common short sale questions answered

During the pre foreclosure you'll be fielding a lot of short sale questions from homeowners about the process. Yet you may have a hard time answering when a question comes up that you aren't prepared for. A poor response can make you look less than knowledgeable about the process with clients and less than professional. Stay up to date on short sales and make sure you know how to respond to these short sale questions most likely to be asked by the homeowner.How does the Short Sale Go?The homeowners often want know what their role is in the process. They'll also be concerned with how they are to handle any inquiries made by the bank. They'll be especially concerned since you'll have them sgn documents giving you permission to negotiate with the bank.Let them know step by step what you'll be doing from assembling the short sale package to negotiating with the bank to finding a buyer for the property. Go through all of the disclosures one-by-one with your customers so they are prepared with all the information that they need.How Long Will the Process Last?The homeowner will always want to know how long they should expect this process to last from beginning to end. It does take awhile so be up front and say it can be between 4 and 14 months, rather than to give the customer false expectations that this sale will transact quickly.Short sales involve many steps and even the simplest step can take days to complete. I know one investor who spent several hours trying to fax a document to a loss mitigator. This seems like such a simple process, get their fax number and use your fax machine to send the document, but large loss mitigation departments can receive almost 4500 faxes a day. The loan mitigator has to sift through those faxes, just to find one document for one investor. Often contributing to the length of the short sale process is red tape and large volumes of customers.If you explain this to your customer, you can prepare him for several months of work and waiting. If it turns out things can be done more quickly, great, but prepare the customer for the long-term investment and wait.Who Will be Paying for the Short Sale?A client will probably ask you where you will be getting the money for the short sale. You will have to find a buyer to buy the property for a profit. Explain this to your customers. Let the homeowner's know that the short sale can only be complete when you resell the property. Many investors will have reliable buyers lined up to purchase the property.Your program involves the resale of the homeowner's property in order to make a profit and complete the short sale. In a perfect world you will have the homeowner's property sold before you buy it.How Do We Know What's Going On?The clients can easily become confused about what's happening since your short sale deal with the bank may take a few months. Be sure to give them your phone number and other contact information so they can contact you anytime they have questions. On your end, make sure to stay in touch with the clients on each step of the process and provide them with time estimates until completion. This goes a long way towards reassuring them.Why Did the Bank Turn Us Down?This is one of the most commonly asked short sale questions. Sometimes during the process the bank will send the homeowners a letter stating that the short sale has been declined. This is just because the bank turned down your first offer or one of the many offers you may end up making during the short sale negotiations. Explain to the homeowners that they will get a letter from the loss mitigation department letting them know that the first offer has been declined.Most real estate investors turn in a very low first offer and expect it to be declined, since sometimes the bank may accept that low ball offer giving you a great deal. Prepare your customer to receive that letter.Prepare yourself for the homeowner's commonly asked short sale questions and you will be well prepared to allay their concerns. This way you'll be keeping the customer informed about the process and keeping them happy about working with you.

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