The Short Sale Sisters Journal

Hello & welcome to the DG family. I wish you the best in your new world of SS's. We market for SS clients and our partner does the negotiating with the banks. You are doing fantastic with 10 SS prospects in the works

I'm no expert at the negotiating part of this but will share a couple things I've learned 1) Be extremely organized. Remember as you are submitting paperwork to the lender they are receiving lots of other ones on their fax and have paperwork everywhere! The easier you make it for them the better. Sometimes you'll get lucky and they'll let you submit paperwork via e-mail. 2) Stay in touch with the lender even if they aren't calling you - call them. At times you will be on hold for 45 minutes. 3) When they require info from the client get it to them ASAP. Sometimes they will extend the deadline and sometimes they won't. If they don't and the deadline is missed you will have to start all over again and resubmit all of the paperwork.

Follow up with the folks that say they are working on loan mods or undecided as to what they want to do.

I've discovered when people send in the authorization form quickly they are serious about what they are doing. Every so often people are slow to submit the rest of the paperwork. We've had 3 of these so far. Two never went aywhere and one of them waited until the day before the bank was going to start foreclosing.

Follow up with the people who are in the process of loan modifications. If this doesn't work out for them their next step will be a SS or to walk away all together.

I wish you the very best and look forward to following your journey.

Lea
SPR Property Solutions, LLC

Are you using DC Fawcetts program to flip these shorts or I visionary to fund them or are you using the shortsale riches package offerd by Nathan J? Recently I was trying to lock up shortsale deals through listing agents with the backing of DC's mitigation team and everytime i WOULD APPROACH A LISTING AGENT OR HAVE A CONVERSATION ON THE PHONE THEY WOULD THINK THAT i WAS TRYING TO SCAM THEIR CLIENTS. All I was really trying to do was help them out of a situation with one of the best mitigation teams in the country. Tell me what I was doing wrong.

Thanks,
Damion Davidson

This is the making of a book. I have never done a short sale but at one of the REI meeting we talk about it and DC Fawcetts have a new program have you hear about this and is this a good program? I have a friend that want to do short sale. I like SFH and Comm properties myself, but I will keep my door open for diff way to help a family with there property.

Angie

______________

The key to sucess is never saying I can't

Can't wait for the next chapter!!!!! Enjoyed your post and look forward to hearing more. Best of luck in REI endeavors.

please keep it coming! thanks.

We have studied many courses. D.C., Nathan J., and Jeff Kaller has very good material including others. Dean's books outlined the short sale process also. We try and deal with the homeowner before the house is listed and then have our agent lists the house for us to get an end buyer once the short sale is in progress. A lot of times an agent will feel that you are trying to take their listing. If you can assure them that is not the case then the agent will listen. Ask these agents in regards to their short sale listings "How is your listings doing?" and see what response you get. That generally will open the conversation for you say I can help both the homeowner and you out. And then give them your "elevator" speech.
Hope this helps.
Laura
www.bmwinvestproperties.com

Angie,
I have seen the course and like many others they help you in many ways.
Just be careful of what you are purchasing also.
Short sales are not short usually and they can be time consuming until you have your team in place and your strategies ready. But the reward of helping out the homeowner is very rewarding.
Gather all the knowledge you can and ask questions. This site is great for that.
Thanks for reading the journal and hope this will help.
Laura
www.bmwinvestproperties.com

Once we had the 10 properties under contract for the short sales we started looking for more. Donna and I always met the homeowner and got their complete package from them. If they had any questions then we were there to answer what they needed to know or what concerns they may have had. Our agents would go with us generally and everyone met each other. Or the agents would have them come to their office and we would meet there. Then we would go out to the house and take pictures and gather the rest of the information. So many times when a homeowner is having difficulties their lives are turn upside down and they become very disorganized themselves. Which is very understanding. Once we had everything needed to start the process we would send or deliver the files to our negotiators for submission.
We had sent our files to our negotiators that we had put in place and thought this is going to be great! Then one day not long into the process one of the negotiators called me and said that the lender is not going to look at this file anymore and that these two files he had were dead so he wanted more. I quickly scrambled and sent someone to pick up the files and gave them to someone else and after going through the process of resubmission we did start the short sale process over. We had two duplexes by the same homeowner that were in trouble and we were shorting them for him. The lender worked with us and once we got the short sale approval letter we were so excited and we had our agent start looking for an end buyer. She found one and we accepted his offer and when the short sale was completed we were ready to close with this person and come to find out after months of negotiations and thought we had the end buyer in place his financing fell through. We tried to help and sent him to different places and no one would help him. Always be careful of a pre approval letter. We now check all our bases before accepting anything. The common thought among investors is if anything is going to go wrong it is going to be at the close. We ended up having to take another offer that was a lot less and step out the deal to make it work. I ended up negotiating the new buyers contract with the homeowner's lender so they would allow this transaction to go through. It went A-C instead of A-B and B-C.
Then our next negotiator who by now had 5 of our files working decided she was going to become an agent and did not want to negotiate anymore. So here we go again, we picked up the files and put out another ad to look for more negotiators. It is difficult to be in the middle of a short sale package and then the ball gets dropped. But as I call these obstacles "challenges", it makes for a good learning experience.
Not all lenders are created equal! One lender might get a short sale reviewed and completed within a matter of weeks, others may take almost a year to do. It depends on the lender and their procedures.
Once the negotiators we thought we had started to have problems we elected to go to a national firm. The owner of the company was coming to our town and we met and had dinner and we decided to try them. They were starting out and they had issues also and so Donna and I decided to take all our files that were still open or new and we would negotiate them ourselves. One thing about doing this it does give you the up close and personal feel of what and how this process works. And it allows you to stay on top of things first hand. We feel that you have the homeowner's situation at your finger tips and they are really needing your help and you want to give them your best expertise and do all that is possible to make sure the process goes smoothly.
Next came someone in trouble out of state. We decided to take the file and started looking for an agent. We needed an agent from that area so they could be our eyes and ears. Plus they would get the short sale package together and send us the completed package so we could submit everything. When it is not in "your own backyard" it is a little harder to work with the homeowner directly. And you have to help the agent understand your process and hope they are on board with what you are doing. I got on Google and googled for an agent in Nebraska. And I looked through agents and found one that was investor friendly and sent an email of what we do and our system. She agreed with everything and we started a business relationship. We had brought her the house to list for us since the homeowner had contacted me directly. Then in turn she sent more properties our way. Which I ended talking to the homeowner to make sure they were a "candidate" for a short sale. They must have a true hardship and be able to document it for the Lender. Always listen to the homeowner and make sure they are giving you the whole story because many people do not like to open their information to a total stranger. Once they feel comfortable with you then usually the information will flow. And then you can decide if it is a good fit for everyone. Always have your agents pull comps or use Dean's Analyzer to determine the offer and the suggested values. Do your own due diligence! Check tax records with the county. We have gone to the county records building and search the files to make sure of any liens or anything out of the ordinary. I once found out on a property that we were going to short sale that this person was not the only person on title. She failed to mention this. There were four signatures. I printed this out and showed our agent and we had to make sure everyone had signed the paperwork that was on the loan to submit to the lender.

I commend you and your sister Hold on together you will mountains. Good luck and keep us posted i am looking forward to read more. Vee

Very interesting, you should start a journal !

fracarell789 wrote:

Hello & welcome to the DG family. I wish you the best in your new world of SS's. We market for SS clients and our partner does the negotiating with the banks. You are doing fantastic with 10 SS prospects in the works

I'm no expert at the negotiating part of this but will share a couple things I've learned 1) Be extremely organized. Remember as you are submitting paperwork to the lender they are receiving lots of other ones on their fax and have paperwork everywhere! The easier you make it for them the better. Sometimes you'll get lucky and they'll let you submit paperwork via e-mail. 2) Stay in touch with the lender even if they aren't calling you - call them. At times you will be on hold for 45 minutes. 3) When they require info from the client get it to them ASAP. Sometimes they will extend the deadline and sometimes they won't. If they don't and the deadline is missed you will have to start all over again and resubmit all of the paperwork.

Follow up with the folks that say they are working on loan mods or undecided as to what they want to do.

I've discovered when people send in the authorization form quickly they are serious about what they are doing. Every so often people are slow to submit the rest of the paperwork. We've had 3 of these so far. Two never went aywhere and one of them waited until the day before the bank was going to start foreclosing.

Follow up with the people who are in the process of loan modifications. If this doesn't work out for them their next step will be a SS or to walk away all together.

I wish you the very best and look forward to following your journey.

Lea
SPR Property Solutions, LLC

Lea,
What Lenders were you working with?
Thanks for the great advice.
To your success.
Laura
www.bmwinvestproperties.com

Sweet story. I am into shortsales myself. I have had a few people call me from letters that I have been sending out to folks on the foreclosures list. The few that I had, disappeared. Uggh I have their info and all. But I am working with 1 lady who I sent a a letter and her house was listed with a realtor and I am a realtor too. But this lady called me, to see what I can do for her. We met I told her have her realtor call me so I can explain everything and give her all the news and if she would be willing to work with me. She said no problem. So I am working with this lady and her package is in. She has 2 mortgages. I have negotiated the 2nd down from $18,840 to $10k down to $1800. Wow... I spoke to the lady handling her case today and she said her supervisors are reviewing the offer and will be back to me by Friday. She says it seems like something that can be worked with. So now the fisrt is who I am needing to deal with. I am going to follow up tomorrow and see whats the staus. They said I will get a reply by Friday or Monday. Their reply will be to either extend the sale or accept my offer. The sale is next week Wed. They are aware of this and will notify me of what they decide to do. But I will check in tomorrow. All works out this lady will have no debt. I will wholesale this house. I have 5 or 6 rehabbers to wholesale it to. I have 6 listing agents to call tomorrow to see if I can work a shortsale for them to help their homeowners out. These houses have been on the market for more than 230 days and longer up to 400 days.So shortsales is in my arsenal.

i keep finding that persistence is the key!

Our partner has worked with them I've never spoken with any of the lenders. From what I understand the process is quicker with some lenders than others. In the perfect SS world it would take 3 months. We do the marketing end of it. 10 SS's is fantastic in 3 months. What do you do for marketing to achieve such a great success rate?

Lea
SPR Property Solutions, LLC

This sounds great!!
You sound like you have your system in place and working it nicely.
Stay on top of the lenders all the time.
Good luck to you and let me know how it goes.
Laura
www.bmwinvestproperties.com

fracarell789 wrote:

Our partner has worked with them I've never spoken with any of the lenders. From what I understand the process is quicker with some lenders than others. In the perfect SS world it would take 3 months. We do the marketing end of it. 10 SS's is fantastic in 3 months. What do you do for marketing to achieve such a great success rate?

Lea
SPR Property Solutions, LLC

We have sent yellow letters and postcards out. We have had referrals from our REI groups. Craigslist ads and just handing out business cards and flyers to anyone.
Wholesalers can be a key person too. Our RE agents also have been a key players for us too.
Laura
BMW Investment Properties LLC

awesome story laura ,thank you for all the info to can't wait to hear more

Thanks Dale! I will have more in a day or so. I am hoping this will help others to go after their dreams and goals. This journey is truly an amazing ride!!
It has been great to talk with you and getting some deals off the ground together.
To Your Success!
Laura
www.bmwinvestproperties.com

Sorry for the delay of our journey with the short sales. We have become very busy with a couple of our transactions that we have been working with. And we have partnered with quite of few people now. There is a lot of properties out there. All kinds and all situations.
Let me tell you about one of these deals that is about to close.
This is a short sale that an investor came to us with. He told me that he had a property that needed to be shorted because he had a problem with the mortgage and a scam and then when he put tenants in the property and they wanted to buy it but lost their jobs. So they had to move and then I went to the property to do a walk through for the investor and they had some kind of animals that had done a lot of damage to the house. It was pretty bad. So I took pictures for the investor who lived in another state and sent them to him and he could not get his short sale package together fast enough. A very motivated seller.
This lender was Chase Bank. We worked the short sale with negotiators and we did end up taking it back and negotiating ourselves. We have been involved with this short sale for almost a year. The lender actually closed the file because of non performance from the negotiation firm we had and we contacted the lender and resubmitted a completely new short sale package and started the whole process all over again. That is why you have to stay on top of things from the start to the finish. We resubmitted our offer with a lower net to them than the first and it was approved within 5 weeks of contacting the lender. The mitigation rep called me and told me what the process would be to get this to approval. We got the approval finally and we are to close on this short sale next week. We have had an end buyer for quite a while waiting on us to get this through. So we will sign papers at close with the short sale and then turn around sign papers to the end buyers. A-B and B-C. One thing is that this lender refused to pay for some of the closing since it is an investor that had the property. It was not his primary residence and lenders have a different criteria for investor owned property. This short sale was approved with a full settlement on the account. The homeowner is very happy with the outcome and so are we. Another short sale approved! Shorted $276K loan balance to net pay off to lender $127K. Sold property to end buyers for $153,500. Helped another homeowner out. Makes you feel good about helping people out of their situation. A win-win-win for everyone.
All paperwork went directly to our title company and is getting ready to close.
I will post the completed deal once everything closes for us....

Closing 5 weeks after contacting the lender is great. I would also like to get into short sales because you can help the property owner avoid foreclosure and take that worry away. Wonderful job, thanks for sharing your journey.

Regina

Keep pushing forward

hi Laura,
I have been reading and following your journal for a while now. I had one questions on that last deal.
After the deal was shorted to 127K . Did you have to use transitional funding or did you just use your own money to make the deal work. The reason I ask is that because I heard that you can't assign short sales.

Thank You.
Stan

Stan,
We use Transactional funding for our transactions.
Thanks for watching our journal.
Laura

Thank-you for the great support!
Laura

Things happen...... The last deal that we thought was a done deal fell apart.
We had everything ready to close and the end buyers financing fell through. The short sale had been worked for a year and the appraisal came in less than we thought it would. Then the end buyers financing fell apart with this information from the appraisal. We tried multiple and creative ways to get the end buyers back on track but this happened so close to the close date that we had to let the lender close the file. I did speak to the homeowner and he wanted to still do the short sale so I contacted the lender once again and asked if another short sale would be possible and they said yes. So we are back to square one with another new and current package and a new "lower" offer into the lender. We have a new mitigator from the lender that is working with us. They are fully aware that we are offering less because the area and the homes around it have declined. We got the comps from our agents and submitted those with the package to justify our offer.
We will see what is next once they review everything. I will keep you updated on this and other short sales when I know something.
On another one we are working on we just got a counter offer after the lender declined our first offer. We will be going back to the drawing board and putting numbers in and see if it is workable for all parties.
On another note though we have been quite busy with a new direction that our company is taking. A value add to our short sale business. We are now working with Pinnacle Commercial Group and we are looking for defaulted and distressed commercial properties for aquisitions. Feel free to check out our new commercial websites and make out an account. www.scoutleads.com which is where you can submit the commercial properties and www.investingcommercialtoday.com where you can buy commercial properties. It is a great way to work together. Join us for another stream of income.

To Gavin

Sorry about the length of time to report any new news!
Let's see sent all new and current items to the Lender once again for this property since it did not close on time, the lender shut it down the file. So that means another short sale package with all currents items from the homeowner.
It was submitted with a lower amount to the lender. It went through 6 different people when I finally got a mitigator. We went back and forth until we had it lower but the mitigator took everything, closing costs and taxes out and is just paying 3% commission. New guidelines I was told for an investor held property from the lender.
Now we are needing an end buyer or have another exit strategy of private funding, close it and clean it up and carpet and resell for a better price.
We do not have much time for our close date is not far off.
It is a great house and I would hate to not have an end buyer and let it go back to the lender.
Been reading the other members topics to see if I can utilize any of their ideas. Any ideas??? I am open to any suggestions.
Thanks in advance,
Laura
www.bmwinvestproperties.com
www.scoutleads.com
www.bmwbuyshouses.com

I know it has been so long since I have entered anything to my journal but I did want to report that after months and months of working this one special short sale it finally has closed. It closed 2/15/2011. This short sale has been long coming. It was with the lender Chase and through a lot of mitigators and closing and reopening the status of the short sale package I finally got to the closing table. We had to step out as the investor buyer because I could not get enough spread from any of the offers. But by letting it go from A-C I did manage to get a negotiating fee from the lender. But I negotiating the homeowners balance of $260,000 down to a net to the bank of $110,866. Not bad for the new buyers. Once I got this offer in early January and the lender accepted it we took it close yesterday the 15th of Feb. This one had so many twists and turns but being persistent paid off.
Glad to help the homeowner and the new buyers are getting a great house.
Now on to the next one.......