Short Sales Require An Experienced Realtor

When A Las Vegas Short Sale Is The Best Option

A short sale occurs when a property is sold and the sales proceeds do not fully pay off the loan or loans on the property and one or more lenders accept a discounted pay off and allow the sale to close escrow.  This means the lender(s) agrees to release the lien that is secured to the property upon receipt of less money than is actually owed.

As foreclosure rates hit record levels, more sellers are turning to short sales as a way to avoid foreclosure, and recently more banks are agreeing to the short sales.  The reason for this is that the short sale doesn’t affect the seller’s credit as badly as a foreclosure and the short sale can be less expensive for the bank.  When a bank takes a property back, it costs them tens of thousands of dollars to process the repossession and the time it takes them to get the property back on the market can be as long as 6 months.  During this period, the market value of the property can continue to decrease and the carrying costs associated with having the property in inventory prevents the banks from being able to lend that amount of money-banks aren’t in the business of owning real estate, they are in the business of lending money.

Sounds good right?  Well, sellers need to know that a short sale will affect their credit, though not as much as a foreclosure. You’ll need to talk with a tax attorney to determine the best option.  Also, lenders may only agree to a short sale if the seller is many payments behind and has received a default notice.   This is not always the case, and we are by no means encouraging you to stop making your mortgage payment.  If the short sale goes through, however, then the benefits can include your lender accepting the discounted payoff and you being free and clear, you have not out of pocket costs as the lender pays all sales costs, your credit record is protected from a foreclosure, and you can move forward with your life without have the burden of the mortgage you couldn’t afford.

We do encourage you to exhaust all other options available before pursuing a short sale.  Most of these alternatives can result in you retaining your house.  Your options can include renegotiating the terms of the existing loan or loans, refinancing the house with a different lender, and talking to a consumer credit counseling service if your other debt is prohibiting you from making your mortgage payment.

For buyers, short sales offer an opportunity to get a great property at a relative discount.  Many agents in today’s market refuse to show short sale listings to their clients because of the uncertainty involved.  So this leads to less competition when making an offer reducing the chance that the price gets bid up.

Another advantage of short sales when compare to buying bank owned properties is that you are buying the home from the previous owner.  So the disclosure period which is standard for the normal real estate transactions will apply.  This will allow the buyer to question the current owner about the property.  In bank owned sales, the seller is a bank who has hundreds if not thousands of properties on their books and all they know about them is how much money they are losing on them.  They have no idea if a tree fell on the house last year or if the basement floods in a storm.

There are no guarantees for either the buyer or seller in a short sale.  Usually the negotiations with the lender(s) can only begin when an offer is received, and the bank may or may not agree to it.  For the buyer, a great deal of patience will be required after submitting your offer as the lender(s) approval process may take a month or more.

Virtually every step in the Short Sale process requires experience and expertise if the desired result is to be achieved. When it comes to working with a Buyer to find the right Short Sale property our expertise is critical in determining the viability of the Short Sale file – will the file be approved?   We specialize in working with Buyers and Sellers to put mutually beneficial Short Sales transactions together. We get Short Sale properties sold for Sellers, we help Buyers find the right Short Sale and we get Short Sale files approved by mortgage lenders.