I am writing this while waiting for a 119 page fax to go through for the fifth time. The other four efforts failed. The fax is going to Chase and it contains 2 offers for one of my short sale listings, along with all the “required” paperwork. I called Chase and after waiting for 15 minutes to get through to an operator I was told to “just keep trying to send the fax, they only have one fax machine and there are 4 numbers are attached to it.” This just blows my mind.
If banks are really, truly, trying to prevent foreclosures then why in the world do they make it so difficult for Realtors to send offers to them. I know that I must wait weeks, maybe months, before I can expect an answer to the offer so I have prepared myself for that. What I don’t understand is the system of submitting the offers.
Last week I attended a seminar by Lee Honish, a former Head Loss Mitigator for Indy Bank. He was very direct with his explanation of what to expect when submitting a short sale offer for consideration. For the mere price of $1,200.00 I could purchase his system and become a wiz at getting my offers excepted. I was tempted but thought better about it. Why won’t the banks give free seminars and allow us to learn their system so we can help them? Why do agents have to wonder if they need to get a Certified Distress Property Expert designation, costing $599.00 in order to help someone save themselves from a foreclosure?
If someone asked me today if I would choose real estate as a career I would have to think twice about it. Do I want to become a “short sale expert” in order to survive in this market for the next 3 years?