by Brian Brady
Commercial Real Estate Finance Expert
Structured Debt and Equity
Licensed Real Estate Broker in AL, CA, and FL
It’s Sunday afternoon and the Phillies game approaches the top of the ninth inning. You, the professional Realtor, look at your watch and notice it’s 3:40PM. You’ll be locking up the door, uprooting the signs and heading home after a long afternoon at a particularly slow open house. You can almost smell the dinner your loving spouse has prepared.
A couple walks in to the home and tells you that they are just in Philadelphia for the weekend. Dad’s finishing up his final negotiation for the new job and Mom’s trying to figure out if the kiddies will adapt to Philly.
They toured open houses all weekend. They need a Realtor with whom they connect. Mom announces that YOU are the perfect Realtor for them while the Phillies put away the Dodgers in the background. One catch… they REALLY want to see a home across town but it wasn’t open today.
“Will you represent them?” they ask.
You explain that your policy is pre-qualified buyers with a Buyers’ Brokerage Agreement.
“No problem !” they exclaim.
You dial your favorite lender while Mom and Dad review and sign the BBA. No lender answers your call.
Do you load them up into your SUV and show them properties?
You CAN pre-qualify that buyer in about five minutes; you just need to know what to ask. Seven Realtors from Active Rain gathered today to listen to my 20 minute presentation about “How Realtors Can Pre-Qualify a Buyer”
In this 20-minute podcast, I reveal:
1- How to talk about money without sounding intrusive.
2- The “Three C’s of Lending”
3- The one question that separates the buyers from the wannabes.
4- Red flags that require a conversation with a lender
5- Green flags that signify that a loan is imminent.
Download it to your iPod and get prepared for next Sunday afternoon (or just listen to it here).
Cathleen Collins says:
Great topic and great coverage, Brian. This is an area where I do, indeed, have trouble… and for the reason you named — I was raised to believe it’s impolite to discuss money. So when Greg asks me how much one of my buyer clients has to put down on a house, I know he has been annoyed with my answer, “Well, isn’t that between the buyer and his financial officer? I didn’t want to be too nosy.” Silly, huh? It’s my job to know this information, yet I’ve had trouble getting past the taboo. I think this is one of the reasons I prefer listing to representing buyers.
I want to always get better at this business, so your podcast has been very valuable for me. I have a question about the credit score. I used to hear that 620 was the score to meet or beat in order to qualify for a mortgage. Is this still true? On this podcast, you mention 700 as being a good score. Is this what we should be looking for now before we start house-hunting with a not-yet-pre-qualified buyer?
May 13, 2007 — 12:33 pm
Brian Brady says:
“Is this what we should be looking for now before we start house-hunting with a not-yet-pre-qualified buyer?”
With a 700 +, you should be clear to house hunt sans LO pre-approval and income.
If you pre-qual them by using the rule of $7/thousand and they have a 620, load them into the Hummer.
All zero downs should go through pre-approval today, regardless of the other factors.
May 13, 2007 — 4:45 pm
Jason Fox says:
Thanks for the info. Great for my agents to use.
August 18, 2007 — 3:51 am