Philadelphia Short Sales - Another Successful Short Sale in Point Breeze !
We had another successful Philadelphia Short Sale settlement this past week. We take a lot of pride in 
this as short sales are a ton of work. Our folder for these deals typically becomes two or three times the size of any other deal with the amount of documentation that is needed as part of the short sale package.
With this deal, the lender was Wells Fargo who was not too bad to work with. It certainly helped that the seller provided all of the information in a timely manner for the short sale package initially. In addition, another reason for the short sale success was the cooperation of the title company we used. We have found that often times it is the experience of the short sale negotiator you are assigned to that makes a difference and in our case the one that we were assigned to with Wells Fargo was exceptional.
However, there are always things that can trip you up on a short sale, things that you may not expect or just things that are aggravating. In our case, the two main things were:
1. BPO (broker price opinion) - We had a very difficult time scheduling the person doing the BPO to get into the property. She would only go into the property on certain times and refused to go in the property without being accompanied by myself after finding out it was "tenant occupied" even though it was essentially vacant and there was a puppy. We have a lockbox at the property and had no problem with showings. We lost 2 weeks on the short sale during this process. Long story short, I met her at the property, opened the lockbox, unlocked the door to a property that was 90 percent vacant. Was a bit insane. In hindsight, I think this woman should retire.
2. Buyers mortgage company - The buyers mortgage company dropped the ball for settlement when our short sale approval time frame was running out. They had ample time to process the loan. It was a mess. The title company stayed Friday night on the day of settlement until 8:00 waiting for the residual paperwork to come from the mortgage company which never came. It was finally emailed around 9:00 pm so our title clerk met with the buyer on Saturday to finalize the paperwork.
And by the way, this same mortgage company was pushing very hard that they had to do the title work on the deal as well. Yeah, right ! I could only imagine. If that was the case, not sure if we would have had a settlement at all !
All in all, Philadelphia short sales are tricky and it is so critical to work with a Philadelphia short sale specialist on your short sale deal ! We do not outsource the short sale work, we do the work ourselves. We have seen other companies charge the buyer 1.5 percent or $5,000 which does not make a lot of sense when as a listing agent, it is your responsibility to negotiate the short sale. In addition, it leaves more negotiation room for your client and the buyer as well.
Lastly, it must be said that the other agent on this deal, Rae Dennis, was a pleasure to work with. If not for her and her buyer, chances are the deal would not have made it to settlement either !
If you are in need of a short sale, feel free to contact us at thesomersteam@yahoo.com or 215-400-2620.
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