Short Sales - A Great Opportunity for Realtors in These Tough Times

We all know the story. Sales are down everywhere, some areas more than others, but virtually no area is untouched. My community is a Midwestern college town that is rarely affected by recession, but still sales were off 21% in 2008.

But with sales down, the one thing rising in the real estate world is the number of Short Sales. The number of Short Sales is rising, and rising fast. RealtyTrac predicts that by the end of this year that 50% of sales nationally will involve Short Sales! Whether or not they're right about the number, there is no question that the number of Short Sales is growing fast.

There are several reasons that the number of Short Sales is growing. Property values being down is one, also over leveraged properties, high foreclosure rates and on and on. But there will be more of them if for no other reason than there is more awareness of Short Sales.

In addition lenders are gearing up to better handle the crush of Short Sales offers they are flooded with. Just yesterday I was talking with a Loss Mitigator from Citimortgage and he told me that his desk had just been moved because they were expanding from the current 350 in the department to 1300! And that's just one department at Citi. That is just one of many similar stories I've heard.

So there is no question that lenders want to do Short Sales, or they wouldn't be expanding their departments so fast.

So how does all this make for a great opportunity for Realtors?

It's a great opportunity because most agents hate Short Sales. Many agents don't want anything to do with Short Sales. Most Realtors think Short Sales are a pain. The truth is that most agents have no idea what they are doing with Short Sales. Because most agents don't know what they're doing, the Short Sales become more problematic, they take longer to close, and often don't even close at all!

Now since most agents either hate Short Sales, or they don't really know what they are doing with them, then they are not out there actively looking for Short Sale listings. So doesn't that sound like there could be a lot of Short Sale listings that an agent looking for them could find?

You bet it does. I've had agents just give me listings, those dreaded listings that they don't want, not even asking for a referral fee! Once people know you're good at Short Sales the listings will find you. But until that happens it is really pretty easy for you to find the listings that most agents don't want. How to do that is a topic for a different article, or several articles, and I'll try to get to that soon.

But are Short Sales a big pain? Nope. Think of it this way. There are a few additional documents you need to collect from the client when you take the listing. Then there are a few extra notations in the listing. When you get a contract signed you have to organize and send some papers to the lender. In a few weeks they call you back and you have to talk to them two or three times. Then you get ready for closing like any other deal.

That's not so hard is it?

Now if you don't know what your doing it isn't quite that easy, they can take a long time, the lender will seem like a pain (while they are thinking that you're a pain), lots of frustration follows, and the deal isn't very likely to close.

So if you know what your doing, Short Sales are pretty easy. But if you don't they are hard and frustrating. It's no different than anything else we could be talking about is it?

So the number of Short Sales are rising fast, and most agent either don't know, or don't even want to know how to handle Short Sales. That makes for a pretty good opportunity now while the market is slow.

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