Hello Cory,

I agree.

Now is the best time to get in to Short Sales. The short sale that I got approve for a client happened to be from a loan modification that she could not fulfill. I have actually been using the modification plan as part of my marketing and most of the people that have tried to apply for the plan could not qualify. So I told them that the next step is to try for a short sale.

I am also working on a presentation to build a team of people to assist me in all the details involved in the short sale business.

Thanks to your home study course, I am ahead of most Realtors when it comes to handling short sales. It is now my goal to learn about private lending so I can do more as an investor instead of a Real Estate associate.

Feel free to give me any tips that will help me toward my goals.

It’s interesting that you mention Countrywide in your story because that company is exactly the one I think about when I think of bad lender practices. I have a friend who wanted me to take a look at her home right before she had no other alternative but to let the bank have it. Too late for me to do much of anything since Countrywide did not want to hear any alternatives. To make it worse, my pal let a bankruptcy attorney talk her into bankruptcy too early so he could make a fee. My friend is quite a negotiator and can buy almost any big ticket item at a discount in almost any store. Her lender was totally uncooperative about recasting her loan. They lied about how much the rates would rise, and even were allowed to draft their documents so they didn’t have to tell the full story. Just like credit card companies, these mortgage lenders have been allowed to raise rates and change terms almost at will. And are you aware that an Ohio federal judge recently called lenders on the carpet to prove they even own the debt they foreclose on? Yes folks, it has been standard practice to let lenders foreclose on debt they can’t even prove they own because they bundled them into securities. The same loan may go into several pools. Foreign investors are threatening to sue and that’s why you are being encouraged to refinance so quickly. Once you refinance, the last lender, who may be honest, muddies the legal waters, and the bad lender can say, well, you had the chance to do YOUR due diligence on this iffy loan we made. It’s YOUR baby now. They are talking about freezing foreclosures. Sounds nice, but what does that do to a carry back homeseller? They can’t afford to lose those months of payments like a corporate entitity can. As always, the solutions politicians propose simply play to the traditional lenders at the expense of private capital. I am not having much luck with politicians speaking out about this. So far in this election they all are ignoring these issues, and simply moving into the mode of more breaks for bad traditional lenders. They seem to be moving towards removing some of the charges homeowners face after a short sale though. Which is a good thing because many investors I run across aren’t telling, or they don’t know, that homeowners may face post short-sale charges to make up for lender losses.