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I stay away from attorney negotiated short sales. My experience in Arizona is they don't know what they are doing any more than an inexperienced Realtor. I do require my short sale listers to consult with an attorney (my referral) prior to expending any effort on listing the home. This ensures they are advised of the legal possibilities in a short sale. I do the same with an accountant. Realtors who give legal and/or accounting advice are playing with fire.
I work WITH an attorney and accountant but won't ever turn the daily short sale tasks over to them.
Thank you for the response Hal. I have followed the same course of action for my short sale clients since 2007. Every one of them is required to meet with a real estate attorney and a CPA prior to my listing the property. The reason for my question is that the short sale market seems to be shifting and approving lenders do not seem to be as cooperative in the past. This increases overhead when self processing and has lead to more transactions not closing. I have done almost nothing but short sales since 2007 and had a 100% closure rate until early this year. Now I am seeing a significant reduction in successful closings. I am looking at changing my business model to reduce my overhead, engage a RELIABLE attorney based firm to handle the negotiation and then work to start establishing a new revenue base. During the last half of 2009 I was certain that short sales would continue to be a viable way to generate revenue for at least a few more years. Early this year there was much written in the media about lenders making 2010 the "year of the short sale" to reduce non-performing assets from their books but I have not experienced that in my business. Have you?
Hal Mayer said:I stay away from attorney negotiated short sales. My experience in Arizona is they don't know what they are doing any more than an inexperienced Realtor. I do require my short sale listers to consult with an attorney (my referral) prior to expending any effort on listing the home. This ensures they are advised of the legal possibilities in a short sale. I do the same with an accountant. Realtors who give legal and/or accounting advice are playing with fire.
I work WITH an attorney and accountant but won't ever turn the daily short sale tasks over to them.
Andrew,
I am associated with a law firm and do SS negotiations for them & other realtors for 2 years. I have a 6 files in Northern CA & 40 or so in 10 different states. We have the listing agent add 3% attorneys' fees in the listing agreement, once the real estate agent receives an offer I assemble the file from the homeowner/borrower with the help of the agent if needed.
If the bank will not pay any portion of the 3% I will get 1/2%-1% of the commission depending on the sales price, this has only happened 2-3 times. By farmimg out the SS negotiation you the realtor can continue to prospect for new clients.
Please call or email me if you need more info.
Thanks
Stephen
Quite an important post here. I can't say that I have a response unfortunately but I would definitely like to share what I've learned recently. There is a website I recently came across where a processing company has linked up with an attorney to provide "consultation" services to the homeowner (which is something we as Realtors should definitely encourage so that our clients get a well-rounded view of the potential risks involved with a short sale. The processing company submits a fee for these consultations to cover both services. This company has posted a sample approval letter where the lender DID approve "attorney fees" in the amount of $2997. The lender that approved this was Wells Fargo. What I would like to know though is: who is the investor that approved this? Was it a bank backed loan It will be interesting to test out this practice with different investors to see how it plays out. Especially when you get an M.I. company involved.
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