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I changed the meaning of short sales and now I see the huge opportunity! You can too!

By Mitch Ribak

Real Estate Broker/Owner with Mitch Ribak - The Real Estate Success Network

January 23, 2009 01:49 PM

I just posted this blog on my eHomes Realty Network and I thought I would post it here too since it was a good break through for me today for my yearly goal of 50+ listings closing this year. Read below:

So here I was, at the beginning of this year, a few weeks ago, trying to figure out how to add at least 50 listing sales to my buyers agency. Since we have such a great buyers program, it just makes sense for us to bring on lisings this year. My dilema is, sellers are still not pricing their homes correctly. So what do I do? Today, and I don't know why it took so long, it dawned on me I was going the wrong direction with my listing ideas.

Because we have been on the buyer side of short sales I have been hesitant to get into them. However, today, after brainstorming with the title company next door to my office, I realized that short sales are the best listings of them all. I thought about the benefits:

1. The seller doesn't care what the home lists for or ultimately sells for, as long as they don't have to come to closing with any money.

2. The seller doesn't care about the commission. It's not going to affect their bottom line since they are not getting any money from the house sale.

3. Priced properly, these will sell within a month or two.

Ok, call me dumb, but why did this take so long for me to think of these thoughts? I guess I have been so disheartened from the buyers side, that I blocked out the listing side. In fact, all I did was change the meaning of a short sale from being a pain in the butt to being a great opportunity to sell my goal of 50 listings this year.

Our arrangement is great. We have a title company right next door to my office. We are co-marketing an 8 week postcard campaign to 1,000 homes, all bought in 2004 and 2005. Each postcard will be a little different explaining portions of short sales and how we can help ease their pain. We will also be targeting our local database of leads. This title company happens to be experts at short sales and give "over the top" customer service. They are a perfect partner for this venture! If it works with 1,000 homes, we will expand the program to 10,000-20,000 homes.

Recently we also were able to get a customer of ours a loan on a new home even though she went through a short sale two months prior. We are hoping that we can tap into that loan again to offer our displaced short sale customers.

Anyway, I wanted to share this with everyone because I figured if I was thinking negative about short sales, others might be also. Or, maybe I'm just a little slower than I thought and I'm the last one to figure it out!

Have a great day and don't hesitate to email or call me with any questions!

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Marian Gregor-Ann

Keller Williams - Ann Arbor, MI

Arbor area Real Estate

Hi Mitch, It sounds like you have a good program in place. I just completed a short sale certification program. It has really opened my eyes to the possibilities.

Jan 23, 2009 02:21 PM

Shar Malekpour

Tierra Antigua Realty - Tucson, AZ

Realtor, GRI, ABR, CNE, ChRC, AHWD

Hi Mitch,

Great idea, but there is a lot more into listing a short sale and dealing with desperate owners than what you mentioned. Dealing with first level operators, getting nowhere after waiting for months, dealing with Agents that think you should do miracle in negotiating with the bank or even blaming you for not knowing what you are doing, impatient buyers and sellers and ....... are things that you might want to consider as well. After all the time and effort that you put into it, if you get lucky and sell it before it goes into the foreclosure, you are not even guaranteed to get paid fairly. ;) These are my experiences, yours might be different =) Good luck

Jan 23, 2009 02:24 PM

Bob & Carolin Benjamin

Benjamin Realty LLC - Gold Canyon, AZ

East Phoenix Arizona Homes

Definitely a way to look at this and keep one's sanity with the short sale process.

Jan 23, 2009 02:53 PM

Loreena and Michael Yeo

3:16 team REALTY ~ Locally-owned Prosper TX Real Estate Co. - Prosper, TX

Real Estate Agents

You are right that the bottom line is that the Seller doesnt care. But a thoughtful seller do care about who can market his/ her property well enough to produce a strong buyer and also an agent who want pierce through the short sales long and drawn-out process. Patience is very much needed in this.

Jan 23, 2009 02:55 PM

Mitch Ribak

Mitch Ribak - The Real Estate Success Network - Melbourne, FL

Hi Shahrzad! Yes, we have done plenty of them from the buyers side, and a dozen or so on the shortsale side so I am aware of the negatives. That was why I was hesitant to get into them. However, after realizing that my short sale listings have so far gone extremely well, it only makes sense for us to move forward. Our title company marketing partner in this has done over 100 short sales in the past three months. The reason so many Realtors give them their short sales is because they do all the contact work with the bank. They have one person assigned to just contacting the banks. I also learned from them to charge an extra 1% in commission because if you ask for 6 they will give you 5 and if you ask for 7 they will give you 6. Interesting. Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts and experiences. I truly appreciate it! Oh yeah, we have a great sheet that we give our buyers when looking at short sales and another sheet for buyers looking at foreclosures. It has helped us a lot! If you would like a copy, send me an email to mitch@mitchrealty.com and I would be glad to email it to you.

Since we our entire system is based on Internet leads, we have learned to be very patient. Our buying cycle of an average Intenet lead is 4-6 months. Patience is our middle name!

Jan 23, 2009 02:56 PM

In Tucson, AZ our title companies do not help Agents with the short sale process at all. They just recently stopped producing prelim for short sale properties as well, unless there is an offer on it. They believe that they are bearing a lot of expenses, and they do not have much return on their investment. Over here each Agent must do all the negotiations themselves ... Thank you for the ideas though, it is appreciated =)

Jan 23, 2009 03:18 PM

Missy Caulk

Missy Caulk TEAM - Ann Arbor, MI

Savvy Realtor - Ann Arbor Real Estate

My market center just had a course the last two days. I learned alot. I will post some of it here sometimes soon. We are getting a scrubbed list of folks 30-90 days late on their payments, we call them up and offer our help in either loan modification, short sale to avoid forclosure.

I want to play with the new system before I give it a heads up, as the class just ended. But...one of my co-workers already has two listings from it in one day.

Jan 24, 2009 12:13 AM

Retired Notworking

Tallahassee, FL

I've had quite a few frustrating short sales and agree that they are a good opportunity, mostly because they are so prevalent. So far, I've only approached them from the listing side and am a little hesitant to show short sale properties to a buyer unless I know that the agent is knowledgeable.

Jan 24, 2009 04:53 AM

I changed the meaning of short sales and now I see the huge opportunity! You can too!

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