Are You Doing Enough to Protect Your Deal?

You’re working on a deal with a 60-day closing. You work your way through the entire process, negotiating all required documents and aligning all required professionals. Closing day is approaching, but then boom, you hit a snag. The only way to predict your revenue is to know that all the deals that you are working are solid.

While some situations are completely out of your control, like a sale being conditioned on the buyer selling their home, or a buyer coming down with a serious case of buyer’s remorse, many of the reasons that deals fail are well within your control. Here are some of the challenges and how you can overcome them.

Buyer Financing Challenges

Buyer financing challenges can occur for a variety of reasons. Sometimes a mortgage pre-approval is issued and then the client’s information changes or they have difficulty providing the information requested by the bank. Other times, the client incorrectly estimates their equity, leading to a smaller down payment than originally anticipated and even difficulty covering closing costs. The best way to overcome buyer financing challenges is to work closely with your broker partners to better understand what they will be looking for to close the mortgage and work with your client to meet these requirements as early in the closing process as possible. Want to strengthen relationships with your broker partners and create more alignment? Ask them what they need. What is required on every deal? Proof of down payment? Proof of income? The list goes on… Why not ask your client for this documentation at the mortgage pre-approval stage? Another step that you can take if the buyer is also selling their home or the proceeds for their down payment are coming from the sale of another property is to search the property in GeoWarehouse. You can validate the value of registered encumbrances to estimate the equity they will have available.

Disagreement Over Property Value

Gone are the days of a formal appraisal being required on all deals and hello are the days of Automated Valuation Models (AVM). Ever wonder why the bank often doesn’t order an appraisal? Over the past 2 decades, banks have come to rely on AVMs, which are essentially automated property valuations that generate a property value estimate. The buyer and seller can agree to whatever value they want, but if the bank runs an AVM that disagrees with the value then the deal will come to a grinding halt. The best way to overcome this challenge is to run your own automated valuation of the subject property in GeoWarehouse. Especially in hot urban markets like Vancouver and Toronto, it is not uncommon for bidding wars to push a property’s value far above what may be considered market value at the time of the offer and acceptance. Anticipating discrepancies in value enables you to prepare your client to have more down payment or plan in the event the bank doesn’t want to offer full financing.

Property Title Issues

Property title issues such as other people on title, the presence of liens, strange transfers or discharges, undischarged mortgages and many other title-related issues can emerge and quickly delay, and even prevent deals from closing. Don’t wait for the real estate lawyer to uncover these types of challenges – at this point you will be so far into the process that you will have incurred significant time and expenses, as will the other professionals involved in the transaction. Want to ensure that there are no title issues existing on your deal? Check the Parcel Register* first. This will reveal who the legal homeowners are, the type and percentages of ownership, registered mortgages, liens and more. You can quickly access a property’s Parcel Register* through the GeoWarehouse Store in GeoWarehouse.

Predicting revenue means anticipating/estimating what new business you want to bring in, and, just as importantly, that the business you have on the go is good business. Going above and beyond the call of duty for both your client and professional partners, from day one, makes it clear to all that you are a professional who maintains a strong commitment to getting the deal done!

Have you heard about the New GeoWarehouse? It’s coming soon and if you want to learn more visit www.earlyrelease.geowarehouse.ca.

*An official product of the Ontario government pursuant to provincial land registration statutes.