Three common issues or mistakes in a transaction

The second issue I see come up a lot is not qualifying your buyers prior to looking for a house.

Driving unqualified buyers around - not a productive thing to do

In this day and time when gas can cost you anywhere from $2.50 - $3.00 per gallon, does it make sense to drive a prospective buyers around looking at homes before you  know if they could qualify to buy one? Your buyer clients need to get pre-approved for a loan before they start shopping.  We all know how hard it is to get buyers approved these days.  Even people who in the past would have had no problem getting a loan are having more and more difficulties qualifying for financing.  Get you buyers in front of a loan officer as soon as you can.

If your buyer is going to shop the loan around, as most do, they should do that as soon as they start looking for a home.  After the loan officer has said they should qualify and you get them in the car to show, their next step should be to start shopping the banks; NOW.  When they have picked a house they should have the banks narrowed down to 2 at most, then they simply can make a call to the banks see who's rates are the best and apply for the loan.

In January when the new offer to purchase and contract comes out it will be even more important to have your buyers pre-approved and ready to go before writing the offer.  With an option or due diligence contract your buyers need to be prepared to get the process underway immediately with respect to everything they might want to do.  Financing, inspections, appraisals etc. it all has to be done in the due diligence time period.  In my opinion this is a very good thing for us as agents.  Buyers will take less time on these things and be much more focused on completing them in a shorter time frame.

In toady's world with a buyer who is ready to decide on a loan, you can help them write a better offer than the next offer because you can put an application time within 2 or 3 days rather than the 5-7 we typically see.   A day here or a day there on an offer can make all the difference in the world to a seller.  The shorter time frames the better!

If you do not have your buyer handle this process upfront you may be showing homes to a person who can't even qualify to buy one.  That makes no sense at all and in fact costs the agents both time and money.  Spending time with buyers who can't buy or sellers who can't sell is completely counter productive.  Especially in a market that is slow, any time you waste on unproductive things takes time away from doing really productive things like prospecting for actual clients.

Remember to own the process in your transactions.  It is your job to lead the buyer in the right direction and to keep them focused on the ultimate outcome, a closed deal! We all remember how nice that can be.