Expensive lesson learned in Short Sales

[Nick J.]

Let me first start by saying that I am far from being a newb in Short Sales. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not dumb enough to 'claim' to be doing short sales since 1952 or some crazy stuff like that.

As most of you know that Will Barnard and Rich Weese have teamed up and started their own transactional funding. I've used transactional funding before and know how it works and know that they are charging basically the same thing as everyone else besides the 30 day BofA funding which I believe they are the only ones doing that (to my knowledge at least).

I wanted to address rule #1 in Short Sales and that is USE YOUR OWN DAMN TITLE COMPANY!!!!!

here's how this lesson went down. Remember what you are reading because you could very well save yourself A LOT OF MONEY.

I was shorting a property(actually having it outsourced because I'm at least that smart lol) and we knew we were going to get it really low, I had it listed at just below FMV and quickly received several offers, one of them being for $13k over asking price and it was a conventional loan with no seasoning issues.

The buyers agent was already a little annoying at first when we(my listing agent) told them it would be a double close whereas I was buying it and reselling it to them. Of course the buyers agent tried the whole "that's illegal" crap which didn't last long b/c my listing agent told them to pound sand if they didn't like it.

My agent also told them we would close with my title company and the buyers agent threw a fit demanding we close with her title company. I found out later why that was. I had a moment of weakness and said fine, whatever.............She claimed they knew how to do a double close etc.... so I figured since they really wanted it so bad I wouldn't mind getting paid somewhere else this time.

so I got the title agents name and called her and started to get her things needed, this was Friday. On Monday, she wasn't there anymore and the new title agent had no clue what was going on. The buyers agent, the title agent, my listing agent and yours truly were on a conference call b/c all of sudden they had no clue what I was talking about. I tried to explain as though they were dumb Geico cavemen.

I received a call later the next day saying that they wouldn't do it because of some lame @ss excuse, by this time I had already received the approval so time was a ticking and I was trying to pop Will's cherry by being his first deal funding. Little did I know Justin already tainted his funding virginity so I owe Justin a kick in the shins :mrgreen:

Not only were they NOT going to execute a completely legal transaction the buyers agent also said that they were still going to close their end of the deal with their lame @ss title company. So I quickly called one of the many other title companies that know what they are doing and that I have worked with before and explained them what my moment of weakness caused and so they got to work trying to improve my situation.

Now the story is just getting started. For Will and any transaction funding source, they required your A-B and your B-C contracts as well as some other docs from the title companies. We were running out of time by now(this is really summarized as this was going on for weeks it seemed) and the B-C title company were screwing things up for me.

We finally at the last minute and after 2 extensions from the bank we were shorting were able to finally get everything squared away and funded on the A-B side. Wheeeew! what a PITA that was, now all we have to do is cash out and call it a day right? Not so fast!

This I believe was a Wednesday when I finally got it funded. Now it's all in the B-C hands and they were for some reason in no hurry(big surprise, I know) they kept coming up with excuses and would not answer the phone or call back. I even emailed the buyers agent and for those that know me, you know that wasn't a pleasant email to read if you are on the receiving end of that email. I'd include that email here but I can assure you that the Realtor police will hunt me down and burn me to the stake so we'll leave that alone.

to summarize this really long post, and I didn't write it as a blog simply b/c more eyes are on it here and this is a lesson to be learned.

I had it estimated at NET $38,000 meaning, after all fees and commissions I would take home $38k, a week and a half later and having to pay penalties and daily rates etc.....(which by no means am I upset with, that's the cost of money and I should NOT had a moment of weakness to begin with) I only ended up with $29,xxxx

I lost $9,000 dollars because I was stupid and gave into a some lame (fill in the blank) who was representing some buyers who were more concerned with throwing a fit over stupid little things.

Since, I've gone back to my ways and all offers are accepted with at least a $5,000 EMD and if you don't like it, pound sand is the response you will get from my listing agent. Close is to happen with my title company and if you don't like it, pound sand is the response you will get from my listing agent.

These two little things would have saved me $9,000 if I only listened to my own advice. Now you why lessons learned are usually at a price and why having BiggerPockets is great b/c anyone who reads this could very well saved themselves that much money. Don't get me wrong, $29, 266.00 is a great payday but it 'could' have been more and not as much headache.