Don’t forget to ask for a discount

When you live in an area where property values are rising a lot of time people from other areas don’t think about this.

They get locked into what they think about real estate in their area and a lot of times don’t give it much thought.

I was talking to a guy who was not making his payments a couple weeks before his house was going up for sale.

He had a loan for $125,000 and a few years ago when he took the loan out, that’s about all the house was worth. When I came along the property had gone up in value and I could sell it for around $150,000 so there was $25,000 in the house but that’s if you get out with no expenses, which never happens.

The approach I used on the owner was that I could keep the foreclosure off his credit report. He is going to lose his home and have a foreclosure on his credit he really wanted to avoid this.

So to keep the foreclosure off his credit report he was going to give me the house if I would pay off the loan and keep them from foreclosing on him.

I decided to call the lender and talk to them, when I got the lender on the phone I started to tell him I was going to pay off the loan, then I remembered something that I had heard at a seminar, about lenders discounting their loans.

So I said you know this loan is going up for sale in a couple weeks, would you consider selling it at a discount so you won’t have to risk taking the property back?

His answer really surprised me, he said I will take $95,000 for the loan.

Just like that, in two minutes I had made an extra $30,000.00

By asking a single question.

So to pay off the loan cost me $95,000.00 not $125,000.00 and all it took was asking the question.