How to Motivate Stubborn Buyers and the Importance of Sending Paperwork to the Right Place!

Welcome to this week’s edition of the Pre-foreclosure Daily Grind! In this edition we discuss dealing with stubborn buyers that think the world revolves around them, and why it is important to confirm where short sale paperwork should be sent, to ensure it is received as soon as possible.

To begin, we’ll discuss our latter tip from above; making sure your short sale paperwork is sent to the right person and place. Now, for any of us that have done as few as a handful of short sales, we know how to approach sending in our initial paperwork. That’s pretty straightforward. The tricky part may enter in when we’re in the midst of negotiations, the file is assigned to a negotiator, and we need to send in updated seller information or perhaps a revised contract. It would make sense to send this info directly to the negotiator, especially since they’re the one handling the file. This is what our common sense would dictate. However, it’s not always that easy. Some lenders require that ALL paperwork be faxed in to a general fax number, so that the paperwork can be logged properly and THEN sent over to the negotiator. Other lenders have legal guidelines that govern what a negotiator can or can’t receive in their individual email or fax inboxes. And so, before faxing or emailing over updated documents, make sure to clarify where and to WHO they are to be sent, because it may not always be your negotiator!

Our second tip of the week involves working with stubborn buyers. Picture this
scenario…you’ve just busted your butt to get approvals, all around the same time, from all the lenders on a given property, so that the buyer can now begin their loan process. And this is of course after the buyer’s side has been giving you grief and harassing you, wanting the approvals in a week, making you feel bad for making them wait that long, even though as we all know, that’s beyond our control. So now you have the approvals in writing, have them to the attorney or title agent, and made it abundantly clear that the buyer has 45 days to close, with no guarantee of anything further. Plus, you even explain that the buyer and their lender will want to “keep their foot on the gas” the entire time, and not assume they’ll have however much time they WANT. And somehow, despite all this, the buyer still can’t get the job done. So, you reiterate everything you informed them the day you sent over the written approvals, explaining that there is no guarantee you’ll get an extension. And for some reason, the buyer (and often their agent and attorney!) just assumes it’s no big deal. The lender will gladly bend over and take it up the “you-know-what” to allow the buyer to close. Or worse, they’ll attack you seemingly out of the blue, saying you’re being pushy! So, what now?

Well, this is clearly a sensitive situation that requires some delicate handling. If you rub the buyer or anyone in their camp the wrong way, you’ll erase any chance of cooperation. Remember, as much as the buyer probably wants the property, they will back out at the first sign of a hassle from anyone related to the seller, because they know that without them, there is no deal. So make sure that whatever you say to the buyer is presented respectfully. And then beyond that, the best way to handle these types of situations is to try to get something in writing, either an email or an approval letter, to back up what you’re telling them. This may be tricky, depending on what negotiators will be allowed to give in writing, but is the best way to go about handling this situation. And so, make sure you have rapport with the negotiator you’re working with, so that if you encounter a situation like this, the negotiator will cooperate and do what they can to help. We recently had a situation like this in which we had a buyer complaining that we were being pushy. And since I had built rapport with the negotiator and he had flexibility in what he could send via email, he was able to not only discuss via email the challenges in getting an extension, but then once the extension was granted; he sent me an updated approval right away!