How working Short sales helped my regular real estate business

The easy answer to how this has helped me in regular listings of homes in Oklahoma City is patience. Yes, short sales require a zen like demenor, and a suspension of the space-time continuum, but short sales do a lot more in giving you some extra skills.

Price Reductions 101. This is very tough for the regular Realtor. No one wants to admit they erred on the price they recommended or that they let the seller or the competition control them Not in short sales. We have a listing addendum where the sellers agree to automatic price reductions of our choosing in amount and time sections. There is no reason why we should not do this with any seller. yes I will agree to your price for two weeks. i will do my job in marketing, you do yours with realistic pricing over time if it doesn't sell.

Broker Price Opinions. We don't do lots of them only about 20 a month. Talk to renne Burrows the residnet AR expert on how to do a bunch. But 20 a week gets us into neighborhoods we ususalyy don't work most of the time. Thar could be 240 different areas every year. Wjen you tell that to a prospective seller the trust goes up. If you did bad BPO's or sloppy ones they don't ask you back. Push out this information, it is valuable for establishing your knowledge base.

Empathy. I had to throw in an emotional benefit. We see a lot of misery in short sales. You take job loss, medical problems, kids being displaced from their friends, and you can't stay stoic. Sometimes is we are very successful we forget that people have feelings sometimes. Yes it is business but we are touching people's lives. IWhen I list a short sale I often have to remind the buyer and other Realtor this could have been them. This is a relationship business and short sales can be raw emotion.

Problem Solving. Anybody who works short sales can tell you some bizarre tales. I did a AR post rant about a BOA short sale that just passed it's year anniversary this month. Bill Gassett committed he had one from October 2008 ongoing. We get variances from FHA that you can't get, deal with local banks on 2nds, homeowners associations that act like their GE, and apricing that often changes from contract to lender acceptance where we have to convince the buyer and their agent to bump it up. On this topic I could go on and on but you get the picture. You deal with a lot more people and entities, so when you get to a normal type sale it seems like a breeze on problems compared to a short sale.

Building Loyalty. This what we are supposed to do all the time and sometimes we forget it. When you get to closing on a difficult short sale the look on people's faces and the gratitude they prject makes the extra effort pay off. Working this hard is all about delivering not just good service but exceptional service. When someone's future credit is on the line, and even possibly job loss from foreclosure, the stakes are high. You don't come down from this with a regular slae. Doing short sales gets into your bloodstream and doesn't go away.

If you are having problems meeting your mortgage payments and need answers, please go to our short sale site, www.avoidforeclosureoklahoma.com. There are questionaires you can fill out to see if theri are programs you qualify for. Charlene and I are heading to the CDPE Conference in Tempe tomorrow May 20th. We will be coming back with more knowledge to help you. Besides, how often do you get to go eyeball to eyeball with the main real estate man at BOA.