Saturday, December 3, 2011

Boise Idaho Certified Short Sale Specialist

Boise Idaho Certified Short Sale Specialist   

I recently published this on ActiveRain at www.BoiseRealEstateWebsite.com.  Please check it out and comment both places if you like.    

Boise Idaho Certified Short Sale or Distressed Property Experts.
I have just finished Googling Boise Short sale experts and see a lot of "Certified Short Sale Experts" certified by various teaching organizations. I just picked one randomly and looked up this persons listing and sales record. She or He had 13 cancellations, 7 expired short sale listings, 1 pending and 18 closed. Two of the canceled or expired subsequently sold. So out of 38 listings 18 closed.
Let's be fair and make it 36 listings because two were listed twice and subsequently sold. That still is a meager 50% closure rate. Actually that is pretty good considering most everything else I read shows that nationally only 14% to 20% of attempted short sales actually close! I also have looked at several other so called short sale specialists or distressed property specialists (or experts), and many have much worse success and less experience than this. Few had a lot better success ratio and lots of closings.
As soon as there is a market the "teachers" and "certifications" pop up all over. Some are just people giving classes with their personal certification. Some of these are a few hours long and you get a string of letters to put after your name.
Short sale certification is meaningless. Some of the certifications are developed by banks. Do you think they teach you to fight for the seller to not pay a deficiency in a deficiency judgment state, or fight for a buyer when the bank counter offers? I am not saying all training is worthless or all certifications are meaningless. But how do you tell the difference?
With Short Sales there is nothing more important than plain raw experience. Numbers count. Eventually everyone fails. Short sales are difficult. Failures should be the exception. For sellers failure can be devastating and lead to foreclosure or worse. Would you go to a surgeon with a 50% success rate for gall bladder surgery?
Anyone choosing an agent for a short sale needs to ask the potential agent to show them their record. The same with a buyer agent. You can save yourself and your buyer a lot of time and angst by looking in the MLS and looking at the listing agent’s record, both numbers and percentages of success and failure.
Be careful doing this. Be fair. Some listings will be canceled or expired but subsequently sold. Some will be canceled because the seller worked out another solution. When working with buyers, and another listing agent's short sale I look see cancellations or withdrawals I ask the agent to be fair, and see if there are any legitimate circumstances so not to unfairly count all cancellations against the agent. We look at how many they have listed, how many they have closed or failed to close. If we want the house and the agent is inexperienced I ask if we can help them.
I have no short sale certification but have been involved in over 100 short sale closings and with my partner have a 90% closure rate as of now. We have only 2 expired unsold and a few cancellations do to various reasons like other workout solutions. My partner in short sales John Boles has gone through Short Sale Genius certification and still subscribes to their ongoing updated training and networking and it has been very helpful.
I think agents being involved in short sales need to really consider Realtor Ethics. In fact Doctor ethics should be applied. “Do no harm.” If one is holding himself out to be a short sale expert and as a 50% success rate I think their ethics are questionable. I am not a short sale specialist. I have done and will continue to do a lot of short sales and I have been very successful closing them. I am comfortable and confident that I will get those that I list closed. When I first started, I told people the truth. When I first started short sales there was no certification that I knew of. The loss mitigation departments of most banks didn't even know what they were doing!
If you have questions or comments post away or call me at 208-870-2115.

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