Looking toward the horizon of a few of my buyers this next week is a scary position to be in. This week I have 2 sub -prime buyers and we all are all to well aware of what is happening with that market. Lenders closing their doors and others tightening their belts.

My buyers are worried and to be honest I wonder if we will successfully find a property and a loan product that meet their needs with out putting them in a bad position. Selling real estate for me is more than finding the property that fits the qualification amount of the buyer. Buyers need to be comfortable with where the payment is and what it leaves them to live on, I do not want them married to their home in such a way they resent the purchase - happy buyers bring long term referrals.

These 2 buyers are on the line of prime and sub-prime and are with a solid company, well, as solid as you can be in sub-prime. We are being careful about the purchase price, location, and quality of the home, but will that be enough?

I read a lot about the mortgage industry and with all the current events that are changing the scope I find it is so very important to keep up to date.

Just this week I had a title person tell me of one day having 2 loans explode on the closing table, docs had been delivered and yet on that day the lender closed their doors. Avoiding these worries are going to be huge for Realtors that work with buyers in the sub-prime world.

This got me to thinking of how very important it is to have a good working relationship with a few quality lenders. In the future knowing what is happening with loans will be so much more important that it has been in the past.

Today I was reminded of what Donal Rumsfeld - Former Secretary of Defense once said, "there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns - - the ones we don't know we know." When I read that and reflect back on what has been written the last couple weeks regarding the sub-prime market it reminds me that you must know everything you can. We all knew that the sub-prime market would come to a end or at least a slow down, did we ignore this? We all knew that at some time the market would have to turn or at least change did we ignore or keep our clients informed?

Do you have buyers out there that are on the fence and if they do not get with the show right away may find themselves without a loan? I would strongly suggest we check and double check our buyers in our data base and if nothing else make sure they have the proper information.