A little while back, upon learning that I specialize in Short Sales, someone remarked "You must be a very patient person." Well, my first instinct was to laugh out loud (which I might have done). The next thing I did was glance around to see if anyone within earshot heard the statement, realizing that if they knew me they, too, would at best be stifling laughter. I gently corrected the "offending party" clarifying that, in order to be successful in negotiating Short Sales, you must be all that does NOT equal patient.
To explain, in order to successfully move a Short Sale to closing the listing agent cannot be patient if one is expecting anything to happen. That said, the buyers' agent needs to be patient, the buyers need to be patient, and the sellers need to be patient as well. They are entrusting you, the listing agent, the person who is the liason between them and that awful entity known as "The LENDER" with the future of the transaction. If you simply send that package off, or worse yet, send in pieces and parts waiting for requests for more information, you are not serving anyone's best interest. If you place a call, leave a message, and sign onto the thinking that it's okay if it ONLY takes them a month to get back to you, you're probably not going to be seeing results any time soon.
When guiding a Short Sale transaction to its resolution, the listing agent needs to be educated in the procedure, realizing that in many cases the negotiator assigned to your case may very well be clueless. On a regular basis you will encounter people on the other end of that phone line who do not know what they are doing, most often because they are overwhelmed and undertrained. If you, yourself do not understand what is required, how well do you think things will go?
As a real estate agent, you need to know much about the law, about regulations, and guidelines in numerous areas; that is expected of you. However, you are not required to know how to negotiate a Short Sale. Yes, they are difficult, and we are hopeful that regulations will standardize the practice, and thus, help us to overcome the pitfalls. They can be however, vastly rewarding, when you feel the satisfaction of saving a family from foreclosure.
The landscape of the real estate market has changed, and Short Sales will be here for the foreseeable future. To serve everyone's best interests each of us should have a plan in dealing with them. Some may decide that it is a niche they are interested in specializing in. Others may conclude that, with some minimal training they are confident that they can deal with the occasional Short Sale on the horizon. Still others may come to the conclusion that they are best at simply holding their buyer's hand and maintaining the patience level required on that end. No matter the decision, decide we must in order to best serve our clients.
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