The truth behind listings:)

Hard work and working smart is all it takes? I'm not so sure. At least I'm not so sure about short sales anymore. Some of the things the banks are doing literally fly in the face of reason and make a mockery of all the hard work I do on behalf of my clients, let alone the long wait times for bank approvals inherent to these transactions. For example, after three months of dithering, two banks finally gave me the green light the other day to sell a property short (I won't bore you with the details of how we had to FORECLOSE on the owner for not paying on his land contract deal a couple of years ago before we could even list the darn thing). So anyway, we finally list the property and get the green light several months later for the short sale by the end of the month (which involved several extensions because at first they expected the buyer to close within SIX DAYS of being given the green light, hardly possible when the dude is financing the darn thing and has the option to do an inspection) but nevermind all that because FOUR days from now (we just found out TODAY) the secondary lienholder is taking over the primary lienholder's mortgage servicing and therefore we might be, you guessed it, starting OVER. No, I am not kidding. And the cotton pickin' bank won't tell me whether they'll allow the property to close as agreed by all parties by the end of the month or, when I call in four days, I will instead be told that we are starting over (that is, if the buyer even cares to stick around at this point). Oh and my commission was cut down to the nib (a mere fraction of the original commission plus the total dollar amount of the transaction is one of the smallest I've ever done) AND the seller is paying me in part with services that may take months to collect. Is all this worth it? No, actually. It is not, at least not from a financial perspective. I could have sold a dozen properties in the time it is taking to MAYBE close this one paltry deal. That being said, the seller is extremely grateful that I am trying to help him avoid foreclosure but that doesn't exactly make it a cakewalk emotionally - especially when they received a foreclosure notice in the mail TODAY ("not to worry", the bank said, "it's just a separate parallel processing thing". I'm trying to stay positive and see this one through but I, for one, will definitely be needing a break from these kinds of transactions going forward. They're not fun, they're not lucrative and they attract the worst kind of buyers (uneducated, cheap, non-commital, confused, cantankerous, I could go on...) - not that all transactions are going to be fun or lucrative or both but COME ON, people, this is RIDICULOUS. I could have made more money working at Mickey D's! The only saving grace is that my client feels like someone actually cares about trying to help him avoid foreclosure. And fortunately THAT, is worth a LOT to me.