Tips For Realtors For Short Sales Part 1- Santa Cruz, CA Real Estate Broker

I am a broker in the Santa Cruz real estate market and I would like to share with you a few tips with short sales. A large number of our closings are short sales probably around 40%. Even though these transactions are extremely challenging our close ratio is over 95%. How do we do this? Here is a list of things that have made us sucessful. The person who is negotiating the short sale (this may be the Realtor or negotiator) MUST have many of these traits if they want to be sucessful with shortsales. 1) They must have above average "people" skills. They must be pacient, calm, friendly, and have an ability to solve problems. People with short tempers, arrogance, and lack attention to detail rarely make good short sale negotiators. 2) They MUST be knowledgeable with the short sale process. if you do not understand the shortsale process inside and out your chances of closing drop consideraby. How does someone learn all of these skills? Well you can learn on the fly (which creates its own challenges) another way is forums and certification/training courses. My secret is forums. About 3 years ago I joined a long list of forums and stated to read everything I could get my eyes on. After investing some time educating myself I began to understand the entire process. Soon after I was able to train staff and all of my Santa Cruz Realtors. 3) Learn the art of negotiating. You do not have to be a total expert but you need to be reasonably good at it and have some understanding of the skill. Read some books on it or take a few classes on it. 4) Have good communication skills. This is a BIG one. You must be able to handle stress and communicate with all the parties involved. There is going to be plenty of bumps in the road during a transaction dont ever forget that you are the "glue" in the transaction. Without you there is a good chance the transaction will fall apart. Is that enought preasure for you? :) lol 5) Be NICE to the banks negotiator. Make friends with this person. He or She is going to is going to control the destiny of the transaction. Do not ever scream at, act rude towards, or act overly agressive with them. Remember they probably have 100 or more files on their desk and can easily put your file at the bottom of the pile. A special thanks to our in-house short sale negotiator Cheryl Heller. She does everything I mentioned exceptionally well and Im thankful to have her part of my Santa Cruz office staff at American Dream Realty. Follow these tips and you will increase your chances of gettiing a short sale closed. I have more tips I will follow up in a later blog. For a list of short sales inventory please visit our Santa Cruz, CA Short Sales For Sale