In today’s wacky market, many listings are asking for very specific things to be included with an offer to purchase a property. This may be things such as a certain contract form, or a set amound of escrow deposit, or a certain type of loan pre-approval.

Whether you like it or hate it, the seller gets to set the parameters under which they will accept an offer and sell their house.

We especially see this in bank-owned or “REO” properties as well as pre-foreclosures where the lender will need to approve the sale.

When I am selling a property, I always put in the listing that I want offers on a Far/Bar form only. This is because this is the contract that I am most familiar with and understand all of it’s clauses. When an agent submits an offer on any other form, I immediately have doubts about the brain-power of an agent that can’t read simple instructions, and I start to doubt whether this agent is savvy enough to get his/her buyer to the closing table or not.

Please don’t be the one the listing agent is wondering about…read the listing and follow the instructions that are spelled out. If you or your buyer aren’t WILLING to give what the seller is requesting, then move on to another house.

By the way, if it’s your listing and the seller is asking for silly things, keep in mind that you may have a harder time finding a buyer…in this market they can just go find something else where the seller is being more reasonable!

In my 12+ years in this crazy real estate business, I have seen many deals fall apart at the last minute due to the buyers doing something really crazy right before the closing.
It was such a costly problem that I designed a flyer for my loan officers to give their clients spelling out what NOT to do during the financing process and risk losing the deal.

I was reminded of this fact this morning as Tim has just had a “challenge” come up on a really big loan he’s working on. The lender pulled another credit report and the client’s score has dropped 30 points! This puts him in a different pricing bracket and means his interest will be 1% higher leading to a $625 a MONTH higher payment! There is a chance that this loan will not close.

I also remember a guy years ago that we had all ready to go on a purchase loan, then the lender pulled a last-minute “credit update” which showed a brand new $900 Corvette Payment! Needless to say, he no longer qualified for the house and was not able to close.

Right now, you may be having a challenge FINDING buyers, so I want to make sure when you find them, you can KEEP them!

Here’s a link to the flyer in PDF form. I hope you get a chuckle out of it and are able to use it with your clients. If you’d like a version that you can give to your buyers, just email Tim@Compass123.com

 
This may just be one of the most critical elements to your success.  I say that because many people take advice from people with different ideas, goals, and experience levels than them and then wonder why their plans don’t work.
 
If you want to sky-dive, you take advice from and instructor that’s done tons of jumps.
 
If you want to learn to play the piano, you take lessons from someone that already knows how.
 
So why would you take real estate advice from someone without experience?  I see so many people right now saying “my neighbor said” or “my husband said” or my favorite “the news said…”  If these people aren’t experts, then DON’T LISTEN TO THEM!
 
Also, even the “experts” sometimes mess up, so it is always in your best interest to verify things before implementing them.  Here’s an example: A short sale training company recently released an email about how the IRS had “clarified” the 1099 situation on short sale debt.  The email went on to supposedly quote the IRS guidelines verbatim, but when I went over to IRS.gov to verify, I found a completely different set of guidelines than what they had quoted.  If you had advised a client base on their email, you could have a problem on your hands!
 
Remember, be careful who you let into your head!

You may have heard the term: “contrarian thinking” which basically means DON’T do what everyone else is doing!

Right now, everyone else is running from the real estate market like rats from a sinking ship. However, for the savvy real estate professional and investor, now is one of the best times in history to make an absolute KILLING in real estate…you just can’t do what everyone did for the last couple of years…our market IS different right now, and we need to adapt to succeed (think Darwin’s “Survival of the Fittest” theory…how fit are YOU in today’s real estate market?)

Are you willing to learn new skills? to adapt to a changing market? invest in new technology? in marketing? Are you willing to do whatever it takes to succeed in this new market we’re in? I know I am!

Business 2.0 recently featured 4 businesses that are capitalizing on the current market trends. I’m not saying you should all run out and do these things, but I DO want you to see the power of contrarian thinking. Click this link to see the 4 opportunists stories