About Us and Short Sales

After doing several hundred Short Sale transactions, we found that several issues derail closings. We have taken steps to overcome them.

Short sales fail because buyers are not properly qualified for loans. For this reason, in today's lending climate, the lowest level buyer pre-qualification letter is insufficient. Instead, we ask that buyers have cash, approval letters, pre-approval letters or pre-qualification letters with credit review. With credit review, mortgage professionals verify buyers' income, down payments are documented and buyers' credit scores are checked.

Short sales fail because banks are given bad information. By teaming up with a title company at the start, the title company does a preliminary title report that shows all liens on the property. They also figure out how much is owed on the property and give the lenders the true net amount it can expect from a transaction.

Short sales fail because paperwork is incomplete. We have a state-of-the-art system where agents, buyers and sellers can log on and see the progress of their paperwork. The system not only insures that every file is complete; it monitors when follow-up calls are to be made and allows us to keep notes.

Short sales fail because negotiators are inexperienced. Lenders do not have the time or the patience to tell agents or amateurs how to work their systems. It is imperative that people who do this type of work all day, every day handle short sale files. By doing this, we have created good relationships at every major short sale processor. We have the contacts.

Short sales fail because offers are way too low. We will not handle a short sale if the offer is less than 80% of the Zillow.com price, without a good explanation of why Zillow is wrong (or why an offer is good in the few places where Zillow does not make an estimate). Many negotiators try to get through offers at a fraction of the current value. They lack credibility.

We have credibility because we do not waste lenders, agents, buyers or sellers time with offers that are likely to be rejected. Because of our credibility, we often get quicker positive responses.