Just Say No To A Real Estate Agent Looking to Sign a Long Term Listing Contract in Montgomery County.

DISCOVER HOW TO SELL YOUR HOME IN Montgomery County in 47 DAYS FOR $9,367 MORE MONEY, From a Montgomery County Real Estate Marketing Expert.

Are you tired of getting the sales pitch from a Montgomery County Real Estate Agent only to have them get the” deer in the headlights”  look when you ask them an insightful interview question on their actual marketing dollars spent to market your home and their actual Listing to Sales Price Ratio?
Many Montgomery County Real Estate Agents never plan to fail, but do in fact fail to plan, which is not uncommon to many small businesses that never achieve the pinnacle of success. Many companies have an mp3 player, but no one else compares to Apples’ I Pod for in sales volume. In fact, each and every Montgomery County Real Estate Agent is an individual small business who is responsible for their own advertising, marketing and all other small business expenses.   An actual written Real Estate Marketing Plan is the cornerstone to selling your Home Quickly and for More Money, especially in the difficult economic climate we currently face.

Here are the  Real facts you need to know before hiring an Montgomery County real estate agent to list your home:

Listing to Sales Price Ratio:

You could ask a million for a 2 bedroom Cape Cod in Montgomery County, but in reality what will it sell for?

The Listing to Sales Price Ratio is the actual benchmark statistic to determine how well a real estate agent can price and present your home to get the original asking price.  The closer to 100% the Montgomery County real estate agents listing to sales price ratio is, the better the odds are at getting you top dollar for your home in the Montgomery County Real Estate marketplace. Base your decision on who to hire, not on their  national corporate ad campaign or their Brokerage’s multi- million dollar commercial building, but on the real estate agent’s actual listing to sales price ratio and written marketing plan.

Ask yourself this question before hiring or re-listing with any agent: Can this Montgomery County Real Estate agent provide your home the necessary market exposure to effect a sale at a price that is near or at your acceptable asking price?

DAYS ON MARKET:
Would you like to sell your home in 47 days? How about 210 days, or never?

Days On Market is a huge key indicator of what’s going on with the listing price, market position and marketing of a particular home in Montgomery county. Any home that is being marketed and is growing long in the tooth on the MLS is suspect to being flagged as stagnant or “damaged goods” both by buyers and other Montgomery county Real Estate Agents.

The problem is that the property has spent too many days on market and people begin to wonder whats wrong with it?

Your imagination can think of 5 things almost immediately as to why.

• Overpriced
• Dirty
• Stinky
• Bad location
• Outdated interior, etc, etc.

You don’t have you home represented by a Montgomery county Real Estate Agent who is going to allow this to happen to your precious investment! IF YOU NEED IT SOLD SOONER …read on!

REAL ESTATE MARKETING PLAN:
MLS, a Yard sign and open house or…My comprehensive 89 Point marketing plan.

You’ll Need a SOLIDLY written business minded Real Estate Marketing Plan to reach potential buyers first. DEDICATED ADVERTISING DOLLARS earmarked for proven cutting edge 21st Century Real Estate Marketing, is a must not an option. This is the only way to preserve your precious equity and bring you top dollar at closing.

Sadly most Montgomery County Real Estate Agents don’t even have their own personal written marketing plan.  Remember,  it’s the agents who spend the ad dollars to market your Montgomery County Real Estate NOT the real estate brokerage.

The Ugly truth is most Montgomery county Real Estate Agents are responsible for all advertising expenses of homes for sale, and in a down market like this, advertising dollars spent by agents are one of the first budgetary cuts to be made to keep the their small business afloat. The go back to the MLS, a yard sign and an open house. Sadly, this isn’t going to cut it in the 21st Century unless you under price your home and lose precious equity to sell it.

I am associated with one of the few Montgomery County real estate brokerages consistently continuing to provide home sellers several print media publication solutions on a consistent weekly basis like the Real Estate Book, The Zuber Book and local newspaper ads. When combined in conjunction with my massive 89 point marketing plan,  You are assured of a complete real estate marketing solution with a comprehensive Internet, email, direct mail, social media and print media coverage that will assure you of total market coverage.

I have a written marketing plan that I created and exclusively use that consistently blows away the competition everyday. You WILL want to see it before you choose a Montgomery county real estate agent!

IF YOU STILL NEED TO GET TOP DOLLAR…read on!

EASY EXIT LISTING AGREEMENT:
You could be locked into a 12 month contract with no exit clause, married in a listing contract to someone you no longer want association with.  Or,  You could have the responsibility shifted in your favor, and use my easy exit listing contract that gives you the power to fire a Montgomery county real estate agent if they don’t perform as promised. It’s not uncommon to be given a pretty slick sale pitch just to get your listing, then your agent turns into the invisible man! Don’t get stuck in a listing agreement when you are unhappy with their ad spend, un-communicated on a weekly basis and have no power to correct these issues or end the contract.

You’ll Need to be armed with an Easy Exit Listing Agreement that guarantees YOUR 100% SATISFACTION or You HAVE THE POWER TO FIRE your real estate agent! If you would like to arm yourself with the power to easily fire your Montgomery county Real Estate agent…read on!

Find out How To Get your Montgomery County real estate SOLD in the shortest amount of time and with the least amount of headache and hassle and still get top dollar TODAY.

Fill out the form below for a complementary copy of my E Book called “Up Sell Your Home in a Down Market” and get the accurate facts on a high powered Real estate marketing machine that will generate a Montgomery county home sale quickly in today’s real estate world.

Copyright 2010 – James Harner Montgomery County Realtor

Montgomery County Short Sales

Once a week, we get calls from Sellers who no longer can make the payments on their home and are trying to find out what a short sale is and how it works. Most of the calls we have received this last week are from sellers who have already determined they are in a hardship situation and are considering their options. Some even have spoken to an attorney or tax advisor and have been advised to consider a short sale.

Pricing your Montgomery county home competitively enough to encourage offers from buyers is one of the most important things to know when you list your property as a short sale. If you are a Montgomery county real estate agent you must not only have the foresight to know what a Brokers Price Opinion will come in at but also to have some understanding on what a buyer’s appraiser is going to be looking at for comps. Pricing a home too high will create headaches for a seller and in the end, possibly making them lose their home to foreclosure, then you’ve helped no one and probably made things worse. At the same time, pricing too low will get offers that have no chance of being accepted since the lender is not going to approve sales much lower than their BPO.

We listed 2 short sales this past week, where the seller found my blog and called us after reading my series of posts about how to do a short sale. We had one owner call us to list his house but it would be better for him if he does whatever he can to keep his house, so we did not list his house. Instead, we are sending him to resources that may be able to help him keep his home, like the recent federal program, that is another series of articles I’ve got planned.

Montgomery County Short Sales: Beware Of Damaged Goods! *The Tragic Consequence Of Overpriced Listings*
Whenever I take a listing it is my duty to find out why the seller must sell. I am amazed at how many sellers we talk to who tell us their agent never even asked them why they needed to sell. Don’t you think that the motivation of why a seller needs to sell needs to be taken into consideration with your pricing? Of course it does.

A seller calls us in dyer straights and needs to sell their home with a short sale and asked us to list her house. As I began to inquire about her property and qualify her for the short sale process he informed me a very sad story……Please keep reading, you will see there is more to this story than his wife getting laid off of her job.

Two years ago, yes, read that again, 2 years ago he listed his house with an agent who over priced their house. Now, the seller had no idea at the time of what price to ask. He depended on his agent to tell him what that price was. He asked the agent to be honest with him about what the house should be listed at. This agent had all the opportunity in the world to price this house to sell. The seller even told the agent of his families financial situation.

The house gets listed too high, simply because the agent was clueless and didn’t listen to his client. Now at that time they only had one mortgage on the house and they could have sold it for a profit because they had equity in the house. This was in 2006. The market was OK, however, the amount they owed compared to even a low ball offer was still a great deal to this seller.

Now, the agent takes the listing, puts it in the MLS and walks away. After a few months of not hearing from their agent and after looking online to start to see what the other homes around her were listing for and selling for the seller calls his agent to ask for a price reduction! So in a few months the market had eroded and their home was worth even less than when they listed it, what ws that agent thinking? Did he want to be a hero? Why didn’t he just list it as a Montgomery County Short Sale.

If you read the story from above, you would know why it is so important, and I can not stress this enough, that you choose an agent who knows how to do Montgomery County Short Sales and has experience working with Short Sales. Ask your agent if they have closed on any short sales in your area. Selling your home as a short sale takes commitment, perseverance, patience and expertise in negotiations and follow through of actions. Do not leave your Short Sale to chance.

Time is of the essence in doing your Montgomery County short sale.
They are not easy and require agents with systems in place and a support staff to follow through with all aspects of the process in a systematic fashion. People’s lives depend on it.

So 6 months goes by and nothing happens, no showings, no offers. The seller is a nice man who knows nothing about real estate and hired an agent to do what he did not know how to do. So then they list with another agent and basically the same thing happens again. The market was falling fast at that time and the agent had no clue about pricing a property to sell in a falling market. So again the seller was behind the eight ball with no room to get out.

And now what does the seller need to do because of the inept and inconsiderate agents he had to deal with? Well, he had to get a second mortgage on his house just to keep living in this house and keep the payments up on the house and the bills. He never would have had to take out this second mortgage in a falling market if the agents had priced this house to sell in the very beginning, they would have walked away with money in their pockets and a song in their hearts.

TRAGIC STORY,

The seller knows the only recourse now is either foreclosure or doing a short sale.The reason he has to do the short sale is because the agents did not list her house at a price that it would sell. He watched as houses around his sold and theirs did not. There is nothing wrong with the condition of his house. It was the pricing. If we had the listing in the first place the house would have been priced to sell and he would be walking away with cash in his pocket 2 years ago!

Contact James Harner CRS, Certified Short Sale Realtor  of the James Harner Group, Inc. Licensed Realtor® in PA at Richard A. Zuber Realty at 610-310-7646 for a confidential consultation.

To list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Boyertown, Collegeville, Eagleville, Limerick, King of Prussia, Phoenixville, Pottstown, Red Hill, Royersford, and the rest of Montgomery County PA Homes and Chester County PA Homes, call me directly at 610-310-7646 or skype me

Or Use this form provide the info I need to get started  in the short sale process:

I have negotiated many successful Short Sales in Montgomery County over the years,  I have seen my share of inexperienced or un-supervised agents botch a short sale at this point in the process. Depending on how the lender is handling their short sale work flow, this is the critical “make or break” point where you need an Montgomery county Realtor who is working with the seller to really know what they are doing and how to negotiate with the seller’s mrtgage lender. Having a Realtor who is a Short Sales in Montgomery County certified Realtor is a step in the right direction.

For illustration purposes we will call the person we are dealing with at the lender the ‘processor’. Different lenders have different titles for this person but to make things simple we will stay with the term ‘processor’.

montogmery county short sale checklist

The processor takes the file and checks to see if all the documents are in the package and if the file is complete. Each processor may have upwards of 100 or more files coming in per day and they must process these files quickly as possible. Any incomplete file is not going to be attended to in a timely fashion so make sure it is all correct to begin with before you send it in.

Once the negotiator has checked the file and has determined it to be complete he or she will order a BPO.

What is a BPO?

A BPO is a Broker’s Price Opinion. The lender will hire a Montgomery county Realtor to do a pricing report and come back to the lender with the information as to what that individual believes the fair market value of the property is right now that is  hoping to be Short Sales in Montgomery county. The BPO must consider the last solds in the neighborhood that the property is in and if they can not find any equal properties in that neighborhood then they may go outside of the neighborhood to find a property of like kind. Usually this process does not take long. We often see BPO’s done about a week after the processor has received the package. The Montgomery county Realtor assigned will send their BPO back to the lender.

The lender reviews the BPO and then calls us to tell us what the note holder will accept as a net figure on the Montgomery county Short Sale. This net is based upon a formula that is used to estimate the losses the lender can incur. What we have seen for Short Sales in Montgomery county PA is about a 10% to  15% discount off of the BPO. The BPO defines what the current market value of the property is.

We then take the net amount that the lender has agreed to accept and work with the present offers we have; to see if any of them will meet these numbers. If all of the offers are too low then we will call each of the buyers’ agents and tell them the offer is xxx amount of dollars away from happening being accepted as a Short Sales in Montgomery county. The agents can then tell their buyers what the price will need to be for them to get this particular house. If the buyers want to meet the price then we have a deal and we start all the closing procedures and loan procedures for the buyer’s side.

If the price is too far away to work then we put on all our marketing and Multiple Listing Service the price that is going to get this property.Why waste anyones time? I represent the seller to the best of my ability and I want to close this deal for them to alleviate the stress of the situation, and the strain it places on their family.

Once the BPO is in; generally it is easier and faster to sell the Short Sale in Montgomery county. When agents call us for showing instructions we can tell them about the BPO and that their buyer is now in a position to have a quick closing. We just closed on two short sales in the last month and both of them had their BPO’s done in March and we closed in May. That was not that long of a time to get to closing. In fact one of them was ready to close in March but our seller had some bankruptcy issues that needed to be addressed before we could conduct the settlement.

The pinch point that we see causing the most problems with a successful closing of Short Sales in Montgomery county is the lack of experience from the real estate agents that are involved. Choose a Top Montgomery County Realtor,  I am  on the phone with the lenders every 2 to 3 days checking on our files. Someone who knows how to deal with people must be on that phone with the processor, checking on the progress of the file and the state of progress  this particular file is at, to ensure things are going smoothly.

The HUD1 Settlement statement is the other item that needs to be perfectly correct when it gets sent to the lender with the offer and short sale package. I suggest that you have a spot on Title agent review this HUD-1 and you triple check it prior to closing. Make sure every single fee is on the HUD or else you won’t have a closing and you as the agent will have to pay the difference in the errors on the HUD. Once the HUD has been approved by the third party lender it is highly unlikely to approve any changes so pay attention to detail for a smooth closing!

Contact James Harner CRS, Certified Short Sale Realtor  of the James Harner Group, Inc. Licensed Realtor® in PA at Richard A. Zuber Realty at 610-310-7646.

To list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Boyertown, Collegeville, Eagleville, Limerick, King of Prussia, Phoenixville, Pottstown, Red Hill, Royersford, and the rest of Montgomery County PA Homes and Chester County PA Homes, call me directly at 610-310-7646 or skype me

We are accepting qualified referrals.

Copyright 2010 James Harner- Short Sales in Montgomery County

Short Sales in Montgomery County PA-What to Do After the Offer?

So, your Short Sale in Montgomery County PA in under contract, pending third party approval.

The buyer has decided to make an offer and turned in all his/her supporting documents. The seller and their agent have put together all the required seller documents for the short sale in Montgomery county PA package.

A properly trained short sale Realtor, like one with an SFR designation and a list of successful short sales in Montgomery county PA documented, will now make sure that every document required is correctly filled out and contains the loan number on every document at the top of the page. The short sale Realtor will contact the third party lender and get the instructions to get the package to them, usually more often than not, the lenders want the package faxed to them. If they want you to express mail the package make sure you have a duplicate package prepared to keep for yourself, just in case. Recently, one of our short sales; we expressed mailed the package and it was signed and accepted but somehow it ended up in unaccounted for. Next,  they lost our two faxes of a package that contained over 100 pages and they even said they never received our email when we emailed the package. So make sure you have a back up plan and a back up copy of the entire set of short sale documents.

Time Saving Tip #1: A fellow short sale Realtor recommended to me that I buy one of those stamp kits that you can change the numbers and letters, so you can create a custom stamp and place the loan number on the stamp and use that to stamp all the pages of the short sale package instead of hand writing the loan number on 80 to 100 pages of documents. Doing this will save you some time.

Once the Short Sale package is delivered to the “third party” or lender for approval, we will call the lender to make sure that they have received the package. This one action requires the patience of Job, believe me, it is a skill that I had to develop.  Some lenders are easy to get through and some lenders are a nightmare, these days mostly the latter. Sometimes my assistant has been on hold for over an hour just to reach the right person to simply find out if the package is there.

Here’s a suggestion: This is one of those disclaimers that you find on reality TV’s shows like JackAss: Please do not attempt a short sale in Montgomery county PA if you are impatient or expect everyone to jump when you say jump, you will surely get nowhere fast while on the phone with most lenders. They really don’t care about your busy day,  remember that one loan is just a number to them, once their desk is cleared of your file another replaces it and so on…and so on…..

Time Saving Tip #2: Call the lender early in the morning, get on that phone before all the other callers start calling and the processor goes from a good mood to a sour one.  The early bird gets the worm!

Once we get someone on the phone, ie the person who will be handling the short sale application,  I confirm that they have received the package and that they have received our authorization letter from the seller so we can speak to the lender.

The first thing I do is to confirm that this lender actually holds the note for this property. I have had a recent  short sale where the lender was sending the loan payments to another lender and that lender in turn sold the processing of the loan to someone else without ever telling the seller. Since the first day of giving this lender notice that we were doing a short sale that note ended up being sold twice in a period of just a couple of weeks. The lenders were playing hot potato with this loan!

Realtor Tip: Make sure that you call ahead before you even get an offer to the lender to confirm that they are still in fact the lender. Notes are being sold every day so you need to stay on top of this.

There are note holders that service loans that they do not own. In these situations the servicing takes care of all the short sale paperwork and acts in behalf of the note holder. For instance, we have an active file now where the servicing is Chase Home Mortgage and the note holder is HSBC. Chase is like the negotiator for HSBC.

There are also companies that just do Short Sale processing and negotiations that lenders will contract out their short sales to. We have had the best results from these types of companies, since they are more streamlined as a business model to handle the mountain of specific paperwork associated with short sales in Montgomery county PA. Obviously this company is also getting paid upon the completion of each short sale so they are quick to respond to us. I usually can get right through directly to the negotiator on the file.

Then there are the lenders who are trying to do it all themselves. These lenders own the note, service the note and handle all aspects of the Short Sale. These tend to be the hardest nut to crack, so to speak. To get through, as they are totally swamped with files and they do not have experience in doing Short Sales, can be an ordeal. A salaried employee who knows little to nothing about the real estate business is what you end up with. Most of the time, by the time these lenders do something with your short sale package the buyer who has lost patience is long gone!

Whether buyer, seller or Realtor Remember what I said about the patience of Job!

Final Note: If you lose a buyer, don’t get down and don’t sweat it. Once the counteroffer is made from the lender you will know exactly what they will accept for the property. This is cut and dry, with little to no room for negotiation . This  is a business decision for them and there is a VERY CLEAR that they will not go below, based on several factors that are out of your control. The next buyer that comes along will be able to close quickly, and you will know what the bank is willing to accept. The next post will specifically address the banks position on short sales and what factors determine what they will accept in an offer to purchase a short sale in Montgomery county PA.

Contact James Harner CRS, Certified Short Sale Realtor  of the James Harner Group, Inc. Licensed Realtor® in PA at Richard A. Zuber Realty at 610-310-7646. 

To list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Boyertown, Collegeville, Eagleville, Limerick, King of Prussia, Phoenixville, Pottstown, Red Hill, Royersford, and the rest of Montgomery County PA Homes and Chester County PA Homes. We are accepting qualified referrals.

For More information on Short Sales in Montgomery County PA and more go to :http://ht.ly/1UJMk

Here are short sale and foreclosure properties available in the Tri County Area.

Short Sales In Montgomery County PA Part 5- Short Sale Myths and Truths About Offers

This post specifically addresses how to decide what to offer on short sales in Montgomery County PA.

I debunk the myths and get to the REAL truths about offer prices on short sales.

There is quite a vast amount of false information regarding how much you can buy a short sale for. Like those that are watching too much late night TV about buying real estate at 50 cents on the dollar and with no money down.

MYTH- Banks and Lenders are so desperate they will accept any low ball offer on a short sale.

TRUTH- The lenders would rather work out a workable solution with the homeowner, which is usually the least costly outcome for them. The perspective the banks always take is every mortgage is a pure business decision. There is a formula that most lenders use to determine their loss and what the actual net proceeds are that they will accept at a short sale closing.

MYTH- The lenders are just jumping up and down to get your low ball offer!

TRUTH- The lenders follow policy. The policy is that we submit the short sale package from the seller along with the short sale offer and package from the buyer. The lender then orders a BPO or Brokers Price Opinion. The BPO usually comes back in a week to 10 days. The BPO is NOT an appraisal. The lender hires an agent to go out and do this Broker’s price opinion for the lender. The lender pays the agent somewhere between $50 to $100 to do a BPO. Which follows the same process as an appraisal, it just costs the bank a lot less money to get.

Once the BPO is back, they work their “magic” formula and then send us a written statement telling us what they will need to net in order to agree to sell a “short sale”. The BPO is what the last similar property sold for. They will usually accept about 5% to 10% below their BPO for an accepted offer.

MYTH- You can offer 30 cents to 50 cents on the dollar of what the listed price is.

TRUTH- The lender will only take a small percentage discount off of the BPO value as they want right below market value.

The list price is not your starting point in the negotiations on a short sale offer. You must pull up the tax rolls and check to see how much the owner owes to the lender. You will look to see if Lis Pendens has been filed. You will also need to take into consideration that if this house is in pre foreclosure there are other bills they most likely have not paid for that will affect the sale of the property. There may also be construction liens, etc. It is a best policy to pull a preliminary title report prior to listing the property, to know exactly where you stand as a listing agent.

The preliminary title report may reveal:

* Second notes or home equity lines of credit

* Unpaid HOA fees and related attorney’s collection fees

* Title insurance, doc stamps and other closing costs

* Unpaid Property Taxes

All of these things are going to have be paid at the closing. The seller is most likely not going to have all that money to bring to the table. These figures are turned into the lender because the lender will choose which of these closing fees they will approve and how much they will expect these fees to be reduced.

Once you know how much the seller owes on their property you will have some idea as to how to structure your offer.

If this short sale is in Montgomery County PA it is very likely that you could get the property for 70 cents on the dollar on what the seller owes their lender, NOT what the list price is. The list price is usually right below market value and this is where the misunderstanding comes in for most offers.

You must look at what is owed to the bank versus what the market value is; the list price. The lender is actually reducing the loan down to the market value which can be a reduction of up to 70% as many markets have dropped that much in the last couple of years.

Sometimes you will get a better deal on short sales in Montgomerry County PA if you are a buyer making an offer on a property that has equity in it and the seller is motivated to take a lower than market value offer. You must have a lot of patience when making an offer on a short sale. If you need to be in a house by a certain time in the near future trying to buy a short sale if that short sale is at the very beginning of the process and there is no BPO yet on the property, then it most likely would not be in your best interest to pursue that particular offer.

You can ask your agent to look for short sales that already have a BPO back on them and the original offer is no longer in the picture. When this happens you will know exactly what the lender will accept as their bottom net and then you can decide if you would like to pursue buying that property. In these situations we can close rather quickly, usually within a month.

So make your offer based on TRUTH not MYTH.

The information provided herein is supplied by several sources and is subject to change without notice, as the short sale process continues to evolve.

Call The James Harner Group today at 610-310-7646 for a confidential phone interview regarding your options.

Contact James Harner CRS, SFR and Realtor of the James Harner Group, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in PA at Richard A. Zuber Realty at 610-310-7646. 

To list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Boyertown, Collegeville, Eagleville, Limerick, King of Prussia, Phoenixville, Pottstown, Red Hill, Royersford, and the rest of Montgomery County Pennsylvania and Chester County Pennsylvania and Berks County Pennsylvania. We are accepting qualified referrals.

For More information on Short Selling Your Montgomery County PA Home and more go to :http://ht.ly/1UJMk

Copyright 2010 James Harner Short Sales in Montgomery County PA

This post is of special interest to buyers who are interested in making offers on short sales in Pennsylvania.

This series on Short Sales In Montgomery County County Pennsylvania- What You Need to Know continues as we explore what happens once an offer is made on a short sale listing. You should first read the three previous posts on this subject to be fully acquainted with where we are in the process.
You should know what is involved and your agent should also be able to follow and understand the process of making a short sale offer. I highly suggest finding an buyer’s agent who has Short Sale certification or can document their ability to navigate a complex transaction like this. It’s no cake walk, even for a veteran realtor unexperienced in these type of transactions.

Let us assume for this post that the seller knows what a short sale is, their Realtor has experience working in Short sales, the seller has met the qualification test to do a short sale and the seller and their agent have put together all the documents the particular lender requires to do a short sale, except for the offer from a buyer.

Now we are ready to receive an offer from a buyer. A buyer’s agent should know how to help a buyer to understand all that is involved from both the buyer and seller requirements in order to have a transaction that runs as smooth as possible in this given situation.

The first and most important thing to understand about the short sale is that the seller of the property still owns the property, still holds title to the property and still has the say so of what offers will be accepted or not. The seller has mortgaged their property and the lender to whom they pays the mortgage payments to each month is the note holder or in many cases, the note servicing agent. The bank does NOT own the property. A Lis Pendens may have been filed and foreclosure proceedings may have started but until that property is sold on those courthouse steps the owner of records is still the person that is on the county records.

That being said the owner/seller can accept an offer from a buyer but since the offer falls short of what the seller owes to the lender, there must also be a third party approval to the offer, which is the lender, to whom the seller owes their loan to.

This third party lender will require the property to be sold in “as is” condition and will also have to approve all the closing fees on the side of the seller.

As a buyer you will also need to prepare a good presentation with your offer to this third party lender.
Submit your Offer to Purchase and indicate on the new PAR agreement of sale that this home is a Short Sale.

Your agent should have these documents. If you are obtaining financing for this purchase, you need to have your lender’s approval letter. To receive this you need to make sure you have been approved for your loan. This means that you have already submitted a loan application, had your credit checked, provided all the documentation to the lender like your W-2′s and tax returns. Please be advised that should your offer be accepted it is highly likely that the short sale lender will require you to close within 4 weeks of them accepting the terms and short pay off amount.

You should choose a mortgage company who is on the ball with short sales and knows how to get your loan through underwriting in a short amount of time, although with the new Fannie Mae changes currently being implemented it may prove out that patience will be a virtue you need to possess.

Your earnest money deposit needs to be ready to place right into the escrow account the moment that the third party lender approves your offer. Make sure to get a signed and dated receipt of your earnest money deposit. Keep in mind that you should be paying with a certified check, NEVER personal check. to avoid holding up at closing for funds that have not cleared yet.

Along with your offer you should submit a nice hand written letter explaining to the third party lender why you want to move into the home and that you are an end user. We had a single mom tell of her plight to get into a home with her children and that her offer was the highest she could go. She is the one who got the house in spite of their being multiple offers on the property. I’m not saying it always works, but it can’t hurt.

Your agent should arm your offer with comparative sales in the area and other market appropriate documents to prove the case of your offer.

The next post in this series will be about how to decide what to offer on a short sale, myths and truths about offer prices on short sales.

LEGAL STUFF:( my broker says it’s necessary)This post is not intended to be or to provide legal advice. We recommend that you speak to your attorney and your tax accountant regarding specifics and to find out if this is the best option for you in your situation.

The information provided herein is supplied by several sources and does change without notice. James A Harner’s Blogs do not guarantee, and provides said information without special warranties of any kind, either express or implied. Entries on James A. Harner’s Blogs represent the opinions and ideas of the author(s).

Call The James Harner Group today at 610-310-7646 for a confidential phone interview regarding your options.

Contact James Harner CRS, SFR and Realtor of the James Harner Group, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in PA at Richard A. Zuber Realty at 610-310-7646. 

To list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Boyertown, Collegeville, Eagleville, Limerick, King of Prussia, Phoenixville, Pottstown, Red Hill, Royersford, and the rest of Montgomery County Pennsylvania and Chester County Pennsylvania and Berks County Pennsylvania. We are accepting qualified referrals.

Now that you know what a short sale is and you have passed the qualifying tests as set out in the parts above you are now ready to put your short sales package together for your agent and your lender.

The Short Sales in Montgomery County PA- What You Need to Know is a series of articles for sellers and buyers to better understand what a short sale is and how to proceed with closing with a short sale. In order to understand today’s post in the series please make sure to read part 1 and part 2 above.

Here is a timeline of activities to successfully complete a short sale transaction.

Going into this with all cards on the table with your real estate agent is imperative. You need to come clean with all the details of your financial hardship. Having trust in your real estate adviser is imperative to a successful relationship.Before you even list your property with your agent you should have a preliminary payoff statement and title report pulled. Any good agent with have a conveyancer and title agent who will take care of this for them, due to their professional relationship.

We will take care of have your short sale package put together in conjunction with your listing. This way your we will be able to expedite the short sale process. Once an offer is made on your property your short sale package must accompany that offer. You will be delaying the process and possibly lose the buyer if you are waiting until you get an offer before you gather up all your documents for your short sale package as this can take some time to prepare. There are no exceptions to this process that I have experienced or even heard about.

The very first thing that you need to do is call your lender, to confirm who the lender is and tell them you are putting your house up for sale. Make sure that the lender you are calling is still the note holder or servicing the loan. Recently, I just went through sending out a short sale package for one of our sellers only to find out that the note was sold to another lender which this can happen often and because of this, we had to start the process all over again. Therefore, you may be able to save some time by confirming your lender.

The next thing that you will need to do is write out an authorization letter for your agent to discuss your loan standing, details and short sale offers with your lender. This letter has to have the name of the person the loan is under and the loan number, as well as the name and company of your agent. Also, please make sure you date the letter. Most lenders have a period of time in for which the authorization letter is good for and after that time has expired you will need to write another authorization letter.

Here is the list of all the documents you may be required to submit. If you put together a package and then you find out they don’t need one of these documents then just take it out of the package. It is better to be prepared and find out you did more than required than to submit an incomplete package. Your agent should be checking the package to make sure there is nothing missing. The lenders receive so many files each day that they can not even look at incomplete packages.

• Your authorization letter as stated above.
• Cover Letter and Table of Contents
• Hardship letter detailing circumstances of why you are not able to make mortgage payments
• Personal financial statement. Show all income sources, current bank balances, any assets and expenses.
• 1 months pay stubs
• 2 most recent months bank statements for all accounts
• W-2′s. The previous two (2) years W-2 forms from all sources.
• Last 2 years tax returns
• Letter of authorization for listing agent to negotiate on the sellers behalf
• Loan account info must be at top of page on all documents
• Listing agent must have S.S.I. numbers for all persons on the mortgage documents
• More than 1 copy must be made in case the original is lost by the bank ( it happens!)

Once you have put all these documents together, you need to give them to your Realtor® so that they can get to work on your short sale package and make all the proper notations that might possibly need to be made. Each document will have to have your loan number written on it as well.

After you get an offer you and your agent will have to put together the rest of the package and that includes:

• Broker’s listing agreement
• Copy of MLS printout noting days on market
• Competitive Market Analysis/Regression Analysis
• Property Inspection Report with photos
• A fully executed offer of sale and purchase agreement.
• The prequalification letter for the new buyer.
• A HUD1 settlement statement from the title company with all the fees listed correctly.
• Preliminary Title Report showing any Liens or Violations.

Your agent should put together a sales package along with the short sale package as shown above, remember the person looking at this on the banks end may be 2,000 miles away and have no k owledge of the local market. They should have your current market value paperwork and evidence showing that the offer is reasonable. We also put newspaper articles in the package showing our current market conditions. Documentation beats conversation. This is one of those times you can take all the bad news and work it in your favor. James Harner makes a very thorough and compelling argument and we have met with good responses to going the extra mile with the lenders. I am putting together another short sale package today with my assistant.

Stay tuned for part 4 of our Short Sales In Montgomery County PA Series as we discuss what happens after the short sale package and offer is sent in to the lender. If you are interested in buying a short sale property, understanding what happens after the lender receives your offer will be beneficial to you.

LEGAL STUFF:( my broker says it’s necessary)This post is not intended to be or to provide legal advice. We recommend that you speak to your attorney and your tax accountant regarding specifics and to find out if this is the best option for you in your situation.

The information provided herein is supplied by several sources and does change without notice. James A Harner’s Blogs do not guarantee, and provides said information without special warranties of any kind, either express or implied. Entries on James A. Harner’s Blogs represent the opinions and ideas of the author(s).

Call The James Harner Group today at 610-310-7646 for a confidential phone interview regarding your options.

Contact James Harner CRS, SFR and Realtor of the James Harner Group, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in PA at Richard A. Zuber Realty at 610-310-7646.  To list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Boyertown, Collegeville, Eagleville, Limerick, King of Prussia, Phoenixville, Pottstown, Red Hill, Royersford, and the rest of Montgomery County Pennsylvania and Chester County Pennsylvania and Berks County Pennsylvania. We are accepting qualified referrals.

Just because you owe your lender more money than what a buyer is willing to pay for your property does not mean you are going to be able to qualify for a short sale.

Welcome to part 2 of our series, ‘Short Sales in Montgomery County PA- What You Need To Know.

(If you have not read Short Sales In Montgomery County PA Part 1 then please take a moment to read the first in this series, which is available on this site.) Take a minute to subscribe to my RSS feed, so that new articles in this series will automatically be sent to your inbox as they are published over the next 6 weeks.

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Here are a couple of scenarios I see play out over and over again when I interview potential short sale clients.

• You own a house in Montgomery County Pennsylvania and you have found out that you owe your lender more money than what a buyer is willing to pay for your property does not mean you are going to be able to just sell your house for less than what you owe your lender.
• Many people make the independent decision where their home was worth significantly less than they owed — who could afford to keep making the payments — to hire a real estate agent and short sell their home.

Lenders have a very specific sniff test you MUST pass before they will even consider a short sale. You must pass the Hardship Test. There must be a good and provable reason why you are not able to keep your home any longer.

The Hardship Test: Look at your situation and ask yourself these questions to see if it will pass the hardship test.

• Since you bought the house, have you lost your job ?
• Did you have a bad accident or illness in which you got injured and could not work?
• Do have large new medical bills that you incurred after you purchased the home?
• Have you been relocated to another city or state?
• Has your interest rate gone up so much that it is now a hardship for you to pay your mortgage?

Now each short sale request is looked at individually because each situation is different. But you must be able to prove that there is a hardship.

What is NOT a hardship?

• If you have used your house as your ATM machine and took all your equity out of your house and are now in debt, well, that is a hardship that is going to have a tough time being accepted. I would suggest that you do what you have to do to be able to keep your house.
• If you bought your house on the tip of the market and now it is worth less than what you paid for it, that is not a hardship and not a reason at all to sell your house as a short sale in Montgomery County PA.

The next test you must pass is the Asset Test, ask yourself the following question:

• Do you have assets that you can liquidate to bring to closing when you sell your house short of what you owe your lender?
• Do you have money in CD’s and Savings Accounts?
• Do you have stocks and bonds?
• Do you have equity in other properties?

If you have these types of assets your lender is not going to take all the loss and not have you bring some money to the closing table. They will only accept the short sale if you are contributing as well to the loss. However, you may be able to negotiate the loss with your lender.

The next hoop to jump through is you must pass the Asset Test, ask yourself the following question: Did you commit fraud when you applied for your loan for this property? This means when you filled out your loan application, did you lie about anything on it like:

• Where you worked?
• How much money you were making?
• What your assets were?

Any of these lies or untruths, whatever you want to call them, will be checked out by the lender. They will match up what you are saying now to what your application said when you applied for the loan. If there is a big difference in the information, than you better have a very good explanation of why the change. A good reason for a drastic change in income would be, losing your job.

We will not list your property as a Short Sale In Montgomery County if you committed fraud because you will be required to turn in a short sale package. We help you put together this package and send to the lender along with an offer and then you are exposing the fraud and that can have serious legal implications to you.

The next post in this series of Short Sales In Montgomery County Pennsylvania will cover the documents that you are required to put together in the short sale package. So stay tuned for Part 3.

Call the James Harner Group today at 610-310-7646 for a confidential phone interview regarding your options.

Please seek professional advice. This information is for informational purposes only.

Contact James Harner CRS, SFR and Realtor of the James Harner Group, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in PA at Richard A. Zuber Realty 610-310-7646 to list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Boyertown, Collegeville, Eagleville, Limerick, King of Prussia, Phoenixville, Pottstown, Red Hill, Royersford, and the rest of Montgomery County Pennsylvania and Chester County Pennsylvania. We are accepting qualified referrals.

Most Everyone who lives in Montgomery County PA Has Heard the Term Short Sale.

You may have heard about them from your friends down the street, the news media, your neighbor or even perhaps one of your family members has gone through the process of selling short.

We will go through important information that you need to know before you buy or sell as a short sale in this series.

This is part 1 of the series.

We will be covering  some important matters regarding short sales in Montgomery County Pennsylvania that you should understand whether you are buying or selling a short sale. In both instances, you must have patience.

What is a short sale? A short sale is when the homeowner owes more to his/her lender than the market value of the property. For an example: You have a loan on your house for $300,000 but in today’s market a buyer will only pay $250,000 based on the last properties that sold in this neighborhood. Well, no buyer will pay $300,000 for this house so the seller will have to ask his lender if they will take less for the note that he owes to them. If the lender says yes, than that is a short sale.

Just as there are many different lenders there are just as many different policies governing the short sale procedures. The lenders all have their own criteria of what short sales they will accept. Just because your house falls in this category does not mean that every house will be approved for a short sale.

You must understand whether a  seller or a buyer is that a short sale does take time and patience to successfully complete. In this day and age of “gotta have it NOW”, short sales don’t fit this model.

We have had some short sales in Montgomery County  PA. that have taken as short as one month to others that have been taking over 4 months to just get to the person at the lender who can make that decision. It is not as simple as just sending some documents in and that is it. There are formulas and procedures that lenders use and as I said above not all lenders use the same ones.

Some lenders outsource their short sales to a company that is proficient in the business of negotiating short sales. In these situations the lender gives the company a bottom line that they will accept, that is basically how much they are willing to lose to do the short sale. It’s just a simple business transaction to them, dollars and sense.

If you have mortgage insurance on your loan then the mortgage insurance company will also need to approve the short sale. What happens in this situation is that the mortgage insurance company will pay the lender the difference in the loss. Please be aware that many times the mortgage insurance company will want the seller to take back a note for some of the loss and pay some of that loss back to the mortgage insurance company.

The lender who you are sending your house payment to every month may own the note or they may just be servicing for the lender. If they are servicing the loan there is an additional amount of time in the short sale process because there is yet one more entity with whom the short sale will also have to be approved by. This happens a lot in situations where your note has been sold several times in a short period of time or when the lender holding the note is an investor. In this situation, the investor must approve the short sale as well.

If you have a first mortgage and a second mortgage with different lenders that will certainly complicate matters more and also puts a kink into getting the short sale approved since the second note holder will want something to accept the short sale and usually the first note holder offers a mere token to the second note holder however you will need the approval of both lenders in order to close and pass a clean title to a buyer. Sometimes the second note holder will accept the sale if the seller agrees to owe a note to them and pay for some of the loss.

Why would a lender want to do a short sale in Montgomery county PA in the first place? Well, sometimes the loss they will accept on a short sale is less of a loss than if they foreclosed on the property. Foreclosing is not a cheap process at all. In Pennsylvania it a very time consuming process that can cost the bank tens of thousands. Most homeowners can keep the lender at bay for months and sometimes even over a year. At times the lender feels it is better for their bottom line to accept a short sale.

Not every homeowner is qualified to do a short sale in Montgomery county PA and we will cover the criteria in the next post in this series: Short Sales In Montgomery county Part 2. So stay tuned…

This article was written by James A. Harner who is a Realtor and  Certified Residential Specialist and Short Sale Certified Negotiator. For more information on Short Sales contact James Harner directly at 610-310-7646 or  CRS@PaHouseQuest.com

Are you tired of feeling like your to do list is never complete?

Most people have a to do list for one reason or another. Those type A personalities (I hope you know who you are, or God help you and your children) out there probably have numerous to do lists. Those who don’t have a to-do list probably feel they should, because they’re swamped and feeling overwhelmed.

I’m going to suggest a revolutionary idea here: kill your to-do list ,as that is what I am about to do myself.
It sucks up time, and drains your motivation especially when I’ve fallen behind in maintaining the list. I get the sensation of feeling constantly guilty, like I am neglecting something. For those who keep up with the lists, as I also have for a time, they spend a lot of time on the lists they could be spending … doing something important.

While it feels good to check items off the list, it feels horrible having items that never get checked off.

The only thing that matters is the actual doing.

Here is what I am going to do instead:
I’ll wake up in the morning, and decide what One Thing I’m excited about.
Then I’ll focus on doing that, pushing everything else aside, clearing distractions, and allowing myself to get caught up in the moment.

This solves the whole list problem by:
I don’t have to check anything off, because I don’t actually have a list. I don’t have to worry about things not getting done, because I do the only thing I want to do.

But…..
What about the other things you need to do?

Then….
I’ll make a list of possible things to do, if you like, or routine tasks that need to get done for one reason or another.Just to keep as a reminder, and I don’t plan on spending any time other than adding things to it and possibly checking it once a day.

I learned that to be successful you have to be willing to delegate. I’ve done that, now I just have to work on my own issues and focus only on what I am passionate about, and not try to do all the things I “think” I should do and focus on what I WANT TO DO. In my case it’s listing homes for sale and helping familiies. I truly enjoy this and I want to only focus on doing this.

Remember….
Kill your to-do list, and forget about all the things you need to do … except the One Thing you’re passionate about, right now.