Listen up Realtors and Home Owners alike. The choice to do a short sale can be varied and often not an easy choice. Once the decision is made you really need to to be careful not to kill your own short sale.
Here are my Top 5 Ways To Kill Your Short Sale
#5 – Assuming any offer is a good offer
The bank is always looking for market value. Do your best to select the best offer and be prepared to defend it with real and recent sales comparables. Don’t be afraid to counter back on low offers and no cash is NOT king in a short sale.
#4 – Communicating Outside of Your Short Sale Support
If you are a home owner be aware that often a bank will reach out to you directly and often their information will conflict what your Realtor or Short Sale Negotiator has told you. Stay calm, be brief if you answer the phone and follow up with your team. If you do not have faith in your team fire them, if you do then please let them do their job for you.
#3 – Ignoring Your Mail
As the home owner you, not your Realtor and/or short sale negotiator are responsible for checking your mail and identifying if your foreclosure has started or if an auction date has been set. If you are not making your payments a foreclosure is an absolute possibility. Keep an eye on your mail and sign for all certified mail immediately. Get copies of all communications from your bank(s) to your team immediately.
#2 – Filing Bankruptcy
You can file bankruptcy and complete a short sale but if you are going to file you must interact with your whole team in order to orchestrate the timing and execution.
and . . .
#1 – Starting a Loan Modification
It seems almost guaranteed that after months or longer of attempting a loan modification that has failed or stalled completely that this one rears it’s ugly head at #1 on my list. Here is the scenario that has played out often.
- Failed Loan Modification
- Decision to Short Sale
- Short Sale Offer submitted to the bank
- Bank NOW magically reaches out to the home owner to engage them to a loan modification. The letter states something ambiguous like ‘Congratulations, you have been identified as a potential candidate for a loan modification and may qualify for our blah, blah, blah program‘. A loan modification that by the way the bank has spent ZERO time qualifying the home owner for.
- The Home Owner is excited and wants to keep their home and assumes since the bank contacted them that a loan modification that it would most likely get approved.
- They fill out paper work thinking it is not a problem and in a worse case scenario their payments will be lower during the short sale.
- Home owner never tells their Realtor or Short Sale Negotiating Team (ref #4 above)
- The bank then cancels the short sale request in lieu of the new loan modification request.
