Short-sale rules should be made with caution

Re: 'NAR considers new short-sale disclosure rules' (April 24)

Dear Editor:

Let's not rush to make rules that could send even more people into foreclosure. When you take a short-sale listing you are trying to save someone from foreclosure. It requires aggressive price reductions to find buyers for any given property in time to begin negotiations. If you get a low offer it helps get the bank rolling and can stall foreclosure. If we have to make these listings go pending before the bank agrees as soon as we get our first lowball offer, we will burn up 12 weeks in which we could have received five offers -- each one progressively higher.

It is not in the seller's best interest to make the short-sale listing go pending until it is a done deal with the bank. I never have my sellers sign any short-sale offer until the bank agrees.

In a regular transaction, your job is to get the highest and best offer. It is the same in a short sale, except that a more important objective is to get an offer on time to save the home from foreclosure. Since short-sale agents have a different objective we should have a new fiduciary relationship.

We need to make the listing as low as required to attract our first buyer quickly. We need to adjust upward after each offer is received to try to get a buyer even higher than that last offer.

We need to be able to disclose to each new buyer what the offer on the table is so they know what they have to beat to be the highest offer so that it can be sent to the bank. I feel that by not disclosing the price of the last offer I am actually making the buyers guess how high they have to go. It I could disclose, then each progressive buyer would have to top the last buyer to get his offer sent to the bank. This would almost create an auction situation, which would be best for bank and owner.

We need the highest and best offer, but the bottom line is that we need an offer and we need it quickly! If we are made to make these listings pending as soon as we get our first lowball offer, we will send a lot more people to foreclosure. Any rule changes need to be well thought out.

Jennifer Lapoint
The Real Estate Collection
Orlando, Fla.

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