A Short Sale Listing Can Be a Walk in the Park

One day several years back, I woke up and realized that I had an epiphany. Not a religious epiphany but a business epiphany—if there is such a thing. I suddenly saw short sales for what they really are—a perfect opportunity to become a master listing agent.

Every real estate coach and presenter says, “If you don’t list, you don’t last.” After all, it is much easier for an agent to manage 15 listings than 5 buyers. And, with our national unemployment rate so high and our housing market in the toilet, there are certainly many homeowners out there who may need to list and sell their homes in a short sale.

Short Sale listings are fairly easy appointments. They are a lot easier than the listing appointments of several years back. Long gone are the discussions of commission. The agent wants to list for 6 percent commission. The seller wants to sign for less. Since the short sale does not allow for the seller to net any money and the commission is generally paid by the short sale lender, discussion of the commission with the seller is a conversation long gone.

The second conversation that becomes secondary in a short sale listing appointment is the conversation about purchase price. Long gone are the days when the seller wants to list for several thousand more than the price they figured out after surfing the Internet. The bank determines and approves the price in a short sale. Again, the seller nets nothing so the conversation about the purchase price is short and sweet.

Because these two traditional seller stalls and objections to listing are gone, the listing appointment is a relative walk in the park. There are so many people that need to sell their homes right now. If you can generate leads and take listings, your pipeline should be pretty darn full. Now, negotiating the short sale approval may be a little bit tougher. But, I guess not everything can be easy, right?

Photo: flickr creative commons by Eustaquio Santimano

Note By BiggerPockets: These are opinions written by the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BiggerPockets.