I woke up with a feeling of such stress the other morning. I dreamed my husband and I were having to relocate to California...and not just anywhere in California, but SACRAMENTO! Not a big deal to anyone else, right? It's a capital city. A nice place to call home. But if you have established yourself as a Northern Virginia Short Sale Agent, the thought of relocating to Elizabeth Weintraub's backyard would be a bit intimidating, no?
Well, my game plan in my dream was to not even ATTEMPT to beat or compete with Elizabeth at her Sacramento Short Sale game, but BEG her let me join her. I woke up before she answered, darn it! I'm pretty sure she would have hired me.
There are a lot of self-proclaimed Short Sale "Experts" in Northern Virginia that have made my skin crawl this week, while calling as Buyers' Agents on my various Short Sale listings from Centreville to Warrenton to Stafford. I know for a fact that these boneheads aren't losing an ounce of sleep thinking about their profession. No way. Their Short Sale attack plan boils down to the Hail Mary pass. There is no thought given to market value of listings or short sale offering prices.
One agent proved this when he called on a listing in Centreville and said that his clients would accept whatever counter the bank's made, because as he the self-proclaimed Short Sale Expert he was said, "Banks ALWAYS counter." REALLY? That's odd. They usually don't counter my listing contracts. Then again, I help my Sellers to see how banks value property. We look at active and sold prices during our Comparable Market Analysis. It's the same thing the banks do to determine whether they have a fair market value offer or not.
In this case, all I can say is NO WONDER he thinks that. Our list price of $735,000 is about where the bank will find fair market value. Didn't need a magic ball to find that number either, just the neighborhood comparables. This expert was advising his buyers to write at $620,000...the tax assessed value. Ugh! Thank God another Buyer's Agent in the market understood the concept of market value and realized it was a rule that still applies to Short Sales and wrote a far superior offer.
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