Yoda, Short Sales and The Force
Remember the scene in Empire Strikes Back when a young, naive Luke Skywalker was preparing some sort of Jedi swamp soup with Yoda in his hip little urban mud flat? They were talking about the rigors of Jedi training camp, and the ins and outs of all things doing with The Force.
Suddenly, the mysterious ghost-like voice of Obi-wan Kenobi came over Yoda's surround-sound speakers, and Obi-wan and Yoda started to debate whether or not Luke was ready to become a Jedi.
Yoda suggested Luke didn't have the gumption to complete his training, to which young Luke interjected, "But I'm not afraid!"
A pregnant pause. A scrunched up green latex face. And Yoda slowly turned to Luke and famously warned, "You will be...You WILL BE!"
That was a long time ago. And in a galaxy far, far away, no less. Hard to say what sort of shape the galactic housing market was in at that time, but I'm guessing it was better than what we're dealing with right now. And as any big Star Wars fan will tell you, valuable lessons can be drawn between the Force and real life.
Humor me for just the rest of this article, and consider me a modern day Yoda of short sales. Luke Skywalker is a well-intentioned, often naive, first time buyer. Obi-wan is his real estate agent.
So often these days, I have agents (Obi-wans) call me to set an appointment to see one of our short sale listings. Being in the business of getting homes sold, I am always anxious to get as many people in to see my listings as possible. But making sure that the people who come to seem my listing are in fact QUALIFIED can sometimes be tricky. And with short sales, financial qualifications are not the only thing to be considered.
When I speak with the buyers or agents who want to see our short sale listings, one of the first inquiries I make concerns the buyers' time frame. Do they need to be in a house in the next 30, 60 or even 90 days? If the answer is "yes", they are typically not a good prospect to purchase a short sale listing.
The next thing I'd like to know is whether or not they are first time buyers. While this is not as cut and dry as my concern on time frames, my experience is that first time buyers typically have a very difficult time playing the waiting game that is so often required to be successful in purchasing a short sale property. >> continue to page 2