Teresa Cooper

Times are tough in the real estate industry, and many agents - novice and veteran alike - are leaving the profession and returning to previous careers. I must confess, that like many other agents, I've recently considered returning to a career that utilizes the skills I learned earlier in life. These thoughts were never more poignantly felt than when a fellow agent shared this job posting with us: Thanks, Diana Thomas!

Sidi - I'd like to apply for the job. Here are my qualifications:

• I was picking beans back on the family farm in Kentucky by the time I was old enough to walk!
  
• BEAN plants are the ones with beans; everything else is a weed, or maybe a cornstalk.
• Not only can I pick beans, I can pick BEAN-BUGS! Once or twice a week, I used to have to walk the bean rows and pick the bean bugs off the under side of the leaves. (I used to think we did that because we were poor and couldn't afford pesticide, but now I realize we were actually cutting-edge avant-garde "organic" and "eco-friendly". Although I'm sure the bean-bugs I picked didn't think we were too friendly. I won't tell you what we did with them afterwards.)

On second thought, Sidi, I think I'll just stick to selling affordable housing to all your bean-pickers!

(Sidi Limehouse is a lifetime Johns Island farmer, and owner of Rosebank Farms - working family farm, renowned and my personal FAVORITE restaurant, local museum, and popular year-round flower and produce market on Johns Island.)

Tomorrow, I will be the Buyer's Agent at a short sale transaction closing.That is, it will close "Lord willing and the creek don't rise", as we used to say back home. Due to many complications with this transaction, on both the Buyer and Seller side, we have been working on this transaction since April. Tomorrow will represent the culmination of 8 months of very hard work for both agents, and several attorneys! We were all working on different aspects of this transaction during these months, and in a recent conversation, I commented to my Buyer client that this had been one of the more difficult short sale transactions I had seen. My Buyer paused and reflected, and responded that she was certainly glad it was a "short sale", because she couldn't imagine we'd sell many houses if it took "longer" than this to get one sold.

After I stopped laughing, I explained to her what "short sale" meant, and then we both chuckled and went on our way.

In recent months, I've had my share of close calls and challenges with short sale transactions, both as Buyer Agent and as Seller agent. One transaction involved both a first and second mortgage, held by different lender/investors. We had negotiated the contract once, and the day before closing the Buyers' financing was reversed. No problem, I thought, and within a couple of weeks had another offer. This time, we used a different closing attorney, and found out on Friday the DAY OF the closing, that the second mortgage holder had not agreed to accept the amount supposedly negotiated by the loss mitigation negotiator for the first mortgage.

Remember, I said this was on Friday. Do you believe in miracles? Well, I do! I called the loss mitigation department for the second mortgage holder (I can hear those of you who've done short sales already laughing in the background!). There had been a snowstorm and a flu epidemic, and a REAL SUPERVISOR actually answered the phone! I prefaced my conversation with "I know you can't talk to me, but please listen to my homeowner's situation." They had no authorization on file to talk with me, they had no record of having discussed anything with the first mortgage holder, they had no documentation on the short sale / payoff. Nothing. And he had 17 other RUSH cases on his desk ahead of me. But the Supervisor had sympathy on our plight, gave me his personal fax number, and told me if I could get him the info before 5:00 pm he would take it home over the weekend and give me an answer by Monday afternoon. GUESS WHAT! HE DID JUST THAT! He gave me verbal approval on Monday, faxed my closing docs on Tuesday, and we were able to get the property closed before the week was out!

Lesson learned: As an agent involved in a short sale transaction, whether for Buyer or Seller, you MUST accept responsibility for all parts of the transaction, and follow up and follow through with all parties involved!

Tell me, I'd love to hear your short sale horror stories and successes. We're all charting new territory here, and I'd love to learn what other agents are experiencing.

Thanks for sharing your insights!