Anthony Lamacchia and John McGeough met eight years ago, when Lamaccia used McGeough as an agent to help him find properties to fix up and manage. The two struck up a friendship, and in 2004, a partnership, launching their brokerage out of a spare room in Lamacchia’s house. Since then, they’ve grown to a staff of 20, including six field agents covering the Boston area and southern New Hampshire – in part by focusing on short sales.

Anthony Lamacchia and John McGeough  

Title: Broker/Owners, McGeough Lamacchia Realty Inc. in Waltham

Age: 29 and 39

Experience: 6 and 8 years

How did you first get involved in short sales?

McGeough: We had a client come to us, and we did an analysis on the home and realized, ‘these folks are upside down.’ So Anthony did some networking and we hooked up with a guy out in California who’d been doing short sales for 10, 15 years. Even though there wasn’t equity, these clients were in a tough position and still needed to sell.

He jokes about it, because after the first one I remember talking to him, saying, ‘I’m telling you, we’re getting more and more calls, we ought to start thinking about doing more of these’ and him saying, ‘Ugh, I don’t think we should do any more of these, these are so tough.’

Lamacchia: That was in late ‘06.

McGeough: But as they continued to come in, I said we have to put something together, because there’s a void in the market.

Is there anything you have had to do differently to get into this segment of the market?

M: The way we set up the business lent itself a little more to doing short sales. We’ve always viewed this as more of a service business, and really tried to raise the support end, on the customer service level. With short sales, that’s critical, because you have so many emails, faxes… if you don’t have everything complete you get bounced. A typical agent, they’re out dealing with buyers, sellers, it’s just unrealistic. Most agents aren’t in-house desk jobs, but many of our agents are, and that’s what works with a short sale.

How do you help keep buyers sticking around through all that?

L: What it comes down to a lot of times is setting the expectation correctly in the beginning. There are times, here and there, where an agent calls and says, ‘Hey, my buyer found something else.’ It happens. Probably happens one in every 10, maybe not even that many. But the reason is, we’re very clear from the beginning: This could take from four to eight weeks to get an approval, maybe longer, and we’re not going to submit for an approval until you sign the purchase and sale agreement and you’re ready to go. Some of the files that have been a struggle and have taken 90 days to get approved, buyers waited… it’s all about that expectation.

What about people who are underwater and want to sell for other reasons – Are the banks receptive to that?

L: They’re a lot more receptive than you’d think. And they’re a lot more receptive than they were three years ago. We used to get a lot of banks pushing back, saying, ‘well, what’s the real hardship? I don’t care if they have to move.’ Now, I think there’s two reasons why it’s gotten easier. One is, three years ago [a bank like] Bank of America was dealing with 20,000 short sales at a given time. Now there’s 150,000 short sales at a given time. There’s just plain more. The other thing is, the government finally is pushing banks to do short sales. So the government and the banks have finally realized if they don’t work with people who are trying to be proactive and responsible, that that house may end up being abandoned. That’s what I think.

M: If there’s a chance of default, the banks have run enough statistics that if somebody’s either behind or calling about the possibility that they may be behind, they’re going to go into foreclosure, more often then not. So they’re being more proactive.

L: We really need people to be more proactive. We have seen more proactive people in the last three or four months, coming to us when they’re just getting behind versus 12 months behind. But we need it, because the banks, finally, after 18 months of holding off on foreclosures, they’re not playing games anymore.

Lamacchia and McGeough’s Top 5 Tips For Struggling Homeowners

1. Do not wait around and let things get worse.
2. Contact your bank to discuss your options.
3. Ask yourself: Even if my payment comes down modification, will I still be able to afford it?
4. Consider a short sale to sell the home and get on with your life.
5. Consult with experienced professionals. Not all real estate brokers and attorneys have dealt with these situations.