I recently spent an hour speaking with a new agent in my office who has a short sale listing and got her first offer. The other agent pressured her to accept an FHA loan with 6% in concessions. The buyer's agent kept telling this new agent that she could effective work the short sale for her and that she needed to accept the offer within one day and put it pending with a 72 hour notice to perform. NOT! This agent even put in the offer that no other offer could be accepted. This agent doesn't GET IT! How does this look out for the seller's interest?
In California, we typically put it pending with a continue to show for a short sale because we can accept a better offer up until approval is given. This agent was not acting in a responsible way.
I spent an hour with her today explaining that we are looking for the strongest offer to provide the bank. Not necessarily an FHA with 6% concessions coming back. The FHA appraiser will note major issues and most short sales are looking at "AS IS" condition.
We talked about how this agent was pressuring her to accept her offer. I explained that it is not in her seller's best interest to allow this and that she just needed to speak with her seller about the conditions of the contract and help her seller decide to wait and see what comes in. It is a new listing and a quick offer within a few days. The indication is it's hot...but you never know....right? At the same time she needs to educate her buyer's agent and hopefully the buyers that she does not want to lose their offer. She will wait to see if better offers come in and if not she will work diligently to get this offer justified and approved. Part of that may be that if no other offers come in, she may continue to drop the price and ask her buyer's to wait until their offer looks more attractive given the banks bottom line. Make sense?
Half of the short sale process is education for the seller, the buyer's agent and hopefully through the buyer's agent the buyers. The other half is sending a complete short sale package to the bank and the justification of why they need to accept whatever offer is currently the strongest offer.
As the seller's agent, our job is to get the best offer for the bank that is possible. In California, we are given a short sale addendum that gives the seller an out to accept better offers throughout the process. This is a good and advantageous goal for both the bank and the seller. Making sure that the buyer's agent understands this is critical to a smooth transaction and a good outcome for all.
It's all about TENACITY and being able to represent the bottom line to the bank. Document and Document why this offer makes sense for the bank!
I am Jeanean Gendron, your Redding and Shasta County Specialist. You can reach me at 530 276-7417. I answer my phone. You can visit our website for all your real estate needs, or visit our niche market websites for specialty markets:
It sounds like she has more than one offer on the table - so that's a good thing!
I was just talking about putting together a manual for our local market on how to handle a short sale. I don't pretend to know everything about them but it can be very difficult for some agents that haven't had to work through them.
Short sales are such a different beast. Hopefully this will be a good lesson for her.