The guy professes significant short-sale experience, among other things. I kinda hate to bad mouth a “guru”, but here’s what one of his blogs says:
http://www.geraldromine.com/real_estate_investing/4-keys-to-short-sale-success.html
A real estate investor buddy of mine is doing a short sale where Countrywide has a 30K second and the property is overfinanced. The offer to Countrywide was 3K which is a very generous offer for a junk second that will be wiped off at the upcoming foreclosure sale.
Their response is unbelievable. “Insufficient Offer.”
But it gets better. Countrywide said they would prefer to write off the entire amount than take 3K on a short sale!
It makes no sense and it is no wonder the financial institutions of America are begging for handouts.
My friend called me up and asked what I thought. My answer was as soon as they sait they wanted to write off the entir amount I would have said “DEAL! I’m amending my offer to nothing for you and will submit it right away.”
I’m not joking.
Aside from changing the offer to zero I would remain calm and follow up as the foreclosure date approaches because the closer to sale date the more willing the lenders.
The reason I cite this, is that I am working a short-sale that is almost a duplicate carbon copy of what he is talking about. So, I thought I’d use the same strategy suggested. I sent in a HUD-1 with $0. Ya know what Countrywide did? They gave me a little call and said that they were closing the file. Basically, my offer was no different than if the foreclosure had actually happened, so they had better things to do than to go thru the process of considering an offer of $0. Weeee! Time to start all over again! :banghead
This is Gerald Romine and I wanted to address this post and thread.
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You have to realize that not all short sales are going to go through. It is a numbers game.
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When Countrywide said they would rather write off the entire balance than take 3K of a short sale the reason to come back and SAY “DEAL! I’m amending my offer to nothing for you and will submit it right away.” is to drive home the point with humor that what they are saying does not make sense because they are saying they want nothing.
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My post referenced in the link above goes on to say “Aside from changing the offer to zero I would remain calm and follow up as the foreclosure date approaches because the closer to sale date the more willing the lenders” because I fully expected that Countrywide was not willing to negotiate in good faith at that time. At a later date they are likely to be more willing.
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You have to understand that short sales are a gaming process. Nothing more, nothing less. Don’t have all your eggs in 1 short sale basket. Play the game understanding you win with percentages and not absolutes.
Here’s an unsolicited testimonial from a customer that speaks volumes about how I do short sales:
“I have been very successful in real estate investing for over 20 years and have focused solely on building and rehabbing houses, then selling one every so often. Then the market started changing. I had steered away from short sales because everyone always told me how much work there was involved in doing a short sale. I was introduced to your course a few months ago and began applying the EXACT step-by-step process for doing short sales. Without doing any marketing at all, I picked up several short sale leads and set up my short sales the way I was taught in the course. I was shocked that the short sales “worked themselves” and that I basically had to turn up and pick up a check at the title company. Everyone else teaches you how to physically do short sales while this system shows you how to create a short sale by listening to you’re kick-ass stories on your very helpful and fantastic webinar’s in the past year or so. Anyways I have made over $50,000 from 2 deals in the past month and I’m sure I’ll have a few more with your killer system"
I have clients who are using this system, and believe me – it’s a no brainier. Gerald lately by just keeping in touch it seems like where friends. The craziness that some of these hyped up schemes that pull on us by some of the self-proclaimed gurus out there that haven’t done a real deal in years. You know, some of these guys have no idea how to ethically and legitimately making money and it is beyond frustrating for those of us in the industry doing these everyday… I can affirm that not only is this the real thing, but those that are using it are making real money. Real money that I see goes in and out of my escrow accounts. I wish more investors would buy this product so we could legitimately make money in this market for more investors. For those that do, hold on to your hat, you’re in for a fun ride this year, and looking towards that early retirement.”
I hope that clarifies any confusion that may have been created.
Best,
Gerald Romine
PS - The REIClub is a great forum and resource for investors. I’m glad it’s here.
Ok, the foreclosure on my “investment” property is all done and over as of July 14th. The bank got $261,625.98 from and investor, as according to the attorney’s website. I can’t figure out how the bloody hell they did that! We had FSBO’d, MLS’d, word of mouth’d, open house’d, rent-to-own’d, seller finance’d, used a public auction company, craigslist, fliers, rent-to-own websites, FSBO websites, newspaper, etc. etc. etc. etc. for well over 2 years and the best offer we got was $225,000. W-T-F-!-!-?-? Hell almighty, I would have sold the house to that investor for $250,000 without a second thought. Stupid.
The reason I post in this thread is that one of the biggest hold-ups was Countrywide. I tried Gerald’s $0 trick, didn’t work. I kept upping payoff offers in $1000 amounts and finally got Countrywide to send it off to the second phase negotiator when I sent in a listing of sexual offenders in a two mile radius of the property. I’m not sure (may never know) whether it was the $$$ amount was finally high enough, if it was the sex offender list, or if they realized the auction was getting close. With Countrywide, I tried everything, from hardball to softball; adamantly interested to Eh, whatever. Everytime I spoke with someone, I got the impression that not a single one of them had a care in the world. None. Nada. Zip. I gather they have some pre-fabbed spreadsheet of what they would take for the property, and they followed it like mindless automatons and that was it. No variation.
With this short-sale, it was unique. Every other short-sale investor I know, Gerald included, would have (and should have) walked LONG ago. Gerald, probably would have walked within the first 2-3 months. I might have been stubborn and held out 3-4 months. The only reason I stuck it out for all 11 months is because I bought it in my own name during my first few weeks as a real-estate investor.
Dean