Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Paul Francis - Vegas Short Sales on April 10, 2011 at 7:38am

By the way... I do have one of the letters from Citimortgage that one of my clients received on a short sale that I just took and all it is a suggestion of six different agents to use. (Personally... I've never heard of some of the agents and the ones that I have heard of --- I did not know they even did short sales. When you've been doing short sales for 3 years in a particular market, you should know who the true short sale agents are.) All of which are with different brokerages and not one particular franchise.

 

I would find it hard to believe that a bank would want to get involved with possible Antitrust complaints ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Permalink Reply by Victoria Frieberg on April 10, 2011 at 7:42am

Amy, you sound like an awesome agent who truly cares about giving her clients the best representation you can.  The concerns are about letting the lenders giving so much business to the big box companies, that they will monopolize the market, undermining consumer choice.  Not to malign Walmart, but when they choose a vendor that performs for them at the best price, they order so much that that vendor caters to Walmart..soon they depend on Walmart. Could this put downward pressure on commissions eventually?   Is it an efficient system, possibly..could it be detrimental down the road for agents and consumers, possibly.  Who will bear the brunt of litigation for a disgruntled client who feels badly served. I would assume the brokers. I can see the question in court:  How many short sales did you perform in 2015?  How many for Bank of China? How did you acquire those clients, was it through a referral from BofC?    Again, perception is such a huge portion of our product.  I don't want to be perceived to work for the lender.  I will do my utmost to stay abreast of their procedures to facilitate for my clients..but am afraid of the referral aspect of this..and agree with Katerina, as a small brokerage, this could be very detrimental to our offices.

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Permalink Reply by jeni lamberto on April 10, 2011 at 7:50am

Amy you do sound like an awesome agent and I too understand that you feed your family with this market. I do as well and the pressures can be great. I have had multiple conversations with real estate attorneys regarding this same issue. Their take is the privacy issue and representaion. The lender simplly does not have the right to give a debtor's information out. If the deal goes awry, the attorney's are going to have a field day.

 

I do want to add that this discussion has been awesome and I am so appreciative of this amazing platform. I love the short sale business and love to have so many like minded agents to discuss it with. Everybody keep up the good/hard work!

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Permalink Reply by Raymond Kennedy on April 10, 2011 at 8:01am

Victoria,

Not to get off topic but I would be careful about comparing companies like RE/MAX, Coldwell Banker, Century 21 etc. to Walmart. If they dominate the market it's due to years and years of marketing and you can't discredit them for this. It's smart business and agents pay money into the company for that marketing and brand. It doesn't make them less or more qualified as agents especially in the case of Short Sales, that is on an individual level and consumers will always have a choice. If your an individual broker you are automatically working at a disadvantage and if your just as successful or more successful than the larger firms than that speaks volumes about you and your company. It does not however give you the right to discredit the larger firms or compare them to a discount retails stores, that could carry a very expensive lessen with it. Remember, this is a public forum.

Victoria Frieberg said:

Amy, you sound like an awesome agent who truly cares about giving her clients the best representation you can.  The concerns are about letting the lenders giving so much business to the big box companies, that they will monopolize the market, undermining consumer choice.  Not to malign Walmart, but when they choose a vendor that performs for them at the best price, they order so much that that vendor caters to Walmart..soon they depend on Walmart. Could this put downward pressure on commissions eventually?   Is it an efficient system, possibly..could it be detrimental down the road for agents and consumers, possibly.  Who will bear the brunt of litigation for a disgruntled client who feels badly served. I would assume the brokers. I can see the question in court:  How many short sales did you perform in 2015?  How many for Bank of China? How did you acquire those clients, was it through a referral from BofC?    Again, perception is such a huge portion of our product.  I don't want to be perceived to work for the lender.  I will do my utmost to stay abreast of their procedures to facilitate for my clients..but am afraid of the referral aspect of this..and agree with Katerina, as a small brokerage, this could be very detrimental to our offices.

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Permalink Reply by Victoria Frieberg on April 10, 2011 at 8:27am

of course I am not comparing the big boxes..or trying to rile feathers.  I used it to get the point across, this has been a great forum, and we don't need to be censoring ideas, but encourage free flowing thoughts on a process which may well affect us all without taking offense..this has been a respectful and worthwhile conversation throughout the day. The conversation is about just what you mentioned though, you are assuming that the consumer will always have choice, I would like to protect that.  I would also like realtors to be protected not only from the individual transaction liability, but as a profession, from the perception that we work for the banks.  I would reread the previous comment, there is nothing in that maligns the big boxes..just  a potential process..I am far to old to worry about expensive lessons..but thanks for the warning!

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Permalink Reply by Cliff Stanwick on April 10, 2011 at 8:51am

Banks can't assign anything. The seller is the owner of the house not the bank. The bank has no authority to sell the home. In California, only the owner or designated through a power of attorney has the authority to enter into a listing agreement. I'm sure an attorney would like nothing more than the bank to force some owner to use a real estate agent they have selected.

The whole problem with short sales is the relationship between the Seller and the bank; its contentious and adversarial. 

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Permalink Reply by John Bacon on April 10, 2011 at 8:54am

I know Keller Williams is pushing for experienced REO/Short Sale Agents to register on their website and submit proof of closings but I'm not sure that has anything to do with lenders putting our name out to distressed homeowners.  Lenders were planning on doing something about recommending agents to distressed homeowners over a year ago and when the liability of doing that came up, they backed off the idea. I believe they felt that if they recommended particular agents and then the bank took the home back through foreclosure, they could have some liability. 

 

Perhaps they will just send letters to distressed property owners with some links to Real Estate Company Short Sale Departments for sellers to look at when deciding who to hire?

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Permalink Reply by Dana Ehrlich on April 10, 2011 at 12:23pm

As a KW agent, I will be attending the Citi sponsored event coming up in Los Angeles and will update as I learn more. I know that short sale agent networks like Titanium, Asset Plan USA and Partner First have been working on similar programs whereby the lenders will refer their borrowers to the network and let them choose their agent, thus removing the liability for the lender. It will be an interesting year as all this begins shaping up.

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Permalink Reply by Paul Francis - Vegas Short Sales on April 10, 2011 at 2:43pm

Amazing how many answers you can get on a rumor...

 

Sad that real estate professionals want to cater to the banksters ...

 

........

 

 

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Permalink Reply by Victoria Frieberg on April 10, 2011 at 2:46pm

but don't you know that an active mind staves off alzheimers!  (and helps break the monotony of reviewing taxes!)

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Permalink Reply by Paul Francis - Vegas Short Sales on April 10, 2011 at 6:00pm

LOL! I've actually been looking for any excuse possible to break away from the taxes...

Time to come up with a short sale conspiracy theory to start up another discussion..

 

Victoria Frieberg said:

but don't you know that an active mind staves off alzheimers!  (and helps break the monotony of reviewing taxes!)

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Permalink Reply by Juliana Oprea on April 10, 2011 at 6:38pm

It happen to one of my past clients but in this case with Chase. We did not complete the short sale although it was approved by Chase as my client decided to filled BK. Once his BK got discharged, Chase contacted him and offer him to continue with the short sale and "recommend" him a specific agent to work with him. They said "it's a complete package" what they're offering. I don't think that it was an agreement between Chase and First Team Realty (this is the company that the agent works for) but a maybe "under the table friendship" (I don't want to accuse about something else), between the person from Chase that handled my client's file and this particular agent.

 

I found this kind of practice unfair as honestly closing 5 short sale transactions does not qualify you as an expert agent plus I met so many agents (no matter if Re/Max or Keller Williams) that are completely ignorants when it comes to short sales. 

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