FROM THE READERS:Letters

Grit Not Exclusive Domain of Young

As Pat V. Combs says in  "A nod to youth” (June 2007, page 8), we live in a youth-obsessed culture — which is reflected in REALTOR® Magazine. Every year, you publish “30 Under 30.” Why? How hard is it to start out when you are young, probably don’t have too far to fall, and are already techno-savvy? It’s much harder when you’re older to start over in a new career, learn new skills, and catch up on technology. However, I’ve never seen an article in REALTOR® Magazine that even gives a “hello” to that notion.

—E. Keller, Houston

Let’s get Real

A natural affinity for hard work and a bit of intelligence are excellent qualities for anyone interested in a real estate career. Too many of the practitioners profiled in “30 Under 30” (June 2007, page 32) illustrate the role of luck, good looks, and having a parent involved in real estate. That’s not particularly inspiring for those of us rich in the former but lacking the latter. Let’s see a few more really self-made success stories in the class of 2008.

—Kristen Bello, Raleigh Area Realty, Apex, N.C.

The Pitfalls of Short Sales

Obviously, short sales (“How to Succeed at Short Sales,” REALTOR® Magazine Online, June 2007) can get sellers out of difficult positions and give buyers a great deal. They’re especially helpful for investors and buyers looking for a bargain.

However, attempting them can often be unrewarding and disappointing for salespeople, sellers, and buyers. There are pitfalls the novice would have no way of foreseeing, and you must be sure not to overpromise or make commitments in the MLS or elsewhere that you can’t keep.

Short sales are harder than regular sales, and you have much less time to close them. In North Carolina, there are only five or six weeks between foreclosure notice and foreclosure. Home owners will most likely try other avenues to save their home before putting it on the market. And offers must be presented to some mortgage companies a week or so before the foreclosure. That often leaves less than a month to sell a hard-to-sell property in a buyer’s market.

Then what? Often, you give the mortgage company a great offer, and it’s turned down because the loss mitigation specialists who approve or disapprove the offers are far from the market they make decisions about. Often, their perspective is wildly unrealistic, and too often they view hard-luck owners as just deadbeats. There are deadbeats, but the vast majority of people facing foreclosure are good people who’ve hit hard times. Still others were driven into foreclosure by unscrupulous lending practices.

If you go into short sales on the seller side, do it with the attitude of helping people and making sure they thoroughly understand the ramifications — such as the tax consequences of debt forgiveness — or stay out of this niche.

—Barbara Taylor, ABR®, SRES, Dane Warren Real Estate, Charlotte, N.C.

Short sale: When do you Tell?

Your article on short sales is good but doesn’t address the question of how to advertise a short sale. You may be advertising a price at which a closing can’t occur without lender approval, and the lender may or may not approve. That raises the question of whether the advertising is truthful.

The article says some experts suggest disclosing that a property is a short sale in the comments section of the MLS listing. Even if the MLS data is exported to the Web, the comments would not be available to buyers looking only on the Web.

—Vernon Jarboe, Kansas Association of REALTORS® Legal Hotline Attorney

Editor’s note: NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® attorneys say that simply advertising a property that’s upside-down isn’t inherently misleading, even though it’s possible that the seller and the lender won’t be able to work things out. Advertising does little more than invite further interest in the property; it shouldn’t be deemed misleading if it doesn’t expressly disclose the sellers’ equity status. That said, there remains the issue of when to advise buyers so that they understand the facts and the possibilities.

As the article states, a short sale should be disclosed before buyers make an offer.

Correction

Our “Top 100 Companies” chart misstated sides per associate for Prudential Carolina Real Estate (ranked No. 39 by sides). The company had 11 sides per associate, not one.

Letters are edited for space and clarity. Publication of a letter doesn’t constitute an endorsement of the writer’s views by the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® or REALTOR® Magazine.

Mail: REALTOR® Magazine, 430 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60611-4087

E-mail: narpubs@realtors.org

Phone: 800/874-6500

Fax: 312/329-5978

COMMENTS?
The magazine’s Web site is REALTOR.org/realtormag. Send your letters to narpubs@realtors.org.