When the Pros Fail Homeowners

When a homeowner is fighting foreclosure there are several things that they attempt to do before seeking out a real estate investing professional. Typically when a homeowner is delinquent on their mortgage they in some cases, but not always, will seek out the help of a family member. In other words, try and borrow some money to attempt to reinstate their loan.

When that fails the next thing they do is reach out to a mortgage lender, and what they're looking for is to maybe get the loan officer to assist them by refinancing their property and to end the foreclosure.

Well, how does this work? Typically a homeowner is going to reach out to a mortgage broker, a loan officer and say I'd like to refinance my house. And once the mortgage broker is able to look at their credit and discover that the homeowner is several payments delinquent and there is no loan program available to them they simply say, there's nothing I can do for you. I'm sorry.

The next logical step would be to reach out to a realtor because they will in some cases come to the realization that they must sell in order to avoid being foreclosed on.

So when they reach out to that realtor and say will you place my house for sale, in some cases they may not necessarily tell the realtor they are facing foreclosure but in some cases they do. The realtor is going to quickly discover this person has a $205,000.00 loan balance on a house that's worth $200,000. Now if you do the math, it's a little difficult to sell a $200,000 house for $205,000.

It's as though you found a car for sale that the salesman says, "well, the car is worth $20,000.00, but I'm asking $25,000.00 for the car. I don't think people would be willing to pay that. Not only that, there's no commission available for the realtor to get if they were to list that property. There just simply isn't any room available for them to receive a commission.

So is there an incentive here for the realtor to want to help the homeowner? Well, the answer is no, although some realtors will do so out of the kindness of their heart. Finding a true buyer for the property is pretty remote at best.

Here’s how you capitalize on the mortgage lenders and realtors' inability to help. You simply network with realtors, loan officers and mortgage brokers. By doing this, you will help those homeowners they were unable to help.

Your motto: Take a loan officer or realtor to lunch once a week!

Tell them what you do. I often use a thirty second elevator speech when I begin to explain what I do. It promotes questions.