Price reductions. I love ’em and I hate ’em. I seem to have mixed emotions about them. If “The Lovely Wife” is reading this, she will be shocked that I even wrote the word, emotions. Emotions and having them are not my strong suit. Price reductions. I love them, because this is what is needed, to get my properties sold. I hate them, because in my own mind, I am an expert on pricing and should have priced the home properly to begin with.

But you know, in this more difficult market, with rapidly changing property values, I have found myself asking for and getting more and more price reductions. Over the last couple of weeks, I have reduced the asking price on 8 of my current listings. Even though they were already “priced right” and were showing up as the lowest priced properties in their category, they still were not selling. Maybe, I’m just being impatient. I was spoiled, the last couple of years, with my listings selling in a week or two and now I have several listings that have been on the market for over 2 months. So what do you do? You reduce the price. Anything will sell if the price is right.

I know, some will say, “But Broker Bryant, if it’s priced right, just wait, a Buyer will come along. Why should the Seller have to give away their hard earned equity?” Well, in my market, Poinciana Fl, I see values coming down. Not only coming down but coming down rapidly. Homes, I could easily have sold for $200,000 a year ago, are now sitting on the market, priced at $179,000. Not only are they not selling but it is difficult to get showings. Since, I can’t predict the future, it is best for my Sellers to sell now. If prices continue to drop, the longer they wait, the less the house could be worth. The reality is, if they have owned it for more than 2 years they probably are in a good equity position anyway. So, my advise to them is, reduce, sell and move on.

I have a few guidelines that I use to trigger a price reduction.

• No showings in 10 days. Reduce
• No offers in 30 days. Reduce.
• Anxious Sellers. Reduce
• Approaching holidays. Reduce

The best time to talk about price reduction is at the listing table. I let the Sellers know about current market conditions and give them my “triggers” for a price reduction. Every time I talk to them, thereafter, I mention the possibility of needing to reduce. No surprises. They know I am going to ask, if needed. They are prepared for it and ready to take my advice when the time comes. Never make the mistake of underestimating your Sellers. They read the same papers and watch the same news, that we do. They know the market is changing. They want to sell.

There are things you can do to make the Sellers more comfortable with reducing the price of their home. Here’s a short list that you can use.

• Keep them focused on their reasons for selling.
• Remind them how much their home has appreciated over the last couple of years.
• Show them this appreciation in a percentage. It’s probably more than they think.
• Remind them that it’s a great time to buy. They can make up some of the reduction on the purchasing side.
• Remind them that unless they can pick up their house and move it, the market "is what it is" and we have to deal with it.
• Remind then how cute the grandchildren in Georgia are and how nice it will be when they are closer to them.

Finally, stay optimistic. Let them know you are working for them and will do everything you can to get their home sold.

And then, reduce it. If that doesn’t work, reduce it again and repeat until sold. I hate price reductions. But I hate expired and withdrawn listings even more.

So folks, know your market, make adjustments if necessary, ask for the price reduction. Make it your goal that if your sign goes up, it only comes down on way to the closing.

The good, the bad, the price reduction!

Ok, so I spent the day showing properties. This, I have to say, is one of the things I hate most in life. I avoid it all costs. Realtors have made tons of money off of Buyers that I hand over to them. But today was special. I was with Sellers, of mine, who are needing to downsize and I wanted to give them an idea of what they can buy for less than $100,000. So not only did I spend all day showing listings but I was showing manufactured homes. This is something I have never done. The whole purpose of this little adventure was to be able to reduce their current home by another $10,000 to expedite a sale. They really, really need to downsize.

My Sellers are close to 70 and are no longer able to maintain their property. All of their money is wrapped up in their home and it is slowly disappearing. My sellers are being crushed by a rising mortgage balance and a depreciating market value. I know what you want to say, "Broker Bryant, how come their mortgage balance is going up? Aren’t they making payments?” Well, technically, no. In reality, yes.

Several years ago, these Sellers were sold on the idea of a Reverse Mortgage. At the time, it seemed like a great idea. No more payments and you can live in your house until you die. Here in lies the problem. No one can predict the future. Life has a way of going where it wants to and we are just in it for the ride. How were they to know that their health would fail and they could no longer maintain their 1750 sq ft home? How could they predict property taxes and insurance rates skyrocketing and property values taking a plunge? Could they have foreseen their interest rate going from 1.5% to 6.47% in the first 6 months? Life is funny like that, it goes where it wants to go.

So here is their current situation. They are on a fixed income. Property taxes and insurance payments are now equal to the PITI payment they used to make on their mortgage, that had a balance of $69,000. Since they do not make payments and the principle balance and interest only “payment” goes up every month, their current mortgage balance, after 3 years, is $101,000 and climbing by about $600 to $650 per month. This payment will continue to increase every month until they die or sell. Their house, that was worth $250,000 last year, is now worth about $230,000 and decreasing rapidly. So where does this leave them? Being crushed between a rising mortgage balance and a decreasing house value.

Now I will be the first to admit that I am ignorant when it comes to Reverse Mortgages. Over the last month I have been reading up on them and trying to become more knowledgeable. I have several Sellers right now that either have one or are thinking about getting one. Are Reverse Mortgages a good thing? I just don’t know. Are they for everybody? Definitely not. Should homeowners have counseling before getting one? Absolutely. Should we, as Realtors, recommend them or give advice on them? I don’t think so.

From what I have learned about Reverse Mortgages, they can either be a blessing or a curse. Extreme caution is recommended.

For my Sellers, it has been a curse. It was a short term solution to a long term problem. If counseled properly, it would have been in their best interest, to of sold their house a couple of years back and downsized. Now they are forced to sell. If not, they will be crushed financially.

Unfortunately, in order for this to work, we are now looking at manufactured housing. Hopefully, I can get their home sold and they can pay cash for their next house and have much lower taxes and insurance. We did look at some fairly nice places today and they have "got their heads around" what must be done, to secure a future, they can afford. I am so pleased that I am able to help them. This is why I do what I do.

Nice folks, in their 70s, should not have to worry about being crushed. I hate showing properties! But I hate my Sellers being crushed even more. My Sellers are not grapes!

Kristal Kraft had posted today, about Realtors being problem solvers, not sales people. I have to say, I could not agree more. As usual Kristal is right on. If you are working Real Estate, as a salesperson, you are probably missing the boat.

In this more difficult market, being able to solve problems is crucial, if you want to stay afloat. As an example, I have two Sellers with three problems. My job today has been trying to come up with a solution that will work for both of them and hopefully help me achieve my goal too, which is getting paid for a job well done. Let’s face it, I love solving problems and I love getting paid. If I don’t get paid, “The Lovely Wife” can’t go shopping and then there is no peace in my life. Peace is good. I like peace.

So, Seller #1 has a real nice house that we have been trying to sell for about 3 months. He has three children, with another one on the way and desperately needs a larger house. He can’t buy until we sell. So he has two problems, needing to sell and needing to find an affordable house to buy.

Seller #2 just listed with me this week. He is an out of town investor and has a house that was previously on the market for 6 months with another Realtor. I have now priced the property below market value and it will sell fairly quickly. The problem is, continuing to make mortgage payments is causing him a hardship and if it doesn’t sell very quickly he will need to rent it out. He really doesn’t want to do this. His payments aren’t too high but he is retired and is on a fixed income. This house was bought to flip but his flip has flopped.

After I listed Seller #2’s house, it dawned on me that this would be the perfect home for Seller #1 and his growing family. So like the good little Realtor that I am, I had Seller #1 look at it and he agrees this would be the perfect home for his family and it is the lowest priced 4 bedroom home around and only 11 months old. The perfect house, for a great price.

He can’t buy it though without first selling his house. Now as you know, getting a Seller to accept an offer contingent upon a property selling is very, very difficult. Especially when it is not even under contract yet. And to complicate matters more, Seller #2 needs a quick sale and will probably get it, with his house being priced the way it is.

So, I have been pondering this and have decided to jump out of the box and see what I can do to solve these problems for my Sellers. This is what I came up with.

Seller #1 is going to make an offer on this house contingent upon his property selling. We are going to ask for a “on or before” 120 day closing. This will give me more than enough time to sell his house, since we just reduced the price. I know what you are going to say, “Broker Bryant, how are you going to sell this deal to Seller #2 who has already told you he needs a quick sale or he is going to rent his property out.” Ok, so here is our game plan. Seller #2 does need a quick sell. Why? Well, he said he could not afford the payments. But you know what? Seller #1 can. The offer we are going to write will state that the Buyer(Seller #1) will make Seller #2’s mortgage payments during the 120 contingency period. How’s that for solving two problems in one stroke. Seller #1 can get the house he needs at a great price. Seller #2 can stop making payments and have his house under contract. Also, his capital gains will now be a 2007 event instead of a 2006 event. Broker Bryant will get 3 transaction sides and now I only have to concentrate on selling the one house, instead of both.

Both Sellers will be happy and “The Lovely Wife” can go shopping. All in all a great day’s work. And I must say, the view outside of the box is really nice. Very peaceful. So folks, forget about selling houses this week and solve some problems instead. Who knows, you may just be rewarded for your efforts.

Broker Bryant jumped out of his box again!

Let the games begin! Ok, so I just received a call today. I’ve kind of been expecting it but was hoping it wouldn’t come for a while. The call I received was from an Appraiser. Now, since I sell a lot of properties in my market, I get one of these about every week, asking me about a recent sale, so they can use it in their appraisal. I always try to answer any of their questions and try to be as helpful as I can. Why? Because I want to be the “go to guy” in my market. Also, Appraisers buy and sell houses. I usually get a couple of listings a year from Appraisers wanting to sell in my market area, Poinciana Fl. So having them call me is a good thing.

Today was different. Today, he was asking me about one of my pending listings. He had plenty of sold comparables but the few he had, that were pending, were listed for about 10% below recent comparable sales. I spoke to him for a few minutes and he explained to me that he was making downward adjustments based on current market conditions. Did you catch that? Downward adjustments. As in, discounting the value of the sold comparables. Folks, this is not a good thing. This means lenders are checking and double checking house values and are wanting to see “true” market conditions as opposed to just recent sales. It also means values in Poinciana Fl are coming down. I already knew this but was hoping I was wrong.

Poinciana is one of those Florida markets where you can still find affordable housing. Most homes are in the $185,000 to $250,000 range. What happened over the last couple of years, was that, all the “investors” from S. Florida and NY were feasting on Poinciana real estate. They were here by the hundreds and purchasing vacant lots and new construction like crazy. Because of this, houses that were selling for $100,000 in 2004 were selling for $225,000 by mid 2005. Lots that could be bought for $10,000 in 2004 skyrocketed to $60,000 to $70,000 by early 2005. Fortunes were made in Poinciana during 2005. But, and this is a big BUT, if you didn’t get out of the investor market by December 2005, you are now stuck. As of this morning, there are 1,500 houses on the market in Poinciana. 800 of these are less than 18 months old and most of them are vacant investor owned properties. They are flips that have flopped. Not only that, but builders have pre-sold hundreds of houses that they have just now started building. These houses were sold at 2005 prices.

This, my friends, is a recipe for disaster. Property values are plummeting. Poinciana is in trouble. My Sellers know this. I have told them we must sell and we must sell now. It is going to get worse before it gets better. Our peaceful little town has been raped by over zealous builders and fly by night investors. And frankly, it *&^%* me off! But what do you do? It is what it is and I have to deal with it. My strategy is to become the short sale and foreclosure expert in my area. I want to be the “go to guy” if you are in a distressed situation. I can’t change the market but I can try to position myself to help as many people as I can to get through this and hopefully still have a shirt on their back.

I expect to be very busy. I expect to make a lot of money. I expect it to be a “bitter sweet” success. Let the games begin!

Clip art courtesy of madlattern.com(madlattern art)

I had a pretty good day today. I got to do the thing I enjoy most about Real Estate and that is negotiating. The good thing about negotiating is, that if I’m successful, I get to place one of my listings pending. That means that in 30 days or so, my Sellers can move on with their lives and I get paid. I love that, getting paid. One of my favorite things. The reward for all my hard work. Of course “The Lovely Wife” and the relative I never asked for, Uncle Sam, get most of it, but that’s OK, I really enjoy what I do and the money is secondary.

Anyway, I got to negotiate two deals today. One was pretty straight forward, a fair price that my Seller agreed to and a two week closing. Now, I like two week closings but let’s be real. They asked for a two week closing on a 100% financing deal and put 25 days for a financing contingency and 21 days to do inspections. Math was one of my only strong subjects in school and for some reason these time frames just don’t add up. So, we decided to counter back with a 30 day close. Everything has been accepted and we are good to go. I guess the point on this one, is to, please, put realistic time frames in a purchase offer and make sure the closing date is not 10 days before the financing contingency runs out. Oh yeah, make sure the Buyers can do the inspection before the closing date.

Now, the second one was little more confusing. Maybe I’m missing something here. So here goes, a cash offer but wanting the Seller to give back $5,000 at closing. These Buyers want to give the Seller $200,000 cash and then have the Seller give them back $5,000 at closing. Now what the heck is this about? Does this make any sense at all? The only thing this achieves is giving my Seller more closing costs. Why would you give someone cash and then ask for some back?

Well,I had to call the other Realtor on this one and ask the question. His response, “They want to put up a fence.” Uh, excuse me, why don’t they just pay for a fence? They are paying cash right? He assures me that this is a cash deal. They are closing on the house they own in a couple of weeks and paying cash. I just don’t get it. I have negotiated hundreds of deals and this one I just don’t get. Maybe it’s not really cash. Now that sounds right. It’s not really cash and for some reason they think this will slip by. Oh well, I think I will have to sleep on this one. I think tomorrow I will have to get to the bottom of this fence thing. My Seller and I can have a good laugh in the morning. Humor really is good for the soul! I can't make sense of the fence!

I don’t know about you but I love things in multiple. Multiple zeros on my bank balance, multiple listings, multiple closings and of course, multiple offers. Multiple offers, are one of my favorite things. It really places my Seller in the driver’s seat when it comes to negotiating and normally means we will be able to get a higher price for the house. What I don’t like, is a common misconception, from Realtors, that I have to disclose multiple offers to them. Or, that I have to disclose the existence of any offers to them, whether received or not. Sometimes they expect this before they even show the property. I have even been accused of being “unethical” for not disclosing an offer. So first, let me make something perfectly clear, offers, whether one, or multiple, are nobody’s business but my Seller’s and mine. How we choose to handle the negotiations or disclosure is 100% my Seller’s choice.

Now just in case you don’t believe this, here are the articles from our Code of Ethics that state what I have to disclose:

Standard of Practice 1-15

REALTORS^®, in response to inquiries from buyers or cooperating brokers shall, with the sellers’ approval, disclose the existence of offers on the property. Where disclosure is authorized, REALTORS® shall also disclose whether offers were obtained by the listing licensee, another licensee in the listing firm, or by a cooperating broker. (Adopted 1/03, Amended 1/06))

Standard of Practice 3-6

REALTORS^® shall disclose the existence of accepted offers, including offers with unresolved contingencies, to any broker seeking cooperation. (Adopted 5/86, Amended 1/04)

Accepted offer, means, a pending contract. Florida law is quiet on this issue, as it should be. Negotiations are not dictated by State laws. And I’m sure you State’s laws are quiet on this as well.

So that leaves us with, how do we handle multiple offers? Well, I am sure there are many ways, but here are a few examples of the way I do it and that seem to be quite common in my area. I will be curious to hear how they are handled in your area.

• Notify all Realtors/Buyers of multiple offers and request “highest and best” by a certain day and time. This technique is used quite a bit in my area, especially on bank owned properties. It is a pretty good way to weed out the lookers and concentrate on the serious buyers. Works best when you have numerous offers. Once they have submitted “highest and best”, the Seller can pick one that is acceptable, choose one or more to continue negotiating with or set another day and time and ask for “highest and best” again. Repeat until there is an acceptable offer. I’ve been the Buyer, on several foreclosures, where this technique was used and frankly, I ended up paying more than I wanted for the property. It turns into a competition and I hate losing. So this method definitely works.  

•  Don’t disclose the existence of other offers, pick one and try to negotiate it. If you can’t, pick another one and do the same. The problem with this technique is it may take a few days to negotiate on one contract and while you are doing this the other one may withdraw their offer. Not one of my favorites but can work if you are already negotiating when the second offer comes in.

• Don’t disclose and negotiate all offers at the same time. I actually have done this many times. The key though is to make sure the Seller does not sign the counters. If they do, and the Buyer accepts it and signs, then you have an accepted offer and the game is over. This can be a good technique if all the offers are pretty close in price and all the Buyers are equally qualified. Then it is just a matter of who responds the fastest(motivation). You don’t disclose, because then they would all respond quickly. You want their motivation to be, that they are anxious to purchase, not that they are anxious to beat out the others.

• Disclose the existence of other offers and the amount of the offers. Play them against each other. Let them know they are competing and if you want this property you will have to beat the offer, or offers, I have on the table. Continue until only one is left. Hopefully it will be way over list price by this time. I used this technique during the boom time, so many times I can’t count them. Very successful way to negotiate.

It is very important, that how ever you want to negotiate multiple offers, it is your Seller’s choice, not yours. Do not disclose multiple offers to another Realtor with out the permission of the Seller. After all, it is his deal not yours. So there you have it. I hope this helps. I am by no means an expert on this but I really do love multiple offers.

So next time a Realtor ask you this, “Do you have any offers on this property” try this “I’m sorry, that’s confidential information but as we speak, this property is still actively on the market".

Liar, liar pant’s on fire. Not me!!

Today was one of those days that reminds me of why I do what I do. I am in Real Estate to help people. Sometimes I can and sometimes I can’t, but I can never stop trying. This is a true real life example of some of the problems our elderly have in this country. The names have been changed to protect my Sellers. So I’ll just call them, The Lovelys. Why? Because they are. They are lovely folks who will be turning 80 in January.

The Lovelys sold their house in NY and moved to Florida about 12 years ago. From what I understand everything was going pretty well until they got a big tax bill from the IRS for the sale of their house in NY. It seems they had hired an attorney to handle all of this for them and for some reason a mistake was made and they ended up owing the IRS $50,000. This came up about 1 year after having bought their new house, they were planning to retire in. They didn’t have much money to begin with but were able to put down a good chunk as a down payment on their new home and only had to finance about $70,000. This gave them a manageable monthly payment that they could afford on their fixed incomes. Well, when they got slapped with this big IRS bill they had to refinance their mortgage to pay if off. This made keeping up with the payments more difficult, so at the age of 70, Mr. Lovely had to go back to work.

Well, life being the way is it they encountered several more of life’s difficulties and had to start borrowing money on their credit cards to be able to meet their monthly bills. This went like this for quite a few years until eventually the payments became to much for them and they refinanced their house again to pay off the consumer debt.

Again, life being unpredictable, threw a few more challenges at them and the credit card debt accumulated once more. Let’s fast forward to the boom market of 2004.

Property values increased drastically and their house built up quite a bit of equity. They met with a Realtor in late’04 to put their home on the market. Their plan was sell their home, payoff their debt again and have some money left over to move up to Georgia and pay cash for a place in an adult community. Ahh, paradise! No more bills and Mr. Lovely could finally stop working, since he was then 78 years old. The only problem was they decided to go with Buy Owner instead. This company is not a Real Estate company but a marketing company. For $2,600 they will give you a yard sign, a stack of blank contracts and place your property on their web site. That’s it. They are not licensed and cannot perform the duties of Real Estate. This includes, not being able to give you an opinion on the value of your house. But hey, the consumer doesn’t know this. So The Lovelys, ask them if they think we can get $375,000 for their house and of course the company representative says, “Sure, sounds great. Give me $2,600 right now and I will go get a sign out of my trunk and get you on the web site later this week.” This company is so nice they even mention that if your home doesn’t sell in 12 months they will reimburse your money IF you list with their affiliated Real Estate Company. Ok, so I’m going to jump ahead 12 months.

The house didn’t sell. Big surprise. Even in the boom market a house valued at $269,000 will not sell at $375,000. Anyway, The Lovelys decided, they best get their $2,600 back, so they decide to list with the affiliated Real Estate Company. The Realtor comes over and explains to them, that no, you must have misunderstood, we don’t refund the $2,600 you paid. What we do is reduce the commission to make up the difference. So instead of charging you 7% we will only charge you 6%. And by the way, we think you need to reduce the price to $345,000. Well, The Lovelys, are a little hesitant but really need to sell. That have wasted a year already, with nobody even looking at they house, so they agree. A couple of months into this new agreement they contact me desperate to sell their home and cannot understand why their house has not sold. After a little research, I explain to them that they are overpriced by about $80,000. The Lovelys are devastated. They still have 4 months to go on their listing agreement and if they cancel they have to pay a $2,000 cancellation fee. They have no money. The initial $2,600 was placed on a credit card and they have been using them to supplement their income for several years now.

This is getting really long now, so lets just say after another 4 months they have listed with me at $259,000. Unfortunately, the boom period is over and was way before I took the listing. I have had it now for 60 days and this brings us up to today. Mrs Lovely has been very depressed so I suggested we meet today and let me look at their finances, to see if I can, maybe, come up with an idea, that they have not thought of.

Folks, I must say this was a very emotional day for me. Remember these folks are almost 80. When I first starting going through their debt, I had to fight back tears, then I got angry at the credit card companies and the banks for giving these folks so much credit. Then I got mad at the Marketing Company that took their money. Then I got mad at the Realtor who priced their house $80,000 over market value and caused them to miss the boom period, when they could have sold. Then I got mad at me for not being able to help them out of this mess.

So here’s the situation, in all it’s ugliness. They owe $175,000 on the house. They owe $55,000 in consumer debt. This totals $230,000 debt. Their fixed income is less than $3,000 a month. The house has 2 mortgages on it. The first is a ARM and in March ’07 will adjust from 6.95% to 9.95%. The second is at 13%. Since the Real Estate market has changed, their house right now, max, is worth maybe $235,000. Do the math. Even if we get lucky and sell the house for top dollar, it is not even enough to pay off their debt. Where are they going to live? What are they going to eat? They have no children. They are alone. They are screwed. They are almost 80, with no hope showing.

I was honest with them. I told them they need to meet with a bankruptcy Attorney to see about getting rid of the consumer debt. Then we need to concentrate on selling the house. I will work for free, if need be, to make sure they get as much money as possible from the sale. Maybe they can get out of this with $50,000. Then, they need to move to Georgia and find a nice rental in a retirement community and enjoy what life they have left. They still have each other and that is what is important.

This story is actually a lot more complicated and a lot more disturbing than this but I’ve run out of space. But please, keep these folks in your prayers.

When a house becomes a prison!

Ok so I’m here to toot some horns today. Not mine, but I do feel compelled to highlight a couple members of ActiveRain and a few off site Blogs. Why? Because I think they have something important to say and we all should be made aware of it. I’m talking about mortgage fraud. I know this subject has been beaten to death but it really is important and will be affecting our business drastically over the next few years. Mortgage Fraud is running rampant through out industry. It is leaving a trail of ruined lives and is affecting market values everywhere. And we all pay the price. Mr. and Mrs. Homebuyer are going to be facing a very difficult time when it comes to finding financing to purchase a home. Lenders are going to be forced to tighten up their qualifications or they are going to end up going out of business.

This is going to put pressure on housing prices and unfortunately will spoil the chance for a lot of honest, hard working people to own a home of their own. We have not even begun to see the effects from all the shady lending practices and investor fraud that has taken place over the last few years. Folks, I am here to tell you, it is going to get ugly. And it is going to get ugly very quick. Remember the Savings and Loan crisis? I am not a negative thinking person but I think the coming crisis is going to be just as bad.

As Realtors, we need to be able to spot the signs of fraud and we need to report it to the proper authorities. I am by no means an expert on fraud. So, I am going to provide with some links here that may help you to educate yourselves and will also give you some resources to report it.

First, I’m not sure if you have noticed but we have new member by the name of Ralph Roberts. For those who don’t know, Mr. Roberts is a Realtor, author, lecturer, investor and fraud expert among many other things. Read his bio. Mr. Roberts has written 5 excellent books on Real Estate sales and investing. Anyway, his site at www.FlippingFrinzy.com is an excellent resource for learning about fraud AND reporting it. I encourage you to visit it.

Another member of ActiveRain, Michael Richardson, has been on both sides of the table when it comes to mortgage fraud and has now made his mission to stomp out fraud one transaction at a time. He is an expert on this subject and has a great website www.preventmortgagefraud.com.

I have read several good Blogs this week also related to mortgage fraud. You owe it to yourselves and our profession to read these and educate your self on fraud in all it’s ugliness.

Damion Flynn’s ActiveRain post, from last night. Blew me away that people can be so blatant about teaching others how to become criminals.

Another great Blog dedicated to mortgage fraud. http://www.mortgagefraudblog.com/

And this one you will really like. IamFacingForeclosure.com. This is a Blog from 24 year old “investor” who is now facing foreclosure on his properties and possible jail time. His Blog is very open and details his endeavor into committing loan fraud. I could not stop reading.

So folks, read it, learn it, recognize it and report it.

Man, do I have a headache today! It seems like I have been banging my head into a brick wall all day long. I have five deals I’m trying to negotiate and it has been like pulling teeth just to be able to reach the Realtors and communicate. I am pretty excited to have all these offers but honestly think I am going to come out of these negotiations with a big fat goose egg for deals on the books.

First, all the offers are on different properties, so no multiples. I guess that’s a good thing. They all have several things in common though, extremely low prices, 100% financing and 6% seller concessions. All five of them are like that! Is that amazing or what?

Secondly, on three of them, I can’t reach the Realtors. I know what you’re thinking “Broker Bryant why don’t you just fax over the counters?” I would love to do that! That is what I want to do. I don’t need to talk to them I just want to be able to fax over my Sellers’ counters. That’s it. Nothing more. Just a simple faxed response. Just for fun, lets make a little list of the issues I am encountering today.

One has no cover sheet at all, which means, I don’t even no where the offer came from! Now that makes it real hard to respond. Let’s just set this one aside until they contact me.

The second Realtor was a little better, there is a cover sheet. The only problem is, when I call the phone number a man answers, that is not a Realtor, and swears I have the wrong number. Ok, lets try to fax then. “Beep! The number you have called has been disconnected.” Ok then. I guess this one will get pushed into the waiting area on my desk with the other one.

Now the third one is really good. Looks like the cover sheet was written in crayon by a two year old. No way I can decipher this one. Ain’t happening. Again, let’s just place it with the other two, in the waiting area.

I did get lucky on the other two offers, I can read the contact numbers and they work. Except the Realtors barely speak English. Now, I normally do not have a problem with that. Spanish is the second language in Florida and it’s my fault for not learning to speak it. Maybe next year I will take a class. However, I do have a problem with sloppy offer contracts. Let’s just say I can’t read them and I’m not able to communicate enough with the Realtors, to clarify. So on these offers, my Sellers and I, have just decided to write new offers with what we want and fax them over. We’ll just wing it.

Oh, I almost forgot, I did have a sixth offer, as well. The Seller and I decided it was fraudulent so I just threw it straight in the garbage can. I did however, E-mail the Realtor and sent him a link to my latest fraud post. Maybe it will help him.

So all in all, a very busy, time wasting kind of day. It’s days like this I wish I hadn’t quit drinking 12 years ago. But that’s another story.

Anyway, I’m going to take 2 aspirin and call them in the morning. As soon as I find my Lil’ Orphan Annie decoder ring.

Today, I worked on pushing one of my deals towards closing. The usual stuff, make sure title work has been completed and forwarded to the lender, get the appraiser in, check on the status of the survey and order payoff info. All is going well and according to schedule. The closing is scheduled for this Tuesday the 31^st and it looks like we will make our closing date. This seems like it may be a pretty boring post about a normal closing BUT here’s the kicker, this deal was negotiated yesterday!! That’s right yesterday. Now I have had some pretty fast closings in my 12 year career but 7 days! That is definitely a record for me. And to really top it off, it is a 100% financed deal of $275,600! This is what I call a pre-approved Buyer.

Angus Woodbury (moo) had posted a few weeks back, about a 5 day closing, so I guess I won’t break his record, however, if they can get this done, I am going to have one happy Seller. He bought this house, to flip, back in January and it was on the market for 8 months with another Realtor priced at $279,000. Never had a showing.

Then this Seller got real smart and decided to contact Broker Bryant off of one of my expired letters. Now being the good little Realtor that I am, I jumped out of my box, 15 days ago and suggested we “Range Price” the property from $259,000 to $279,000 with $279,000 being a full price offer. I placed it in the MLS on October 10 with $259,000 being the “list” price and since then, the Buyers have been knocking the doors down to see this house. After 10 showings we received an offer of $259,000 with Seller to pay $16,000 in Buyer’s closing costs. Well after 48 hours of shrewd and intense negotiations, headed by me of course, the deal has been accepted and signed at $275,600 with the Seller paying $10,000 in Buyer’s closing costs. To close in 7 days!! The Seller paid $220,000 in January. Unfortunately, since the house sat on the market for so long, his mortgage payments, of $1,800 a month, have eaten up his profit but I was still able to salvage his “flip that flopped” before he ended up in the losing column.

If all goes according to plan, it will be 22 days from listing to closing. The Seller will get out of a difficult financial burden, the Buyer will move into a lovely 2800 sq ft brand new home and TLW will be able to go shopping. And me, well, I will get my $20 allowance and move on to the next successful transaction.

I guess this “Range Pricing” stuff just does not work. Hmm, I think I will have me, some more of that puddin’!