Short Sales & how it effects buyers/sellers/agents
I attended another interesting seminar today. It was a seminar on how to better handle Short Sales and keep people out of foreclosure. While most agents think it’s “too hard” the reality is we are really the first line of defense for most people. With the help of agents that care about their situation they can spare their credit score a big hit (sometimes as much as 200-280 points). This combined with allowing people to stay out of foreclosure or bankruptcy makes it worth it.
Now I must say a lot of agents have no idea how to handle a short sale. Agents that bring buyers think it can close quickly…agents listing homes have no idea how much the banks will typically accept and the worst part can be the buyers agents calling every day or two asking “Have you heard anything yet?” that drive most agents crazy. The other side of the coin would be the agent that says they can help a client and then mess up the whole thing. The answer is better education and it would help if more agents persued this.
OK, so what are Phoenix, AZ agents to do? Should agents throw up their hands and say “I won’t show short sale homes” or “I’m not interested in listing short sale homes”? Well I guess the easy answer is YES and maybe with the amount of part-time agents in Phoenix they should do just that.
I’ve taken another path…I’ve educated myself, I’ve made sure I have the details and guidelines to ensure a smooth transaction. Armed with lists of bank’s loss mitigation contacts and a working undestanding of Short Sales I feel very confident helping people work through these tough times.
