With short sales being a staple in the real estate market today, agents are turning to a new tactic in gaining listings.  They are marketing themselves as ’short sale experts’ and using a variety of ’short sale designations’  or claiming to be ’short sale certified’ in order to gain more listings.

Being that I am a competitive person and because I am always interesting learning something new that might help my clients, I have done some digging on the value of these designations.  What I have found is that for the most part they are paper tigers.  Meaning that they sound a lot more useful and valuable than they are, at least from the standpoint of the home owner.

One of the courses I looked at recently was entirely geared at hooking the agent into the value of the designation.  I will be honest and say that when I don’t see a price on a website for how much something costs, but see loads of statements like “Along with the course, you receive the following bonuses” (free of course) that I wonder what the intent of the course is.  Is it to provide information that will make agents a better resource for their customer, or is it there to make the company money and give agents a shiny badge to put on their website and business card?

Personally I value experience over a short sale designation.  While it is valuable for agents to become informed on how to do a short sale, actually going through the process and negotiating with live buyers, sellers, other agents and lenders can not be replicated in a manual.  Successfully completing a short sale takes a high level of patience, negotiating skill and willingness to be on top of what is going on, and calling people to find out why they haven’t gotten their part done yet.

Will I get a short sale designation? Possibly!  If I run across a short sale class that has some value for my clients and is not just a marketing tool.  In the mean time, I will keep myself busy working with clients and their short sale transactions, as well as keeping up to date on what the current Washington state laws are regarding short sales and distressed property sales.

The hard and fast of it is, do you want someone with experience, or someone with a designation working on your short sale transaction?