Recently, I’ve been coming across auction notices in the newspaper of people that I spoke with a few months back. I know that I could have helped these people out if they would have just worked with me. It would seem that the people just don’t care at all since their houses are now scheduled for the auction block. This has got me wondering, am I doing something wrong? Or is this just normal for the business?
Dean
Normal…and it has a name: DENIAL (and, not it’s NOT just a river in Egypt!)…
Keith
Refine your marketing strategy. Somehow you need to find a way to educate your prospects that if the house goes to foreclosure it is worse on their credit than if they let you do a short sale. If the deal is good enough give them incentive to allow you to work the SS for them, perhaps 1k in moving assistance, but only after the SS is complete. I find that the people I meet in foreclosure (pre sale) seem to think that it is too late to change anything on their credit, they haven’t made a house payment for a while, their other bills are all behind, bankruptcy is looming and the foreclosure is just another problem that they don’t feel like dealing with. I had a girl tell me yesterday that it didn’t matter whether or not she lost the house through sheriff sale, because she said it was already in foreclosure anyway. This is simply not true.
Here is an idea for you. You situation is not unique. Most foreclosure people have their head in the sand. It has gotten a little easier with the current increase in foreclosures but most still either think they can save their home or pretend that the problem will just go away. I have shifted my speaking to telling the customers that I can help them if they want to sell their home or sell their home. If it is a potentially good deal I will work with them until they understand that they can’t save the property. Then I work on buying it.
One thing you should try is to create a third party story about several of the people that did not avail utilize your services to help them. Be very clear when you tell this story to potential customers. Be even clearer about the outcome.
Then look them in the eye and say “How can we work together to keep this from happening to you!”