Day 28. Buyer’s loan just died. Most agents relist the house and start over. I don’t think that’s the right play, and I want to show you exactly what I do instead.<\/p>\n
I’ve been brokering deals in Texas long enough to know that conventional financing blows up a lot more often than anyone admits. When it does, agents who only know one way to close a deal lose their commission. Full stop. I’ve watched it happen to agents I like, agents who worked hard, agents who did nothing wrong except not know what to do when the lender said no.<\/p>\n
Picture this deal. Seller in North DFW, relocating out of state, needs to close in 35 days or she’s paying rent in two cities. Buyer looks solid: 720 credit score, pre-approved at $312,000, my commission at ratification is $9,360. Day 28, the lender calls. Buyer switched jobs mid-contract. New DTI killed the loan. No backup buyer. Seller’s move date is in one week.<\/p>\n
I could relist. Or I could think about this differently.<\/p>\n
I asked the seller one question she’d never been asked before: “Would you be willing to carry the financing yourself?”<\/p>\n
She owed $187,000 at 4.25% on a $312,000 house. I explained what a wrap mortgage is. She becomes the bank. The buyer pays her at 7.5%. She passes through the 4.25% payment to her existing lender and keeps the 3.25% spread. That’s over $6,000 a year in interest income she didn’t have before.<\/p>\n
The buyer gets a house he couldn’t finance through a bank. My commission doesn’t change. The purchase price doesn’t change. We close in 33 days.<\/p>\n
It was a structure I knew and she didn’t. That knowledge is the only reason I got paid.<\/p>\n
I’ve sat through enough Texas CE hours to know what our renewal cycle actually delivers: how to fill out a One to Four Family contract, what an inspection contingency is, how to schedule a closing. Box-checked. Certificate issued. Rinse and repeat.<\/p>\n
Nobody in those classes ever walked me through what happens when a deal blows up at day 28 and I need a different tool. Not once in all those hours did anyone explain what a wrap mortgage is, how seller financing works, or what “subject-to” means. I had to find that on my own, outside of any accredited class.<\/p>\n
That gap is where real estate agent commissions go to die. I see it every year inside my own brokerage. Good agents, working legitimate deals, losing everything at the finish line because they’ve never been shown a backup play.<\/p>\n
The difference between an agent who only knows conventional financing and one who also knows seller financing and wraps isn’t abstract. In my composite deal above, it’s $9,360. One deal. One structure I knew.<\/p>\n
I raise seller financing before you ratify, not after the lender calls.<\/p>\n
Two questions I ask every seller at listing. Does this property have an existing loan, or do you own it free and clear? And if a buyer’s conventional financing fell through at the last minute, would you ever consider carrying a note yourself?<\/p>\n
Not every seller says yes. But when they do, I’ve just widened my buyer pool to include people who can’t get a bank loan right now but can absolutely make a house payment. Do I pitch wraps on every listing? No. Do I bring it up early so I’m not scrambling at day 28? Every single time.<\/p>\n
There are rules around wraps and seller financing in Texas. I teach these in our live CE classes on Zoom because the mechanics matter and I want agents asking questions in real time, not clicking through a slideshow at midnight. When do you use a wrap versus a subject-to? What happens if the buyer misses a payment? How do you handle a due-on-sale clause? Those answers depend on the deal in front of you, and I want to walk through that with you in class, not leave you guessing.<\/p>\n
I don’t protect my commission by arguing over the split. I protect it by knowing how to close deals other agents can’t close. When a conventional buyer’s financing dies, the agent who has one more tool is the agent who gets paid.<\/p>\n
Your 18 hours don’t have to be a box-checking exercise. The renewal planner at stepstoneuniversity.com\/free-guide<\/a> shows you exactly how to build that skill set while you knock out your required hours.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n StepStone University: CE that teaches the deals a retail brokerage never covers.<\/p>\n Get started with StepStone University<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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