Just recently I wrote a cathartic blog entitled, What Do You Do When Your Cooperating Agent Does Not Have A Clue??? venting some frustration I was having with a cooperating agent on a short sale. Turns out that my gut never seems to fail me. The last two days have been spent re-iterating to the cooperating agent that the lender has already issued the approval letter and they have already stipulated what item they will and won’t pay for. Now I know that we all wish that this were a “standard sale world” again (at least I do), but hey if it’s not our reality then we must do what we can with what we have.  As I found myself debating the issue with this agent, once again I realized that their attempts to strong-arm the bank into doing certain inspections and reports was more a matter of their inexperience with short sales than anything else. The time to negotiate hard for your client on a short sale is BEFORE the lender issues the approval letter with your client’s name on it– NOT AFTER.

Fighting hard and negotiating on your client’s behalf is exactly what agents are hired to  do, but they probably should know when to swing and lay their punch or lie any “wanna -be boxer”, they are going to end up on their butt. Sadly, this type of inexperienced agent costs everyone, including the lender, investors, homeowners, buyers and agents, a heap of time and money. As if there is not enough to worry about out there already, right?