15 Minutes Can Save You From Heartbreak

Quick one here.

I am getting offers from agents who don’t have a pre approval for their buyers. This means that they are committing the real estate version of picking up hitchhikers- putting people in their car who have not been checked out, vetted, or qualified to buy a home, let alone be alone with them in a vacant house. 

Often, when I ask these agents about it, I get some hokey reply like “they are in the process,” which speaks to complete ignorance about that very process.

Folks, in 2011 it takes a 15 minute call to a loan officer to get run through Desktop Underwriter and you can have an answer by that afternoon, often within an hour in real time. It might take some time to collect documents, but at the very least, having your credit run and stating your assets & income subject to confirmation is not rocket science or over laborious. 

What if they are credit worthy, but they love a house that is beyond their affordability bracket? 

What if they aren’t credit worthy?

It is heartbreaking to find these things out once you find a house you love. 

The facts are that I have listings with 15, 25 and sometimes 40 showings and I know that there aren’t half that many sales in the local markets for that property type. These agents are just chauffeuring people around looking at houses.