Short sales require special skills of real estate agents. To be an effective short sale agent, an agent should seek as much education in the short sale arena as possible.
Most real estate agents can learn to do short sales and most are well intended, but without a proper background in short sales, an agent can do damage without even realizing it. Being well intended does not translate to being competent.
There are 5 mistakes agents make when doing short sales:
1. Agents think they can do any short sale that comes to them: This is not true. In some cases the property in question may have too many liens against it to realistically think a short sale can be accomplished. Since all lienholders must sign off to close a short sale, the more the liens, the less the chance for consensus making closing a multi-liened property extremely difficult or impossible.
2. Agents do not understand the process: It is important for an agent to understand the process, as the closing of a successful short sale depends so much on an agent understanding the process. An agent needs to know what tasks the bank should be doing and what the time frame for completing those tasks is, so the file can be escalated to a senior management person, if the bank is not being responsive.
3. Agents do not know how to properly submit a short sale package: Most lenders have a particular order in which they like their short sale package submitted. Not submitting a short sale package to the lender’s satisfaction can cause a big delay or the file winding up being discarded with no response to the agent.
4. Agents don’t understand the BPO (Broker Price Opinion): The opinion of value can be a pivotal point in the short sale process. If the value comes in too high, the agent must know what to do to save the transaction. This can be mitigated by the agent doing his/her own price opinion and a gain loss analysis before ever submitting a short sale package.
5. Agents give up too quickly: Most agents give up, because the process seems to take too long. The process takes more time than an equity sale, but understanding the process will help the agent to short-cut the process.
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