As a Real Estate Broker, I know the rule of thumb about working with buyers – get them pre-approved before driving them all around to multiple listings. Why waste their time and yours, not to mention the sellers of the homes you are showing? And why break the hearts of your buyers who find their dream home, only to learn they cannot get a loan?
Well I’m here to tell you a new rule of thumb for myself to follow that I learned the hard way…pre-approve your sellers, too! As a new agent a few years ago, I had a major falling out with someone I went to high school with, let’s just say a few years ago, because she couldn’t get approved for a loan.
She reached out to me on Facebook to list her house because she wanted to move back into our old school district so her daughter could attend the same schools she did. Of course, I agreed to help and proceeded with listing her house. I sent her to my preferred loan officer who was unable to approve her. So I then sent her to another broker that I knew specialized in credit repair. The broker outlined a few steps for her to take to bump her score up just a little and clear a couple of things from her report with an estimate of only 60-90 days IF she did as instructed.
My client proceeded to start the repair process, but continued to request to see houses. Only because of our prior relationship, I agreed. After 3-4 outings and 6-8 houses, she realized she needed to get her credit fixed before looking anymore. So I waited.
Finally, about four months into the listing contract, she told me she had done everything she needed to do, and she should be pre-qualified within a couple more weeks. I agreed to show her a few more houses. Meanwhile, the loan officer pulled her credit again and discovered she had only taken care of one of the three things required.
Fast-forward one more month and suddenly my client starts calling and emailing both the loan officer and myself, blaming us for her predicament, and claiming we weren’t doing our jobs. She told me to immediately cancel her listing agreement, even though there was only a month left on the contract. I was more than willing to send her a listing withdrawal form to sign. However, for some reason, she never signed and returned it.
The listing expired. Finally. So I washed my hands of that situation. But I learned a lesson that I will never forget. Every listing I’ve taken since and will take in the future, I’m making sure that seller is a pre-qualified buyer before we start looking at houses!
Live in Southern Indiana 