short sale fee

[David Montgomery]

Out of curiosity is there a standar fee when negotiating short sales? Or can you change your fees from deal to deal? Any help would be greatly appreciated as I am new to short sale negotiating and I just picked up two distressed homeowners.

[Scott Hubbard]

As a negotiator, you need to be aware of who your client is and the consider the value your adding to the deal. This is first and foremost.

Agents and investors save time by outsourcing their negotiations only if they are taking advantage of the time saved to build their pipeline. I find those who I work for are successful and will not complain about your fee as long as they are increasing their closings.

I actually charge a flat fee and a percentage. The reason I do both because a lot of the time, as a negotiator, you might have to reduce your fee in order for the deal to work. In those cases, I will gladly do the right thing and surrender my fee even if it means losing money.

However, when things do workout, I want to also maximize my returns as to balance out those where I took a fee reduction.

Truth be told, there is not a lot of money in this line of work unless your able to do serious volume. If your looking for a negotiator to outsource your own leads, you really should find one who has a track record.

Fees vary greatly, but so does experience and success. Shop around.