Listing Your Home For Sale
With regard to what price you should set your home for in a short sale, Elizabeth Weintraub, a real estate broker at Lion Real Estate and the author of Home Buying/Selling Guide on About.com, suggests the following advice: “not only do you need an attractive sales price to entice a buyer to go through the shenanigans inherent in a short sale, but you need to satisfy the banks appetite for profit.” She also went on to state “if you can’t give the bank a decent sales price, the bank might reject the short sale.” In a nut shell you have to make the selling price of your home attractive to a prospective purchaser while convincing the financial institution that holds your mortgage you are not giving you home away.
The Mechanics Of A Short Sale
So now you’ve placed your house on the market at an attractive price and you have received an offer. What comes next? You will have to fill out a number of documents requested by the financial institution that maintains the mortgage on your home. In addition you will have to provide documentation of a hardship to convince your financial institution to allow you to move forward with the short sale. You most likely will have to provide your financial institution with several years tax returns, pay stubs and other expense related documents. Be patient when submitting your documents to your bank. They have an underwriting process they submit short sale applications to. It is estimated it will take your financial institution between a month and a month and a half to review your short sale package.
Conclusion
A short sale should never be your first option. Your first option should be to do everything in your power to keep your home. Short sales usually take place after the homeowner’s have fallen behind on their mortgage payments. This creates a negative credit score for the homeowner. After selling a home in a short sale, it is very unlikely you will be able to purchase another home in the near future. Therefore, before you get involved in a short sale, you should meet with a foreclosure attorney to determine if there are any other alternatives to selling your home in a short sale.
