Long Island Short Sales: Agents
One of the greatest challenges for agents in this market is to actually help a homeowner who is either behind on their mortgage or just barely getting by to make the monthly payments.
Time and time again, I continually run into agents that are advertising a “short sale” listing and the property is sitting on the market idly…not selling.
Well, if you find yourself in this situation, I can help you.
The time it takes for the average agent who does not specialize in short sales, only to watch that time spent wasted when deal after deal falls apart, could easily be spent prospecting or closing other transactions. The problem is many agents do not know the in’s and out’s of the default services market.
The craziest part of the short sale business is that agents actually accept “the fact” that a short sale is going to take a long time to close. This is a half-truth. With the right listing agent managing the listing, chances of a successful short sale transaction occuring in 50% less time from offer to closing, increases dramatically.
Think about this, why would you willingly take on a listing where you do not have the expertise to fully service the listing and take the chance that you won’t even get paid from doing all that work…and work that you probably didn’t have to do if you knew what you were doing. I am not trying to be condescending here either.
Management of a short sale listing is like fixing a toilet. If you don’t know how to fix a toilet, you probably do what I do. I lift off the lid and kind of stare at the little modulators in there and scratch my head aaannnddd…call a plumber. The plumber comes in, and zip-zip, $60 bucks later, you’re toilet is working again.
Now the real kicker with short sales is, as the listing agent, you attract prospective (and hopeful) buyers. Many unqualified. So unless you know how to convert these prospective lookers into actual qualified buyers, you’re not making any money on a short sale listing.
What if you could refer your short sale leads or current listings to a company where the agent specializes in managing, marketing, selling and closing short sale transactions? Now I know most agents think, “I have a license in New York so I can sell real estate. Why should I give it to another agent?”
The answer: Because you’re not going to make any money from a “short sale” listing and if you do, you’re going to spend double the amount of time I am in servicing the listing if you actually get the property to closing.
I can do two things for any agent who has contact with a homeowner who is either:
A. Falling behind on payments
B. On the brink of not being able to make the payments.
C. Counting down the days until their mortgage resets and they’ll be submerged under water.
One, I can qualify the property on a successability scale, meaning I can advise you of the chances that a short sale will work before you just “take a short sale listing” and two, I can qualify the home, making a fair judgement as to my ability to close it and provide you a 25% referral fee when it closes. No questions asked. You do nothing except call me.
Let’s look at two different scenario’s. Scenario 1, you’re going to “take the listing” yourself and do everything on your own. Scenario 2, you call me.
Scenario 1:
You do it yourself.
Take a listing on Day 1/Week 1. You do all the normal work that goes into getting a property to market (let’s assume we all do pretty much the same thing - of course we all do not, but assume it’s: doing the paperwork, taking pictures, ordering a sign, handing in everything to the office, scheduling open houses, etc.). With one exception, we put in the listing “short sale. subject to bank approval”
Servicing the listing Week 1 through Week 4. You’ve done your open house, sign is up, you’re going along doing your thing. You drop the price.
Servicing the listing Week 5 through Week 10. No offers. Lots or little showings - whatever.
Servicing the listing Week 11 through Week 15. You get an offer with a pre-approval. Owner agrees to it. You call an 800 number to a bank, you stay on hold for 1 hour to talk with someone who transfers you and then you get hung up on by the phone system. You try again and another hour elapses. You actually get to the “Resolution Department” but they can’t talk with you. You don’t have the loan number and other documents necessary. You ask them what you need and you go get it.
Week 16 through Week 20. You got all the documents necessary and faxed in the Purchase Binder that is also below 20% market value.
Week 21 through Week 25. You forgot about the first offer but you’ve since gotten several other “offers”. You send them in to the bank. You call every once in a while trying hard to see what’s going on.
Week 26 through Week 30. The bank calls back on your first offer but they need a whole lot of paperwork from the owner and the counter is fair market value equivalent to 3 months ago when you originally got the offer. But you’re excited so you call back the agent with the “buyer” only to find out the agent who made the offer isn’t working with that buyer. The conversation goes like this:
You: “Hey I have a counter on your offer at 123 Main Street.”
Them: “What offer? Oh yeah. That one. I’ll call you back. Great.”
Week 31 through Week 35. And on and on and on…until you either make $2000 when/if it ever closes or nothing. And you’re not really “making” $2000, you’re at a loss in terms of time spent “servicing” the listing. You tried hard and you worked hard. You earned $10 an hour and lost out on prospecting to make money elsewhere or spend time with the family or go on a vacation or meditate, exercise, whatever.
Scenario 2:
You refer the homeowner to me for a 25% referral fee.
You get a check from your broker for $1,500 (just an example $ amount) a few months later. Or better yet, your sign goes on the property and you get the sign calls - every single one. You hold open houses - if you want to, with me and you get to service the prospective buyers. I help you qualify seemingly unqualifable buyers too and you get the commissions on those transactions. If a potential buyer comes to the home and wants to make an offer - bingo. You call me with that buyer information. I sit with them and take care of the rest. We obtain both sides of the transaction and yes, we get paid our full commission. Your check doubles. I do all the servicing of the listing. All showings are handled through our office. Only qualified buyers with other agents are allowed into the home so our homeowner (the client) doesn’t get riddled with agents showing the home to unqualified buyers wasting everyone’s time, etc., etc., etc…I do everything and get the deal to close.
Now let me ask you this, which sounds better?
Call me today. Let’s do lunch on me and set up a agent to agent, broker to broker referral. Done.
1-877-765-3123, ext. 51.