Short sales and inspections, When should they happen?
Many agents don’t rely how important inspections are to a short sale and how they can kill a deal if not done at the right time. I mean it when I say it no inspection can mean no closed transaction. It’s the simplest thing but it gets overlooked so often. If you follow the advice below you can save your transactions and a lot of headaches.
1. When taking the listing, even though you know it’s a short sale and you know the seller doesn’t have the ability or motivation to make any repairs you need to take a good hard look at the property condition during your listing appointment. You must examine as much of the property as you can and take detailed notes of any and all issues you might find. It’s important to get out front of condition issues or trouble with buyers and buyers lenders can and will kill your deal because of property condition.
2. Order Inspections as many as you feel are needed but at least a termite and standard home inspection. The reason is these are the two basic inspections that should help find any potential problems that a buyer or their lender might have with the property.
3. Review the results of both your inspections and make sure to address the known issues in both MLS agent remarks if possible and in the counter that you issue to a buyer submitting an offer. This way there is no surprises and property condition does not become an easy out for the buyer once the transaction is approved.
4. Make sure to take lots of photos of any property condition issues and include them as well as all inspection reports along with your written observations in the short sale package you submit to the lender.
5. When the appraiser or agent comes out to do their appraisal or BPO, make sure to give them any information you have that will help them bring the properties value in at what it should be. What you have to remember is the following; yes it’s their job but they do hundreds sometimes a month and speed sometimes makes quality suffer. They might not be from the area and don’t know the neighborhood. They probably only spend five or ten minutes in the property and don’t take the time to do a detailed home inspection. You have been in the property, read the reports, and know the area.
So be proactive and do your part to insure that any condition issues are mentioned to the lender up front to help bring in a more realistic demand for their net. Also so you can try to get some of the required by law repairs maybe paid for by the short selling lender. Then don’t forget to disclose all issues to buyers up front so they don’t have an excuse to cancel after getting the deal approved with the short selling lenders. I know some might say this is basic stuff but you’d be surprised how many deals go South because of no inspections and un happy buyers with the properties condition. For free training and more information about our flat fee all inclusive short sell negotiations and training program, where if it doesn’t close you don’t pay and where you keep all your commission except for the $795 that we charge. Go to our website below. Remember listen learn and list.
Comments(0)