I just got an email from First American for a survey asking questions about short sales. What do you think that means?

I think it means they would like your opinion on short sales for free so they can sell it to their clients.

????

J~

Maybe they are looking to move into the short sale business similar to reo's. think about it...if borrowers interested in short selling their properties were referred by the lender to an asset management company to supervise/assign to a realtor to manage the short sale process...how much more legit would the process be that every random realtor listing a short sale and arranging a sale to a relative? In my area short sale scams are everywhere..short sales are selling below REO's and investors are flipping them on a regular basis or renting them back to the owner before perhaps selling them back to the owner a few months down the road..

It's a survey asking your experience level with short sales. Maybe assignments in the future? I'll bring it up on the panel call tomorrow.

Thanks, Monty! I was thinking, hopefully, along those lines. lol Tho' I honestly don't have a lot of experience with short sales.

I have already GOTTEN pre-approved short sales through AM's so this IS the wave we have all been looking for.

You heard it here first.

How did you get pre-approved Nova?

I got the survey today also and completed it. I have no experience with short sales only REO's, but I inputed in the commments that I'm interested in doin shorts sales.

I actually heard on CNN today that short sales are becoming more prevelant than REO's, because the banks do not want to get involved with evictions anymore. It seems that tenants are filing BK's, which slows the procees, and disgruntled occupants are destroying properties. The total cost to get a tenant out and the final value of the subject is not financialy beneficial to the bank.

I tried to complete it, but having never done a short sale the form freaked out requesting an answer to a question which assumed I had dealt with at least one. I tried to fix it twice then xed out of it. Waste of my time.

My problem with this theory is buyers don't want to get messed up with a short. I've been around awhile and seen a few hundred transactions and never had a buyer come at me to look for shorts. I get buyers wanting reo/foreclosure. If this is a buyer driven market (outside of this current mini sellers market boom we are in) you will not see this take off. Buyers want definition. Short sales are too ambiguous and have lots of fuzzy angles and cloudy lines. Agents hate them too. Agents hate REO, but the buyers seem to like them. REO seems to attract buyers.

I do not buy this theory for a minute. But I have been wrong before.

Doin' you and I are in the same market so this is not a "theory" to me. It's a reality, I have 3 assignments from an asset management company that normally assigns REO. They are short sales. It's a mess, yes. But they are offering up to $5K to the homeowner to cooperate. No joke.

We have been doing short sales for over 2 years and continue to take and sell short sales even though we have REO as well. My partner and I believe in helping the homeowner. We do free loan modifications too. We are not going to get rich doing these things. But we are helping people, we are getting referrals and we are selling and closing these short sales. We also do not outsource the negotiations. It's a lot of work with very little pay.

Because we have this experience, we can talk on the phone to a buyer's agent with confidence and assure the agent and their client that we will keep them informed every week on the progress of the the short sale. So we get contracts.

Short sales are a pain in the you know what. I personally have tried to talk my partner out of doing them many times over the past 2 years, especially when we started getting REO. I could have registered him with all the companies and we could have gotten double the work. But he wants to help, he has a gift to instill confidence and he never gives up on a case if there is any chance that it can be sold.

So..now we have pre-approved shorts that are combining REO experience and the intricate and delicate job of working with the homeowner. The tasks are everything you do for an REO. Rekey if vacant, bids for trash out, find HOA..etc. Everything you do for a short, get the listing agreement and all current mortgage statements and HOA info. I provide an interior bpo and the AM gives me a price. We are well qualified to do both. Bring it on......