Nicole Machado

To hire a short sale negotiator or not??
June 1, 2010 ·  

With short sales on the rise is hiring a negotiator worth it? When taking on a short sale listing do you ask yourself if it is money well spent to hire a negotiator? Sure the time you save not having to contact the lenders yourself is money well spent, but how do you truly know if they are contacting them as frequently as they should be and negotiating to the best of their abilities?? The other question that begs to be asked… if you are the one hiring the negotiator to alleviate your work load why in most cases are you asking the buyer to pay for them? If you have decided to take on short sales isn’t part of your job to deal with the lenders and negotiate on behalf of your client? Isn’t that what we do best? I have recently come across a lot of short sale listings on the MLS that are requesting the selling agent to pay 50% of the negotiator fee or the buyer to pay the entire 1%. It seems to be a bit obscure and in most cases makes everyone uncomfortable.

Now don’t get me wrong I agree with the adage time is money, so I am all for    delegating tasks to others to get the job done in a more efficient time frame, but what I don’t agree with is requesting the buyer to pay for it. The buyer should not have to fork out another 1% of the purchase price to purchase a home they fell in love with just because it is a short sale. In today’s market although at the moment seems to be steady a buyer should not be spending anymore then market value for a home. If you want to hire someone to assist you with your short sale, more power to you, just don’t expect the buyer to pay for it.

I have had good & bad experiences with short sale negotiators so I am not trying to step on anyone’s toes by my comments above. If you find a negotiator that you find to be effective, I say it is money well spent. However that should be at an expense to the listing agent and/or the seller. Most buyers these days have enough money for their down payment and closing costs which is what they are obligated to bring to the table when they purchase. They aren’t expecting to come out of pocket to pay for a negotiator. In some cases if not most this is a deal breaker for home buyers and they have to end up walking away from a home because they can’t afford to pay for a negotiator that the listing agent and/or seller hired.
This topic seems to be coming up a lot lately, has anyone had any personal experiences or comments you would like to share?

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Comments

4 Responses to “To hire a short sale negotiator or not??”

  1. Larry Franzella on June 1st, 2010 1:05 pm

    A good agent familiar with short sales can do what negotiators do.

  2. Terry Birt on June 1st, 2010 9:09 pm

    I am currently in that situation right now. First of all the listing agent did not disclose to the buyers that there was a negociation fee until after the offer was accepted (in this casse is approx $7000,,The lender who is taking a loss will not bay the negociator either…If another brokerage policy to use negociators to free up their listing agent’s time, how does that benefit the buyer?

  3. Brian Boisson on June 2nd, 2010 9:11 am

    Great Post, Nicole.

    All is fair as long as all parties know up front and before writing purchase contracts what the rules are to be.

    After an offer is written,presented, and a buyer and buyers agent are then informed about and “suprised” by the fees is when there is a problem.

    If there is a MLS or DRE violation, affected parties should report the same.

    Brian

  4. Jean Joh on June 7th, 2010 7:00 pm

    I’ve been on both sides of a short sale and personally don’t see a lot of benefit to having a short sale negotiator involved. As a buyer’s agent, it doesn’t seem right that my clients should pay for the services of someone they did not hire, will probably never meet, and have little knowledge as to how qualified the negotiator is. And as a listing agent, it’s important to me to keep on top of what’s going on in a short sale transaction and a negotiator does not seem to add that much value – if anything, just adds another person into the mix. Just my thoughts personally,
    Jean

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