6/18/2008 3:39:56 PM

I am currently experiencing the long wait for the bank approval of a short sale. It has been since the end of March. I am trying to remain positive to see this to a successful conclusion, however it is a daunting task, keeping seller,buyer/buyer's agent reassured.

Vassi Saviano

6/18/2008 11:12:22 PM

My client's wait was as long (65) days to close, but the bank came back at the eleventh hour and needed another $4500.00 to finish the close, we negotiated the price down to $2800.00 which the agents split that cost.

Glenn Hughes

6/21/2008 6:56:40 PM

I have closed 2 short sales. The first one was last December. I was the listing agent and the buyer's agent. I had just finished teaching a class on how to generate business in this slow market when I was approcahed by a lady who desperately wanted to get rid of a brand new property she'd bought for $575,000, her mortgage was only $4000/m but the rent she was getting was only $1800. To make things worse, her tenant had moved out.

As soon as I listed the property I prepared a short sale package and sent it off to both mortgagees. It took forever to be able to get hold of the negotiator at Wells Fargo, moreso because the turnover rate at the bank at the time was pretty high. Eventually, I received a call from the rep at Wells Fargo approving the purchase price at $330,000, with a $16200 commission to me and just $1000 to GMAC, the second lien holder. GMAC begged me to give them a little more and I was able to increase that amount to $2950.

My second short sale experience has taken much longer. It involved GMAC as the first lien holder and Countrywide as the second lien holder. My Client had bought this property for $1.6 million with 10% down. I listed it for her and received multiple offers, the least one being $1.2 million and the highest at $1.375 million. GMAC insisted on getting their entire $1,000,000 principal plus all the unpaid interest and legal fees. The first negotiator from Countrywide was pretty nice, emailing and calling me all the time but she let me down when I could not bring her the $25,000 extra cash she was looking for. By the time I cut my commission and the that of the other agent in order to satisfy her need, she was no longer working on the case. They assigned a new negotiator. The new negotiator has not been in touch with me for the past 2 months. How terrible!

My third short sale also involved Countrywide, another lengthy process. I represented the buyer in this case. We started in February this year and only got an approval a week ago. I had to increase the purchase price from $702,000 to $720,000 while reducing my commission from $21,000 to $7000 in order to make the deal happen.

I have several other short sales I am working on that I do not think necessary to elaborate here.

Paul LeJoy

6/23/2008 4:53:21 PM

We are experiencing many difficulties with short-sales. Waiting periods in excess of 4 months. I personally had clients back out of a shortsale transaction and, move onto another home. I am noticing(being the broker) that a few of my agents that have successfully negotiated short sale contracts, as Glenn Hughes mentioned in his comment. Have had to give up a portion of their commission to get the deal finalized... hmmmm.. interesting.

barbara maniatakis

6/23/2008 8:33:43 PM

_SHORT SALES??Short of time or Money? ( sorry for the pun) Wells Fargo is taking most of the short sales in my county. I have 5 listing all to them short sales from wellsfargo since May 7, 2008, I have lost buyers, and got new buyers with offers lot less and we are still waiting for negotiators to get back to us. BPO are being done by brokers who sometimes have not idea about the market and giving wrong information to the bank, taking us longer to have another BPO, because Banks won't accept our opinions.
Thanks

Olga caceres

6/28/2008 12:22:08 PM

I just completed my first short sale with Countrywide. I had taken a seminar with Bob McManus and it was very helpful. I waited from early March through June 25 for an approval of the short sale and the buyers offer. Loan amount was 465,000 and seller was in arrears an additional 20,000. Sales price was $340,000. I had to deal with 3 negotiatiators, the appraisal was performed twice! Auction date needed to be postponed twice and they were ok with that. Think I would prefer to work the REO's and would love advice on how to get those listings! Any body out there for advice?

Debbie Franklyn

7/8/2008 4:28:34 PM

Short sales are hard to complete but it is good in generating business and it is nice once the deal closes and it is wounderful to get paid after such hard work. I list a lot of short sales but only few get completed, some get foreclosed. I guess It dependes how far behind the payments are and how busy the bank is.

I have closed two short sales. First one was with Washington Mutual Bank and the second was with EMC Mortgage. Lucky for me both properties had only one mortgage, but even then it took Washington Mutual seven (7) months to approve and finalize the sale. I lost two buyer in the mean time, but since I kept taking back up offers, I was able to close with the last buyer who agreed to pay what bank was asking for which was higher than the original offer because the BPO came higher, and the bank insisted on that price. I also had to reduce total commission to 4.5% out of which I got only 2% of $400,000.

The second short sale was a breeze. It completed in only 4 months and total commission was 5% split 50/50 of 320,000. It is nice when these deal finalize and pay day arrives.

I am also involved in providing property evaluation i.e. BPOs, checking occupancy status, eviction, property inspection, listing and marketing REO properties in Northern Virginia for Ocwen Federal Bank, Olympuss Aseet Management and Integrated Asset Services. I would also like the oppurtunity to assist Kazork in marketing their properties in Northern Virginia.

Yousuf Raza

7/31/2008 12:50:59 PM

I have sold a Short Sale which was a breeze. Popular Bank was the Note holder on the two liens and the Negotiator was Excellent. I was able to close the deal in only two months.

JESSICA ZAGAL