Mitch 's Blog

Hi Everyone!

Since I'm on here all the time offering up free tips, I figured I would take it one step further for our Active Rain community.  For a very short time, I am going to be offering free website evaluations on a first come first serve basis.  Depending upon how many I get, will depend on how many I can do.  Remember, I have to run The eHomes Realty Network, 100MPH Marketing and of course my Real Estate company, Tropical Realty of Suntree. 

So, for a short time, go to this link, leave me your info, and I will do my best to give you a quick evaluation.  Please don't expect a long detailed evaluation.  I'm going to look at your site, check it out, and let you know a couple of things that you could do to improve your site to help capture more leads. 

Also, if you are a Realtor or Broker in Brevard County Florida, I can't help you.  I'm sorry about that, but I can't teach my local competition how to compete with me.  If you want to know, you can always leave your company and come work for me...if I have any space available.  Right now I think I can use 2 Agents at my Merritt Island office and maybe I can fit one more in my Melbourne office.

I look forward to helping you!

Go to:

http://www.ehomesrealty.com/index.cfm/Free_Website_Evaluation

I get this question on a daily basis from Brokers and Realtors all around the country.  There are tons of ways to market your website.  Firstly, if you know anything about me or have read anything I write, you then know that I spend my entire marketing budget online.  I'm not a big believer in marketing in magazines, newspapers, billboards or basically any other marketing where I can't measure exactly what my rate of return is for my marketing.  Internet marketing has opened the door to manage your marketing like never before.  You will know how much money you spend, how many people click on your site, and how many people become leads and how many of those leads become sales.  Of course you can break this down even further, but I'm not going to get into that here. 

Banner Ads and Paying Per Impression

I see so many people that are buying Internet marketing and paying per impression.  Paying per Impression is calculated by how many times your site is shown on the Internet.  For instance, if you look to your right you probably see an ad.  I'm not saying they are paying by impression, but this would count as one impression.  All you have to do is go onto most Newspaper sites to see tons of realtors buying rotating ads that show up when people do search for Real Estate in their area.  These companies usually charge a certain dollar amount per 1000 impressions which could sound like a great deal.  For instance, if they charge $25 per thousand impressions that sounds great.  1000 people are going to see my ad for only $25.  Let's go back to the ads to the right.  How often have you clicked on those ads?  Have you even clicked those ads.  In this example, every time that ad shows up, counts toward those thousand impressions.  Let's say you have a 1% click through rate which is probably high.  If 1% of those viewed click on your site you are getting 10 people out of 1000 to click on your site.  Now consider that almost every Real Estate site uses their home page as their landing page, how many people are going to contact you out of that 10? One if you are lucky.  That's a hefty cost per contact considering that most Realtors will only convert 1 out of 50 or so leads to a sale at best.  Wow! 

So let's look at something that is more predictable and a lot less costly.

Pay Per Click Advertising

Pay per Click (PPC) Marketing is the extremely predictable and much less expensive than Banner Ads.  First let's explain what this is for those who don't know.  PPC is how Google, Yahoo and most other Search Engines sell their sponsored searches.  These sponsorships are seen when someone types in a specific search term (keyword).  For instance.  we use Melbourne Real Estate as a keyword along with 499 other keywords.  (This time of year you won't find me which I'll explain why shortly).  I know that if I buy spot on Google, when someone types in Melbourne Real Estate, I will be seen.  I only pay when that person clicks to my site.  Hence the name pay per click.  Depending upon how good you are at playing the PPC game, you can buy your clicks for as low as 10 cents.  However, for a keyword like Melbourne Real Estate, even if you are good at it, you will still spend about $1 or more per click.  If you use the example from above, you will now receive 20-25 people coming to your site for that same $25. That's about 2.5 times the traffic for the same cost.  The best part is you will know exactly how many people will come to your site when using PPC.  You control your marketing dollar.  You control your destiny.  The hardest part of a good PPC program is the amount of time you need to spend managing your keywords. 

To me there is a better way....

I have found that using a third party traffic supplier usually will produce better leads as well as  free up my time to do other things besides manage my keywords.  Currently I use Homegain's BuyerLink program.  This program generally costs me up to 50% less expensive than doing the keyword marketing myself but best of all I don't have to spend a moment of my time managing my keywords.  I basically save two hours per day.  You can check them out at http://www.homegain.com/buyerlink/index_html?ht=landing_bl&entryid=10708 to see if they have any cities available where you live.  I have never been a fan of the Internet companies out there that tell us Realtors that they have great tools.  It took a lot for me to be convinced by them to try their program.  Once I did try Homegain I noticed an immediate change in my conversion rates.  I went from about 10% to 16% and now sometimes around 20% the  same day I changed.  Crazy!  My costs also went down to about 79 cents per click.  This isn't supposed to be an advertisement for Homegain, but I wouldn't suggest if if it didn't work so well.  In 2007, as I'm sure I have told many of you, we had 193 Internet sales which I can lead all back to traffic I bought through Homegain.  Keep in mind, through this program we are currently showing over 100 different buyers every month.  However, this is only resulting in about a 20% close rate because of our market being so bad here in Florida.  Once our market comes back a little, our 100 people per month or more will turn into 50-75 sales per month.  I can't wait! 

To me, even if you receive a good response from a Banner Ad, it's just not predictable.  I know like to be able to know how many sales I'm going to get each month.  I know that if I product 1000 leads in my office I'm going to have around 30 sales. 

Ok, with all this said, before you venture out into any type of online marketing, you need more than a website.  You have to have an IDX system attached to your website and you need to understand landing pages as well as you must have a system to capture leads and convert them to sales.  We currently are spending about $5 per lead and my better Agents are turning one sale from 22-25 leads.  Basically it cost me about $100-$125 per sale.  Not to shabby!  If you want to see how a landing page with lead capture should look, go to one of my landing pages at:http://www.melbournehomesearch.com/index.cfm/Melbourne_FL_Real_Estate

Here you will see how not only do I capture their name, email and phone number, I also will know which town they are search for a home as well as price range.  This allows me to supply them with great info and a powerful marketing campaign to convert them to a customer and then to one of our happy customers! 

If you are not sure how to do this stuff, feel free to contact me.  As long as you don't work in Brevard County Florida, I will gladly give you some tips and check out your current website to let you know what you should change before spending a penny on Internet Marketing. 

I have had a few Agents email me recently asking me about Internet leads.  They usually say that they don't feel like you could possibly take care of your customers when you capture so many leads.  They ask, "Aren't they just a lead to you instead of a customer?"  Absolutely not I say to them!  For some reason many Agents feel that an Internet lead is different than getting a floor call or a call on an ad you placed in the magazine or a sign call.  Every sale you have ever had was a lead prior to becoming your customer.  Yes, your husband or wife's friend that decided to use you as their Realtor after you contacted them was a lead.  Your sign calls are all leads.  Your floor calls....yup, they are all leads.  So why would you consider your Internet leads any different. 

I believe it's all in how you treat your leads to turn them into customers. At Tropical Realty of Suntree in Melbourne Florida, we treat every lead that comes into our office regardless of how it gets there, as a potential customer.  With our "over the top" customer service program, everyone who inquires on my site is treated with tremendous customer service.  Not only do our leads turn into customers, they come back and refer people to us all the time.  In fact, just about every sale that comes to my office has come from an Internet lead...even all our listings!  Check out my happy staff at www.melbournehomesearch.com and you can see how happy we are because we treat our leads/customers so great!

So when someone says to you that treating leads systematically is wrong.  Tell them that you probably give your customers better service and produce more volume than they could ever think of producing.  Our business is Real Estate sales.  Sales is all about lead generation and lead conversion.  How you get your leads has nothing to do with how good you do at converting them.  Either way, you are converting leads to customers.  Take care of your leads and they will turn into customers that take care of you!

I read an article today that Realtor.org put out talking about the 6 best practices of online leads.  The author is a great guy and knows his stuff.  However, he misses the boat on this one.  He spends a good amount of time discussing how important it is not to call your leads.  This is completely wrong.  As most of you know my Internet program through either 100MPH Marketing or my eHomes Realty Network, the reality is if you are not calling your leads which supply a phone number, you are letting buyers and sellers slip through your fingers.  The worst thing you can do is not make use of the information you are given to help your customers buy their home.  Of the over 20,000 people we have in our database, I can probably count on one hand the amount of times a person who supplied their phone number to us that was upset when we called.  In fact this is what we normally hear: "You are the first Realtor to actually follow up with us." They are very excited and happy to talk about their real estate needs!

When I first starting figuring out Internet leads back in 2002, I didn't make phone calls.  I only corresponded with people that contacted me.  My first year of Internet Marketing I sold over 50 homes, but more importantly I lost more than 50 sales by not making phone calls.  And these are only the ones that emailed me letting me know they bought a house.  With these stats in hand, I started on the phone.  What I found was awesome!  Everyone wanted to talk to me and they were very happy I had called.  Many became customers and in fact, we still get many of our customers from 2002 and 2003 who are currently buying homes with us because of our contact.

This brings me to something that is bothering me more and more.  I have been reading all these things from people that are supposed to be Internet experts in this business.  No offense to the author of this article on Realtor.org or any other writers, but I would like to know their stats.  I want to know what makes these people who are making millions of dollars off my fellow Realtors by talking about stuff that they are not really experts.  For instance, I went to an Internet Seminar last year put on by one of the biggies in the Real Estate Internet world.  I have to tell you, I know more in my pinky than this guy knows in total.  Not only was I very disappointed in what he taught with his panel of Internet experts (they knew less than him) but I was more upset about the amount of tapes, books and websites he was selling with information that was very basic and really a waste of money and time for any agent.  He sold a ton of stuff and all I could think was how tainted these Realtors will be when they read this stuff and get no results.  It's old school Real Estate trying to keep up incorrectly with the Internet.  Scary!

Why am I saying this?  I'm just getting aggravated with these people.  The next time someone wants to tell you or sell you on their expert abilities on the Internet ask them for their stats.  If they can't tell you how many homes they have sold or their team has sold by using their stuff, run!  I hear so many Agents on Active Rain complaining about how they were ripped off by this company or that guy.  The question to ask is very simple.  How many homes have you sold using your techniques.  Not stats, no deal!

Oh, by the way, last year my staff of 14 sold 193 homes on the Internet.  This year we are projecting at around 225-235 homes and maybe higher.  All this in the worst Real Estate market this area has seen in years.  I'm not sure if that makes me an expert on Internet lead capture and conversion, but I will put my stats up against anyone else out there!  If you have questions, ask me.  I'll be glad to help you as much as I can.  Of course unless you sell homes in Brevard County Florida because that would take business away from my Agents! :)

I'm sorry for going off on all those Internet Experts out there as I know there are a few of you who like myself get it and understand the relationship between the Internet and Real Estate.  For those of you who do get it, understand it, and truly want to help others, this is not meant for you.  The others, you know who you are, please be understanding that taking advantage of people that don't know any better is not only unethical, its just down right now nice.  Realtors please be careful what you pay for out there.  There are a lot of people who prey on Realtors in this type of market.  Be the judge.  usually if it sounds to good to be true....you know the rest of the story!

Ok, so the market isn't the best it has been in a long time.  It's been very difficult to find buyers and sellers are still unreasonable.  I was talking to a Realtor the other day that just shocked me.  She said that she had only worked with 2 buyers all year and hasn't sold a home all year.  Firstly, I my curiosity was peaked to try to understand how someone who works full time could not have any sales this year.  Is this normal? 

I decided to probe a little deeper to see how this can be.  I asked her to tell me about her day.  She told me that since she didn't have any business happening, she was working part time in a doctors office for $9 per hour for 4-5 hours per day in the mornings.  Then when she got home she checked her email and had some lunch.  Around 2pm she would check her email once more then go into her Real Estate office and talk about how bad the market is for an hour or so.  They would also talk about how they need to really start figuring out how to make money in this market or they are going to have to quit.   I sat there with my mouth open the entire time. 

In reality, this is probably happening a lot more than I can imagine.  It poses the question I have been asking since I got into this business.  Do Realtors look at themselves as business people or employees of the Broker where they work?  Well the answer couldn't be anymore clearer since the market started this down turn.  While most Realtors have complained about the market, the Realtors and Brokers who had written business plans and sound business models are still making money and keeping alive.  Are they making a fortune like in the 2004 days of fun, probably not.  Are they still in business and preparing for when the market comes back?  Yes! 

The faults:

1.  They don't take their business as a business - This is my job that doesn't pay very well right now.

2.  Don't take responsibility for their failures - It's so easy to fall into the trap of blaming the market for how you are not making money or being busy.

3.  Not willing to invest in their company - It's up to you to decide if you want to grow your business.  There are multiple opportunities out there currently to create revenue streams for Realtors. 

4.  Time Management - As with the woman I talked to above, if you don't go to work every day and work, then you won't succeed.  Just think, the woman above is making about $1,000 a month.  If she actually put that many hours per day into building her business she would make much more than that!

The Fixes:

1.  Start looking at your business as a business.  If you don't have a business plan with goals and a means to obtain those goals, then wake up tomorrow and start.  You can't reach what you can't see!  If you don't write down your goals and visions, then there is no way to get there.

2.  Start making yourself accountable for your time management.  Wake up early and start working.  Committ yourself to working at least 8 hours per day and researching.  All the info you need is at your finger tips on the computer.  Find out what the people in your area that are making money are doing. 

3.  Invest the time and the money.  Starting and running a business costs money.  Once you figure out which avenue you want to pursue, figure out a budget you can afford to spend.  I take 20% of every sale I have and spend it on marketing.  The bigger I got, the more I spent. 

4.  Stop blaming the market.  If you think the market is at fault, you will never be able to win.  The only reason you are not successful right now or at least making a living, is because you are comforted by everyone else being in the same boat.  Stop the negative thoughts and start thinking positive.  The reality is, if you work hard and have a good plan, you will start making money again.

It really comes down to running your business as a business.  We have about 4000 Realtors in my county and I would guess that there are probably 100 actually making money.  It is true, our price per sale is really low ($160k) but that doesn't stop my Agents from working hard to get and retain business.  Most of my Agents have less than 4 years experience and some have only a year of experience.  One thing they all have in common is that they are all selling houses.  That doesn't mean they wouldn't want to sell more, but my worst agent this year has sold 4 or 5 houses.  One of my Agents has 8 closings this month! 

Why are my agents successful and so many other Agents are not?  It really comes down to a good business model, Agents that work very hard, Agents that set goals and plans each year, and they all have a great attitude.  They know if they come in the office with negativity, I'm going to ask them to leave.  My motto this year is "if it aint fun, I aint doing it!".  If you walked into my office on any given day you would see we are all having fun. 

You can too!  If you stopped worrying so much and buying into the negativity, you would be selling houses.  Wake up tomorrow with a smile on your face and start writing down your plan!

Well it's getting closer and coming along quicker than I had thought.  Starting on Monday, The eHomes Realty Network will be available for Brokers to join.  I am very excited about offering Independent Brokers the ability to finally have access to the tools that the Franchises have (actually most of what we have is better!) and to start teaching my member Brokers how to succeed by using the Internet and more.  If you are a Broker or work for a Broker that needs Marketing, Internet, and Business help as well as great training programs for it's agents and so much more,  then drop me a note and let me explain to you how the program works. 

My site won't be finished until the end of the weekend, but you can check it out at www.eHomesRealty.com. 

If you are reading this and can think of anything that you would like to be trained in to further your Real Estate career, drop me a note at mitch@mitchrealty.com.  I'm interested in hearing what you feel are your weakest areas of expertise in Real Estate.

Thanks for taking the time to check out the eHomes Realty Network.  The time has come for us Independent Brokers to come together as one!   

I'm just curious on how people become featured on this site?  Is it based on the points you earn or your ranking in your area?  If you have a second and know, drop me a quick note.  Thanks!

I woke up today...I guess that's really all the matters!  As I looked around my office today I couldn't help notice how hard my agents are working.  My heart goes out to them knowing that they are trying to take on the worst Real Estate Market we have seen in so long.  Yet for as hard as they are all working, and as frustrating as it is for all of them at one point or another, they still haven't lost site.  They know what is important in our business and I'm proud to have all of them as my Agents.

Sometimes I look over them as a proud parent.  Yes it's true that I give them leads every single day, but they still have to make it happen.  It's sort of like a football team.  You can have all the plays, but sometimes you just don't have what it takes to beat the other team who has better plays than you.  They have the plays and I know they are the best.  Even though the average Realtor on my staff has 2.5 years of experience and all with us, they act as seasoned vets!

It's amazing to me all the Agents I read about on here and especially in my market, Brevard County Florida, that just look so negative.  Don't they realize that this business is all about attitude.  Many people have asked me why I got so big in such a short time (I was number one in my office after my second year). The answer is simple.  I smile, I help, I care.  That's it.  Those three tools are the best tools you can have to be successful in this business.  You see, everything you should do revolves around these three things. 

I smile and spend every moment I can thinking about how lucky I am that I am alive today and how lucky my customer is to have the opportunity for the American Dream of Home Ownership.

I help my customers with all I have.  They know this and this is why I never had to worry to about losing a customer to another Agent.  When you do your best to help your customer, you will certainly get paid in the end.  Never think about the money, think about the joy of knowing you did the best job you could to help your customers.

I care so much about all my customers.  I will do anything for them and go out of my way to make sure they have the best possible Real Estate experience I can share.  They know I care.  They know that when they call me 5 times in a day I really don't get upset, I really care about their feelings during this almost always stressful time.  I care about my customers before the sale, and I care about my customers long after the sale.  I don't have to tell my customers I care, they know.

So as I sat there today looking over my Agents and this awesome Brokerage I have built over the past 3 years, my heart raced with excitment.  It won't be long until these great Agents of mine get to experience a normal market and then their sales will go through the roof.  They have done a great job of hanging on during a time when most of the newer Agents in our market are now working full time jobs some where else.  I thank God every day that I have been blessed by so many wonderful people representing me and my philosophies. 

I just thought I woud share just a day in my life. 

Hi Everyone!

As many of you know, I am opening The eHomes Realty Network in a few weeks.  Things are going great and we are set up to offer Independent Brokers and Teams the ability to have all the franchise tools you would get when buying a franchise without the franchise fees. 

As I move forward toward my opening, I would like your help in making sure I am covering all the bases and needs for my fellow Realtors.  On the site I offer a ton of benefits of membership, but I'm looking to you to help me know if I am missing anything.  Is there anything else, besides what I have listed in the following link, that you would like to see if you were a member of a company like mine. 

Below is my current list of benefits of membership.  Please read them when you have time and let me know if you would like to see additional tools.  The whole idea of this site is to offer Brokers and Teams the ability to compete with the big boys without having to change their name that they have worked so hard to promote as well as spending the thousands of dollars per month in fees. 

Thank you in advance for your help.  I appreciate it!

Member Benefits

·        Internet Consulting - I have been considered one of the true Internet experts in the Real Estate world.  Before you throw your money away on useless programs, talk to me.  This service alone can save you thousands of dollars and its all part of your membership. 

·        Website Design and Consulting - We work with our exceptional website design team who will design your site to your specs.  You will get the best in website content and lead capture.  Already have a site?  That's great!  We will work with you to help make your site the best it can be!

·        Business Consulting - This is the 15^th company that I have started and operated.  I have a wealth of business knowledge in operations, systems, purchasing, hiring, conventional marketing and Internet Marketing.  I can answer most any business question you might have.  If I don't know the answer, I will find it for you.

·        Referral Network - As we grow eHomes Realty Network nationally, so will your referral network grow.  We will only be accepting a few Brokerages from each County as we don't want to share all our information with everyone.  You will know when you refer someone to a member of our network that they were a Brokerage we felt would be an asset to our members.  I believe we all can help each other.

·        Online Sales Training - All of our training has been broken out into 10-15 minute training modules available both in video (coming in July 2008) and in a downloadable manual to give your Agents.

·        Discounted In-House Training - Currently we are offering our membership a 25% discount on in-house training.  One of our trainers will come to your office and train your staff.  This usually takes two days.
 

·        Marketing Forum - Through the eHomes Realty Network website, you will have the opportunity to post questions and answers on a variety of marketing needs.

·        Business Forum - As with the Marketing Forum, you will be able to post your questions and answers on any business scenario you might have.

·        Volume Buying - One advantage of being a member is the ability for us to establish volume buying deals with many national vendors for office supplies, computers, marketing and more.

·        Product Testing Ground - Since we have tested many products, we will have an on going list of products that either we have tested or one of our members has tested.  We will add the product and allow our members to write reviews.  If we haven't yet tested a product, there is a good chance that one of our members might have tested the product. We are all here to help each other!
 

·        National Brand Recognition - We are branding our name, marketing and advertising nationally for increased recognition of your company with buyers and sellers.

·        Recruiting Programs - We will provide you with training and programs for successfully recruiting more high producing agents to your company.

·        Mergers & Acquisitions - We provide an M&A service to help you acquire or merge other companies into yours.  That means more agents and an immediate increase in revenue and profits.  We provide training programs as well as full services to guide you through this process.  We find the companies for you!  We can also assist you, if and when you decide to sell your company.

·        Continued Growth - We are not stopping with these great opportunities.  At eHomes Realty Network, we are committed to making this the one stop shop for all your Real Estate needs.  There is no longer any reason to join a franchise when you will have all the franchise benefits and more from The eHomes Realty Network

Thanks again for your help.  I really appreciate it.  Please feel free to check out our site, it's not done yet, at www.ehomesrealty.com.

This is a post I put on my blog for my customers.  I received a ton of emails from our customers with many of them changing their minds on looking for shortsales.  They appreciated that I saved them a ton of time and frustration.  My guess is your customers may already have had the misfortune of not getting a short sale they waited months to hear about.  Hopefully they learned and are now looking for homes that are not short sales!

Short Sales - Are they worth the wait?

It's Sunday night and I should be sleeping, but there is so much happening in the Real Estate world right now it's hard to go to sleep. As most of you have seen, Short Sales have now become very popular. Currently about 25% of all our listings are Short Sales.

First, let's spend a minute and explain exactly what is a Short Sale? Let's say you bought your home in 2005 for $300k. Three years later the market has crashed and the home you went out on the limb to buy is now worth $200k. To make matters worse, you may have bought your home with zero money down and an adjustable rate mortgage to boot. Your rate has gone up and that hope of your home going up in value $100k like your friends did only a couple of years ago is gone. You now qualify as so many do these days, to ask the bank to let you sell the home for the current market value of $200k. Once approved by the bank, you can now list your property to sell. So, a short sale is selling a home for less than what you owe on it. The seller has to prove to the bank they are a hardship case.

The benefit as a seller is they have the opportunity to get themselves out of their bad investment. It will still hurt their credit, but not quite as much as a foreclosure. In many cases the bank will not let you out of the home unless you sign a note saying you will pay the difference back to the bank. Most of the people put in this situation will choose to foreclose because they don't have the money to pay the bank. However, most banks are not asking for a note and they realize, in hind sight of course, that they should have been a little more conservative when deciding who they should or shouldn't give loans.

The benefit to the buyer, or at least the perceived benefit, is they will get a great deal on a property. Granted, there are some great deals to be had through Short Sales. However, most of the banks are not going to take much of a hit below current market values. Many times the bank will receive offers, then do an appraisal on the property to determine if they will accept any offers.

The Problem

It all sounds so simple doesn't it? Well it isn't! Short Sales have proven to cause a lot of heart break and distress. Let me tell you about a couple that we have dealt with recently.

The first couple put an offer of the home of their dreams. They fell in love with this home from the moment they walked through the front door. Their offer was full price based on the advertised listing price. They were very excited. The offer was submitted to the bank the following day. At this point we hadn't done many Short Sales and when we had, they were handled within a few days at most. So we waited for the banks answer....and waitied....and waited. Six months later we finally heard that the bank would not accept the offer. Yes, you read correctly, six months later. After some quick thinking from my Agent, she was able to convince the bank to take the offer. Our customers were full of emotions going from depressed to very excited again. Everything from there until closing went great. Our customers had their home inspection ($300), Termite Inspection ($75), appraisal ($300) and survey ($350). The got to closing and the seller found out she was going to have to sign a note for the difference in the short sale...around $57k. She refused and walked out of the closing room leaving our customers with their mouths hanging down and the tears flowing. They were devastated. To make things even a little worse, the next day the seller said she would sign. Our customers emotions were doing what you would expect by now. The got to closing and the seller again refused to sign. They were destroyed. Don't worry, there was a very happy ending to the story. We found them another house they loved even more and they closed in 10 days through our mortgage company. Everyone was happy in the end.

The second story won't be as long. It's basically the same as the first story in the beginning. They fell in love with the home and put an offer $3k above the asking price. We thought for sure they would get this home. After waiting for about three weeks, the bank came back and said they wanted $265k. This is $8,000 higher than our customers offer and $11,000 that the other Realtor had it listed in the MLS. Our customer was extremely upset and thought it was a bait and switch by the listing Realtor. The reality is the banks will not give us the dollar figure that they will take until we bring them an offer. Realtors can only do their best at guessing what the bank will take and list it around that price. It's really a mess.

The point I"m trying to make here is that Short Sales sound good on the outside but you have to be prepared to wait a very long time and possibly not get the home or pay more than you had offered. The banks are understaffed trying to handle an ever growing number of homes coming to them for Short Sales.

Now let's go back to the beginning of the conversation when we talked about the situation inwhich one can try to sell as a Short Sale. The reality is that the bank is not going to take less than market value in most cases. You are going to pay the same price for this home as you might with a regular resale with no issues.

My Advice

So what happens if you fall for a Short Sale home? Keep looking is what I've told most of our customers. You can put an offer on the Short Sale home, but you should keep looking for your perfect home while waiting for the answer from the bank. Chances are, with the amount of homes on the market, you will find another home with not so much baggage as the Short Sale home. In the end you will pay approximately the same amount of money for either home.

I know that everyone wants to get the best deal they can get. That is human nature and the American way! However, there are better ways to get good deals then doing a Short Sale. For instance, there are so many builders who have homes for sales less expensively than most resale homes. Also, look at homes where the owner has bought their home before 2002. Chances are they didn't pay much for their home and even wtih the market crash, they still have plenty of equity. The more equity they have, the better chance you have of buying the home at a better price. Of course if they don't have to move, they won't be going down to much either. But if the do have to sell, they have the flexibility to lower than price.

Hopefully that will clear up any thoughts and or questions that you may have had on Short Sales. I know it can get quite confusing out there. Believe me, when this first started happening we were all confused and we sell houses for a living. Now that we have done so many of them, we can help you though with ease. However that doesn't make the bank go any faster. We can just prepare you better for the possible heartache you might feel. So take my advice...Make your Short Sale offer if you want, but keep looking for your ferfect home. I know we have one available for you right now.