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Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Orange County Real Estate - The Truth About Pre-Foreclosure Short Sales (Part IV)

Rule #4 - Find The Right Real Estate Agent

Link Back To Part III

It should come as no suprise that working with an agent who is qualified to work short sale transactions will be one of an Orange County home buyers biggest assets in finding good properties. But what can a home buyer look for to make sure they are working with the right Realtor.

Proven Track Record - There simply is no substitute for perfection in practice when dealing in real estate transactions. As Vince Lombardi would say, "Practice doesn't make perfect, perfect practice only makes perfect." A good Realtor will have experience at succcessfully conducting transactions from both the buyer and seller sides of short pay sales. They will know what the likelyhood of a sale actually taking place will be and can pass this time saving information onto their clients. Some short sales just will not happen for a variety of reasons (property too encumbered with debt, uncooperative seller, uncooperative lender, etc) so real estate buyers should take the advice to heart when their agent tells them their time will be best spent somewhere else.

Knowledge Of The Market Your Interested In - Local insider knowledge can be all the difference between detecting a good real estate deal and completely missing an opportunity. Short sale home buyers really should concentrate on a geographic area in order focus their efforts and be able to quickly and more effectively evaluate the opportunities. We can't stress this market knowledge enough as it has helped more than a handful of our clients to flag down a deal that others were just missing!

Inventory - Whether an Orange County foreclosure buyer ends up buying one of their agents , or a listing through them listed by somebody else, they really should be working with a Realtor who consistently holds a good share of home listings. If they have numerous listings, chances are they have some pre-foreclosure listings as well as past experience selling them. Because of this, successful listing agents will also have a steady pipeline of prospective home sellers who may be looking to unload a property that a buyer will be interested in purchasing. Listing new inventory is the single hardest part of a real estate salespersons job and will be a definate signal as to the success of your real estate agent. The more listings they have, usually the more successful they have become.

Negotiation Skills - Real estate negotiations may share some similarities but are uniquely different than any other type of negotiation. The 9th rule in our
Orange County Realtor information article makes some great points in regards to real estate negotiations. The bottom line being that if the agent can't negotiate for themselves, how can you expect them to negotiate for you?

So now every prospective pre-foreclosure buyer in the room has the same idea. They're thinking, "I've got it! I'll just contact every agent I can, introduce myself as a real estate investor, and ask them if they have any good properties for me!" Well, they can do that and most likely will get some response out of the inexperienced or unsuccessful agents around town, but this scenario just will not cut it with the true professionals in the business who actually have the ability to help. This next section will explain this in detail as well as give them some better ideas to achieve real estate success.


Link to Part V