Working With Reators for Leads. It Takes All Kinds!

[Karen Parker]

:roll: I recently, on the advice of those making way more money at this than I am, went to using realtors to get leads for short sales. This sounds easier than it really is. I thought I would share with you some of my experiences and the folklore that these people get in their heads. Most don't want to give you the time of day when they find out you're an investor. Why? Well I'm pretty obstinate when it comes to trying understand why things aren't going my way. So instead of letting them just brush me off, I kept pestering, calling and e-mailing to find out why. Almost every realtor I spoke with said they'd had problems with investors (probably inexperienced ones) tying up a house under a lengthy options contract preventing its sale even after the bank negotiation fell through. Other reasons were the agent got sued by the seller because the short sale process was not explained properly. And although these are valid reasons, some things I heard just made me laaaaugh! I had one realtor in Orlando tell me that now, since everything had to be disclosed you couldn't get a title company to do a double close. WHAT!! :wowo: I was stunned. I've always disclosed everything. What's to hide. I'm an investor and I'm out to make a profit here. The banks already know this. Do they honestly think I go through months of their torture because I like sitting on the phone listening to elevator music. But wait! Here's the one to top all of them. I actually had one realtor in the Tampa Bay area tell me that using an options contract is called "equity stripping". This was a new term for me. I had to have her explain why. And of course she couldn't so I explained why it was not. Which is simply the fact you can't strip equity from a property that has none. :joker: At this point I'm thinking, no wonder investors don't like realtors :help:

Then, suddenly, I found one :clap:

I had to look all the way to Houston but I now have a realtor who works with me and sends me just what I'm looking for. It was worth the search.