I just attended a seminar held by Lee Honish who offers the short sale genius system. It is a web based system with a short sale calculator to assist Realtors in obtaining and marketing short sales as well as negotiating with lenders to have them accept the offer sooner rather than later. I am curious if anyone else has heard of or has any experience with this system.  Their website is www.shortsalegeni.us.

I've settled a number of short sales over the last couple of years and have attended a couple of seminars that did not compare with his.  I have negotiated all of the short sales myself and although it is rewarding to assist a homeowner sell a property that has become a stressful emotional and financial burden to them they require a lot of time, follow-up and effort.  I currently have one listed that has a first and second mortgage with 2 separate lenders, which are the hardest to negotiate.  I do not want to hire a short sale negotiator but if you are aware of any others systems or have any insight, I'd love to hear about it.

Hi Dianne,  when you said:

>attended a couple of seminars that did not compare with his....

Were his better?? worse?? off the mark?? on the mark??

I've been doing them for about 3 years and they are changing so much it is hard to keep up with the lenders.  I've found that the guru's dont really negotiate the actual short sale any more and really don't have insight on the changes.  If you talk to the lender openly they are usually honest and helpful.  My team always treats them like they are on our team and they really are.  We talk about life kids etc, obviously short and sweet because they are busy but it gets us a reputation for knowing what we are doing and sometimes gives us the opportunity to pull favors.  Feel free to email me directly if I can answer any questions to help make things easier.

I was really impressed with Roger Butcher's Webinar. So I signed up to get the education to do loan mods and short sales.  Roger has his own short sale company.  You get the info from the homeowner and submit it to Roger Butcher so that your short sale package can be submitted before you take the listing to see if it is even feasible to do so.  Since I have been doing short sales for about 10 years, and knowing that they are a ROYAL PAIN, I would rather have someone else negotiate them for me so that I can concentrate on other things that make me money.  Just my opinion. 

Roger's website is shortsalesexpress.com.  He offers education, and testing so that you can eventually call yourself a Foreclosure Prevention Consultant and have that printed on your business cards.  The class was $149 and his short sale company charges 1% of the sales price or $1995 whichever is higher.

Thanks for the feedback everyone.

Susan, I appreciate the info.  I have been negotiating myself and I feel that I can provide a better service for my clients, however, if I have more than 1 or 2 at a time it is a disservice to my other clients. 

Jim, his seminar was better.  Everything he said was exactly what I have experienced.  There were no holds barred in the way he discussed the topic as well.   

I have been doing short sales for about 3 years now, I have been able to get 58 of them to the closing table but quite honestly they are becoming a real pain to deal with bec many banks are changing and bec of the time and effort need to make them happen. I recently hooked up with a local attorney who specialize with short sale, they have the ability to handle the calls and follow ups, they allowed me to concentrate on marketing and getting more short sale listings, it is true that they are not closing every single deal I gave them but when you work out how much extra I am able to do bec of time I gain.. it is worth it.

Hi Dianne -

I also attended the Lee Honish seminar, and really wanted to sign up for it, however, I wasn't able to at the time.  Did you decide to check it out?  If you did, I would love to hear what you think of it.  I thought what they were offering sounded a bit different, and I think if you are going to listen to someone's advice on negotiating short sales, it might as well be a guy who used to work in the loss mitigation department! 

Take care and best of luck!

I attended Lee's Webinar, for a cost of $25.00. Certainly cheap enough I thought. What I found was that his insites were those I already knew from my experience in Real Estate already. I found him to be very very full of himself with no real substance to what he taught. Maybe some will learn things that are not already obvious, however I found little value for the typical agent who has already been around the block a few times.

I did however join with Harris University to see what I could learn relating to getting in on the REO market,.. what I found was once again,.. people who subscribed to the line of thought that the ends justify any means. So far I have witnessed their condonement of lying to lenders and fraud in order to get into their system. I have spent about $400 so far based upon their recommendations without any return. If you think about them,.. pay Very close attention to their money back guarantee,.. you will find it so restrictive that no one can meet it.

Truth is,.. if you want to succeed,.. it's up to you!! These people seem to be opportunistic and are raking in YOUR dollars to show you haw to make money in a market many of us have not experienced before.

Best of Luck in 2009!!

Dianne,

Would wouldn't you want to hire a negotiator?  Time is money.  I've  been doing short sales for a year.  I was fortunate enough to find an attorney that specializes in this area.  I find the homeowners in distress,  put the house on the market, start the initial conversation with the bank/s, gather the required documentation and the attorney does the rest.  Proceeds for the attorney's service comes from the transaction.   I love it. I do my part with helping a family by preventing a foreclosure.  My stress level is at a minimum, I'm not on the phone all day,  and most of all I can focus of other aspects of this business.

Janet

Short Sale Genius is a good system whether you like Lee's style or not. I've been using it for a little over year and am closing about 90% of my short sale deals.

You’re absolutely right Sue that it makes sense to learn from a former Head Loss Mitigator – the boss of the people we negotiate these sales with. I have been to a number of short sale seminars – most had bad info, many didn’t discuss much more than putting the SS package together, etc. Why not get the banks playbook right?

Dianne- SSG has some good ideas to organize files you can manage a pretty fair number of files at the same time – 3 seemed unmanageable at first – now 20-30 seems feasible.

SSG members have access to an online calculator similar to what the banks are using to determine if a short sale makes more sense than foreclosure sale. When you know the numbers and your negotiator knows you know the numbers it makes a big difference. As a member of SSG you also have a resource center for forms, procedures, top lender contacts, and regular conference calls discussing changes in the market and general short sale questions which helps if you are just getting your feet wet in short sales or its been more than 2 or 3 years since you have worked short sales.

Because I close such a high ratio of my short sale listings it makes the entire process easier - buyer’s agents will sit and stay while you do your job with the bank, other agents will send you their files or clients that need short sale help, and word gets around so leads start coming to you.