Many of my readers have followed the information provided regarding short sales. Recently we are seeing a new group of these listings come on the market. Many of these listings are with agents that have never completed a short sale, nor attended any class on them. They hear that you can sell for less than you owe and jump on the short sale band wagon.
Buying a short sale can be a great investment, however, everything depends on the bank’s response to your offer and any other offers. One of the trends I am seeing is listing agents listing a home at a price that is so much lower than everything else on the market it can not help but bring in offers. The object is to get the offer, then get the bank to at least look at it. What has happened twice in the last week to a couple of my buyers is very frustrating. The listing agent had dropped the price to a point that the bank would not even consider a full price offer.
When the buyer wrote the offer we knew what was owed, we knew where we stood that this was a short sale, and we knew that there were multiple offers. The bank’s response was that they would not take any of them, and instructed the listing agent to raise the price by $20,000 to $30,000. The buyers…. they found other homes listed at the same amount that are already bank owned – so the answer comes quicker and the home is theirs sooner.
Be careful when looking to purchase a short sale…. make sure the listing agent is not doing the too good to be true pricing…. because if it is too good to be true – it most likely is.
I just put an offer on a house and then a coule of days later the owner accepted the offer and a couple of days ago the bank said that they neede to see if we had enough money to put down how long do you thing it will take to get the house? i put the ofer on September 20.
Jordan your own agent can answer this best. There are so many variables no one can give you an accurate answer. Now that your offer has been accepted by the seller, the bank will review the offer and the terms, the bank will have someone either another agent or an appraiser give them an independent opinion of value, to verify your offer is reasonable. Short sales can take weeks to months to start working like a traditional sale.
The good news is, apparently the bank is reviewing your offer, they will be asking both you and the seller a lot of questions.