Dear Mr and Mrs Short Sale Buyer:

Tina- That's right:) We just had 3 buyers agents call us that their buyers walked and these are not long short sales either! Wait til you hear their reasons! In my next follow up to this post!

Ralph- We turn down listings when the sellers tell us that they want to milk the system and just have it listed to show the judge they have their property listed. Why would I be a party to that? Then the buyers who just make up any excuse and never want to give to the deal. Sorry, there is always another buyer around the corner! I say, get real!

Richard- Thanks! Yep, our sellers are doing some tough counters and they are getting signed. Heck, it helps the buyers agents too. At least they can stop shopping! $1000 on a 500K house is ridiculous for escrow deposits!

Amiri- And of course that is your decision. Since we are getting multiple offers all at once at market value for most of our short sale listings- we can afford to be picky about which offer is going to be in the best interest of our seller. Buyers agents know that if their client really wants the house, they will make some steps to prove it. I am not working for buyers to walk away on a dime. My next short sale post is about the last three who even walked away from their earnest money and most of that was chump change on 400K plus listings. Katerina

Dan- because the banks don't know how to do real estate, then they have the nerve to dictate to us how much a listing commission we are ONLY ALLOWED TO GET! I don't think so! They don't have a clue yet they play God with our clients and our money. Shame on them.

Glenn- You are in California. You have a fiduciary in California. In Florida it is presumed by law that all real estate licencees are transaction brokers. So there is a different take.

But then again, ( I first was licensed in CA) if you are truly working for the buyer and the buyer really wants the house, and I can assure you the short sale is going to be accepted because we close ALL of our short sales because we only take the ones that we can get through and know how to price it to get offers but also to make the bank happy with the price. If your buyer really wants the house, they would be happy to gamble $175 to $220 here in Florida for a home inspection. That is not a lot of money in the 500+K range here in our state.

Ernest money- I don't work with buyers so I will never have to deal with that one. However, why would I go to bat for your client and put hours of work with nothing put up from them?

Why is it that every other deal, your buyer would put up escrow but not on a short sale?

Although there may well be an ethical obligation there is no lawful obligation for the buyer agent to inform us that their buyer walked.

Of course that may be from the experiences of working with listing agents who don't know how to qualify a short or get it approved. We really fight and don't lose. A lot of our success is our reputation for treating buyer agents very fair, not playing games with them and also all the contacts we have made throughout the years at the bank loss mitigation depts. The only one even with help from supervisors that can't seem to get stuff done in time is Countrywide/BofA.

Just tonight we are fighting for our seller where we got the supervisor at a lender to call us at 10 p.m. to make sure to tell us he is going to get our acceptance letter by Friday because his lazy negotiator fell down on his job.

We just won't do it ever again without the earnest money. We counter every buyer back this way, and every time we have an accepted counter with all our terms being met.

Here in Fl we also have a short sale addendum with 2 choices:

1. effective date to begin upon third party approval

or

2. effective date to begin at signing of the bilateral contract by buyer and seller.

We counter with #2. IF they really want the house, they will accept our counter and they do 90% of the time.

Oh my gosh, Glenn- We had a bank send us a form today saying they only allow 5%.- and they hold the second and are accepting 3Kto go away! What biz is it of theirs? The 1st is saying yes to 6%. SO why do they have a beef? It amazes me, that is so illegal. IT is interfering with a contractual relationship between listing agent and seller. I get so sick of them playing God with our clients and the agents. They really need to get a life.

Loreena- As a good buyers agent that would naturally be your stance.

But look on the other side, why would I pick up the phone and work those lenders to get the deal through for your buyer when I can get one who will put up their money as earnest money.

Sometimes when you think you are protecting your buyer you are actually losing them a great home they may be in love with. I would present all sides to the buyer and let them decide. You should not be making that decision for your buyer. What if they end up sueing you because they find out a buyer got the house that they fell in love with but you told them to not put money on deposit til after the short is approved but another buyer came along with the same exact offer price but did put up the deposit and got the house.

Besides, if the short sale gets denied they get their money back. SO what's the big deal? We have the title company put the money in escrow. You might say well, they don't want to tie up their money. My question is, gee, in this savings interest rate how much money are they actually making on their dollar? Like 1%?

And what else are they doing with the money that it can't be in escrow for their dream home even if it is sitting there for 3 months?

It is just worth it to me to work on something without any assurance from your buyer that they are staying in the deal:)

Kelly- Thank you! Stay tuned for a post Nestor is insisting that I write about getting the banks to may be get off their butts. We really only have issues with CW/BofA.

Our area is for buyers: you snooze, you lose!

We just put a nice listing on the market today at market value and within 24 hours we had 3 offers on it. I countered them all back just like the above. One can not do it because they need sellers cash to close, the other two are going to be in a race to send back their signed counters. First one back goes to the lender for approval.

Carol- Here in Florida the only offers that typically have not gotten earnest money have been short sale offers. But we don't work that way any longer, got screwed too many times by buyers. In Florida you put up an earnest money deposit when you write the offer. I know in a lot of states that is not the case even in regular deals- many states the attorneys handle escrow and title and the contracts are not even completed executed until the attorneys get involved. That is not the case here, typically speaking.

On the other thought you have about why open escrow when the bank may not approve the terms-

We open title  (escrow) as soon as we get a short sale listing. We want to know all the liens, HOA fees, and judgments, code violations, clouds on title up front. We also have to have the HUD 1 Settlement statement attached to the short sale package with the numbers from the offer matching up. We get this HUD1 from our title company. She is part of our team and we have trained her on exactly how we need the HUD1 to be and how long to project out the closing fees and prorations. She is not going to do a HUD 1 blind. SO title is pulled and examined.

Carol- all of our short sales close. We have a system of qualifying the listing and the seller, we have an attorney to help us with legalities should they arise, we have contacts with the VPs and even Presidents at many of the lenders except for Bank of America and we even have contacts at Countrywide but their files are so divided in Texas and California offices along with the fact that the teams are broken up according to the who handles which note holders. So even our VPs may not have authority over a file we need help on.

Most lenders: we can ask for "OUR" negotiator- ones that we like to work with and work most files through.

We have never let a buyers agent down with one of our listings. And we do a lot of short sales.We know the odds going into the deal, we know what offer will NOT fly and which one will.

Besides- if the lender does not approve of the terms of the short sale, the buyer gets their escrow money back.