Credit Challenged Buyers
This business is all about knowing your numbers. Everywhere you go, every blog you read, all you hear is “Know your numbers, know your numbers!” How many homes have you sold? How many homes have you listed? How many leads are you working with? The lowest common denominator in those questions is selling a home. What about the credit challenged buyer that may or may not have told you that they have credit issues? How long was the cultivation period to get them to come in to the office? The internet age allows us to cultivate a potential lead, buyer, or client for months, sometimes years prior to their arrival.
How much time should you give them? What is their FICO score? Is it worth your time and energy to show them homes? Some realtors treat a credit score as a personal profile report. That could not be further from the truth. With the real estate crash that we experienced over the last few years, many good people suffered a foreclosure or a short sale. These people are of such good quality that you’d let them babysit your kids. Yet their credit has been damaged or destroyed. We make connections in this business.
I recently had a single mom of two teenagers come to me and tell me that she wanted to buy her first home but her credit scores were not high enough. She told me that I was the fourth or fifth realtor that she had contacted, that once she mentioned her credit was low they discounted her and did not return her phone calls or emails. This lady was an active duty military soldier, stationed at Ft. Stewart, GA and did not know what her credit score was exactly. She assumed it was bad because of a divorce that she went through.
Prior to sending her to my lender, I made a commitment to her to do whatever I could to help her find a home no matter how long it took. She was very grateful and I was proud of myself for seeing past an immediate closing and the chance to help someone who helps our country. To my surprise when I got her with the lender her credit score met the minimum number to qualify for a VA loan! We put a beautiful new construction home under contract, far grander and nicer than what she thought she could afford. With the low interest rates her payments are $150 less than what her rent was, so to say she was over the moon is an understatement.
I certainly know that you cannot make a living working credit challenged buyers. Sometimes you have to stop and see that there’s a need and there’s a reason that their credit score is low. Good quality people need our services more than ever. Now that we’re coming out of this deep real estate recession there are going to be millions of people climbing out of a bad situation and wanting to buy a home. Our professionalism will be tested, our patience will be tested, and the term delayed gratification is something we need to get used to. But guess what? That wonderful lady that I just sold her a new construction home for her and her family is going to want to sell that home one day and her being in the military she’s going to tell many people about the great experience that she had with me that should, in turn, result in more closings. Success breeds success, but don’t forget failure breeds failure as well.
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