SHORTSALES: We love them.. we hate them
There was a point about half way through 2008 when I said to myself "I am just going to forget about them damn shortsales!" The reason for my frustration was, that I had submitted about 12 offers for 12 different buyers on shortsale listings and only 2 of those ever turned into a sale. In a normal market at least 10 of those would have closed within 10-40 days of the time of the offer.
I was at the verge of making a silly business policy "To tell buyers I simply don't deal with shortsales", when I had a talk with my broker (who had been specializing in shortsale listings ever since we first heard of the term "shortsale") and I had a shift of viewpoint about the whole thing. Ever since then the way I have been looking at shortsales is:
1. It is kind of like selling pre-construction. You simply do not get paid for 3-6 months, sometimes longer.
2. I acknowledged the fact that time is an aberrating factor, when so much time is put into something, we'll have losses, people get sick, they move out of town, lenders get bought, houses burn down, people get married, people change careers, etc. These can all be obsicles in the transaction ever completing.
3. Shortsales are typically great deals. We cannot hold them back from our buyers. We just have to educate our buyers, prepare them for the worst and the ones that can wait it out and get lucky will end up with a nice home at a great price.
4. We have to educate ourselves on the shortsale process, not to be in the dark about what is happening.
5. We have to work harder, work with more clients, make more offers to create the same results we used to create with half the amount of work.
I had a closing today with a first-time homebuyer that put an offer on a beautiful townhome back in January. It finally closed. Did I have to work a lot? Yes. Did we have to be patient? Yes. Did we get irritated at times? Yes. Is it a great property at a great price? Yes! Is everyone happy in the end? YES!
I am happy.
Good day!
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