Short Sale and Foreclosure Certification Program???????

[mrspugsley]

This is my first year in Real Estate. I am doing my best to learn as much as I can. My listing I have had all summer is turning into a Short Sale. I want to handle it for my clients. Is the SFR certification the best knowledge for the money. The class is like $115 plus $175 for the application fee. Buy the way, no one in my office has the certification but one other agent does deal with mostly short sales. Any insight would be GREAT!!!!!!

[Jennifer Allan]

Learning about short sales and foreclosures is good. You don't need a certification (IMO), but if the class gets good reviews, go for it.

HOWEVER - I would strongly encourage you to get help on this listing from an agent who does short sales. It really is a whole different ball game!

[gpaulson]

This is my 1st year on my own as well. I previously worked with a brother sister team that did REO's with promises of industry training, didn't happen, so I left to a small company. They do not offer the kind of training that I would like so I have considered a certification program as well. I primarily work with short sales for my listings, but I have been very fortunate to have a negotiator in our office that helps me out ALOT! I split some of my commission with her at closing and sometimes I give her more than the office requires if the sale was difficult because short sales can be very time consuming. She works hard for me and my seller to help them out of a bad situation and it has helped me learn about short sales. So with all of this help, why would I want a certification program? I think it will give me some more of the basics and I won't have to bug her with so many questions, which will make her job easier and give her more time to focus on clients and give me more knowledge and confidence that I am doing the right things for my clients...whether it's buying or selling a short sale.

The 2 I have been considering are SFR-that is recognized by NAR (realtor.org) or CDPE (cdpe.com) which is popular in my area and what my negotiator suggested. I haven't done it yet, because I stumbled across sellwithsoul and have been busy reading everything on here. I also want to take the rookie class here first since I have the negotiator right now that can help me with the short sales.


Good luck with the short sales, they can be rewarding when you have been able to help someone out. I received my first soulful email today which makes the hard work really worth it!

Gerri

[Jennifer Allan]

Gerri - When you say you received your first "soulful" email today - what were you referring to? Just curious...

The only certification I ever got in 14 years was the GRI which I thought was good. I'm not a fan of random certifications - especially once I was on the other side of the fence (the training side) and realized that the vast majority of "certification" are simply profit-centers for some trainer or company who wants to sell their classes. That said, I'm all for learning more about stuff you're interested in, but I'm not convinced a "certification" is important to anyone. And from what I've heard, so many of the certification classes are out-of-date and pretty much worthless in today's market.

I have no personal experience, however, so take what I say with the appropriate grain of salt!

[gpaulson]

Jennifer,

It was wonderful! I am a part timer (I know, I know, I've read your thoughts on PT and totally agree, but I love it. I am setting up goals to go FT and this site is going to help me get there) Anyways, the clients I've worked with have said Thanks and all that, but I recently received an email from a client I'm working with now. It's a short sale client with serious medical issues. They moved into a rental about 35 minutes from their home to be closer to the hospital. I live 50 minutes from their house (the listing). I have been trying to help them out with watching their home since my family lives in the same town. I've weeded the front flower beds during an open house that no one showed up for, I hired my mom to clean the house, a friend to snow plow the drive. I've taken up donations to help them buy Christmas presents for their 3 children. I also used part of my bonus from my FT to help buy stocking stuffers and other things. It's not much, but I know they will at least have something to open on Christmas. Here is the email I received from the husband.

"wow, you are just full of blessings, thank you so much Gerri. I will talk with XXXXXXXX about this and see what the kids might need. You are not the normal realitor, you actually care and go above and beyond. Thank you so much and I pray the God would bless you and your husband more than you can imagine this Christmas."