I want a realtor who IS NOT afraid of Short sales or forclosure sales

[azjack]

"not a bad idea, except there are fees involved, by the time you get Test fees, license fees, join MLS ect it adds up to about 800-1000 dollars, not only that but time envolved studying, taking quizes. I just want to buy a home,not learn a trade. Actually thought of this idea after being so rudely rejected by AZ realtors when I wanted to look at some homes."

Yes, you would pay about that much to get an AZ RE license and MLS access, including the cheapest class provider. But unless you sleep through the minimal classes, it would not be difficult to pass the exam or involve much outside studying.

[Zathras]

Originally Posted by cmist

Thanks, I kind of revised my original post to shorten it up a little but you had already begun the quote...

I understand AWC is backup offer, but I don't know of many agents who include those in their searches to show buyers, so its almost as good as completely off the market. There's certainly enough out there that its not necessary to involve yourself or your client in AWC properties.

I also know the sellers call the shots, but most of them look to their realtor and say, whatever you think. I have seen more properties that are still fully active with one or more offers already submitted to the banks, than I have seen short sale properties taken off the market while waiting on the banks final approval.

I think there is a place in the actual MLS system that shows it as active but under bank review, or at least I read they were adding that somewhere at some point. Those properties are truly available and you know you have the option to actually bump someone out and outbid if you want it. This tactic works well for a seller/bank, but not for the buyer, since their goal is the complete opposite. This is a common source of stress between the 2 parties, one side is afraid of tying it up before final approval, while the other party wants it off the market so they know its a done deal.

I also think the earnest money whether its deposited or not is still protected by the bank contingency... Even after deposit, what would stop the buyer from using the fact that its still contingent on a bank approval from walking? I imagine a good listing agent might stipulate the earnest money as non-refundable for a specified amount of time to protect their seller? Otherwise earnest money is heavily protected in the standard contracts... there are a million contingencies in the purchase contract protecting the buyers deposit and sellers rarely receive it.

I pick my brothers brain alot about real estate, he sells here in the valley so most of the info I'm using I have heard from him, or heard him gabbing on the cell phone about different deals when he's around.

I appreciate the information, and understand there is more than one way to skin a cat, so the saying goes. I wish you all the best of luck, and keep the board updated. You got me curious now on how this all pans out.

The mls portal that our agent has set up for us does still show AWC properties- however I typically skip those as I consider those to be 'probably gone'. Although there was one that we really liked a lot, that went to AWC prior to our trip out there. We still wanted to see it but she told us it had 2 backups on it already, so we skipped it.

Our hope is that once the AWC tag is put on the property we're offering on, that others will be less likely to try to look at it. I don't care if a backup gets put in, but we don't want to get into a bidding war. If we do we will likely walk away. It is a buyers market and time is on our side (we can't move until school ends in 6 months- heck we don't even have ours on the market yet).

We watch our portal daily (for 3 mos now) and see properties dropping at a regular rate. Some every 2 weeks, some monthly, some every 3 days like clockwork. It's kind of sad, but there is such an oversupply out there. We are going to try to help out by taking one of the lovely AZ homes off the market! There are several other properties that we would be interested in, if they continued to drop and end up in our range. This one did, and so we moved on it. I will let you know how it turns out!

[rjrcm]

Originally Posted by cmist

Thanks, I kind of revised my original post to shorten it up a little but you had already begun the quote...

I understand AWC is backup offer, but I don't know of many agents who include those in their searches to show buyers, so its almost as good as completely off the market. There's certainly enough out there that its not necessary to involve yourself or your client in AWC properties.

You are right, AWC does turn off a lot of buyers.

I also know the sellers call the shots, but most of them look to their realtor and say, whatever you think. I have seen more properties that are still fully active with one or more offers already submitted to the banks, than I have seen short sale properties taken off the market while waiting on the banks final approval.

Yes, a lot of agents do submit multiple offers to the bank, and that is allowed by the contract short sale addendum. However, many agents also think this overloads the bank and delays the process. Also, lots of buyers will pull out if they have to compete with other buyer's offers with the bank. The strategy of only submitting one offer is considered a better method to get approval and keep the buyer interested.

I think there is a place in the actual MLS system that shows it as active but under bank review, or at least I read they were adding that somewhere at some point. Those properties are truly available and you know you have the option to actually bump someone out and outbid if you want it. This tactic works well for a seller/bank, but not for the buyer, since their goal is the complete opposite. This is a common source of stress between the 2 parties, one side is afraid of tying it up before final approval, while the other party wants it off the market so they know its a done deal.

There is currently no status flag for bank review. The AWC status is a general contingency status that includes bank review. Sometimes agents will put a note in the private remarks that the bank is reviewing an offer.

I also think the earnest money whether its deposited or not is still protected by the bank contingency... Even after deposit, what would stop the buyer from using the fact that its still contingent on a bank approval from walking? I imagine a good listing agent might stipulate the earnest money as non-refundable for a specified amount of time to protect their seller? Otherwise earnest money is heavily protected in the standard contracts... there are a million contingencies in the purchase contract protecting the buyers deposit and sellers rarely receive it.

When earnest money is taken up front in a short sale, usually it is stipulated that the money is non-refundable for a certain time. Otherwise, the standard short sale addendum does not require earnest money to be deposited until the bank approves the sale.

I pick my brothers brain alot about real estate, he sells here in the valley so most of the info I'm using I have heard from him, or heard him gabbing on the cell phone about different deals when he's around.

There is a lot of mis-information about short sales, so I'm not surprised you have heard different viewpoints.

I appreciate the information, and understand there is more than one way to skin a cat, so the saying goes. I wish you all the best of luck, and keep the board updated. You got me curious now on how this all pans out.

You're welcome.

[cmist]

Originally Posted by Zathras

The mls portal that our agent has set up for us does still show AWC properties- however I typically skip those as I consider those to be 'probably gone'. Although there was one that we really liked a lot, that went to AWC prior to our trip out there. We still wanted to see it but she told us it had 2 backups on it already, so we skipped it.

Our hope is that once the AWC tag is put on the property we're offering on, that others will be less likely to try to look at it. I don't care if a backup gets put in, but we don't want to get into a bidding war. If we do we will likely walk away. It is a buyers market and time is on our side (we can't move until school ends in 6 months- heck we don't even have ours on the market yet).

We watch our portal daily (for 3 mos now) and see properties dropping at a regular rate. Some every 2 weeks, some monthly, some every 3 days like clockwork. It's kind of sad, but there is such an oversupply out there. We are going to try to help out by taking one of the lovely AZ homes off the market! There are several other properties that we would be interested in, if they continued to drop and end up in our range. This one did, and so we moved on it. I will let you know how it turns out!

I hope it works out for you! I hate bidding wars... AWC is definitely treated as off the market, so if you succeed in getting that status there is no way to even get a bidding war.

I'm sure different banks and/or listing agents have different feelings about taking the property off the market or AWC for such a long stretch, but if you manage to get that done, you are in the best possible position as a buyer.

When you think about it from the sellers angle, you wouldn't want to have all your eggs in one basket for an undetermined amount of time for "review" and the potential that your would be "buyer" walks away 3 months later from impatience or a ridiculous formal counter from the bank....

I say what I do so you have a little perspective of both sides and not to freak you out... Best of luck and thanks for helping to chip away at our oversupply

As for getting a quick real estate license, it will teach you none of this stuff in class. This thread probably gave more info than any RE class will teach. Its a bunch of legal jargon that isn't used much and fair housing paranoia designed to make agents fear lawsuits. It doesn't go much into representing yourself or protecting your potential clients from real world situations.