Feb

You know what I love about Real Estate Agents…

There is a joke there – and I am not thinned skinned enough to keep Real Estate Agent Jokes to myself, so here is one before I get into the meat of my story:

“The Devil tells a Real Estate Agent, “Look, I can make you richer, more famous, and more successful than any Real Estate Agent alive. In fact, I can make you the greatest agent that ever lived.”

“Well,” says the Real Estate Agent, “what do I have to do in return?”

The Devil smiles, “Well, of course you have to give me your soul,” he says, “but you also have to give me the souls of your children, the souls of your children’s children and, as a matter of fact, you have to give me the souls of all your descendants throughout eternity.”

“Wait a minute,” the Real Estate Agent says cautiously, “What’s the catch?”

When the agents that are listing a Short Sale – Put the fact it is a Short Sale in plain English, I applaud.

There are mandatory fields on the Multiple Listing Service, they talk about Lender Owned, Relocation, Probate, Investment, short sale, regular sale, and the list goes on and on.

With certain Banks – the only place within the MLS one of their agents may place the word “foreclosure” is by the Mandatory Field Selection. If the agent writes the words, Bank Owned, Foreclosure, REO, Distressed etc. anywhere else in the verbiage – there is going to be an issue.

I don’t think that the bank is attempting to hide anything – I just think they have not been educated about how we have an oversupply of buyers and very few properties that fit the “close in 30-45 day” profile.

But, when I see an agent with the intestinal fortitude to put a short sale on the market, not just filling out the mandatory fields, but also indicating that the price and everything else is “Subject to Lender Approval”, I smile. I really go nuts when I see they put “Short Sale” in the public remarks. It causes a lot less problems for their Seller! – Great Job