Information That Should and Should Not Be Given Out

Once you have gotten the deed to a property and you are in the short sale process, there is some information that you don’t want to give to mortgage companies once they start calling.

It is very common for them to start asking you contact information for the mortgage holders. Giving them basic contact information (i.e. new address, telephone number, etc.) is usually pretty acceptable, but that is something that you will want to discuss with them ahead of time to see if they are ok with that. But the fact is these companies expect us to play the way they play and cooperate with them. Call the seller and inform them that they required you to update the file on them before they'd even talk to you.

You would also want to advise the seller if they talk to the mortgage company, instruct them to tell the mortgage company that they contacted (your name) and that he/she has offered to help and will be handling this transaction for them. They can just say that life has gotten too much and they just have so much going on. Tell them just to repeat that stuff almost as verbatim as they can and it probably wouldn't hurt for them to throw in that they’re considering bankruptcy and you are trying to help avoid that.

You want to make sure that you are, at the very least, cordial with these companies. If we choose not to, then they won’t want to deal with us. It is very common that they will ask you if there is some type of offer that has been made. They will usually want to know a figure on the offer. It actually places us in awkward and difficult positions sometimes.

You want to ensure that whatever personal information that you share with the mortgage company about the seller is first approved by the seller as much as possible. If you divulge too much information, you risk angering the seller which could result in ruining the deal. Consider how you might feel in their situation and you can’t go wrong.

For additional information on real estate investing and the hot foreclosure market, I recommend joining Ron LeGrand's Millionaire Maker Newsletter The newsletter itself is loaded with great tips and resources, and he's usually giving away something free like a CD or something that generally has a lot of great information on it.