Real Estate Investor · Newport Beach, CA · Member since 2008 · 30 posts · 0 votes
It seems the flow of communication from REOs is extremely slow. The 3 day offer has gone out the window - it typically takes weeks between each correspondance. As a hands-on and pragmatic kind of person, this is difficult for me to deal with. One REO in particular has never responded to a submitted offer and has never responded to any of my agent's messages.
In general, I know calling seller's agent is frowned upon, but is that still the case in today's REO market? Do you call direct? Why would this be bad? It would seem we could negotiate a deal and I could submit an offer based on that deal in a matter of minutes rather than weeks and weeks if we talked directly.
I'm not looking to cut my agent out - he does a lot for me and certainly deserves his cut - I'm just looking for more direct communication...
Real Estate Investor · OH · Member since 2008 · 4k+ posts · 1k+ votes
17y
You could certainly call the REO agent directly, but I wouldn't do that if you have a buyer's agent that is valuable to you. If I were your agent, I would drop you in a minute if you did that to me. In addition, agents talk to each other, and I suspect that your name would be trashed all around town if you went around your agent.
I have bought a bunch of REOs and the fact is that dealing with banks is extremely frustrating. They don't observe your deadlines and they often will hold out for MONTHS or even years waiting for a price they will never get. None of this is your agent's fault and dealing directly with the REO agent often will not improve things.
Real Estate Investor · Toledo, OH · Member since 2008 · 234 posts · 53 votes
17y
I'm in a similiar situation dealing with an agent that slow to respond. It's frustrating to say the least. Especially when you just need verification that a document was received and sent on to the bank. Important stuff like that.
I've contacted the selling agent directly in our case but unfortunately that doesn't seem to speed up a response. He is just as slow to respond to me as he is my agent.
We've been waiting over a week now just to see if he received the documents we sent and if they were sent on to the bank.
Residential Real Estate Broker · Grand Blanc, MI · Member since 2008 · 885 posts · 316 votes
17y
In addition to the banks being extremely slow to respond, I've also found the seller's agents aren't innocent either.
There's typically a select few agents in any given area that carry the bulk of the REO listings. Since they have so many listings, they often lag in getting timely responses back to buyer's agents.
It's a Catch 22 if you call the seller's agent directly because they'll likely be mad you're not working with your buyer's agent. And, your buyer's agent will be mad because you doubt him/her. Either way the information is going to be slow to come down the chain.