Jane Myong-Broker Associate, CRS, ePro, GRI

SHORT SALES SHORT SALES!

I currently have 5 deals going on...of them 3 are short sales

thinking and worrying about short sales and waiting for the approvals are pretty much what i do everyday. these says, i wake up wondering, gee, will the bank call me back with good news and of course, there's nothing...

i call and call and leave messages with the rep/negotiator and everytime i'm on the phone, i feel like i'm calling and old boyfriend who has just dumped me and i'm trying to win him back. calling day after day, being super nice, begging pleading blabbing on about how this is a good offer so please take approve it. by the time i'm off the phone, i'm exhausted, frustrated that i got nowhere and somewhat pathetic...

the difference is is that my pride doesn't matter with a short sale. i can't give up and will have to keep on calling and calling, pleading with them until he takes me back, i mean they approve the short sale~~

hope everyone else out there is having better luck with their short sales than i am..

1st one is going onto it's 6th month and the 2nd one at 4 months, the 3rd only couple of weeks...

My mom and my brother has been looking for a rental for quite some time.. (on and off for about 6months). My mom is my toughest client ever, especially since it's for a rental. She says if she were purchasing a home, the house doesn't have to be perfect since you can spend the money to fix it or change it the way she wants. With a rental, it just has to be perfect since you can't really make the changes to someone else's property.

about 3 weeks ago, a property came out on the market. Locationwise, it was great since it was just 2 blocks away from my house(did i mention she takes care of ma baby~~ and she's been staying over at our house instead of going back and forth from her house) it was a fairly new duplex(about 4 years old), so on the MLS it looked very promising. the price seemed a little high for what it was. they were asking $2700 for a 3 bedroom 2 bath/2 half bath. now i live in a 3/2/2 just 2 blocks away for $2450. and for the past couple of months other 3/2/2 in the areas went for $2450 as well. (there was one for $2700 but that was a brand new never lived in duplex) so i figured, this one must really be nice or perhaps there was some room for negotiation.

we get there around 8PM. the place looks great and both my mom and i like it~ we decide this is finally it and next morning, submit the application. since we wanted to just finally be done with the house hunting, we offer the full price, we figure, the location's perfect for us, let's not lose it.

i send the application, credit report, blah blah, the agent says the owner accepted. i prepare the leae, tell the agent, look it over and i will stop by with all the checks,(rent,commission,deposit). i tell my mom and brother that they got the place.... then they dropped the bomb on me..

the agent returns my call after me calling her several times to check on the lease, that she thinks she priced the house too low. i was appalled...i argued(nicely) i said look at the comps.. blah blah.. then the agent started comparing it with a 3/3/1(3/3/1 means there's a full bath on the ground floor which does cost more) she was saying house a 3/3/1 went for $3200 so she thinks this one should be more...

i wanted to cry.. this agent wasn't a newbie, pretty well known in the industry. i did not understand how she can be comparing apples with oranges. she said she would talk to her client and see what the client wanted to do, whether to take our offer or raise the price... a little later, i check the mls and the price was now $2950. the agent calls back and confirms the new price.

i was sooooooooo annoyed and frustrated that i lost sleep over this for the next 3 days. i just could not let it go... i followed up on the mls to see if that property had activity.. it was still on the market. i told myself, "ok, either some idiot will take it for $2950 if they're desperate or it will sit on the market at that price for months!"

then a week or so went by and guess who calls me! the agent. she wanted to know if we were still interested. this time, the whole family went to see it, 9 in the morning.... it was the weirdest thing but the house somehow didn't look as nice as it did that night. walking up to the house, my brother notices cracks on the walls, the house looked small and dirty. compared by my house, they said it wasn't worth the $2700.

now i'm back to showing my mom other house... she says maybe they will take that house if it's still there next month, offering less than the $2700 now... I wonder how long that property will be on the market, the agent's bad judgement caused her client to lose a perfectly good deal. GREED will ruin you.