San Jose Short Sale Agent: Silicon Valley Foreclosure Prevention Specialists

Homeowners, Foreclosure prevention is serious business; please treat it that way.  In short sales, because the borrowers are suffering some sort of financial hardship, the lender has to pay for the usual closing related costs, including broker fees.   However, this does not mean you, the borrower, should simply hand over the responsibilities to any agent, desperate for business. There are repercussions if the short sale cannot be completed and you are faced with foreclosure; and you may end up spending money needlessly.

I was speaking to a fellow agent yesterday who told me about a horror situation with a bad agent doing a short sale for a client of hers. This particularly inadequate agent told the borrowers they had to vacate the house prior to the listing the house, so these borrowers had to move out to an apartment, believing that was required to do a short sale.   They won’t know how long this short sale will take to be approved, so they are now paying rent for an unspecified amount of time into the future.  This was a completely unnecessary move; and these borrowers did not have the financial wherewithal to make this move.

These borrowers, by not checking into the agent’s background and experience ended up having to spend thousands of dollars they did not have to spend.  A competent agent would not advise the borrower to move out before listing house, especially in this circumstance when there was nothing warranting such a move.

Ask for references. You don’t have to pay for the agent’s fee, so why would you not get the most experienced and qualified representation you can find out there?  This is a no brainer.  If an agent is good, his clients will vouch for him/her; conversely true if the agent is bad.

I get testimonials from my clients here and there.  But this one touched me, because we did have to go through a lot with Bank of America and for a very long time, but in the end it came out all right.  I was very happy that she and her family could go on without having to look over their shoulders and just go on with their lives since they had moved.  Truly, this is what I mean by trying to help the foreclosure crisis, one family at a time.  Helping people like Becky makes me feel like I am contributing in my own way.

I am amazed by how surprised prospects are when I advise them I will provide references from past clients who have used my services, particularly, short sale clients.  Yes, in the case of short sale clients, it is understandable that clients do not want to bring up and discuss the unpleasant hardships of  the past with complete strangers.  But as consumers of services you should have the right to see what you agree to buy.

Unfortunately in our changing business environment, there are too many people out there claiming to be “experts” in certain areas of our profession without providing any proof of their adequacy, let alone expertise.  One simply is not an expert because one declares oneself as such.

Under normal circumstances, selling a house is important but does not have long term implications if the house cannot be sold.   It simply means the homeowners stay in the house until a better time to sell comes along.  However, in a foreclosure situation, if the house cannot be sold or if the terms cannot be negotiated with the lenders to get the approval for the sale, people not only lose houses, but they lose that important sense of “home” and go through an emotional roller coaster ride that comes along with being foreclosed.  Houses can be replaced, but the emotional scars can remain for a long time……

Ask for references. When you are talking to a Realtor, you are essentially interviewing him/her for a job.  And what job interview does not involve providing references from past employers?   If a Realtor does a good job for their clients, it is not difficult to get the latter to share their experiences with potential clients; as a matter of facts some become your evangelists if they had a good experience with you.

Some Realtors belong to an organization that rates the service via independent surveys and post those scores on the web.  I belong to the QSC organization  because I believe in its philosophy and strive to provide the best service I am able to provide and believe if I were on the opposite side, I would want to know how that person’s past clients rated their service before engaging them.   These are difficult times and you should get the best quality service available  out there.   After all, don’t you deserve it?