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Without being too “tongue in cheek”, have you experienced this pheomonen? You are considering buying a home and suddenly you are surrounded by Real Estate Experts?
They have done and seen it all. They tell you that they have sold multiple homes and have had several rentals. If you are short selling, they know all about it and when you vent they provide assistance by telling you that, “Your agent is doing it wrong…”
They tell you about the “smoking hot deal” they were able to get on all of their real estate dealings. Where they practically “stole” the home they had bought.
They paid zero fee’s when they sold their home, or their agent discounted the commissions so much they practically did it for free.
Part of our “Crash Course in Real Estate” has to do with letting our clients know that their friends, family and those that are not even asked for their opinion, may not be as much of an expert as they are claiming.
The Short Sale Experts
When we have our sellers, that are “distressed”, with a short sale. Our sellers experience many up’s and down’s with the short sale process. Simply, the collection department of the bank and the short sale department of the bank are two separate entities. They do not communicate with one another and have very specific job assignments. The collection department is going to call, mail, harass and attempt to press the seller into a Loan Modification. If you have attempted a Loan Modification, they will attempt to resolve your falling behind by giving you another chance. They are going to post stuff on your door, mail your certified letters and ring your phone off of the hook.
This will be happening at the very same time your real estate agent is in the process of Short Selling your home, condo or town-home. In fact, because it is so “crazy” to speak about the two different factions of the bank not communicating with one another, we often initiate a “silent” conference call with our client while we speak with the short sale department.
After phone calls of that type, our clients are relieved, befuddled and dumbfounded… ”Humph… it is really the case where there is no communication between the collection department and short sale department at our bank… Unbelieveable.” Is a typical response from our short sale clients after the phone call.
The Short Sale Experts in you arena will tell you that is not the way it is supposed to work. Your bank should be wanting to do everything it can to help you. They are held to the new Governmental regulations and have to perform. Heck, they read an article or watched a new program that validates their expertise.
The Real Estate Deal Experts
You are buying a home and you are working with your trusted adviser/Realtor. They are working hard to find you the property you want to purchase that fits within your parameters. You are actively viewing properties, you are writing offers, but nothing is happening. You are not being a success in your home purchase. So, the real estate experts in your periphery tell you about the “Great deal that they had when they purchased their home.” Their offer was accepted without having to be countered. They bought the property for far less than asking price. The seller fixed everything they had asked for. The seller even replaced the carpet, painted and installed new appliances before escrow closed. And, there was a fruit basket, from the seller, left in the property as a House Warming Gift…
“Properties are flooding the market, foreclosures are everywhere, there are easy real estate deals to be had…”, they tell you without blinking twice… They say, “When I bought my first home I literally got it for almost nothing…”
“Maybe it’s your real estate agent…”, “Call my cousin Tim”, they say.
That is just bad Intelligence
It may not be your real estate agent. It could be, but to believe the stories of the real estate experts in your sphere of influence will cause you more harm than good.
Most real estate agents close somewhere between 5-10 transactions a year. That’s right, does not sound like much, and it isn’t. I said that is “Most” or “average”.
Top Producing Real Estate Agents close upwards of 80 Transactions a year. That is the crowd we hang out with and the crowd we are a part of. The So Called “Real Estate Experts”, may have sold 5 homes in their lifetime. However, there are time within the year where we are closing 5 Escrows a week representing Real Estate Buyers and Sellers. Real Estate agents, the top producers, know what they are doing and the best way to assist you with what you want to do in Real Estate.
Be Safe and get good advice. We always tell our clients, both buyers and sellers, to give us the intel they receive from the “real estate experts” in their sphere. We do this because we remember the time before we were Active and Full Time Real Estate agents, Pre circa 1998. We remember when we had purchased our first home and we were knee deep in experts, and I’m not talking about our Agent 
