Please don’t hate me – I warned you – It’s a SHORT SALE…

First of all; what IS a Short Sale?

If you don’t know; A Short Sale is when the owner (whom still owns the home) – owes more to lenders then the home is actually worth.

There is normally a hard-ship involved; (job loss, illness, death of a wage-earner in the home) – and the seller has little or no money and is simply trying to avoid foreclosure.

A Short sale is anything but short.  It is a long drawn-out process which takes seemingly forever – if it even happens at all. I always warn buyers; it will take months and months.  They are coached and counseled by me; that short sales are a pain in the butt, stressful and only for the most patient people on the planet.  I also tell the buyers that most short sales never happen – the homes end up in foreclosure.

That being said; it is easy to get a buyer “annoyed” at you.  I have been lucky that I have two of the most patient buyers on the planet!  One has been waiting since early October; the other only a couple of months.  I update them every week; even though most the updates are “nothing new to report”.

I do hear of many home buyers who get angry at their agents for “getting them into this mess”.  Have the agents told them it would be a horribly long and stressful wait?  Did the home buyers listen?  Does the agent update them weekly?

Short Sales DO close; but very few and I am hearing of many of them taking close to a year.  So if you have to time wait – great.  If not; then don’t blame your agent – blame the banks whom seem to be incompetent and overwhelmed.  More importantly – don’t get into a Short Sale if you are not prepared for a long-drawn out drama.