change. Yet everyday Americans choose to go about their way and live life as they always had. Waiting for the change to happen.

Well my friends the Lobbyists listened. They took President Obama's message to heart. They have been speaking loud and clear while the rest of us sit around and wait for change to happen the Lobbyists are making it happen.

If this Change is not what you were waiting for then perhaps you need to do more than just wait! The Voice of one honest constituant carries more weight than you can imagine. The voices of many can be amazing.

My PC is about a year old now. When I had it built I had them install XP as I did not want to deal with Vista and Windows 7 had not yet come out.

However the last few months I have been having a lot of problems with IE-7 on a few of the web sites. Speciffically with my Local MLS ( RMLS ).

Now I have high speed internet and my PC works very fast on all of the web sites except for the RMLS web site. Searching and Printing began to remind me of the old days when you hit the print button and then went and made a sandwich.

So I upgraded to IE-8. That was a no go. Did not seem to help and I did not like the fact that the email Icon Button did not work on the upper menu task bar.

Then one morning after going back to IE-7 RMLS came out with a notice that they had just optimized the site for FireFox.

I gave it a shot and wow does it ever work quick. The Searches and the Printouts just flat out scream.

I can only conclude that given that Microsoft has moved on from XP and no longer want to provide help and given that windows updates are automatic, something must have happened that I can not solve.

I am pretty happy with the speed of Firefox but am surprised that it will not work with some web sites.

Guess that nothing is perfect.

Whats next for me? Who knows maybe a Mac is in the future?

While out previewing homes for some of my clients the other day I came across a couple who came straight to the point by asking " Just what are REO's, BPO's and Short Sales?

It was a fablous question and one that I think that not many people would truly be able answer. Oh I can imagine that there are quite a few people who could fake the answer but how many truly do know the answer?

To that end  I wrote this post on my outside Blog. I followed up that post with a very nice assortment of Portland Oregon Homes offered as Short Sale Listings in a variety of different areas and neighborhoods.

I know what your going to say " SHort Sales , Arggh!" Well I am here to tell you that the Short Sale stigma is not as bad as one would think. In fact in our office I found that 65% of all of our transactions this last month or so have been Short Sales.

In the last few weeks I have also seen a significant increase in Foreclosed properties. That means that REO inventory in and around Portland Oregon will soon take up a major portion of our business as well.

Stop By take a look and let me know what you think. Do you know your REO's, BPO's and Short Sales?

After almost 3 years of sitting on the Table at 90% complete this winter finally produces a completed project.

So you say you've been searching for a home for sale in Portland for some time with no Luck.  You know the kind of home I am talking about, that cute home that fits your all your needs but without all the problems assoicated with older homes in Portland Oregon. Your out looking steady but time and time again you are disapointed by Condition.

Well thanks to this Seller you don't have to wonder about such things as Old half inch Water Lines, Sewer Lines put in when your Grandfather was young, Electrical Fuse box or Drafty Old windows or a furnace with a name you never heard of before.

Bedrooms ? We got em, 3 of em.

Baths ? Got them also, two of em.

Basement ? Yes indeedy.

How about a Garage? Well lgo you one better, has a 25' X 25' oversized Pole Building Shop/Garage with two role-away Doors.

What about a Yard. All fenced with a Garden Space, Flower beds, Blueberrie Bushes and Fruit Trees

But don't wait to long because not only do Ships Come in they also Depart!

All Aboard your North Portland (Home) Ship is about to Set Sail !

Being in the Business of Real Estate is sometimes frustrating. Not for all the reasons that just may have popped into your head.

It is frustrating to me because I feel that I am to close to the issues. Take for example the issue of Search Engine Optimization or SEO for short. I work hard on a regular basis to push my web sites to the top of the Search Engines via natural organic results.

There is the Rub! I am Not a Buyer nor a Seller of Portland Oregon Property. So I can only take a stab at what might be the keywords that others are typing into their favorite Search Engine.

It might be something a simple as real estate for sale or homes for sale. Or it could be more elaborate and specific like Portland homes for sale, or even more specific such as downtown Portland Oregon Condo's for Sale. Yet how would I know? For all I know the majority of Buyers are Looking for Pickles and somehow stumbled across real estate by accident!

I hope so cause I might have that covered, see The_Pickle  . But let's face it I don't have enough money to start buying, creating and maintaining a site for every vegetable.

So perhaps the better way might just be in collaboration? What say you? What search terms do you optimize your site or sites for? Don't have a site you say? Well then what search terms do your friends and relatives use when searching for homes online?

Can you help a brother out? If you share so will I for that is what Activerain was founded on and what causes most of us to continue to SHOW UP AND SHARE !

 What are Your Top Terms and With what page Rank?

If you like living in a Bedroom Community such as Beaverton Oregon a scant few minutes away from Portland Oregon but you can't yet afford the prices of a home yet you need the space then perhaps a Condo is for you.

The biggest problem you will encounter is the real lack of 3 bedroom Condos. Typically most Condos were built with a floor plan of 2 bedrooms or less. I suspect the theory was that they would be most often purchased by retirees who wanted less space to keep up.

But in to days real world although many of us do want less up keep we also need extra space for our own needs. Like an office space for him and for her. Yep that's right 3 bedrooms. Here is a little search for that 3 Bedroom Condo in Beaverton that you have been looking for.