Industry experts Brett Ellis of the Ellis Team at RE/MAX Realty Group in Fort Myers Florida and Adrian Jacobs from Countrywide Home Loans in Fort Myers Florida outlines successful strategies in identifying short sale candidates, structuring your offer so the bank can accept it, and compiling the short sale package the way the banks want to see it. We also go into qualifying the seller, getting pre-qualified, and talk about lien searches and why they’re important.
Brett is a CDPE (Certified Distressed Property Expert) and has helped dozens of homeowners sale their properties in SW Florida. Working with a CDPE is a good idea and Brett encourages agents to obtain the accredidation. The more agents with this knowledge the more it helps the entire market. Both the listing and selling agent must have detailed knowledge about the process to make a short sale work. Making mistakes can cost the buyer several months, kill the deal, and the buyer has lost out on many other properties they could have purchased during the time they waited for the failed short sale. The seller faces likely foreclosure in a failed short sale, so the results are tragic on both buyers and sellers. Working with a CDPE helps improve the success rate by only focusing on qualified short sale opportunities and putting together a package that works for the banks.
Watch Tips on Short Sales. We also talk about buying bank foreclosures in SW Florida, Fort Myers, and Cape Coral as well.
Brett Ellis and his mother, Sande Ellis, lead Ellis Team – KW Florida Living in Fort Myers, Florida, with more than 38 years in Southwest Florida real estate. The team has closed more than 6,000 transactions since 1986 and ranked #2 in Fort Myers by transactions in 2025 (RealTrends Verified). Brett writes a weekly real estate column for The News-Press and publishes the team’s Lee County market indices, including the Current Market Index™ and Market Spread Index™. The team is a proud member of SWFL Inc. Learn more at TopAgent.com.