I am handling two short sales right now. One as a buyer's agent and the other as a seller's agent. In both cases, I feel for the buyers.What do you tell the buyer who has been waiting six months for an answer from the bank? This is some of the things I have told them:1. This home is discounted 50%. A deal like that is worth waiting for.2. If this were new construction you would need to wait just as long for it to be built.What doesn't work is saying nothing.1. They want to know if are wasting their time.2. They want to know is there is a possibility that the bank won't approve the short sale at all.3. They want to know details; does the seller have a true hardship? Did the bank already approve a short sale and it fell out of escrow or the buyers walked?4. They want to be educated on the short sale process....and5. They want updates (every week).I hear so many buyers say they won't even look at a short sale because they have had bad experiences. If the buyers are educated about the whole process up front, before they make an offer and have as many facts as possible about this particular home, it will make things go much more smoothly.I just closed a short sale as a buyer's agent to a client who waited it out four months. I knew she would get the home because it had already been approved for my first client who walked. My new buyer was well qualified but with different terms, so the process had to started over for the new buyer. She waited and waited and she got the home.And good for her...by waiting, values went down, she got the home for 6K less and her interest rate dropped too!It's always the "last man standing" who gets the home.
Try to use the Lane Guide . If you do have a nice volume of short sales, it is worth. It is the most update guide with loss mitigation information available. You will be able to find the lender's info. Once you have the info push to scalate the file.
Mellyora, thanks for the great website. I'm in Southwest Riverside County in California and if BOA can't handle the short sales they have now, how are they going to handle 40,000 more? I was told by an Asset Manager that they are staffing up, but won't it take time to train these people? It's been 5 months since I submitted my current short sale to BOA, I contact them every week and I still don't have a negotiator assigned to me. The latest is that they canceled the file in error, re-entered it the same day, but had to start the process all over again!
It is a difficult concept to explain to a prospective buyer who just wants to buy a home and doesn't understand the complicated banking processes involved in Loss Mitigation.
As a Listing Specialist in Short Sales, I've learned that we start the process to have the file assigned and then approved, all the while encouraging the Buyer to open escrow and begin their loan process in order to avoid a delay. We constantly update the Loss Mitigation Department of the file's progress and this seems to keep our file near the top. This encourages them to cooperate with everyone's desire to close quickly, and so far this approach has worked. There are exceptions, of course, but we've had good results from prompting the transaction through the process until we have the deal closed.
Hello Jan. This is my first time blogging on this site and I found your blog interesting. I too am working with short sales right now. I have 3 sellers. Two of them have buyers, one of which is a tenant already in the home. I too feel for the buyer's position. But it's a good deal if the buyer waits it out if the bank doesn't take back during the process and if the buyer agrees to the terms that the bank sets.
My business partner found a valuable website that we direct agents and their short sale buyers to. The website is www.foreclosuretruth.com . We have no affiliation with this site. We like it because this site keeps track of the experience that real estate agents go through with the major banks. When you go on the site just click on short sales. Buyers will like it because the site gives them a realistic time line and someone else is explaining the process pros & cons of doing a transaction with a particular bank.
I'm hear in California. I just spoke to an agent who told me that she went to a BofA meeting where the speaker told the audience that they have 80,000 short sales they are working on and that they expect to have an additonal 40,000 in October. Thank you for the posting.
I guess if you are on the seller side, it is important to give weekly updates even if there is nothing new. It gives the buyer assurance that someone is working on it. If you are on the buyer side, it is important to interview the listing agent. Unfortunately not all are knowledgeable enough to handle it. I usually ask them if they have closed any short sale before, if they are submitting one or all offers (this is a deal break for me) and if the seller really has a hardship. Depending on the answers I advise my clients accordingly. In case they want to proceed, it's their own risk! :-)
I have a first time home buyer that has waited 4 months and the 2nd lien holder would not accept the amount offered by the first lien holder. Finally we have an agreement between the 1st and 2nd and now the buyers lender ..BOA says it has been too long and we have to reprocess the loan, so now its in underwriting again and the time line that the 1st and 2nd lien holders gave us is passed. Hope my buyer will be the "last man standing".
Comments
As a Listing Specialist in Short Sales, I've learned that we start the process to have the file assigned and then approved, all the while encouraging the Buyer to open escrow and begin their loan process in order to avoid a delay. We constantly update the Loss Mitigation Department of the file's progress and this seems to keep our file near the top. This encourages them to cooperate with everyone's desire to close quickly, and so far this approach has worked. There are exceptions, of course, but we've had good results from prompting the transaction through the process until we have the deal closed.
My business partner found a valuable website that we direct agents and their short sale buyers to. The website is www.foreclosuretruth.com . We have no affiliation with this site. We like it because this site keeps track of the experience that real estate agents go through with the major banks. When you go on the site just click on short sales. Buyers will like it because the site gives them a realistic time line and someone else is explaining the process pros & cons of doing a transaction with a particular bank.
I'm hear in California. I just spoke to an agent who told me that she went to a BofA meeting where the speaker told the audience that they have 80,000 short sales they are working on and that they expect to have an additonal 40,000 in October. Thank you for the posting.