Short Sale Specialist?

Lately, I see this term a lot “Short Sale Specialist.” In a way, I’m happy that so many people have embraced this form of real estate. Years ago, I used to wonder why more agents didn’t offer something more than “I’m sorry, you’ll just have to bring cash to closing” or even, “It looks like we couldn’t sell before foreclosure, would you like me to find you a rental?” So many of my clients from years back were previously listed tens of thousands too high by another Realtor who didn’t know how to do a short sale or in those days, didn’t even know what a short sale was.

Now days, everyone throws around the term “Short Sale Specialist.” There’s a couple of new training courses for real estate agents that are designed to teach the ins and out of the short sale business  but honestly, they’re sort of a joke. It’s not that they don’t convey good information but seriously, a half day training course is only enough to teach the glossary of terms. Short Sale listings are perhaps the most complex version of residential real estate brokerage. The LAMB Group has been a short sale specialist in Charlotte NC since the late 90′s and I’m here to tell you first hand, a specialist is someone who has not only been doing it for many years, but also has performed at least 50 short sales in the last 12 months. The fact that I’ve been doing them for 14 years gives me a foundation of systems and staffing to ensure the details do not get missed, and certain useful loss mitigation contacts, but things change way too much and in this business and you’re really only as good as the experience you have lately. And by the way, I say 50 to be fair to the 5 or 6 other agents in Charlotte who are truly specialists at this too. We actually worked on more than 200 short sales last year.

While years ago, I used to get listings from agents who never even tried a short sale, now I’m getting them as a result of failed short sales. Some banks are just easier than others and when an inexperienced “short sale specialist” comes up against a more formidable opponent,  they usually collapse under the frustration of a seemingly impossible situation. If there’s anything I’ve learned over the past 14 years, it’s that you never give up and never take no for an answer. If a bank tells us something that we don’t want to hear, we hang up and try again. Sometimes, I’ll have two people work an entire day (16 hours combined) just to get the “yes” that our client needs. 15 “no’s” but it only takes one yes to stop a foreclosure.

And that’s exactly what we did with a new record on Friday. We stopped 14 foreclosures in a single day. Everyone assumed that we were closed and probably assumed the banks were closed too because of Good Friday. But the banks were open and so were we so it made contact easy and the stopping spree began. And none of those foreclosures were with the same bank, and none were stopped in exactly the same way. Honestly, that’s what it takes to be a Short Sale Specialist…. 14 different ways to stop a foreclosure, probably more, and the staffing to make it happen. Its not all about that though, here are some questions that you can ask your “Short Sale Specialist” to help determine what they really know about the business.

1. How many Short sale transactions have you closed in the past year?
        A. This number should be at least 25-50
2. How many years have you been doing short sales OR, what year did you do your first short sale?
        A. Anyone who has been doing them for less than 3 years is an opportunist who jumped on the bandwagon, they have not dedicated their career to this line of work. Look elsewhere.
3. How many short sales have you successfully closed with MY Bank?
        A. This is important, every bank is different. Make sure they show you the approval letters. They can censor any specific names or account information.
4. What sorts of procedures do you employ to ensure the successful marketing and buyer retention for short sales?
        A. We have over 120 procedures for this, a real Specialist could go on for ten minutes with an answer to this question.
5. Do you have trained loss mitigation negotiators working for you?
        A. It is absolutely not possible to do the kind of volume which allows for anyone to call themself a specialist without at least 2 assistants. If your agent works alone, they are not experienced enough to be calling themself a specialist.
6. Please explain your management and organization system.
        A. Managing short sales requires detailed record keeping and systematic follow-up. This cannot be done with a Day Timer or paper files. A short sale specialist should be on the edge of technology and understand the benefits of CRM applications.
7. What sort of short sale specific marketing do you do? What is your marketing plan in general?
        A. Buyers of short sales are different, and you can’t target them in quite the same way as the general public. Additionally, anyone in short sale needs to sell fast so your “specialist” needs to have comprehensive advertising in place. Simply using the MLS and the free IDX internet sites is not usually enough.

There are so many more questions but asking the above and listening for tell tell signs of discomfort from your agent may be all you need to tell if they are truly a short sale specialist, or if they just want to sell short sales. I don’t blame anyone for trying to get into this business but when the financial future of your life is on the line, you can’t afford to choose anyone other than the best. The LAMB Group lists and sell more short sales than anyone in North or South Carolina and at our current rate of growth, we’ll be #1 in the Southeast very soon. If you are in need of a real Short Sale Specialist in Charlotte NC, please give us a call or simply post to this blog.

Thanks for reading!