We thought we would offer you a small update on Equator. It has been roughly one year since REOTrans, now known as Equator, was implemented into the short sale process by Bank Of America. As our viewers know, we were a part of a discussion with Gary Haygood at Bank of America. He chatted about Equator and how B of a uses Equator.

GMAC uses Equator and processes files very fast. They tend to procedure folders faster than Bank of America. Equator is apparently being tested by Wells Fargo and we would expect it to be implemented by the last part of the year.

With regards to B of a and Equator, a lot of changes have been made. There are also a lot of changes coming in the future. Now that they have seen this software work, they understand that there are many things they can do better.

Some of the changes we have seen include an automatic email when you submit your folder for approval and a tutorial each time you open a folder. Almost every portfolio that Bank of America has is in Equator now. That is a noteworthy change.

Gary Haygood has some thoughts about how Equator should be used. One of the large concerns that we are asked about is the number of counteroffers that happen. We instituted a policy that after the third counteroffer, we are getting on the phone. Gary Haygood mentioned that after the initial counteroffer he would love to see a phone call. Basically, this is an effort to get around the back and forth being done through Equator. Now that they have enlarged their workforce, they can deal with more phone calls. The other part that Gary mentioned is that outbound calls will be made to realtors after your package has been submitted but you are not negotiating yet.

Moreover, making the negotiators tasks visible to the realtors is a change that is being considered. If the negotiator has five days to close a task and just three days have passed, we don't need to disturb the negotiator.

Look for each and every one of these changes and more as Equator helps the short sale specialists of the planet enhance their procedure.

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We would like to talk about an item titled "Freddie Mac CEO: Mortgage Forbearance Is Preferable to Foreclosure." It appears that the Freddie Mac CEO thinks that forbearance is a workable option for keeping house owners in their houses. Freddie Mac considers forebearance highly useful.

There are some things worth noting in this article. Firstly, Freddie Mac owns 25% of the portfolios, but only 10% of the deliquent loans are theirs. Second, the article states how many borrowers they helped steer clear of foreclosure, but the editorial is about forbearance. Nonetheless, no where in the editorial does it give a gauge about how many people a forbearance has helped.

For those that may not be familiar with, a forbearance is merely a halt in your mortgage payment. The lender agrees to not collect payment for a certain period of time and they will not report to a credit reporting bureau. After the end of that forbearance, the house owner comes up with a new payment plan that includes the six months of payments that you did not make. Do forbearances aid a few people? Yes. However, they don't concentrate on lots of of the real problems. They don't concentrate on the fact that most mortgages are upside down. They also do not deal with they fact that a lot of people do not want to stay in their upside down properties. Also, they give the property owner higher mortgage payments after the forbearance. Forbearance is a wonderful idea for a tiny number of house owners.

This really frustrates us since we did a webinar and a live seminar last week with real property owners that are hearing so many lies and wrong information. They think that there are a lot of options to evade foreclosure, but when you really look at the choices, there are not very many suitable choices for house owners.

Agents don't control banks or investors or the government. Nonetheless, we can assist the house owners. Start educating your customers on their real choices.

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Hello and welcome. We are Kevin Kauffman and Fred Weaver, Arizona's leading short sale specialists. We've closed more than 300 short sales in the Paradise valley area. Nevertheless, this website is not about us. It's about you, the home owner. This website is designed to give you some information and clarity on the subject of short sales.

We're here today to talk to you about GMAC lender. Owned by Ally Financial, GMAC has made lots of changes over the previous few years. They have just shifted their process to Equator, which is a streamlined online system for handling short sales. Their method has gotten much smoother in recent years.

When we get an offer on your house, we upload all of that information into the equator software. The package is assigned to a negotiator at the lender. Then the bank orders a BPO to find out what the home is worth and then they make a conclusion on the offer. Essentially, GMAC is making short sale decisions in 60 days of getting a contract accepted. Equator is making this process much faster.

Having completed lots of short sales at GMAC, we are very proficient in moving through the short sale procedure with Equator. Our knowledge, joined with Equator, has made the short sale procedure 30% quicker than it ever was before.

Please fill out the form on our blog or get in touch with us today. We can aid you through this complex process. Whether your mortgage is presently held with Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Chase, and any other bank, we have dealt with all of them successfully closing 90% of the short sales that we work with. Because the nationwide average for successfully closing short sales is only 30-50%, you have to hire someone with a track record of achievement. Please get in touch with us today for higher help.

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Fred and Coach just got done with an event in Scottsdale with a Bank of America executive, hosted by Brian Gubernick. This episode is for all of the specialists out there that don't take the time to inform themselves, trust everything they read and listen to what negotiators say.

In the present day, with all of the changes going on in the short sale business, nothing is ever what it seems. Secondly, you need to get your cranium out of the sand and construct your own decisions.

What we found today, listening to the Bank of America supervisor, is that lenders do not truly know what they are doing any more than the real estate realtors. So, if you ask 'How" to do anything you are instantly disempowered.

As real estate specialists, we have to be more committed to learning our craft. This is not a game that you fly into simply to try it out while ruining twelve home owners lives. You need to understand what a deed in lieu is, what a loan modification is, what a trustee auction is, and dozens of other things.

It was awfully apparent that the Bank of America executive wasn't happy with the real estate community either. There are too many real estate agents that are misinformed or just plain lethargic. Get the factual details from people that are checking the sources or verify the sources yourself! Real estate realtors, we love you. Still, it is time to lift up our profession.

We've got a special offer for you. If you go to shortsalecrush.com, you can get our 12 hours of teaching for a significantly reduced price. Please inform yourself. It is time to take the real estate vocation to another place. Also, just because you are well-informed, that doesn't mean you have learned to think for yourself. Nothing is ever what it seems.

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For today, we would like to reveal a few of the changes that we have made in our process and our scripts to create urgency in sellers. In the short sale world, getting people to gather the documentation and make this complicated choice to short sale their home has generally taken 3 to 4 weeks. We have determined that we do not allow any other component of our business to operate like that so we have changed a few things.

First, Brian Gubernick led us to a resolution for this predicament. Brian requires prospective sellers to have all of their papers put together in 48 hours. Time is critical in this procedure. So, if you explain to the seller why this is vital, they will certainly understand.

Additionally, you could point out that your group has a capacity for the amount of files that they can work with. For this reason, the short sale team should just take the most urgent sellers. Waiting weeks or months is counterproductive to the procedure.

We have shifted to this process of utilizing the 48 hour rule in the previous few weeks. We have already seen a benefit from changing this procedure. Additionally, if you charge an upfront fee, think about reducing your upfront fee to those that can get their papers to you in 48 hours. This creates an incentive for the property owner to get their papers to you in a judicious manner.

One more thing that has worked for a fellow realtor we know is to have the property owner pull together their papers and then come to his headquarters for a meeting. So, he utilizes the paperwork to create urgency before the meeting even happens.

Hopefully, you recognize that time is critical to the short sale process. So, building urgency with house owners is only one way that you can improve your short sale process. It is a excellent way to eliminate the time you waste chasing house owners around to get their documents.

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Hello, I'm Steve Horn with ShortSalesDoneEasy your Mesa Short Sale Specialist. How many citizens out there saw the article titled "The Recession is Over!" It's worthy of note. The article says that the recession ended in June 2009. Nonetheless, if I look at my records in the Queen creek real estate market, what a house sold for in June of 2009 vs what a home sold for in June 2010 the recession isn't over. There is no data to show that the recession is over. I want to let you know that we are not out of a depreciating market in the Paradise valley area. In fact, we are seeing banks make choices that are making the short sale method more complex. There are bills being sent through congress that will control short sales. That would be nice, but all of this is really simply smoke and mirrors.

I'm not an economist. I'm a Maricopa county Short Sale Agent. I focus in helping my clients in avoiding foreclosure. It is my duty to give my clients recommendation on what the best choice is for them.

I just can not stand the gov't telling people that we came out of this recession in 2009. Not all areas have been hit like the Scottsdale market. Nonetheless, the Maricopa county market is definitely still in a recession.

Contact a short sale specialist. Hopefully you will contact me for detailed advice. We are going to see a larger depreciation rate in the Maricopa county market over the next couple years. We are far from done with this distressed market in the Tempe area. Give me a call so I can give you advice on how to take advantage of this market as a seller or a purchaser. I'm a Mesa short sale agent.

At Queen creek Shortsalesdoneeasy, we do make your short sale done easy. Make it a terrific day!

Arizona Steve Horn Team can answer your questions. We are Arizona's Foreclosure Avoidance and Short Sale Specialists.

Get more help from short sale Realtor, Steve Horn, at Homes by the Horn presented by the Steve Horn Team, Short Sale Specialists of Arizona

Fred is joined by his fine ally Knolly Williams after wrapping up a great week at MegaAgent Camp. Knolly has been working short sales for longer than 7 years, closing more than 500 short sales. He has spent more than 20,000 hours working with short sales. That has helped a great deal when he is talking with other realtors and the challenges that they are facing. He can effortlessly remember a situation that is comparable to their challenge and aid them.

Knolly now runs a seventh level real estate business, meaning that others do everything in his company. He basically oversees the entire operation. Basically he owns the business with an operations manager that runs the day to day operation. He couples that with a wonderful system for handling short sales and everything flows efficiently. His system permits him to get all of the work completed with four people, whereas in a traditional retail system it would take nine people to close the work.

Knolly also has a system for sale that is put into book form. It is the finest written material out there for a short sale system. There are numerous other teaching companies out there, but no one has put it into a book as well as Knolly.

Like Kevin and Fred, Knolly is passionate on the subject of teaching other realtors and assisting home owners. Knolly is a bit more traditional than Kevin and Fred, but he accomplishes the same things.

This industry is very cyclic. The market that we are now in, with obstinate lenders, is just like they were in 2005. So, really, Knolly has seen it all already. Still, the lenders need short sale specialists. The lenders know that short sales save money over foreclosures.

The first thing that Knolly does when he negotiates short sales is to inform the lender employee that he has closed hundreds of short sales and he understands how the process works. This lets the mediator at the bank know that the route will be easier because he/she is working with Knolly, an experienced short sale specialist. Keep watching the video for more great information from Knolly and Fred.

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We have been doing these videos for approximately four months now and we thought it would be a good time to reflect on this method. What has changed? What are the banks doing to alter the process to speed this up. The longer that we are in this distressed market, the better the method should get. The Phoenix region ranks second in the nation. So, changes to improve the short sale method are needed in the Phoenix locale more than most areas.

Normally, banks will not take a look at your short sale folder until you have a purchase contract. Some lenders, like Wells Fargo, are changing the way that they deal with short sale files. They permit the realtors to send in the short sale file prior to receiving a contract. They can start processing the package earlier and save about 30 days per transaction by doing this.

With the amount of purchaser fallout that is occuring, the lenders should be prepared to move on these deals that have a true buyer. It is unbelievably frustrating to work hard on short sales simply to see the buyer fall out. The lenders need to take some liability and get these short sale folders processed earlier.

banks are also getting appraisals completed earlier. In general, it takes 30 days to get an appraisal completed. So, Wells Fargo has done a fantastic job of getting the appraisal procedure started in advance.

The government is attempting to help out the short sale procedure. Nonetheless, most of these programs are a waste of time. There are so many rules and limits on the government programs that most people do not meet the requirements.

Register for our complimentary short sale survival guide and we'll arrange at time for a free short sale consultation.

Arizona Steve Horn Team can answer your questions. We are Arizona's Foreclosure Avoidance and Short Sale Specialists.

Get more help from short sale Realtor, Steve Horn, at Homes by the Horn presented by the Steve Horn Team, Short Sale Specialists of Arizona

Today, we would like to talk about luxury short sales. In our market, with Minnesota short sales, we have been a tad behind the southern states. We did not see the flood of foreclosures until later. At this time we are seeing the luxury properties come to foreclosure.

One of the trends that we are seeing is luxury homes being listed by regular real estate agents. We think that it is incredibly important to list with a short sale expert. It is more imperative to list with somebody who can complete a short sale. The price of the property is not going to matter in the short sale process.

If you are in a luxury property, you need to search for a realtor that does short sales. The realtor that is going to list your short sale doesn't even have to see your house. It does not matter if your property is dazzling. This process is about how much the lender will take to complete the deal. The lender does not care if it is a luxury home. They are just looking at savings above foreclosure.

You will want to be represented by somebody who understands the short sale process. Luxury property realtors will be concerned with staging your property, and the granite countertops, or the seven car garage. Still, the banks just do not care.

There is a large difference in the success ratio between somebody who completes short sales and someone who lists luxury houses. Quite frankly, we have a better chance of completing your short sale than a luxury specialist. We complete higher than 90% of our short sales. The luxury short sale realtor completes between 25-40% of their short sales. You have to do your due diligence to find somebody that can help you close your short sale. Don't hesitate to call or send us an email.

Tune in tomorrow for another episode where we confront your short sale problems.

Minnesota Short Sale Shift can answer your questions. We are Minnesota's Foreclosure Avoidance and Short Sale Specialists.

Get more help from short sale Realtors, Josh and Sarah, at Short Sale Shift presented by the Short Sale Specialists of Minnesota

Steve Horn here with Short Sales Done Easy, your Mesa Short Sale Specialist. I'm just back from break ready to get back to helping house owners in the Maricopa county area. The Steve Horn team was able to complete four short sales while I was gone. So, it's good to be able to help out distraught home owners even while I am away.

I went on a listing appointment today. The property owner is ready to list their house as a traditional sale. Yet, this may turn into a short sale. The seller does have the capacity to purchase another house. Yet,the house that they are in is $130,000 behind in an equity situation. The house owner is debating whether or not to pay the $130,000, making a business choice. Moreover, they are considering renting in this market because the house will not recover for at least seven years.

These are the identical questions that are going through the minds of thousands of people in the Paradise valley area. This specific home owner is considering foreclosure and buying another house. Keep in mind that foreclosure is always the worst case situation. If you don't want a foreclosure on your record, that is what a short sale is for.

You, as the property owner in the Scottsdale area, need to determine whether this is a business decision or an ethical decision. The lenders, not willing to modify loans, is forcing house owners to pick short sale, foreclosure, or other choices.

The best thing I can do as a short sale specialist is give her all of the details in the choices that she has. She was blown away by the knowledge that she gained in the disparity between a short sale and a foreclosure.

We are here to help you formulate these decisions. We have several seminars coming up in the Queen creek area. Contact us today to find out more.

Arizona Steve Horn Team can answer your questions. We are Arizona's Foreclosure Avoidance and Short Sale Specialists.

Get more help from short sale Realtor, Steve Horn, at Homes by the Horn presented by the Steve Horn Team, Short Sale Specialists of Arizona