I read Katerina Gasset's (very valid) rant: Don't Represent Buyers In A Short Sale If You Don't Have A Clue!
The Short sale has got to be one of the most complicated contingency types (whether you are representing a buyer or seller.) Many types of scenarios can "pop up" during the course of a short sale (while you are waiting and waiting and waiting.) It is so important to counsel your buyers and sellers before you list or sell a short sale property with the different scenarios to make sure that they have "skin to stay in the game".
We permit property managers.
We permit business brokers.
Why can't we permit REO and Short Sale list agents and buyer's agents? (of course it is impossible to legislate stupidity like the example in the article posted above.)
I am in the process of listening to "Shift". Today while I was tootling around for 4 hours in my car, I got to the juicy parts about "short sales." There was much truth to why short sales fail (incompetent agents involved, bpo's etc.)
Many people selling DO use agents to just postpone their trustee's sale notices and have no intention of closing a transaction.
Many buyer's DO NOT understand the process and end up backing out before it gets over.
Many BPOs do not get done properly because agents doing them don't know what they are doing (or there is a sweat shop of unlicensed assistants hired to do them for agents not knowing what they are doing.)
With all the intricate possibilities brought about with the complexity of the short sale: MANY agents have just FAILED their clients, period.
Short sales have been around since the early 80's. Although they were not called short sales then, just a request for the lender to waive a portion of their payoff to avoid foreclosure - it was around 3-5K.
Now.... they are the flavor of the month in many areas of the country and more complicated than ever. There is a boatload of responsbility and pitfalls that come with it. While I am not a fan of overlicensing - It seems like it could be a good thing to require validated experience in order to service these types of transactions.
There are too many who are unfamiliar with the job, and really do not care. Then there are the ones who don't know what they don't know.
I have yet to read the article, but will head that way next. As an agent of an REO brokerage, I see firsthand that there are plenty of wayward brokers out and about that try and take on the role of a short sale or REO specialist without the proper knowledge and training to back it up. Thankfully, Asset Managers are putting more stock into membership status and performance ratings, like FiveStar BPO training, timeliness in valuations and verified data, and your history with REO sales.
You've got my vote. I actually think that every specility should be more closely regulated to prevent the easy admission criteria. We shold have apprentices and interns for this biz.
Merry Christmas,
John
BPOs are really a joke. There is no accountability, and the ones I've seen for the same property have been so hit or miss, they have differed in 'estimated current market value' by $50,0000 in some cases !!
Valid points Renee indeed !!!
Cheers and Merry Christmas by the way !
Sheldon :o)
Ugh, I hate short sales. So much frustration dealing w/ the lender. I like to refer short sales out to agents that do them as their "niche" I agree w/ Sheldon. BPO's seem to be a joke. Almost as controversial as the appraisals I see coming in these days on properties I'm selling. It's almost like the appraisers are dictating the market. I think referring the short sale business if you don't understand the process is much better than failing your clients needless to say.
Cathy: True words, REO and shorts will be around forever. So will the complacent!
Ashley: While I feel much frustration with some of the larger REO listers here, they have their jobs cut out for them and I respect that. I think the buyer's agents need the training to sell REO also. They make the lister's jobs harder than need be sometimes because they don't understand procedure.
John: Completely agreed for apprentice and interns!
Sheldon: So I hear, I am a BPO agent and love doing it and think I do a pretty dang good job too! Merry Christmas to you and yours also!
Christopher: AMEN!
There are two side to the story. we had an agent who simply failed to tell the truth about what was going on.. and after 4 months with a full price offer... my buyers had to move on..... the sellers' agent came up with a scheme which was fraudulent!
Certifying for this process could happen....but there are ongoing changes happening....and no consensus on a few crucial things...like how many offers are going to be forwarded, etc.
Hi Rene, I am not sure it would do any good. I think the horse has left the barn and the hay dried out and isn't fit to eat anyway. Since this is an entrepreneur business ( licensing required of course) it attracts some that are less than fully committed. Speaking of which , even some that should be , I suppose, :-)
PS, I meant to add something Rene. Here is wishing you and your family a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2010
I'm with you on being licensed for this. We've got brand new agents trying to do short sales.
Renee- I think it depends because you can not legislate stupidity nor morality. You can't make people who are not competent more competent. I can tell you that we just got our SFR designation and the class was already behind the times, the webinars that NAR made us watch as part of the designation were outdated and even gave misinformation- because stuff changes just too fast in this niche of short sales. I have done deals with CDPE 'trained' agents who must have fallen asleep at the wheel. They still don't have a clue!
I know nothing more with our new designation than I did before other than we were the only ones out of over 250 agents in the class in a tri board area that enough short sales under their belt to even say we might know something! Half the time Nestor and I were teaching the course.
It won't make me a better short sale agent.
But I do think that brokers need to take the lead on this and create office policies regarding short sales. They need to go back to how I started- back in the day- you had to have a mentor for your first year in.
Short sales have been around for many many years. We did some of our first ones in the mid 90's. We even took courses on how to do short sales back in the day. Every agent in this country has had the opportunity way before this time period to get educated about more than just selling a house.
I know you can do BPOs good, but here, it is a totally different story. Please, don't even get me started on that rant- oh yeah, you know about how I feel:) Katerina
Thanks for giving link love to me;) Thanks for mentioning my rant, probably one of the only posts I ever wrote without decorations or bling to make it pop! I was just too mad to even use bold tab.
The Nevada Legislature doesn't meet again until 2011. If that is too long to wait, gather all of the REO and short sale experts in the Rain together, develop a list of standards and best practices that agents should follow, and then distribute it to all Rainers and encourage them to take it to their brokers.
I think it's a sad, but true observation. . . many agents DO just fail their clients. Most don't . . . but many do!
Very valid points Renee but unfortunately it is part of our business.
Merry Christmas and I wish for you a 10 out of 2010
Hi Renee,
Thank you for understanding the client's situation.
I didn't even know what the short sale was when I bought a short sale property in Florida.The seller's agent didn't even explain to me at the time what the difference was,my agent didn't interfere.I soon found out that I can't even do the refinancing.They placed me in no outlet situation.They treated me like someone who had nothing to say about the property which I purchased with 20% down and remodeled spending a lot of money,than lost it all.Not only that but I lost my furniture and my all belongings,if I would argue I would loose my life.I wonder who gave this people the license to sell the real estate? They were plain criminals but they had the license.
This was an extortion !
I hope there is going to be a strict regulation about the short sales and only the agents who have a specific license to handle this type of sales are going to be allowed to handle them.
Merry Christmas!
Zijuzijazijana
Renee, since the people that made the regulations got us into a situation where the short sales are so prevalent, I'm not sure it would help. But something should be done.
Renee -
I highly doubt that it would do any good. Banks are in the business of money lending and should stay that way. Just by having permits, (IMHO) wont change a thing about having owners know more about real estate. If this became reality, it would just be another avenue to whomever the government body to have a say-so in the process and most of the time would have known nothing about selling real estate anyways.
Renee-I just closed yesterday on a short sale with three liens. The entire process was a mess from the time my buyers stepped in until closing. Some of the basics you learn in RE 101 were missing and certainly my buyers will tell you if the title company (our choice) and I had not stepped in and taken over this deal would not have closed. A lot of stress that should never had happend.
Renee - I agree with you 100 percent. It would be better though if the banks just make it a more simple process.
Oh, could we only be so lucky! It is a specialty that requires a lot of experience and training. For those who don't make the commitment to know what they are doing, but try their luck; they end up costing the bank/seller and making a lot of people mad in the process.
Renee, The reality is that a short sale is not much different than a regular transaction. The ONLY difference is we have to get the lender to remove the lien so we can close. That's it. The complications come from agents that don't don't understand this one simple difference. Submitting multiple offers to the lender, telling buyers they are not under contract, continuing to market the property etc......are things we would NEVER do in a regular tranbsaction. Quit doing them in a short sale transaction and all will be fine.
Renee: I think the biggest problem is people that have no patience, either agent or buyer in the process. Hounding a listing agent with stupid phone calls every 3 days is not followup and really doesn't make the situation any faster. I just think there are too many agents out there that don't know what they are doing in general, period.
LOL! Katerina's Rant is about an inexperienced agent to begin with... no matter what type of transaction it is. (It's just easier to blow a fuse when doing short sales.)
As far as permitting... the majority of the confusion and frustration is coming from the lenders themselves.
The best thing we can do is to stress patience and flexibility.... and as I tell first timers when putting in offers... Keep It Simple. If your buyers can't be flexible... move on.
How can we permit something that is always changing?
Merry Christmas.. :)
Great idea in principal but take it to the core, why do we allow agents to represent buyers and sellers atha have no eexperience in selling, no interest beyond the commission and then we wonder why we have a bad public reputation.
Joan: I find that sad (the fraud). There's another thing that we need to be careful of!
Jim Hale: I get you there too! I had some (large) agents saying "we have approval". Funny I never heard from them (offer acknowledgement) nor did the property change status (per MLS rules) for 5 months. My buyer moved on at that point :-/
William: I am allowed to dream of Utopia though, right? LOL! Merry Christmas to you and yours too!
Katerina: I am going to do the SFR designation but I have that same feeling - that it is behind. Nope, we cannot legislate morality or stupidity either!
John: Unfortunately there are very few "big time" (REO/SHort Sale) *list* agents that play in the rain. I would love to be a part of a movement like that and I can only propose it to the division. We would also have to have several closed transactions a year to maintain the permit, as Katrina mentioned, it is a constantly changing sport and if some are just sitting on the sidelines they will be out of the game soon enough. It's a fun world we live in now!
Carla: What's really sad is that the agent in Katrina's saga didn't seem to have a broker or mentor to run to for advice before forwarding a short sale approval letter. Sounds like they were failed in that arena also!
Fernando: Sad but true and back atcha with the 10 in 2010 :)
Eva: It would make sense to show the division you have a well thought out and devised plan to get permitted! Happy Holidays my friend!
Gabe: The inmates are running the asylum. The worst offenders are ones that may (I said may) sit on the board or division committees.
Loreena: And more committees for the people to sit on :)
Cindy: Amen sister!
Larry: One would think. The agents with the highest close success rate (whether they represent buyers or sellers) get "the game". They do not allow short sale sellers to walk all over them and pollute the MLS just because they want to stay in their house a little longer. They work with their buyers and make sure they are "in it to win it". It takes two very skilled agents to counsel their clients and get one of these delicate transactions closed!
Lora: TRUE and they pollute the MLS also!
BB: Truer words couldn't be said.
Lyn: LOL that's why we should permit the buyer's agents also!
Paul: by making a minimum transaction standard. The rest have to intern or mentor or refer :) Merry Christmas to you too my LV friend!
Andrew: I dunno ?!?! John #3 nailed it in regards to apprenticeships and internships. It would definitely weed those that can't make it!
I have to agree it should be required. It would be nice to at least be required to understand what you are attempting. Have to agree with Katernia though. The market is changing so fast it is hard to keep up. Some agents are licensed and are asleep at the wheel.
But I have to say I think the CDPE training is great and gives you a starting point that most agents don't even have.
As a professional, I think it is my duty to "interview" the lisitng agent before I show any short sale listing. I have several questions I ask, and if the answers are flaky or not what I expect to hear, I will save my buyers the grief and not include that home in the showing list. I've learned my lesson on untrained short sale listers.
Renee,
Short sale is a major undertaking for all parties involved, that's for sure. Permitting real estate agents doing them would be a big help but getting it done on the state or federal level might just be a bit overwhelming at this juncture.
Renee,
Love your Christmas picture, BTW!
I just finished the SFR course, because I wanted to learn about short sales. As a newbie, I want to know what I don't know before I get myself into a mess. Now I know enough to find a good mentor to get me through the first deal, if one should arise. I also think I know enough to "qualify" the listing agent for knowledge and experience, to qualify sellers for motivation and willingness to work with me to get the deal done.
I already learn so much just reading posts and comments on ActiveRain! Happy New Year!
Faye: completely agreed that the game keeps constantly changing!
Dave: I would like to think at this point, that either the list agent or the buyer's agent would have the experience to interview and either keep garbage off the market or not put offers on something unattainable!
Esko: More than likely it would!
Melissa: Agreed about learning here on AR!! I am going to go for my SFR this month also, it's on "the list" :)
Hey Renee, just cruising through some old posts looking for some cool blogging ideas and came across this old one of yours. I still have you subscribed and enjoy your posts. Have a great week and the rest of the summer.