Sloppy Realty Colleagues Can Be A Bust

Saturday, February 6th, 2010 at 10:50 am

A little while ago, some clients of mine made an offer on an REO. Everything seemed to be proceeding according to plan.

A week had come and gone, and I still hadn’t had any concerns yet. Then after two weeks went by, and no response still, I knew something was going on. I called and e-mailed the selling agent religiously for three days, and still no response. Finally, as a last ditch approach to getting some type of response, I had to call the agents broker. They then turned me over to their assistant, and she did appear to have more knowledge then I had expected about what was going on.

After this whole process and the waiting game, I received an E-mail stating that the bank was requesting an extension due to the escrow being opened with the wrong company! This took two weeks before anybody noticed. If I wasn’t on top of the deal like you should be, my agent would have sat around twiddling his thumbs until the whole deal went in the dump.

I also have experiences that are the exact opposite. I sold a bank owned property a little while back that was listed by an agent in Lake Arrowhead. Like most bank owned homes, it took the bank longer than usual to open escrow, but everything else ran perfectly. She made sure I received regular updates and her assistant was on top of everything. I got all the paperwork on time and done correctly.

Because of this, I was able to deliver excellent customer service to my client. Please be aware when you are hiring an agent, and make sure you are asking plenty of questions to make sure they are on the up and up. It is important to make sure that your Realtor is a fulltime agent and can devote all his time to you. Always make sure they are knowledgeable about how the of your local housing market.

If you do plan on buying a property in the Big Bear area, I would not suggest hiring an agent from L.A or Orange County. If your intentions are to purchase a bank owned property, it is very beneficial to hire an agent that is familiar in that field. It is a sad fact how differently banks can operate, and if you don’t have an agent that is proficient in the bank owned property, they could cost you lots of money, and even possibly the property.

Author Marcus Fetzer knows all about researching Big Bear, CA foreclosure deals and Big Bear realty in general. Check out his other posts online.

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