Earning and Learning - Certified Distressed Property Expert

End consumers have no idea what these designations are. It's what we do with the knowledge that matters.

I don't have my certification.  So I am not sure if it helps.  Congratulations for completing the course.

Keep in mind that CDPE has a 47% success rate. It is also of my personal opinion that Alex has no idea on how short sales work based on a couple of his blogs. He considers negotiations between seller and buyer on a purchase contract "lender fraud" and thinks that short sale flips, at best, are "unethical". Anyone that ignorant, shouldn't be managing a McDonald's, let alone giving out certifications with the word "expert" in them.

So my advice to you is to find someone in your office that you can shadow that has a high close ratio on their short sales. Another thing I would consider, would to out source the negotiations to a 3rd party who can do it for you for free. The CDPE course is great in the sense that it gives you a good foundation to start from, however, with it's low success rate, I wouldn't be calling myself an "expert" as you have correctly noted.

Oh OK. I'm glad you already have the street smarts. ;)

I was an investor before being licensed and was educated in short sales before the market tanked in my area. So when it tanked, I was like a fish in water. I would like to think that I pioneered the first short sale flips in my area. Now (well 3 years ago) I have taken it one step further by getting rid of the investor and creating a successful short sale solution that benefits everyone while maximizing profits. I've seen that there are more and more negotiation companies doing the service for free based on my principals.

Anyway, then to answer your question. No, neither the foreclosing lenders nor my clients ever asked if I had a designation nor did having one helped. It's not like BofA would accept my short sale because of some certificate I got from attending some guy's program. Equator doesn't have a special CDPE of SFR login. ;)

Since I process short sales for other agents, I do get asked if I have any designations. I always reply that my certificate is from the school of hard knocks! ;)  I also go into details about my personal beliefs as to why it isn't necessary and I ask them for their most difficult short sale situation and state how I would handle them. So by having them, it wouldn't hurt (in my situation).

Good to see you around. I love Activerain since there are some street smart people, like you, around to share ideas and debate topics. I would love to see your stances on short sales. Feel free to criticize any of my blogs as I would love to learn from you.