Friday, October 17, 2008

Short sale - Need an offer


In order to avoid foreclosures, lenders are often willing to discount what is owed on a home. This is known as a short sale and it is offered in situations where the homeowner can no longer afford to stay in their house.

The reason lenders are willing to do this is because it can be less expensive than foreclosing and taking the home back.

This situation happens a lot and the homeowner is usually told by the lender bring me the best offer you can and we'll see what we can do.

What's the best way to get an offer?

Many agents list the property in the MLS and in their description they indicate it's a short sale situation. Then, they wait. They usually need to lower the price several times before someone finally makes an offer. Many times taking several weeks and even months. This can be a big problem because the lender will not wait very long before they proceed with the foreclosure.

Is there a better way? Absolutely!

An agent can market a home using online bidding.

The process can take as little as 3 weeks and the result is a solid offer backed by statistics of bids and property showings which can be presented to the lender.

Real estate agents owe their clients a solid market process to get them the best offer in the least amount of time and online bidding/online real estate auctions do just that.

Technology has provided the tool, congratulations to agents taking advantage of it!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The process lasted over 2.5 months with Wells Fargo, so we ended moving onto a REO property because the unknown result with the short sale.

Tom Wood said...

I don't blame you. Short sales take tons of patience and perseverance. REO properties are also a great fit for online bidding. The benefit being the bank will respond much quicker to the highest bid your receive. Wish you the best with those.