A "short-sale" is where a house is sold, with lender approval, at a price which results in the lender not getting all the money they are owed. The lender agrees to take a loss, and the resident/owner of the house gets NOTHING! You cannot short-sell your house and walk away with money. You usually cannot short-sell your house if you have other assets which you could use to pay off the shortfall. A short-sale is designed for people who owe more than their house is worth, cannot make the payments, and do not have other liquid assets. Even then, lender agreement is not automatic. It is a tough and time-consuming process.
If you are looking to buy a short-sale, the price at which it is listed may be attractive, but it is probably at a price or even below the price it will sell for. Even then you may well be competing with multiple offers, and it may take months for the deal to be agreed and completed. If you like a short-sale house, you need to make an agressive offer, and then have a lot of patience. Your agent really needs to know what they are doing also....there are a lot of people operating in this bank-owned/short-sale environment who do things in very strange ways.
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