Success Story
Photo by Ted Dawson
Being a Realtor can be a stressful job that demands your attention at almost every hour of the day. because some things will need your immediate attention, sometimes it can be hard to be a great on-demand agent when you are at home having family time, or just even just relaxing. That being said there are times that you get a phone call that is not just a potential client, but is also a cry for help. I know that “cry for help” sounds a bit extreme for a real estate related situation, but this story is in fact about a cry for help.
I picked up my ringing phone and answered with my pleasant office greeting “Hello this is Kylie. How can I help you?” The voice I heard back was a woman’s voice that sounded confused. She needed help but didn’t really know where to start. So she called me. “I need help selling a house… I have a buyer but the bank is telling me it needs to be listed with an agent before I can sell it.”
She was definitely right to call Green Light Real Estate. But if she had a buyer, why would she need to list the house? Well that’s where it gets complicated. The family had filed for bankruptcy and thought for the past two years they were caught up. They thought the mortgage had been part of the bankruptcy. Turns out that there was a misunderstanding, and they were still responsible for the mortgage, but hadn’t been paying for the last year. They had no knowledge of this, and their home, which was also the childhood home, was at risk of becoming a foreclosure.
I asked them how I could help and what they needed me to do. They explained that they didn’t want this to linger any longer and that the bank needed an agent to price it at fair market value so it could receive as much as possible for the property. The home was officially in a short sale status.
I met them at the house a few days later and we talked about the hardships they had faced. This was a sad turn of events because that it is a family home, and their hopes of finally getting this off of their shoulders were fading. We agreed to stop wasting time, to get it listed, and to get going on it!
After a few days of running to the Town Clerk’s office, taking photos, pricing the home and the talking to different contact people at the bank, we were ready to get it listed. As soon as it was listed, the calls started to come in. The house was in rough shape because no one had lived there in a long time. There was definitely investment potential and flippers were interested. Because she had a buyer who had been trying to buy for a year, we received an offer almost immediately and submitted it. I was working with the sellers as well as helping the buyer, but the bank wanted the buyer to be represented. I have good working relationships with lots of area Realtors, so I was able to connect the buyer with a different agent, one whom I know, like, and trust. After a few rounds of negotiations, we were in an accepted contract.
A short sale is an entity all its own, and a complex transaction. The amount of paperwork to confirm everyone is who they are, the number of people involved, and the sheer number of documents to be precisely prepared, signed, and notarized took massive chunks of time. It took multiple trips around several towns to collect paperwork and signatures to keep the transaction on track. We were in the final process to closing.
To make a long story short, we went to closing after several months of waiting for the bank to work the numbers, hundreds of emails and countless miles driven to make this all come together. After the closing I received a huge hug from the seller. She told me that I had no clue how relieved they were and that they couldn’t have done it without me. The weight of the last few years had been lifted. They needed to work on getting their lives back on track, and now they had the opportunity to do so!
Here’s what the sellers had to say following the transaction:
“Kylie is amazing! We were in a kind of complicated situation and had pretty much lost hope but then we found Kylie. She was always very helpful and went above and beyond to help us get our house sold. I highly recommend Kylie for whatever your housing needs or situation might be. She will get the job done and will do it with a smile even when things look bleak. Kylie and her colleagues are absolutely wonderful!”
Sometimes my job can just be fun finding someone a first home or selling their home to move into their forever home. However, sometimes I can actually answer a literal cry for help and get people get their lives back on track. And that feels good.
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