Every 10 seconds of every day a home goes into foreclosure. There are no winners when this occurs. The homeowner is potentially stuck with a mortgage deficit and a bad credit report that will take years to fix. The mortgage holder is now stuck with a property that they must maintain and carry until they can sell. Meanwhile the home may still be depreciating and that is assuming that the homeowner has left the home in good condition upon departure.
Mortgage companies and banks have come to realize that they are better off selling the home pre foreclosure if possible versus after foreclosure. Recent studies indicate that the mortgage holder may be 10% to 20% better off financially if they work with sellers to sell the property prior to foreclosure. The problem is that the banks are short handed with loss mitigators and may be reluctant to realize the losses although many have already set up the reserves to cover these losses.
Compounding the problem is the paperwork documentation needed to sell a pre-foreclosed home which we have all come to recognize as a short sale. A recent conversation with a bank indicated that the average loss mitigator may have at any one time over 500 active short sale files stacked on their desk. This bank indicated that they believe the process that can now take 4 – 6 months (too long for buyers to wait) to close could be shortened if the real estate professional had the knowledge and training to make the process go smoothly. Many loss mitigators are spending too much time answering questions in how to do a short sale instead of processing the short sale.
Real estate professionals on the other hand, are complaining they are losing sales, as the mortgage holders are taking too long to respond, causing buyers to become impatient and move on to another property. Agents don’t want the sellers to walk away from their homes and face the consequences of a foreclosure if there can be a solution that creates a win/win/win.
The ideal situation is for everyone involved in the transaction doing their part so that the seller gets what they want, the mortgage holder minimizes their losses and the real estate professional acts as the intermediary and closes the transaction. Banks are now beginning to publish checklists and procedures to close a short sale.
Whether you are an investor, speculator, concern home owner or real estate professional. Knowledge is power. Short sale classes and seminars have popped up everywhere. One of the best classes to get good information from is the Certified Short-Sales Professional course being offered by the RealtyU Group, the largest education group in the real estate brokerage industry. For more information visit www.realtyu.com.
