Erin Attardi's Blog

If you follow me on Twitter, you will already know that I had a chat over lunch today with the Director of Training for Lyon Real Estate, Michael Gray. He told me some pleasantly surprising news...I have the highest success rate at closing short sales of any agent at Lyon Real Estate! Yep, little old Erin Attardi. WOW! Not sure just how many agents are now at Lyon, but I think it is hovering around a thousand or so. We have 120 agents in my office in Sierra Oaks alone, and there are 18 offices!

So what are the secrets to my short sale successes? I will tip you off to a few...

The first thing, is that I am very selective when I choose to list a short sale. The seller MUST have a legitimate hardship. The seller must be prepared and willing to provide ALL of the documentation (like paystubs, bank statements, tax returns) the short sale lender will require. I turn down about half of the prospective short sale sellers who contact me - most of which do not have hardships, or they indicate to me they want to help them commit fraud, or they indicate they are not willing to provide documentation. I always look to see if the listings I decline end up on the market, and they almost ALWAYS do with other agents...those short sales have little likelihood of actually closing successfully.

The second thing, is that I am really NICE to the lender loss mitigation reps I deal with. These are people who get yelled at repeatedly every day, over and over again by frustrated borrowers and agents. I joke around with them, ask them about the weather, say please and thank you, etc... this works really well!! I have convinced certain lender loss mitigation reps to give me their direct phone numbers, fax numbers, email addresses. These guys actually LIKE to deal with me!

The third thing, is that I have developed a systematic method for negotiating short sales. I follow directions set by the short sale lenders really well and accurately. I am great at time management, and often find myself working with the same short sale lenders over and over again. The system itself is not one I am willing to share...and yes, I personally negotiate ALL of my short sales. I do not farm them out to a 3rd party.

I do lots of things to make my short sales successful...