The quarterback's directions are concise; his throw, dead on! The team, a well-muscled, well-oiled machine, dominates the field. Huge linemen block anyone in the receiver's path as he runs toward the goal line. He's at the 30. The 20. The crowd is on its feet. Tears roll down painted, half-purple, half-yellow faces as the die-hard fans cheer.
He's at the 10!
Throwing his upper body forward, he slams into the end zone. The referee yells, "Touchdown!"
Deafening cheers explode. The referee holds out his hand to take the ball, but the receiver, now doing his happy dance, offers nothing.
"Where's the ball?" screams the ref.
"Oh, that?" shouts the receiver making himself heard over the noise of the crowd, "You know, it's really cumbersome to run with that thing. It's not even round, for crying out loud! I dropped it a ways back to make all that running a little easier."
Ridiculous? Yep.
Does it ever happen in a short sale that someone drops the ball? Yep.
Think of that ball as a buyer--a key component in a short sale. To state the obvious: If you don't have a buyer, you don't have an offer, and, therefore, you can't negotiate a short sale.
If you have an approval but no buyer to close, you've left your seller unprotected. There's no one to buy the house; and nobody's going to get paid.
The fact is, "Pre-approval letters don't mean much." HSBC says, "64% of all buyers never actually close on approved short sales." From a bank's perspective, if all you've got is a pre-approval letter, your buyer has a 64% chance of falling by the wayside when it comes to scoring a short sale.
Of course, a cash buyer is the strongest buyer possible because they can close as soon as there is an approval letter, but cash buyers can be fickle. They often don't feel the need to wait for your deal to be approved. They can take themselves out of your game to look for a quicker win. In other words, when the going gets tough, the cash buyer just might get going.
So, let's talk about buyers and how you can strengthen your chances of completing the deal--a touchdown that scores.
Have your prospects run The Buyer's Gauntlet. Ask them a series of questions to make sure your buyer and their lender can close.
Remember, a pre-qualifying letter can be based on a phone call, "Hey, I talked to this guy, and he sounds good, so he's qualified based on what he told me." Red flag!
The conversation with the buyer's bank should more resemble this: "I've already sent them through the underwriting process. All we need are these four items before we go to final underwrite and fund this transaction." That borrower should be able to get a commitment letter, translating to higher leverage of negotiation with the lender and a higher likelihood of closing the transaction.
Don't know what questions to ask to have your prospective buyer run that gauntlet to score that short sale? Visit our website www.AllianceShortSales.com and request our FREE information packet. (It is in the top right corner of the home page) I will send you a CD of an interview we did detailing the kind of questions you need to be asking a buyer's loan officer.
Matt Side
Alliance Short Sales
Spokane, Washington
www.AllianceShortSales.com
Follow Me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/MattSide
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Based in Spokane, Washington Alliance Short Sales offers short sale services in multiple states around the U.S. With a current network of agents located in Washington, California, Idaho, Nevada, Arizona, Florida, Tennessee, and Virginia, Alliance negotiates short sale real estate transactions with lenders on behalf of agents without charging a fee to the agent or the seller. With their fees paid at closing out of the net proceeds to the lender, Alliance creates a beneficial outcome for all parties involved. For additional information about how you can work with Alliance Short Sales, please visit our website at www.AllianceShortSales.com.
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