Local Remax Realtor, Lana Wilken Underway to Earning a CDPD Designation to Specialize in Short Sales

PRLog (Press Release) - Feb 02, 2010 -
Lana Wilken, Oakland/Winter Garden-based REALTOR, is underway to receiving the prestigious Harris Real Estate University Certified Distressed Property Designation (CDPD), having completed extensive training in negotiating and closing Short Sales.  The Short Sale of a property allows the distressed owner, through their Realtor, to find a buyer willing to purchase their home before they are forced into the foreclosure process. The owner can then use proceeds to repay their lender, even if the amount is less than what they actually owe on the property. In the current economy nearly all lenders are willing to consider Short Sales because they are less costly and time-consuming than foreclosures.

This expertise is invaluable at a time when the nation’s housing market is devastated by millions of distressed home owners thrust into the foreclosure process.
 
“The Harris Real Estate University CDPD designation has been invaluable as I work with sellers and lenders on complicated Short Sales. In the Oakland and Winter Garden alone, more than 1700 homes are in some stage of foreclosure.* The best action against foreclosure is Short Sale,” said Wilken “It is so rewarding to be able to help families save their homes from foreclosure.”
 
Tim and Julie Harris, founders of the Harris Real Estate University in Las Vegas, NV, said “Realtors such as Lana Wilken, with the HREU CDPD designation have valuable training in Short Sales and can offer homeowners a better alternative to foreclosure, which inevitably destroys their credit rating and prevents them from having the ability to purchase a new home.  Through our in-depth training and continuous education programs, these agents are trained to aggressively seek sellers and buyers using our extensive marketing techniques.”
 
The Harris Real Estate University opened in 1998, and provides Distressed Property Agent training through webinars, teleseminars and teleconferencing. Agents can earn their Short Sale Listing designation remotely from their offices all across the nation. The HREU CDPD is the premier designation for Realtors who want to specialize in helping distressed home owners.
 
“Our goal is to prepare agents enrolled in the program for the increasingly competitive Short Sale market. It’s becoming more difficult for uncertified agents to out-sell our graduates. Our comprehensive Short Sale Certification gives them everything they need to gain an edge over other agents in their service areas,” Harris said.
 
If you feel you are in need of more information about foreclosure alternatives, or if you are under water on your mortgage payments, call Lana Wilken for more information 407-719-7611 or partner, Kurt Gies, at 407-701-9416.
 
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Specializing in the sale of residential and commercial properties in the Orlando area, REMAX  sells more real estate than any other company worldwide.  For more information on this and other Real Estate related questions, log onto www.theArtofRealEstate.org

*REALTY TRAC
Also refer to this article in the Orlando Sentinel:
The Orlando Sentinel. “The flood of foreclosed properties on the market in the Orlando area has given a lift to existing-home sales in recent months, but it’s also drowning builders’ hopes of speedily selling their backlog of finished-but-vacant houses. As a result, builders in three counties are pooling their resources for an unprecedented, new-homes-only auction, in an attempt to unload as many of their unsold houses as they can, as fast as they can.”

“A half-dozen finished-but-vacant homes in the Oakland Park subdivision of west Orange County, for example, are among at least 25 in the region scheduled to go to auction March 28. Oakland Park, developed by California-based Castle & Cooke Inc., has been marketing its homes since mid-2007 but, nearly two years later, has sold only three.”

“One 3,735-square-foot home in the community went for $454,000 in October, according to county land records, yet nearby on the same street, four vacant homes are scheduled to be auctioned with starting bids as low as $175,000.

“‘It’s not uncommon for me to look at a market and see builders trying to sell below replacement cost,’ said housing analyst Anthony Crocco. ‘They have to go below cost, to fight the foreclosure situation.’”

“The number of Metro Orlando homes in some stage of bank repossession continued to rise last month. The four-county metro area had 7,690 homes with a foreclosure filing, notice of foreclosure sale or repossession by a lender — more than twice as many as in February 2008, according to RealtyTrac Inc. Meanwhile, there were 3,309 finished-but-unsold homes in Metro Orlando subdivisions at year’s end, according to Metrostudy’s most recent survey, and many of them are surrounded by houses in some stage of foreclosure.”

“In the same Winter Garden-area ZIP code where the all-new Oakland Park development is located, for example, there are more than 1,560 foreclosure properties, according to RealtyTrac. ‘There’s just a lot of foreclosures at the bottom of the pile,’ Crocco said. ‘My sense is that there’s more pressure [on new-home prices] from foreclosures than anything at this point, and job losses are going to have an [additional] impact.’”

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