California Real Estate Agents Learn Strategies to Help Homeowners Avoid Foreclosure

ABC World News Tonight recently reported that 1 million homeowners across the nation are forecasted to default on their mortgages within the next three years and continued indications of a variety of factors that negatively affect family budgets are a cause for concern with many American homeowners.

Recent reports out of San Diego, CA indicate that some homeowners have exaggerated income levels, are receiving overvalued property appraisals when they refinance and are generally on the brink of becoming financially over-encumbered. Large consumer debt-to-income ratios are additionally to blame.

Portland, Oregon, real estate broker, Margot Murphy, who specializes in listing pre-foreclosure properties, worries that this practice could be widespread across the nation, "If San Diego is any indication of how homeowners have been refinancing to pull money out of their home, then any decline in home values there could create a fairly substantial market of equity-deficient properties.”

But it's not all doom and gloom. Real estate agents are arming themselves with tools that will help them help their clients avoid foreclosure. By enlisting a strategy known as the short sale, a property in pre-foreclosure with negative equity, agents and brokers across the nation are studying up on how to negotiate with mortgage lenders when their clients are in over their head.

In a traditional listing, Realtors™ help their clients list, market, and sell their home to a buyer. In the case of a short sale transaction, the agent or broker not only lists, markets and sells the home, but the broker also negotiates directly with the lender to settle the mortgage payoff at a discount of the balance due on the note.

Murphy’s desire to help certain clients out of a tight spot over six years ago led her to short sales, and today, Murphy teaches and consults other brokers and agents how to perform successful short sale transactions.

“This type of real estate listing is challenging, but also very rewarding because everybody wins in this situation. The bank or lender wins, the buyer wins, the seller wins and the broker who closes the deal wins because the lender pays their commission. I teach Realtors™ how to perfect this important strategy because I think it’s only going to grow as a market sector in the coming years.”

This year, Murphy will be traveling to six cities across the nation holding short sale business-building workshops for real estate agents. Her next stop is Sacramento, CA on April, 19th. The day-long, intensive workshop instructs licensed agents and brokers how to negotiate win-win-win-win solutions and outcomes for all parties involved.

Nine spots remain for the Short Sale Power Broker Workshop which is expected to sell out by the end of next week.

“If enough agents are equipped with this knowledge, it literally can help hundreds of thousands of homeowners across America,” Murphy lamented.