Hey...

I have some pretty exciting news for you as a short sale investor. Well... it will be exciting news if my prediction comes true.

You see I have a little hunch about something.

I believe that President Obama's housing plan is going to cause or motivate some homeowners to fall behind on their mortgage payments in order to get bailed out by their bank or the government.

Think about it. If you owe more on your house than it's worth, you have working on selling it because you can't afford it, or simply tired of making high monthly mortgage payments do you think taking a hickey on your credit is going to matter that much to you?

What do you think?

Cory - I believe you are right on target there. However, at what point would the homeowners realize that the bank or the government is not going to bail them out and work with us to negotiate a short sale? If the homeowners remain in denial that their house is going to get foreclosed on then we may never have the chance to facilitate a short sale. Of course, that's happening now and it explains why we still see so many houses going to the Sheriff's Sale or become an REO.

Do you feel that the majority of the banks are holding off on foreclosures right now waiting to see what the government is going to do? I know that there are at least 2 large banks that are not doing foreclosures until after the government decides what it is going to do.

If the government says that they will buy the bad mortgages at 70% of current value, do you think they would rather do that instead of negotiating a short sale even though they may get a higher percentage from us?

Lots of possiblities that I'm thinking through. I would like to hear your thoughts further on this matter.

Thanks,

Jerry

Jerry,

The bottomline is banks need investors to liquidate properties quickly. The programs you see being put in place will help a small percentage of the people losing their homes. It does NOTHING for the people that had 105% LTV and refinances. All of those people will either lose their house to foreclosuer or bank will accept a short sale or other repayment/workout option. Their are close to 10 million foreclosure candidates now in the US...10 million and it is continuing to rise. You can herd up these people by simply talking with mortgage brokers and Realtors for leads. They will bring you all you need. You really don't need to spend a lot of money marketing to find motivated seller leads right now and some are excellent short sale candidates.

The world is on sale now and homeowners need your help liquidating their property. Many of them are simply moving out so I see Skip Tracing becoming more popular real soon. There is just too much inventory with non performing assets now.

Cory,

Once again, I believe that are right on target. The programs now in place are not going to help a great number of people. It has been acknowledged that there is not enough money to fix everyone's problem. This does make it exciting for us as short sale specialists to be able to help those left out.

Being a fellow Okie, are you seeing that the number of foreclosures are not that great here in Oklahoma? Either I need to ramp up my marketing greatly or try a different market because I can't seem to get results here. Additionally, I've tried REOs with no success so far. I seems that the banks are not that motivated to make any deals in Oklahoma. Since we have a fairly stable market they know that the property will eventually sell close to their asking price.

However, one strategy that I am going to try involves loan modifications. I am going to contact motivated sellers and offer them the opportunity to stay in their house through a loan mod. If the loan mod doesn't work, or they end up in pre-foreclosure, then I've established a relationship with them that allows me to facilitate a short sale through your organization. I've always felt that we as christians should try our best to keep the homeowners in their houses if possible. I feel that this is the best option at this point to helping them but then also getting a relationship with them to look at us as transactional engineers to help them.

If you have any marketing tips then I would be thrilled to hear what you have to say since you've obviously been extremely successful in Oklahoma.

Jerry,

We get lots of leads from Realtors and referrals. We have recently established a relationship with a realestate and BK attorney. Those are great leads for us. We also advertise occassionally in various papers. Then we get lots of leads from Online. Today we are speaking to a Sellhouse leads provider that is interested in working with us. The key is to have someone like http://www.Patlive.com/signup/SSF take the calls and screen them for you. Banks are willing to take discounts even in Oklahoma. We just short sold a house on 42ND St in Oklahoma for $14,000 and flipped it for $23k cash. :0) closing tomorrow or next week.

Keep at it bro. cb