Recently, a bank started using our latest product, VerifiedShortSale, and listed several dozen properties in the pipeline.

One particular property had been pre-approved by the bank for short sale, and on the market since March, with no offers and no interest from potential buyers. The bank started using our system at the end of September, and within the first few days, they had three solid offers.

All summer, the bank didn’t know about any offers. The three offers that popped up within days of listing on VSS were within 98% of list price.

How to explain this? Was somebody playing games? Was there an offer that the bank didn’t know about?

Or was it simply a situation of too many players and not enough pipeline of information?

As soon as they had process and procedure in place, three offers appeared.

We see immediate benefits from using our systems. Our clients tell us again and againthat the bank is the last in line to know anything. They only know the information shared by a listing agent, who doesn’t work for the bank.

All it takes is organization and focus. By putting systems, procedures and controls in place, the bank can now drive the bus and be first in line to see everything instead of last in line to see anything.

This is good for all involved. Underwater, non-paying borrowers who try to stay in their house as long as possible before the bank kicks them out wouldn’t be able to stay quite as long with a bank who uses our system.

Just like kids need routine to thrive, so does everyone else. Establish a procedure and a process, and you’ll see housing get a kick in the pants.

We’re finding that banks, servicers and others involved in short sales typically handle this process on a reactionary basis. Except you can’t run a business when all you do is react to outside influences.

Historically the short sale business has been a reactionary business. And for good reason – I see how it got to be this way but it’s time to take a step back and realize that just because we’re doing it this way, doesn’t mean it’s right or has to continue on the same path.

If your goal is to mitigate loss and recover as many dollars as possible, then reacting to what the defaulted borrower or what his agent shares with you is bad business. Those people aren’t looking out for you. You must look out for yourself.

And while we’re talking about changes to the way things have always been done, let me propose that review of a hardship package should be an activity done separate from fielding offers in a short sale. It’s not efficient the way things are today. Waiting for an offer to review the entire package of materials delays the potential sale at least four months in the most productive settings.

Perhaps it’s a new industry cropping up between foreclosure and short sale. Let’s propose new ways of doing things in our new housing climate.

Standard protocol isn’t always best. It’s familiar, it’s comfortable, and it’s lazy.

Blazing a new path has always been the brave way to build business. Now it’s also the smart one.