All Forum Posts by: Jackie Patterson

Sameer,

We do nationwide short sales, and have focused exclusively on that for almost 3 years. We get referrals from homeowners, real estate agents, title companies, buyers, investors and even some attorneys and lenders. As far as bidding on 15-20 to get 1-2 under contract, that is a very low success rate. That would not be acceptable to us, and probably means extremely low offers hoping to strike gold, or people that just don't know what they're doing.

The mortgage forgiveness debt relief act extends through 2012. That is designed to exclude income from the discharge of debt on principal residences. Anyone who negotiates a short sale should make it a priority to get deficiency judgments waived. The whole idea of a short sale is to walk away with a minimal impact on your credit (as opposed to a foreclosure, and no money out of pocket. This includes commissions, pro-rated taxes, etc.

There are at least 2 transactional funders that are regulars on this site that I know of.......Ted Akers and Duane Ortega. I would take the time to get to know them, and what terms they are offering before you need their services. Greg is right, building relationships and trust is really important. I've used Ted several times and been very happy. I've spoken to Duane on the phone, and get his email updates, but haven't used his services yet.

Welcome! It's great to learn and explore, but nothing beats jumping in and doing. There are lots of people here willing to help.

Welcome, Ryan! Nice to hear from a new investor. As you work through your first flip,it will be interesting to hear your experiences.

The birddog should be able to email you the contact information of who's going to call you if nothing else.

You agreed to pay xxx amount for the home with a $25,000 earnest deposit. You didn't notice when reviewing the HUD that it was incorrect? You didn't notice that you were bringing $10,000 less to the closing? If paying that $10K now will throw a wrench into your rehab, wouldn't it have had the same impact if you had paid it when you were supposed to at closing? I find it hard to believe that you didn't notice a $10,000 error in your favor. Would you have noticed it if they were charging you $10,000 too much?

That being said, I always carefully review every HUD prepared for our short sales, and often find errors. Yesterday I was reviewing for an upcoming closing and found that the commision wasn't figured correctly and was too low. I'm sure the Realtor would have caught it however since I've never met an agent that couldn't figure 6% in their head immediately! :D

I'm interested in hearing what others have to say, but my opinion is that you have an obligation to pay it.

I have my birddogs email me the pre-qual form. I keep those emails filed under the birddogs name, and in my document management system, the first note is who the referral source is. I have one very large referral source, and use a google docs spreadsheet (that he and I can both view) that lists all of the referrals and a status update.

Welcome, Karen. You'll enjoy all the information and interaction on this site.

You're going to have to make a legitimate offer on the property to work the short sale. Have you considered what you will do if you are unable to find a buyer, or if there is not enough spread for you to do a back to back? I think it's very unfair to the seller when the short sale is dropped because there is no profit. The property has been tied up for a considerable amount of time and is that much closer to foreclosure. We often get asked to deal with these, and sometimes it's too late for us to help, or it's been screwed up so it's more difficult. I would also be very wary of any of the gurus. It doesn't sound like you know much about the short sale process. I would suggest if you are making a legitimate offer, that you work with someone that knows what they are doing. That will get better results for you and the homeowner.