Anyone done a short sale?

[gatormom2tots]

Interesting topic...

I think (and I am by no means an expert so I may have my facts incorrect) but the problem started with Clinton and continued with Bush with this whole idea that anybody and everybody should be able to buy a home. I feel certain that this pressure from the government pushed Freddie mac and all of these to create a system where financing was available to all whether or not they truly showed credit worthiness. I see government, banks, and people not being realistic about their financial situation responsible for all this mess in the housing market.

Our story is my husband and I graduated with a Masters and Law degree and tons of debt in student loans. Then add a few years of irresponsible credit card use. Thankfully we never did buy a house- we had enough insight to realize these ARMS were a disaster waiting to happen.

Fast forward several years, most of the debt is paid off, our landlord is going into foreclosure, and we have 20% to put down on a house. Even with that, the bank prequalified us for 100K than we knew we were comfortable taking out in a mortgage. Even today I think the banks are prequalifying people for way more than they should.

We are in the process of buying a short sale. Thankfully the bank has already approved the asking price due to the previous short-sale falling through because the people couldn't afford the banks counterbid of 15K more than the offered. So we are hoping to close in a couple of months after offering 5K more than the bank approved counter-offer. We are just hoping it goes through before we have been asked to leave our current residence on Oct. 19 because our landlord was one of those who bought and rented houses as an investment with a 0 down, intrest only loan.

We did see homes on short-sale due to divorce and one that we almost bid on because the husband had a heart attack and they were drowning in medical bills.

One caveat of a short sale. Many realtors absolyutely hate to deal with them from the buyers perspective. We love our realtor but she was very upfront about short sales and basically had only a few agents she would deal with when working with them. She didn't refuse...but definitely was very cautious. My concern would be that with a house being listed as a short sale, the buyers agent are often going to be more likely to show and push you towards another house with a "real" owner.

 

[iadis58]

I know to some people, that is not allot but this will be the second time we have owned a home for 15+ years, first time we came out with 13.00 at settlement. We moved away and now have moved back 15 years later, when we listed our house in April we where told 126K was what homes where selling for, now 6 months later, they are saying 105K is where we need to be. We owe 112K and offer came in at 110k with 4K towards closing costs. they figure we will need 16K at settlement. I have spoken to two people at the bank that holds the mortgage asking them for options for making up the difference. I do not want a short sale and am willing to pay the difference. We are current on our loan. What would you do? Borrowing from family is not an option. Any advice please!

 

[Irin997]

I know to some people, that is not allot but this will be the second time we have owned a home for 15+ years, first time we came out with 13.00 at settlement. We moved away and now have moved back 15 years later, when we listed our house in April we where told 126K was what homes where selling for, now 6 months later, they are saying 105K is where we need to be. We owe 112K and offer came in at 110k with 4K towards closing costs. they figure we will need 16K at settlement. I have spoken to two people at the bank that holds the mortgage asking them for options for making up the difference. I do not want a short sale and am willing to pay the difference. We are current on our loan. What would you do? Borrowing from family is not an option. Any advice please!

Do you HAVE to move? If not, I'd stay put.

 

[iadis58]

Do you HAVE to move? If not, I'd stay put.

Thank you for the response, we have all ready moved so we have no choice. Moved back to family. We where told at the time of listing that we where rigt where we neded to be price wise which gave us about 10K of cushion. Then the local market went south and here we are. We have accepted there offer and will scrape up most of what we need and will borrow the rest from family. At least it is a vet buying the house so we feel good about helping them out. It's a done deal unless anything unforseen happens. Thanks agin