Nancy Hill, CRS
Windermere Real Estate/Renton, Inc.
NancyHill@Windermere.com www.BestKingCountyRealEstate.com 253-653-6323
Short Sales - A Good Deal or a Sour Deal
Posted on February 6, 2010
How can you tell a good short sale deal from a sour short sale deal? First of all, I hesitate using the word "deal" with the words short sale. Short sales are not always a deal. Just because the new suggested listing price is lower than what the current homeowner paid does not make a "deal." My clients and I have been searching King County for a home at or below $200k. They quickly came to realize that Puyallup was saturated with SFR's (single family residences)just at or below $200k - and many of these homes are short sales.
They love to search for homes on the internet and send me lists of short sale "deals." I will graciously take their list of 10+ homes and quickly dwindle them down to 1 or 2 homes that would constitute a "deal." This is done by checking County records to review the assessed value of the home, property tax status, taxes due, HOA dues, liens on property, how many lienholders are attached to the property, neighborhood review, sold properties within a 1/4 mile radius of home, current listing prices within a 1/4 mile radius of home AND a call to the listing agent to learn short sale/lienholder status, if they have received any other offers that have failed, if a BPO (Broker Price Opinion) has been performed on the property, how close to foreclosure is the property and more. That is a lot of work to perform on the front end and will take a number of my clients perspective "deals" off the platter as they are just too sour.
At first my client was a bit uncertain why we could not go see ALL the listings that they thought were deals. Here are some reasons why....If a home has multiple lienholders then the liklihood of getting all lienholders approval to sell short is minimized. If a home has unpaid liens against the property the chances of the bank approving payoff of these liens on top of the loss of proceeds is minimal. The seller cannot/will not pay off these liens and buyers will rarely, if ever, want to pay overdue bills of the seller. Some of these unpaid bills may include utilities or HOA dues. There are many issues that must be researched before considering placing an offer on a short sale.
When your Realtor will take the steps to research up front then the possibility of actually closing on a short sale deal becomes a greater reality.
These extra steps will also save you all a valuable resource - time.Short sales are not for the weak! They take effort, research, time and a lot of patience for all parties involved.
Good Luck!
Nancy Hill, CRS SRS
Windermere RE/Renton, Inc
(253)653.6323
NancyHill@Windermere.com
Windermere website: www.NancyHill.MyWindermere.com
Nancy's website: www.BestKingCountyRealEstate.com
Nancy's Blog: www.BestKingCountyRealEstate.com/blog
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