I'm writing this blog for two reasons: First, I want to brag about just how good my team is at processing short sales. Second, I want to stress that the big law firms and real estate brokerages (the ones with all the TV commercials and billboards) are not always better.
A Winter Park family was referred to me recently by another Realtor who just recently cooperated on a purchase of one of our short sales. She enjoyed how smoothly our transaction went; so much so, that she suggested us to a family friend of hers.
The friend she referred over to us had hired a very well-known law firm here in Orlando, and had a very large and well-known real estate brokerage handling the selling of the property. Unfortunately, the family paid the law firm an up-front retainer fee of around $3000 and then a few more payments over the following year.
They soon became just another number at the law firm and couldn't get any answers out of them about why the short sale wasn't making any progress. As it turns out, the value of the property was done incorrectly and neither the law firm nor the real estate broker communicated properly to work together to correct the value issue.
As a result, the family was taken on a 14 month emotional roller coaster which ended with their short sale being denied.
When I first met with the family, they had a lot of anger and frustration towards everyone involved with their short sale. They believed that nobody could help them at this point, and that people who said that they could only wanted their money.
After meeting with them for about an hour, I convinced them to drop the law firm and allow my team to process the short sale. After all, they had nothing to lose; I don't request any fees from the seller at all. We simply don't get compensated at all unless we get the job done - it's as simple as that. So, the sellers agreed to give us a try.
After 35 days and a few price reductions, we got a great offer of $750,000 for the house. The sellers reluctantly executed the offer, worrying because the last value the short sale lender did was at $950,000. That's a big difference, but I knew the true value of the house and also knew that the last appraisal wasn't completed correctly. This time, when the appraisal was ordered I was on site, and brought supporting documents which proved the home's value.
The appraisal came back right at $750,000 and within 45 days the short sale lender issued approval letters, releasing the seller of $550,000 in debt that was owed on the mortgage! The sellers had purchased for $1.3 million in 2005 and sold for $750,000 in 2011 and the $550,000 loss was fully forgiven.
THANK YOU so much to my team for working so hard to communicate with all parties involved and getting the short sale approved in less than two months! Thanks for your dedication to customer service, document perfection and concise mitigation. :)