How do I get short sale listings?

Question

I'm a realtor looking to get short sale listings and learn more about short sales in general.

Answer 1

Dear Maryanne,

             Your question is close to asking "How do I get a social disease?"

             In several dozen attempted short sales that I have seen, only a very few succeed.

             Should you follow this path, expect to invest hundreds of unpaid hours of time filling out paperwork without ever closing a single transaction.

              The reasons short sales do not work are varied beginning with the general incompetence of most lending company employees. Further many loans have been sold, transferred all or assigned in part  or entirety. The loans have been packaged and resold to other lenders and no one in any mortgage or finance company desires to accept responsibility to accept less than full face loan value. This assumes the loan is traceable beyond the servicing agent who does not care and has not financial benefit in seeing your deal succeed. You, yourself, will grow tired of investing dozens of hours into every case and finally want to give-up at the hopelessness.

Short sale work needs to be done with a retainer, be non-contingent upon closing and set forth an hourly billing rate. This is fine for attorneys, accountants and business professionals but your own field of expertise rejects this favoring the big percentage.

Guess what?  After you get a listing you must establish up front prior to submitting any offer that you expect your percentage to be paid by the seller's lender at a prearranged mutually acceptable amount. Many have their own realtors and this will force you to split fees. The issue of commission is often a barrier to completing short sales. Finally to succeed in accomplishing a short sale, many lenders want a new lender to take them out. HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE OBTAINING FINANCING IN THIS MARKET? Not many in California. You can only deal with individuals whose new loans are pre-approved but even then, appraisals and comparables are scrutinized nearly to death.

         Good Luck            

  

Answer 2

Here is the website to go to to learn about short sales http://www.realtor.org.  Do a search.