Leslie Ebersole decided to hold a contest this month titled: Active Rain Challenge: What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger.

Leslie picked a great time to hold this contest as she has asked us to speak about a triumph from the despair and I am currently still living one and I would love to share this saga with you, but please read every word as you will love the ending!

I will start this off by disclosing that for the last 3 years in Port St Lucie, FL, Kevin B Tolbert PA of Keller Williams Realty of Port St Lucie, has enjoyed a 100% success rate of getting my short sale customers to a successful close and getting most of them money back at closing for relocation assistance.

That is until now... 

Here is the listing and you will notice it is BACK ON THE MARKET: READY TO CLOSE! 1114 SW Gardena Av Port Saint Lucie, FL 34953 3 beds, 2 baths, POOL, Hot Tub, Screened enclosure.

My seller found me because of my extensive internet presence and reputation for SHORT SALE SUCCESS, and he called me the day he got served by the sheriff for his Foreclosure Hearing for Final Judgment.  Now this doesn't intimidate me as I have been to plenty of these hearings and have always been able to get my clients cases extended long enough to complete the sale.

Now, this is where the story gets interesting: 

My homeowner who I shall call Mr. Turkey and you will see why from day one is ranting and raving about how President Obama has destroyed his life.  He was an independent draftsman and because of outsourcing, he is virtually unemployed.  And now to top it off, the bank is taking his home.  But let's be clear here... his bank if Bank of America and he has lived in his home for 42 months, YES, you heard me, 42 months without making a payment and they have the nerve to foreclose on him. 

So, here we are with 30 days to his foreclosure hearing for final judgment and I advise him, I can get this short sale completed and most likely even get him money at closing, but he needs to allow me to do what I do best.

Well, I immediately put him in for HAFA SHORT SALE APPROVAL and get it approved to sell in just 21 days.  Now with an approval letter in hand, I prepare for my usual court hearing to stall this long enough to sell the home and close it.  I show up at court, and Mr. Turkey has beaten me to court and has already spoken for himself...

He has apparently RANTED AND RAVED his political agenda to the judge and the judge loses complete patience and says that rather than allow enough time to complete the sale, he is GRANTING FINAL JUDGMENT and setting the auction date for 60 days and there will be NO EXTENSION granted no matter what.

So, now with 60 days to the sale date, I begin my magic... I have my approved price, and I begin aggressively marketing the home. We get a buyer in the first 2 weeks, and we then have to submit them to BOA for final approval of the sale to this buyer.  Now this buyer still needs to have the home inspected, but since she is a CASH BUYER, we don't predict any time problems. 

We send in her offer to BOA and my negotiator says VERBALLY, this is a no-brainer and hang on.  The courts in St Lucie County like to have no less than 7 days to sale date to have proof the sale has closed.  So Mr Turkey starts asking me daily how long does he have to move, and I say everyday, Sept 18th, as this is 7 days before the auction date.

Well on Sept 15th, with only 3 days to go to close, we get the final approval and the buyer orders her inspection on Friday afternoon. 

We always recommend Housemaster as they are the Nations largest and they use actual licensed, bonded employees and digital and detailed reports that will tell you if there is even a loose nail some place.

And they guarantee in writing if they tell you something is working and it isn't within a reasonable period of time after move in, they repair or replace so this is PEACE OF MIND.

Well Ms. Buyer wanted to go to the yellow pages and pick the cheapest she could find and she brought in a home inspector from out of the area that none of us has ever heard of and we have 200 agents.  So Ms. Buyer who is a recently divorced single mom and very nervous about how overwhelming the whole process is, comes in with Mr. Inspector and they start their process. 

Keep in mind this is a home that has been unkempt for 43 months and the pool and hot tub are black from not running.  Mr. Inspector tells her I have never seen a pool this bad cost less than $2500 to $5000 to bring back to usable condition and because it is so dirty, he could not turn on the equipment to test the pool.

Now, she has just enough for the purchase and she doesn't plan to have thousands of dollars for repairs.  So she is already nervous.  Next I hear Mr. Inspector tell her that the wires hanging from the ceilings where the ceiling fans were removed are a FIRE HAZARD.

So I now know we have an idiot for an inspector and then as I try to calm her fears, Mr. Inspector says I only share my report with the person paying me and not the agents.  This is unheard of as our local inspectors work with us and let us know what they are finding so we can discuss with buyer and seller any concerns.

Mr. Inspector takes Ms. Buyer into a bedroom and closes a door to talk to her.  I hear him tell her that he could not safely turn on the A/C in heat mode to test it as it was so dirty that this would be a fire hazard.  I lost it. 

I called our partner inspector, John McVean at Housemaster and he gives me the name of one of the oldest and most trusted pool companies in Port St Lucie, American Pools, and the OWNER himself came to the home in 20 minutes before Mr. Inspector could leave.  He proceeds to calm Ms. Buyer and tell her that with himself personally performing the work with his team, they would ACID WASH the pool, drain it, add new chemicals, replace the filter, and have it ready to swim in 5 days for $550 and he turned on all the equipment in front of her and show her it is working fine.

So, now with a little comfort in the fact that Mr. Inspector had just misrepresented how much this would cost, then I called my A/C trusted partner who came out and turned the A/C on and showed her it worked fine and said yes, it was extremely dirty, but the coils being dusty is NOT A FIRE HAZARD as that is ridiculous.  He also quoted her a very reasonable price to acid clean the coils, charge the system and service it completely.

So now we have 2 battles down, but Ms. Buyer goes home and looks at all the garbage that Mr. Inspector fed her and decides there is just too much risk according to this moron to continue and she walks on Sat morning. 

So here I am with an APPROVED CLEAR TO CLOSE in 2 days and no buyer.  So what do I do?  No, I don't pull my hair out or go postal on the MORON Inspector. 

I do what all Keller Williams agents are TRAINED TO DO better than any other Real Estate Company in America.  I proactively get on the phones and I find another buyer to step into the EXACT SAME Position pending a legitimate inspection by an actual LEGITIMATE Inspector.  So here we are on Sat at 10 AM and I called John McVean at Housemaster on his day off and what does he say?  I will be there by Noon.  THAT IS WHY HE IS OUR PREFERRED PARTNER!

He shows up, I come up with full lawn equipment and I clean up the 4 feet high yard and he inspects the home in and out.  He prepares his very extremely detailed report and attaches the pool report and the A/C report and sends to new buyer who is out of state. 

New buyer says PROCEED and here we go again.  So on Monday, I call Bank of America and my negotiator David Ramsey and my Closer Chris Goodall who have just worked feverishly to bring this is a HAFA APPROVAL and a FINAL APPROVAL in under 60 days, now needs to do this again in 2 days.

This 2 guys deserve all the credit in the world as they completely close the first sale out of Equator system in just a few minutes, and then I proceed to reload the new buyer completely again.  After about 4 hours, David says we have everything and we ship it off to Fannie Mae for approval.

Now Mr. Turkey our seller, is already convinced this is not going to close, so he borrows the money from family and rents a truck and starts loading to move. 

On Weds, we still do not have Fannie Mae approval again and so Mr Turkey says he is leaving.  I tell him go ahead and sign in advance and then leave.  When it closes, we will send him his HAFA money.

On Thurs it is a peaceful day without my daily calls from Mr. Turkey and still no approval.  Thursday night, David calls me personally to say we expect it first thing Friday and he has cleared it with foreclosure lawyers that they will rush the closed file to the court on Monday and vacate the auction.

Friday at Noon, David and William come thru again, with our SECOND BUYER APPROVAL only 5 days after the first, yes folks, I said 2 HAFA APPROVALS in 60 days from Bank of America.  I call Mr. Turkey and tell him to get down and sign and he informs me he is already in Chicago that he decided to leave when he didn't think we could get done in time.

We tell him to go to his local bank and we would fax the package, they could have him close there and email back the documents and fedex back the originals.  Then for whatever reason, I went by to check on the house since my buyer was in South Carolina and what do I find...

Yes, Mr. TURKEY has left Graffiti on the garage.  Since I am not about to reward this guy for his actions with HAFA money, I called Bank of America and reported the damage and stopped the closing. 

This was my first time in 3 years I have failed to close one of my listings short sales and break my perfect streak, but I would not allow this person to be rewarded for his actions even if it cost me the commission.

So after all this, knowing it was now only 2 days to auction, I knew it was over and I went home Friday night and took a Valium and slept it off.

Monday goes by, Tuesday, I decide to go to the auction just for pure curiosity and see what the home sells for.  No Sale!

I am confused, but don't think anymore about it. 

On Friday, David Ramsey calls me the negotiator and said when he was convinced we were closing, he got the sale extended for 45 days.  He said it was the least he could do was give me enough time to bring a new buyer and earn my commission after all this. 

So on Friday, I called Mr. Turkey and told him to hire someone to clean up his mess and he sent his son to start today.

I will reinspect on Monday and if it looks clean, I will get this sold for the 3rd and hopefully final time.

So, the moral to this story is very simple:  It is hard to soar like an eagle when you have to work with MR. TURKEY!

Oh and when this does close with the 3rd buyer, my reputation will be restored and I will once again be 100% perfect on closing my SHORT SALE LISTINGS in Port St Lucie.

If you are ready for the hardest working negotiator in Port St Lucie to SELL YOUR HOME, CALL Kevin B Tolbert PA of Keller Williams Realty of Port St Lucie.

Maybe you will be the topic of my next SUCCESS STORY!

And I cannot say enough about John McVean at Housemaster and his team. 

So this is my story for Leslie Ebersole and her contest: Active Rain Challenge: What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger.