As an agent that has never done a short sale I am woefully unaware of how this process should go. Until today.
My very interested and patient buyer submitted an offer many weeks ago. The listing agent said, "I have submitted to the bank and I will let you know when I hear something." Well, I am afraid she doesn't know how to process a short sale. I fear she is treating it like a foreclosure.
We don't have an executed contract!
I know much of this is my fault as I didn't know the procedures either until I took a training class today. My problem now is how to approach this listing agent and get this straightened out and hopefully moving forward for everyone.
Any suggestions?
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That is what I discovered today. We don't have a contract, I don't know anything any longer. I am just trying to figure out the approach with the listing agent. Do I come right out and say..."we don't have a contract so how can we be waiting for anything from the bank?"
She is calling it a short sale I guess because she is assuming she won't get what they owe on it. I don't think she has a clue what she is doing....
Jeff is right. You have to iron this out right away.
What do you mean though that you submitted an offer? Was this offer signed? Are you saying the offer never was executed? Is there a chance the seller signed it and never gave you a copy?
I'm just a bit unclear.
I am unclear as to what is going on as well. I have never done a short sale before and made the wrong assumption that she knew what was going on. I don't have a copy of an executed contract. Based on what she has told me she submitted our offer and another to the bank for approval. I learned this is NOT how this works yesterday. Duh me...the owner still owns the house and works the contract. I feel somewhat culpable here for not knowing what the process and procedure should have been. I doubt she will answer phone when I call so I guess I will follow that up with an email stating all my concerns and requesting a copy of the executed contract that she sent to the bank. The house is still active in MLS and has been on the market since December. If she is not doing this properly she is not performing her fiduciary duties to her client or to any buyers out there.
Robin, My first piece of advice is to get your buyer to move on to another property ASAP. The listing agent is going to be a problem. It looks like she either sent in 2 offers that were not signed by the seller OR she submitted both signed offers which in my opinion is a NO NO on both. A short sale is not unlike any other sale, as a matter of fact, the only difference between a short sale and an equity sale is that a short sale requires 3rd party approval to proceed. The contract is the same and needs to be ratified by both the buyer and the seller, it is a legal and binding contract once there is a meeting of the minds and all parties agree. I don't know of any short sale agent that is experienced who would submit more than one offer to a lender, as a matter of fact, some lenders make it impossible to submit more than one with systems like equator.
The lesson here is that you MUST prequalify the listing BEFORE showing it to your buyer. We interview the listing agent and ask very important questions and if they can not answer them, we tell the buyer to move on because this one will fall into the 60% of the short sales that will not close.
You need to get your buyer out of this ASAP and move on to a sale that can work out.
Harry I agree with you on all points but one :) Having a nationally recognized certification really just means that you passed the class. In my area, the CDPE agents really struggle, not because CDPE is not good, it is because passing a class does not make anyone an expert. Those courses are great for agents like Robin who need to the knowledge but like Bryant stated in another blog, having the designation does not make anyone an expert and does little when actually working the short sale.
I do agree that education is vital though and sometimes the best education is a "street" education.
I attended and actually helped put together the KW Short Sale mastery tour and feel that it is the very best first step in getting into short sale. I have closed a few hundred short sales and left the class with a better knowledge of short sales but like anything else, KW SHort sale mastery does not make you a master as CDPE does not make you an expert. Just my humble opinion.
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