How to Short Sale In Georgia is so common of a question I thought it’d best to try to answer it.

Ultimately, there’s a bunch of other questions like when to short sale or why to short sale, but How to short sale is relatively easy to answer.

The short answer would be to contact the Jarvis Team.

The longer answer is that you really need to get a real estate agent and get an offer on the home for the bank to even consider you for a short sale.  That coupled with your hardship information is enough for you to “qualify.”  I do get angry when I see signs and advertisements for pre-foreclosure or “potential short sale.”  If your home is up for sale as a potential short sale, then your agent doesn’t know what we know.  If you’re upside down on your home and you have an offer, we can do your short sale.

That’s really the reason we think “How to short sale” is kind of silly question, because the only real components are:

1. your hardship,
2. the offer
3. and the value.

Certified Short Sale Agent

If you have been thinking about a short sale in Atlanta for any length of time you might have seen or heard about real estate agents who are supposedly certified short sale agents.  The truth is that you can get your certification to do short sales by simply putting your butt in a seat and sitting through the class.  It’s bad enough that there are real estate agents out there claiming they are certified short sale agents but what this video is about is that one agent in particular is advertising a completely bogus certification that only they have.

This particular agent is CDRS certified – to see the kind of crappy stuff that passes for certification see for yourself.  Not only this, but this agent claims to be the only agent in Georgia, while I found several with this certification.  She’s the only one that paid extra for their marketing package.  At the end of the day, all this BS is to get more listings!  Short sales are not about listings, this makes me sick to think that home owners are losing their homes because they hired an agent that cared more about the listing than actually completing the short sale.

This kind of deceptive practices could cost someone their home and I am hoping that it’s not you.  Foreclosure is a big deal, it puts the responsibility about what to do with the deficiency squarely in the bank’s hands.  Please interview your real estate agents, yes you need a short sale specialist, but you should care less if they are a certified short sale agent.

I read this on a forum post the other day and thought, this is the perfect example of an agent who does not understand the short sale process.  Before you read on, please be aware that a short sale involves getting all the parties to agree, so it’s more than a simple negotiation with the bank, there is the seller, the buyer, the agents, the buyer’s lender, the seller’s lender sometimes you have their attorneys, you have taxes, hoa’s and more.  So it’s definitely not easy, but it’s not this either:

“Banks say they’ve hired staff, set up processes for handling a flood of troubled borrowers, but consumers are not filling out the paperwork. JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, two of Florida’s largest lenders, say they make dozens of phone calls, send letters and even knock on borrowers’ doors to get documents. But both banks say few borrowers respond. [this is true! I actually do assignments for banks in some cases to try to contact these homeowners.  Most homeowners do not know that the banks would like to help them stay until it's too late!]”

BULL! WHY won’t these banks just be honest and tell us that it is more financially beneficial to them to foreclose? [For small banks, this is actually true, but for larger banks, it can cost them upwards of $50,000 per foreclosure, PLUS the losses they take on the home.] THEN, we get Congress to IMMEDIATELY draft and put into place an ‘ACT’ FORCING the banks to do the short sales or loan modifications, or face even more tax and losses. I just don’t see any end in sight for the continued decline in home values ( mainly in AZ, FL, NV and CA) [Note that GA is in this mix of states too! Also note, This agent is not licensed but in one of these states]. We are DROWNING in these states. Our states are BROKE, and will need Federal rescue. The banks and their greedy, selfish behavior is what is causing this mess to continue. We need an ‘Act of Congress’ to force banks to stop the bleeding. ‘We The People’ MUST do something!

The sentiments are understood, even if misplaced.  The truth or facts here is that the Government is doing a lot to “prod” banks into complying.  Do a search on HAMP or HAFA and you’ll see that there are guidelines to follow for short sales and loan modifications for all government backed loans.

In fact, we’d love to help you if you have an FHA loan, thanks to the government, it’s a streamlined process…. SORT OF.

If this agent had been working on any number of short sales, then she’d know that there are a ton of things in place to help consumers. Unfortunately, 60% of foreclosures have former homeowners that never called the bank.

That’s kind of the point of a short sale.   The bank is going to take less than what they owe.  Most GOOD short sale specialists will negotiate with the bank so that the owner doesn’t owe anything else once the short sale is complete.  My question is, what difference does it make if you have an offer?

Obviously, the bank is not stupid… or is it?  Have you watched the news!?

If the Bank is going to take 90% of what the house is worth and the home is worth $300K, then a $270K offer isn’t low balling, it’s legitimate.  

Now some banks will take less than that.  Some may agree to 50%.  You never know unless you ask. 

Real Estate Agents care, because their commission goes down.  If you are offerring 50% of the list price, their commission just went down by 50%!

Home Owner shouldn’t care, but if they do it’s due to a lack of understanding. 

So yes, I have Atlanta Short Sale Listings and yes, my clients get low balled… and they love it! 

Because ultimately they close!

It’s often a misconception that all real estate agents are the same.  In fact, it’s common that at the very least all agents with the same company are grouped together.  You need a great company that backs the AGENT and not the brand, and luckily I have that in Keller Williams.

However, this isn’t a recruiting pitch, it’s a message to the agents and home buyers and sellers having a tough time right now.

Short Sales are tough!  They can stop a foreclosure better than a bankruptcy but not if your agent doesn’t know what they are doing!

If you want a brief run down of all that is involved in a short sale timetable check out this article on the short sale process.

In any case, not all agents are short sale agents and nor should they be.  There’s a great deal of follow up involved.  The Jarvis Team is uniquely positioned to handle these types of transactions since we have been working with internet leads since 2002.  Most of these leads needed 8 months or more of follow up.  So we have that down!

If you are an agent with a short sale, refer it to ensure you help your seller and that you get something for your effort!

If you are a seller, give us a call at 770-374-4667! We can stop foreclosure but we can’t help if you don’t call.

If you are a buyer wanting the absolute BEST deal on the market, contact us immediately at jarvisteam at gmail.com.

Search all Atlanta Homes here or view all the Atlanta Short Sale Listings