Real Estate Agents: Embrace Short Sales, Or Get another Job
Let’s face it. Homeowners today are faced with many different financial and personal issues; from interest rates being reset, to property tax hikes, to job losses. These issues and many more, are forcing many homeowners to have to sell their homes. Which means that a vast majority of these properties will require a short sale or reduction in debt in order to get their properties sold! And so in order for the many of today’s real estate agents to stay in business, they must embrace short sales, or else look for another line of work.
In 2009, it is estimated that roughly 56% of all listings will require a short sale. The fact of the matter is there will be no way around this. And so for all of you real estate agents, you must understand that the majority of your listings will likely be over debted properties. With the fact that there are not enough listings (with equity) for every real estate agent to pick and choose from short sales are a must in today’s market!
The good thing about short sales is that just because you have to wait for the lender to approve an offer, doesn’t mean you won’t get paid. Lenders understand that sellers can’t afford to pay closing costs (hence the reason they’re in default in the first place!), and so lenders pay the sellers’ closing costs for them, which typically includes real estate commissions, attorney or title company fees, conveyance taxes, delinquent property taxes, and all other common closing costs.
But everything else aside, it is essential that all real estate agents out there embrace short sales as a necessity to your business, or else you won’t have any business! As challenging as they may be, they will make up the bulk of your listings, and in turn…the bulk of your income. The current market conditions are details that we cannot change, however it doesn’t mean that there isn’t any money to be made by real estate agents, they just have to know where to look.
One question to ponder, for those of you that are still resisting doing or even learning about short sales…would you rather stay in the real estate industry or get a job? In my opinion the choice is easy; learn how to do short sales! Trust me when I say you will learn things you never knew existed and you will end up beating this down market and end up on top!
For more real estate industry articles and videos visit www.RealEstateBusinessMentors.com or visit www.AskBobLachance.com for any real estate questions.
Bob, I agree with you. I just started doing short sales to stay in business and thank my lucky stars for that. I also recently started using your Managemyshortsale.com site and it is awesome. I can’t tell you how much time it has saved me! Thanks and keep sending out these articles I love them. Nancy
Great article. Fortunately, in Austin — we do not have a short sale market like many other parts of the Country. However, I agree that today, it is imperative for real estate agents to have short sale expertise because even in stable markets (like Austin) it is very likely to be on the buyer agent/listing agent side of a short sale. Without having the specific knowledge of how short sales work along with the lender requirements, etc. it is highly likely that the deal will not close. It could be months of work with no pay check all due to the fact that the agent did not have the knowledge necessary to successfully know the short sale processes and requirements.
The only thing I caution is that if an agent only focuses on short sales/REO — when the market corrects (and it will) they will once again find themselves in a situation of not having any business. Short sales is just once piece –albeit an important piece–that we as professionals must be focused on.