South Florida Real Estate and...

The Short Sales in Palm Beach County is a series of articles for sellers and buyers to better understand what a short sale is and how to proceed with closing with a short sale. In order to understand where we are at in the series please read part 1 and part 2.

Short Sales In Palm Beach County- What You Need To Know, What Is A Short Sale?

Short Sales in Palm Beach County- What You Need To Know, Who Qualifies To Sell A Short Sale?  

So now that you know what a short sale is and you have passed the qualifying tests as set out in the above posts you are now ready to put your short sales package together for your agent and your lender.

Before you even list your property with your agent you should have your short sale package put together. This way your agent will be able to expedite the short sale process. Once an offer is made on your property your short sale package must accompany that offer. You will be delaying the process and possibly lose the buyer if you are waiting until you get an offer before you gather up all your documents for your short sale package. There are no exceptions to this process that I have heard about or experienced.

The very first thing that you need to do is call your lender, tell them you are putting your house up for sale and confirm who the lender is. Make sure that the lender you are calling is still the note holder or servicer. We just went through sending out a short sale package for one of our sellers only to find out that the note was sold to another lender. We had to start the process all over again. You may be able to save some time by confirming your lender.  

The next thing that you will need to do is write out an authorization letter for your agent to discuss your loan standing, details and short sale offers with your lender. This letter has to have the name of the person the loan is under and the loan number must be on the letter along with the name and company of your agent. Please date the letter. Most lenders have a period of time in for which the authorization letter is good for and after that time has expired you will need to write another authorization letter. 

Here is the list of all the documents you may be required to submit. If you put together a package and then you find out they don't need one of these documents then just take it out of the package. It is better to be prepared and find out you did more than required than to submit an incomplete package. Your agent should be checking the package to make sure there is nothing missing. The lenders receive so many files each day that they can not even look at the incompleted packages.

• Your authorization letter as stated above. 

• A handwritten hardship letter explaining your hardship.This hardship letter needs to explain why you are needing to sell your property as a short sale. Please read my post on qualifying for a short sale approval. 

• A completed financial statement that your Realtor® has received from your lender. We have found through our experience that each lender has their own financial statement that they provide. It is not difficult to fill out. It is in form format with fill in the blanks. There is an asset column and a debt column and they will have a place to write in all your income and all of your expenses. This is where it is important that you told the truth on your loan application. 

• The last 2 pay stubs for all the signers on the mortgage.

• The last 2 years of tax returns for all the signers on the mortgage.

• A copy of your listing agreement with your Realtor®; your agent will provide that.  

Put all these documents together and give them to your Realtor® so that he/she can get to work on your short sale package and make all the proper notations. Each document will have to have your loan number written on it. 

After you get an offer you and your agent will have to put together the rest of the package and that includes:

• A fully executed offer of sale and purchase agreement.

• The prequalification letter for the new buyer.

• A HUD1 settlement statement from the title company with all the fees listed correctly. The lender will need to approve the expenses prior to accepting the buyer's offer.

Your agent should put together a sales package along with the short sale package. He/she should have your current market value paperwork and evidence showing the offer is reasonable. We also put newspaper articles in the package showing our current market conditions. Documentation beats conversation. This is one of those times you can take all the bad news and work it in your favor. Nestor makes a very thorough and compelling argument and we have met with good responses to going the extra mile with the lenders. Nestor is putting together another short sale package as I am writing this post.

Stay tuned for part 4 of our Short Sales In Palm Beach County Series as we discuss what happens after the short sale package and offer is sent in to the lender. If you are interested in buying a short sale property understanding what happens after the lender receives your offer will be benefit you.  

Disclaimer: This post is not intended to be or to provide legal advice. We recommend that you speak to your attorney and your tax accountant regarding specifics and to find out if this is the best option for you in your situation.

The information provided herein is supplied by several sources and is subject to change without notice. Wellington Homes Blog does not guarantee or is any way responsible for its accuracy, and provides said information without warranties of any kind, either express or implied.  Entries on Wellington Homes Blog represent the opinions and ideas of the author(s).  Wellington Homes Blog does not express the views of International Properties and Investments, Inc or those of the broker. 

Contact Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset, CIPS, Realtors®, International Properties and Investments, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in Florida at 561-753-0135 to list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Wellington, Royal Palm Beach, Loxahatchee, Lake Worth, Hypoluxo Island, Lantana, West Palm Beach and the rest of Palm Beach County Florida. We are accepting referrals.

Copyright © 2008 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved. *Short Sales In Palm Beach County Florida- What you need to Know If You Are Buying Or Selling Part 3 * Contact Katerina Gasset for Customized Business and Personal Coaching.

Visit our profile to find out more about our services. Call us today at 561.753.0135 or Toll Free 800.444.3316. Contact us by email if you prefer by clicking on email me on the right side of this page under our profile.

To view all the Wellington Florida Luxury Homes For Sale Click here and then click on Multiple Listing Search where the globe is on the right side of the screen that opens up. We know Palm Beach County and will help you get your home Sold if you need to Sell your home and help you buy your Wellington Home or Land ; call us today.

P.S. If you are listing your home as a short sale in Palm Beach County Florida make sure you hire an agent who knows how to do short sales and has the experience to get the job done. We are doing successful short sale packages. Call us at 561-753-0135 to find out more.

The South Florida Fair held in West Palm Beach Florida is still going strong and you can still take part in all the action until February 3, 2008 so head on over to the fair. Even if you don't like the rides and the fair food there are fun shows there this year including animal exhibits and a magic/illusion show that actually is quite good. 

We spent the day at the South Florida Fair for our Palm Beach County Homeschool Fair Day. It was really fun. Nestor, Tristan, my daughter Milet and her baby Aylandra all went together and met up with our homeschool friends.

At the Showgrounds they also have the Yesteryear Village which is a period representation of life in the days before there was electricity and you cooked mostly over an open fire. It just so happened that when we were there we got to watch the reenactment of many activities such as making breakfast here complete with pancakes, potatoes and bacon cooked on cast iron skillets over the open fire. See the lady cooking is even dressed in period clothing.

We also saw how they made homemade ice cream back in the old days. It was quite a system they had going here. You can also buy the homemade ice cream fresh at the South Florida Fair Yesteryear Village.

Next we saw the post office with all sorts of antique artifacts from the pony express days. There was a sign in the post office that said you will get your mail in about 3 months time. The kids had fun looking into the postal mail boxes and peaking through the old window.

Here is Tristan ringing the old school bell. I could not get a good photo of the old school house but it was a one room school with all ages put together. That was a good thing, I can attest to that. When my first set of 5 kids were all small the younger ones learned so much from watching the older ones learn and do things at their level. I always taught at the higher levels and the smaller children would desire to catch up to their older siblings. I did not even have to teach my younger two children how to read, they learned on their own and from their older brothers.

When was the last time you saw an old 1924 American La France Fire Engine? There are only a three of these in America right now and the Yesteryear village has one of them. I could not imagine having to be a fire man on this fire engine as one person had to hand crank the siren the whole time! My arm would get so tired! Oh, we sometimes take for granted how easy we really have it!

Here is an old 1935 Ford police car. This older man you see in the photo was so proud of his 'toys' he gets to be the caretaker of.

The old church is down the way a bit and then there is a old camp reenactment which also kept the children's interest.

As we headed for the exhibit halls we came upon the petting zoo. Tristan loves to feed the goats, llamas and other friendly animals they had here. 

There are a lot of great community exhibits and the 4H club had a great exhibition hall. We saw cows, sheep, chickens, roosters, rabbits and horses. We also saw this wonderful Orchid Exhibit, if you would like to see the beautiful orchids I have them posted here.

The kids got to take a quick break and jump in a sandbox filled with corn kernels.

In the main exhibition hall they had a shark encounter exhibit which was a bit hokey as we have been to SeaWorld and Tristan just took a class on sharks at the West Palm Beach Science Museum which was way better!

But the Sea Lion show was a blast. I don't really think anyone can ruin a sea lion show. Sea lions are quite entertaining in their own right.

The bee exhibit was very interesting for kids and adults alike.

What Fair or show anywhere in Palm Beach County would be complete without a boat for sale!

So head on over to the South Florida Fair in West Palm Beach at the fairgrounds right off of Southern Blvd about a 10 minute drive from Wellington Florida.

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Contact Nestor and Katerina Gasset, CIPS, Realtors®, International Properties and Investments, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in Florida at 561-753-0135 to list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Wellington, Royal Palm Beach, Loxahatchee, Lake Worth, Hypoluxo Island, Lantana, West Palm Beach and the rest of Palm Beach County Florida. We are accepting referrals.

Visit our profile to find out more about our services. Call us today at 561.753.0135 or Toll Free 800.444.3316. Contact us by email if you prefer by clicking on email me on the right side of this page under our profile.

To view all the Wellington Florida Luxury Homes For Sale Click here and then click on Multiple Listing Search where the globe is on the right side of the screen that opens up. We know Palm Beach County and will help you get your home Sold if you need to Sell your home and help you buy your Wellington Home or Land ; call us today.

P.S. If you are listing your home as a short sale in Palm Beach County Florida make sure you hire an agent who knows how to do short sales and has the experience to get the job done. We are doing successful short sale packages. Call us at 561-753-0135 to find out more.

Copyright © 2008 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved. *South Florida Fair West Palm Beach- Homeschool Field trip, day at the fair * Contact Katerina Gasset for Customized Business and Personal Coaching.

Sellers- This is why you have an agent. Agents- This is why you must instruct your sellers not to talk to the buyers!

The agent called to make an appointment to show one of our listings. Our sellers were at home and happened to be home when the buyers came over with their agent. The buyers fell in love with the house. The agent tells us they will make an offer. After a few days we still don't have an offer from these buyers so Nestor calls the agent to get the feedback as to why they did not pursue their offer.

The buyers told their agent that they liked our sellers so much and did not want to hurt their feelings because they felt the pride that our sellers had for their home. The buyers were only qualified for a certain amount for a loan and our listing was well over that price.

My first question is: Why are you showing a house that is out of the price range of what your buyer is qualified to pay?

Nestor with his great communication skills tells the agent to just make the offer. If it offends the sellers than he will deal with that. The agent procures the offer and we start negotiations until we come to a meeting of the minds between the parties. The agent tells us her buyers are approved and we get the mortgage broker information to follow up.

Their lender tells us everything is fine. Then one evening our sellers get a call from the buyers. The buyers tell our sellers that they must come over to talk to them. The sellers allow them to come over. The buyers show up with no agent.

The buyers tell the sellers that their lender just told them that they can not do the contract the way that it is written. They want the sellers and them to rewrite the contract without the Realtors involved and do a second note under the table after closing. >HELLO! What is wrong with this picture!

Now you must understand that the sellers just saw all their dreams of moving unraveling before their eyes, the time spent packing their boxes to accommodate a fast closing looks at first glance like such a waste of time. They are in no emotional state to make this decision. That is why they have AGENTS!

They called us straight away and they called their attorney who was going to do the closing. We told them that this is called Mortgage Fraud and we will have no part in it and neither should they. We spoke to their attorney and he said that as the closing agent he must testify that the only proceeds and the only deals are the ones on the HUD1 closing statement and that he knew we would not go along with this. He concurred that this is Mortgage Fraud!

Our sellers would in no way ever willingly or knowingly participate in mortgage fraud. They felt like something was wrong. They could feel this just stunk! Can you just imagine if they had participated in this deal? The sellers said what if they did this and after the closing, what type of assurance did they have that the buyers would even execute the second mortgage and if they stopped paying and the sellers tried to foreclose, can you see the conversation? NOT GOOD!

So back on the market goes our listing and the sellers will now tell any buyers that they must bring all their conversations through their agents. Mortgage Fraud is not acceptable!

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Contact Nestor and Katerina Gasset, CIPS, Realtors®, International Properties and Investments, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in Florida at 561-753-0135 to list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Wellington, Royal Palm Beach, Loxahatchee, Lake Worth, Hypoluxo Island, Lantana, West Palm Beach and the rest of Palm Beach County Florida. We are accepting referrals.

Visit our profile to find out more about our services. Call us today at 561.753.0135 or Toll Free 800.444.3316. Contact us by email if you prefer by clicking on email me on the right side of this page under our profile.

To view all the Wellington Florida Luxury Homes For Sale Click here and then click on Multiple Listing Search where the globe is on the right side of the screen that opens up. We know Palm Beach County and will help you get your home Sold if you need to Sell your home and help you buy your Wellington Home or Land ; call us today.

P.S. If you are listing your home as a short sale in Palm Beach County Florida make sure you hire an agent who knows how to do short sales and has the experience to get the job done. We are doing successful short sale packages. Call us at 561-753-0135 to find out more.

Copyright © 2008 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved. *Mortgage Fraud- Why Your Sellers Should Not Talk To The Buyers Without Their Agent! * Contact Katerina Gasset for Customized Business and Personal Coaching.

Don't forget to get out and vote today! Polls are open until 7 p.m. in most counties in Florida. 

Exercise Your Right To Vote!

You have the right to vote and you also have a duty to vote. That is what makes a Free America work. Your voice is heard. Amazing things happen when voices get heard.

Call your friends, neighbors and coworkers and tell them to get out and vote.

We live in an amazing country and one of the ways that I show I love my country is by casting my vote. 

One of the things that makes us so American is that we get to go to the polls to vote without threats to our lives, without armed guards at each poll and without being told who we are to vote for.

This is not a duty to be taken lightly. Just look around the world, really look at countries that are not Free, that do not have the freedoms we do have and thank God you are here and not there. Then go and show your gratitude by voting. It is easy, painless and only take a few moments out of your day. It is however, one of the most important actions you can take as an American. 

Contact Nestor and Katerina Gasset, CIPS, Realtors®, International Properties and Investments, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in Florida at 561-753-0135 to list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Wellington, Royal Palm Beach, Loxahatchee, Lake Worth, Hypoluxo Island, Lantana, West Palm Beach and the rest of Palm Beach County Florida. We are accepting referrals.

Visit our profile to find out more about our services. Call us today at 561.753.0135 or Toll Free 800.444.3316. Contact us by email if you prefer by clicking on email me on the right side of this page under our profile.

To view all the Wellington Florida Luxury Homes For Sale Click here and then click on Multiple Listing Search where the globe is on the right side of the screen that opens up. We know Palm Beach County and will help you get your home Sold if you need to Sell your home and help you buy your Wellington Home or Land ; call us today.

P.S. If you are listing your home as a short sale in Palm Beach County Florida make sure you hire an agent who knows how to do short sales and has the experience to get the job done. We are doing successful short sale packages. Call us at 561-753-0135 to find out more.

Copyright © 2008 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved. *VOTE- Don't Forget To Vote Today! Florida Residents Get Out And Vote! * Contact Katerina Gasset for Customized Business and Personal Coaching.

The phase III Wellington Florida Water Restrictions are in effect. Please be sure to do your part in understanding when you can water your lawn and use outdoor water.

The water restrictions DO NOT apply to you if you are using 100% reclaimed water.

Water Restrictions apply to ALL other sources of water. Even if you are getting your irrigation water from a well, the lake, pond, canals or rivers; you will still need to apply these water restrictions. Water needs to be conserved from all sources.

The Village of Wellington is famous for giving out tickets to residents who do not adhere to the water restrictions set down by Wellington Florida. They even have signs up on all the major intersections of Wellington letting all of us know that the water restrictions are in full effect right now.

These water restrictions are based on the fact that even though we have seen a lot of rain here it has not been enough to make Lake Okeechobee water levels rise high enough.

We are now on a ONE DAY A WEEK irrigation schedule. That means you can only water your lawns and use your sprinklers one day a week, no more than that. I have read of cases where residents have gone to court to tell the judge they don't want to be fined because they did not know what the schedule is. Well, ignorance is no excuse for not adhering to water restrictions. If you are a part time resident you can find out online at the Village Of Wellington's website what the rules are for irrigating.

Our golf courses may not be as green as we would like because their allocated water use has been cut by 45%.

There are no restrictions for washing your car or pressure washing your roof, driveway or walkways. Hand-watering with a hose that has an automatic shut off nozzle is allowed for 10 minutes a day if used to prevent plant die-off.

Use can use a microjet or drip system to your plant roots with conservation in mind.

Odd street addresses can water their lawns on Mondays between 4:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. or 4:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m.

Even numbered street addresses may irrigate Thursdays between 4:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. or 4:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m.

If you own more than 5 acres you can expand your irrigation hours between 12:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. or 4:00 p.m. and 11:59 p.m. on the assigned watering day.

For more information about Florida's water management read about how you can visit wonderful water conservation areas right here in Palm Beach County, Florida. Florida's water is worth saving, Our Eco Systems.

Here is last years water restrictions but there is also a chart on how water is used in households.

Please use conservation in all your water usage. It is a precious resource and we must become aware of how to use our water in the most conservative ways.

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Contact Nestor and Katerina Gasset, CIPS, Realtors®, International Properties and Investments, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in Florida at 561-753-0135 to list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Wellington, Royal Palm Beach, Loxahatchee, Lake Worth, Hypoluxo Island, Lantana, West Palm Beach and the rest of Palm Beach County Florida. We are accepting referrals.

Visit our profile to find out more about our services. Call us today at 561.753.0135 or Toll Free 800.444.3316. Contact us by email if you prefer by clicking on email me on the right side of this page under our profile.

To view all the Wellington Florida Luxury Homes For Sale Click here and then click on Multiple Listing Search where the globe is on the right side of the screen that opens up. We know Palm Beach County and will help you get your home Sold if you need to Sell your home and help you buy your Wellington Home or Land ; call us today.

P.S. If you are listing your home as a short sale in Palm Beach County Florida make sure you hire an agent who knows how to do short sales and has the experience to get the job done. We are doing successful short sale packages. Call us at 561-753-0135 to find out more.

Copyright © 2008 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved. *Wellington Florida Water Restrictions Phase III- Help Do Your Part * Contact Katerina Gasset for Customized Business and Personal Coaching.

Rich Jacobson asked the Active Rain Community members to write their testimonial in the rain.

My testimonial in the rain is that Active Rain Is The Place To Be! I have written several testimonials about what Active Rain means to me and what it has helped me to achieve from friendships to the amazing blogging results and business we have rendered from participating in this fabulous online real estate Web 2.0 community.

Active Rain Is The Place to be for NICE! It is absolutely the friendliest and most supportive of all the online forums and communities in cyberspace. I have been on many real estate forums and internet marketing forums, many social sites and communities that I must say have been quite unfriendly and mean and that is putting it mildly. I won't mention the names of them here. So it was quite refreshing to find that Active Rain was NICE! I remember how scared I was to press the submit button on my very first post because of remarks that were made to others out there in cyberspace. Here is a testimony I wrote some time ago about what a great place Active Rain is.

Active Rain is The Place to be for LEARNING! If you want to know about any subject in real estate and a lot of other topics related to business and self development, look no further. This is a FREE community and people give freely of their time, talents and experiences for all to learn from. You can read all you want on your own time, how much better can it get than that! I am so humbled and honored that I have been welcomed in with open arms to share what I know and for being able to give back by paying it forward in the Rain!

Active Rain is The Place to be for FRIENDSHIPS! This is the only online community that I know of where you are able to make real friends and bond with a common element. Among our peers who have the understanding on what we go through each and every day is a warm thought and welcoming feeling. I have been able to make friends here on the Rain who will call me if I need help. I can ask for help and prayers in time of need and my friends here will rally around me with the power of their thoughts and prayers, phone calls and emails to support me. Active Rain members are there for me. My 100th post tells the story of friendship and business on the rain.
I have written more than 300 posts here on Active Rain and my testimony only grows stronger.

Active Rain is The Place to be for REFERRALS! If you network correctly, give of yourself first, make comments on blogs, subscribe to blogs, connect with those that you think will have clients moving to your area; you will get the referrals! We have had referrals from Tom Weiss and Matthew Blum who are both mortgage brokers in our area as well as members here on Active Rain. If you write good content, be nice to those who visit your blog, return the comments that members write to you and visit other blogs on the Rain and make comments you will allow people to get to know you and then if they like you and trust you; they will refer their clients to you. My post about referrals in the rain says it all.

Active Rain is The Place to be for SEO! What more can I say! It works, it is powerful. But it does not happen through inaction on your part. You must take the correct actions to achieve front page results on the search engines. I show you ways in which you can do that in my post about Blogging for the Longtail searches. I was able to move out of Google's sandbox with our website within 2 months through commenting on real estate forums and got to page 20 on Google. But as soon as I started blogging on Active Rain I moved to page 4 very quickly, then to page 2 and now on page 1 in the #1 position on Google for many of our search terms.

Active Rain is The Place to be for Business! WOW! Do I have a testimony of how blogging on Active Rain has brought us sellers, buyers and closed transactions! I wrote a post about how our blogging and SEO was noticed by a webmaster for an investor which resulted in $22 million dollars in inventory to list and we are also selling this investor more properties. We get calls almost on a daily basis from sellers who have already chosen us to be their agents based on reading our blog. Read our story of how much business we get because of active rain. We just got a listing today from a seller who told me she has been reading my blog and that is what made her decide that we would be her agents. My list is so long about the business we have received because of Active Rain blogging and networking on the Rain. We get listings and special buyers. We get notoriety and credibility which always leads to more business. More people are reading your blog than you will ever know. We have closed sales and many more closings scheduled in February because of our blog here on the Rain. You can turn your blog into a money making machine. Last but certainly not least, I have gained some great real estate agent clients to coach and do expired packages for right here on Active Rain. I am passionate about helping agents reach their goals and I have been richly rewarded. It is because of the members on Active Rain that I am now committed to finishing my book on how to be a successful real estate agent. Do what you love, the money will follow.

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Contact Nestor and Katerina Gasset, CIPS, Realtors®, International Properties and Investments, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in Florida at 561-753-0135 to list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Wellington, Royal Palm Beach, Loxahatchee, Lake Worth, Hypoluxo Island, Lantana, West Palm Beach and the rest of Palm Beach County Florida. We are accepting referrals.

Visit our profile to find out more about our services. Call us today at 561.753.0135 or Toll Free 800.444.3316. Contact us by email if you prefer by clicking on email me on the right side of this page under our profile.

To view all the Wellington Florida Luxury Homes For Sale Click here and then click on Multiple Listing Search where the globe is on the right side of the screen that opens up. We know Palm Beach County and will help you get your home Sold if you need to Sell your home and help you buy your Wellington Home or Land ; call us today.

P.S. If you are listing your home as a short sale in Palm Beach County Florida make sure you hire an agent who knows how to do short sales and has the experience to get the job done. We are doing successful short sale packages. Call us at 561-753-0135 to find out more.

Copyright © 2008 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved. *Testimonial In The Rain-Active Rain Is The Place To Be * Contact Katerina Gasset for Customized Business and Personal Coaching.

If you work in Short Sales you will appreciate this As' The Short Sales Turn' Reality Short sales or should I say, sagas! 

Nestor and I list a lot of short sales here in Wellington Florida and Palm Beach County Florida. Most of the short sale listings are in the foreclosure process. Because of the amount of short sales in our area we decided we would do a series about short sales where we explain the short sale process and the qualifying factors to do a short sale. From there we will be continuing the series with what the buyer needs to know about buying a property in a short sale and what the seller needs to do to complete a short sale. 

We also hope this series will help the real estate agents in our area and around the country to understand the short sale process in order to better assist their buyers in procuring a house through the short sale. If the agent is listing a home that will need to be sold as a short sale he or she will know more of what is involved.

This particular post is letting you know some of the ups and downs within the negotiating process that we deal with on a day to day basis.

There are lenders who are efficient in their short sale departments and then there are, well, should we say, lenders who are just not from this planet!

We had this listing that we received an offer on and turned in a whole short sale package which on average consists of about 80 to 100 pages of documents and verifications. Nestor puts this whole package together, OH, BTW, you must add the loan# on the bottom of every single page before faxing it in, he faxes it to the lender. The next day, we find out that they just sold the loan to another lender! We call that lender and guess what! They had NO idea that the seller was in the short sale process. Needless to say, the whole process starts all over again and has been going on since November!

Now on another short sale listing, Nestor sends the package all in and the lender confirms they have received it. They order the BPO. We get the call that the BPO is being done and we are told when she turns it in to the lender. Then when Nestor calls the lender, they say they do not have the BPO! Well, we know they do. It was so funny because the person puts Nestor on hold, and while he is waiting, he calls the agent who did the BPO and she is telling Nestor that of course she turned the BPO in by the deadline the lender gave her. The person from the lender gets back on and hears Nestor and the agent talking and then says, " Oh, we found the BPO." Now this same lender calls our seller a week later and asks him how is his sale on his house coming along! He tells them, it is not coming along because you, the lender, is not doing anything to get this deal done and you have not approved the sale so how can it be coming along! 

This one wins the boobie prize! One of our sellers calls the lender to ask them to help them out with a freeze on their interest rate as per our President's request to have the lenders work with homeowners who do not want to ruin their credit, etc. The guy tells this seller that they can not help them and that he does not know what they could possibly do. Then he is looking at their file about their property and says these words, " Gee, you can buy a house for only $150,000 the same size as yours there here in Texas!" They try to explain they are not moving to Texas and that they want to keep their house. He again says to them, "Why don't you move to North Carolina or something!" At least it wasn't someone from India telling them to move there! What a trip! 

You must know what you are doing, be very patient and have very good communication skills in order to succeed in short sales. If you are an agent make sure you have a thick skin and are up to dealing in short sales. If you are a buyer who is interested in buying a short sale stay tuned for our series on short sales in Palm Beach County so you get all the information you need to know. And Sellers, you must choose an agent who has the skills and experience to negotiate with your lender and knows what to do in these circumstances should they arise.

Stay tuned for more As The Short Sales Turn as we share this Reality short sale series! 

Contact Nestor and Katerina Gasset, CIPS, Realtors®, International Properties and Investments, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in Florida at 561-753-0135 to list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Wellington, Royal Palm Beach, Loxahatchee, Lake Worth, Hypoluxo Island, Lantana, West Palm Beach and the rest of Palm Beach County Florida. We are accepting referrals.

Visit our profile to find out more about our services. Call us today at 561.753.0135 or Toll Free 800.444.3316. Contact us by email if you prefer by clicking on email me on the right side of this page under our profile.

To view all the Wellington Florida Luxury Homes For Sale Click here and then click on Multiple Listing Search where the globe is on the right side of the screen that opens up. We know Palm Beach County and will help you get your home Sold if you need to Sell your home and help you buy your Wellington Home or Land ; call us today.

P.S. If you are listing your home as a short sale make sure you hire an agent who knows how to do short sales and has the experience to get the job done. We are doing successful short sale packages. Call us at 561-753-0135 to find out more.

Copyright © 2008 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved. *Short Sales- As The Short Sales Turn * Reality Short Sales * Contact Katerina Gasset for Customized Business and Personal Coaching.

Henry Ford's famous quote: "If you think you can or if you think you can not, you are right" really is the definition of belief and the power that lies within belief. 

I have so much to share about the power of belief that it will require a series of posts to cover this important topic.

People do not succeed because they can or know how to, they succeed if they believe they will. In this post we will look at some amazing feats of people who probably have read about in high school or college. This one word, Belief is just one word, but it is such a powerful word. In every single person that I have coached their self limitations, their stuckness, their false income ceilings, their negative outcomes and their procrastinating behavior is all the result of one thing; limited beliefs. In our next post we will discover how beliefs are formed so that we can better know how to transcend limited beliefs.

Fred Astaire:

When Fred Astaire auditioned for his first movie with MGM, the director wrote a memo that said about Fred, " Can't act, Can't sing, Can dance a little."  Of course he did not buy into those beliefs. He believed in himself and had a dream to be a star and a star he became.

Margaret Mitchell:

Margaret Mitchell only published one book in her life; 'Gone With The Wind.' Gone with the wind won the Pulitzer price in 1939 and is probably the most watched movie of all time. But 'Gone With The Wind' was turned down by 32 publishers. Margaret was very shy but she believed in her book which gave her the courage to knock on doors until someone said yes. 

Vincent van Gogh:

Vincent van Gogh only sold two of his paintings while he was alive and both of the paintings that he sold were to his brother. He was criticized by other artists, mocked and told that his art was primitive. He believed in his art style and continued to paint. Today his paintings are worth billions of dollars.

Albert Einstein:    

His teachers said he was mentally retarded. He did not speak until he was four years old and he did not read until he was 7. I for one, am thankful that he did not buy into these beliefs from these teachers. He instead believed in himself and in his abilities. He went on to become one of the great thinkers of the 20th century. He discovered the Theory of Relativity which only a few people in the world can fully understand it.

These people did not buy into the negativity around them, they did succumb to the negative comments and the shortsighted ways in which people treated them. They also were leaders of themselves. They did not follow what the world said for them to do, they did not follow everyone else's negativity.

The best definition of Belief I can find is in the Bible:

It states in Hebrews that, " Faith is the substance of things hoped for... the evidence of things not seen."

Belief is the same thing as faith. You must also believe you can do something before you ever do it. Think back to one of your children learning to walk. They keep getting up to try to walk no matter how many times they fall down. They believe that they will be able to walk or else why would they ever try? They have never walked before those first steps. 

One of the things that successful people do NOT  do is buy into the dreamstealers that unsuccessful people buy into. Remember the saying," If you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything." Successful people do not buy into all that negative stuff around them, they are not paying attention to the naysayers, fingerpointers and scoffers. 

"If you think you are beaten, you are.

 If you think you dare not, you don't.

 If you'd like to win but think you can't

 It's almost certain you won't.

 Life's battles don't always go to the stronger woman or man.

 But sooner or later, those who win

 Are those who think they can."

I do not know who wrote this wonderful saying but I had these words in a frame in my Tae Kwon Do schools and those words helped kids and adults alike to understand that it is all in your thinking and belief, whether they were going to break a board or kick higher than ever before.  

This applies tremendously to your real estate business and whether you succeed in this business or not. It is up to you and what you believe. If you believe the news then that belief will translate in you not getting any buyers or sellers because you believe that there is no business. That is why in the very same office, no matter how good or bad the market is you will have those that are kicking butt making money and getting those sales, getting those listings and then those who sit around and complain about how bad it is, creating more of how bad it is for them.

Stay tuned for how we form our beliefs, how we can find our limited beliefs and how we can change our beliefs.

Consider subscribing to my blog if you like what you read here and want to keep up with this series of posts. 

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Contact Nestor and Katerina Gasset, CIPS, Realtors®, International Properties and Investments, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in Florida at 561-753-0135 to list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Wellington, Royal Palm Beach, Loxahatchee, Lake Worth, Hypoluxo Island, Lantana, West Palm Beach and the rest of Palm Beach County Florida. We are accepting referrals.

Visit our profile to find out more about our services. Call us today at 561.753.0135 or Toll Free 800.444.3316. Contact us by email if you prefer by clicking on email me on the right side of this page under our profile.

To view all the Wellington Florida Luxury Homes For Sale Click here and then click on Multiple Listing Search where the globe is on the right side of the screen that opens up. We know Palm Beach County and will help you get your home Sold if you need to Sell your home and help you buy your Wellington Home or Land ; call us today.

P.S. If you are listing your home as a short sale make sure you hire an agent who knows how to do short sales and has the experience to get the job done. We are doing successful short sale packages. Call us at 561-753-0135 to find out more.

Albert Einstein photo courtesy of wikimedia. Fred Astaire photo courtesy of Student Brittanica.

Copyright © 2008 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved. *The Power Of Belief- What Beliefs Have You Bought Into?* Contact Katerina Gasset for Customized Business and Personal Coaching.

When you embark upon your Keyword research get into your prospects' minds. Avoid going after keywords in the beginning that are too highly competitive and ones that everyone else is using. You can go there after you have some closed contracts as a direct result of your blogging and organic traffic to your websites.

But remember that as I said in Longtail Keywords For Blogging-Fishing With The Right Bait on Your Active Rain Blog and Blogging For Business-Keyword Rich Content to Get Your Phone To Ring,that the highly competitive keywords do not generate 'ready to make a decision' customers. In order to get up Google and the other search engines very fast choose longtail keywords like in Update to Longtail Keywords.

But to make the biggest and fastest impact it is best to do your research on your keywords first. Find out what keywords are being searched for and how many times a month those keywords are searched. Then choose the ones that you want to be found for based on that research. I like to search Google, Yahoo and MSN. 

There are many free keyword tools out there for you to use. Go ahead and search around until you find one that you like. I found that to do the type of research that I wanted to do that Overture and Google Keyword tools were too slow and general. There is also Wordtracker; they give you a free trial of their keyword tool.  I believe that niches are the best place to capture the customers. I like to understand more of what I am doing when I do my keyword research.

I like the paid versions. I have one that I use for adword campaigns but I do not use adword campaigns for Real Estate. I do use adword campaigns for my Law of Attraction sites.

I like to use Niche Inspector for my keyword research. Now please keep in mind that this is a product that is being used by internet marketers in all niches and areas of marketing. If you click on the link it will take you to Myleena's sales page where she shows you all the ways people use her product. You can read it all or skip to the bottom and then order Niche Inspector. Her product costs $127. I use it all the time for my keyword research. If you are just starting out in blogging and doing this research on keywords I do NOT recommend you to spend the money on this program. It is a very user friendly program but you may not understand how to use it when you are first starting out on all of this internet marketing stuff. If you have some experience and want something easier to use then I would highly recommend you to get the Niche Inspector. I have a lot of fun with it. If you do use adwords it has a lot of applications to help you choose the best and lowest cost adwords. The best part of this software is that it shows you all of Google, Yahoo and MSN data on one screen, thus it becomes a great time saver for me. I don't have to go from program to program. 

In Niche Inspector I can search Google, Yahoo and MSN all at the same time. I do not have to go back and forth from different screens and websites.

What I really like about Niche Inspector is that there is a brainstorm feature that has keywords come up that you may not have thought about. It will also give you what the going price for adwords are for your keywords. I don't use adwords in my real estate marketing but I like to know the value of the keywords as that helps me to know which words might be better to blog about or to add to my keywords on my website. If someone is paying high prices for these adwords then there are searches being done on those keywords.

Contact Nestor and Katerina Gasset, CIPS, Realtors®, International Properties and Investments, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in Florida at 561-753-0135 to list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Wellington, Royal Palm Beach, Loxahatchee, Lake Worth, Hypoluxo Island, Lantana, West Palm Beach and the rest of Palm Beach County Florida. We are accepting referrals.

Visit our profile to find out more about our services. Call us today at 561.753.0135 or Toll Free 800.444.3316. Contact us by email if you prefer by clicking on email me on the right side of this page under our profile.

To view all the Wellington Florida Luxury Homes For Sale Click here and then click on Multiple Listing Search where the globe is on the right side of the screen that opens up. We know Palm Beach County and will help you get your home Sold if you need to Sell your home and help you buy your Wellington Home or Land ; call us today.

P.S. If you are listing your home as a short sale make sure you hire an agent who knows how to do short sales and has the experience to get the job done. We are doing successful short sale packages. Call us at 561-753-0135 to find out more.

Copyright © 2008 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved. *Keyword Research- Do It Right The First Time* Contact Katerina Gasset for Customized Business and Personal Coaching.