The Best Ways for Real Estate Agents to Find a Company to Outsource Their Short Sales!

With the amount of over debted properties that are running rampant in today’s real estate business, real estate agents and real estate investors alike are swamped and need help! The kind of help I am referring to is assistance with negotiating those over debted properties, also called short sales.  This is now a big business and you may have noticed that it seems as if every Tom, Dick and Harry is claiming to be a short sale expert. In the majority of areas around the country you will now find bankruptcy attorneys, real estate attorneys, title companies and even brand new real estate agents all claiming to be experts in this field.
So the question is: If I am looking to outsource my short sales, who do I trust and what kind of questions do I ask to prescreen the real players versus the pretenders?

Here are the questions to ask and the things to find out when you are interviewing a company whom you are thinking about using to negotiate your short sale transactions:

1. How many short sale transactions have you successfully completed?
2. How long have you been negotiating short sales?
3. What kind of rapport do you have with today’s lenders?
4. Have you established solid relationships with them that will allow my short sales to proceed more smoothly?
5. Do you have any kind of a system, online or other, that will keep me and my (homeowner) client updated on the status of the short sale transaction (for example: a system like ManageMyShortSale.com)
6. What might you need me to do throughout this process?  Or, what will my responsibilities be?
7. Will you need my client (homeowner) to do anything?
8. How do you get paid for a successful short sale transaction?
9. Do you charge an upfront fee or do you only get paid “if” the short sale is successful?

These are the major questions to ask to sift through the companies that are promoting their services. One thing everyone should know when searching for the best company to outsource your short sales to, is that if that company asks you for money upfront, “RUN FOR THE HILLS!” These are the companies that typically do not have a successful track record. I am a firm believer in the adage: “you give before you get!”
When it does come time to pay that short sale company, be aware that there are different ways to pay for your outsourced short sales. The best one that we use in our office when we are negotiating on behalf of real estate agents, is we charge them a standard 25% referral fee on the listing side only, if and only if the short sale transaction is successfully closed!

Now…there are two things I would like you to take from the above statement:

1. I use the words “standard 25% referral fee” because a 25% referral fee is very common to real estate agents and they will understand that that is a reasonable amount for negotiating a short sale and…
2. I use the words “if and only if the short sale transaction is successfully closed” because I look at it like this; everyone is working as a team and if the transaction doesn’t close and they don’t get paid why should I!

*Please note that there are other ways to structure the amount you can pay for outsourcing your short sale work.
If you are a licensed real estate agent and you want more information on outsourcing your short sales visit www.NSEShortSales.com.  For more real estate industry articles visit www.RealEstateBusinessMentors.com or visit www.AskBobLachance.com for any real estate questions.