Many people who we have helped have come to us after months of trying to successfully completing a home loan modification. To date I do not yet know one person who has successfully completed a permanent home loan modification. We have had people come to us as late as a couple weeks before their foreclosure auction and still have been able to postpone the auction, procure a buyer, and close a short sale.
Only a handful of Realtors have successfully closed several short sales. Many have attempted it and still about 80% of those attempted fail and the borrower ends up in foreclosure. That is why I urge you to call me at 208-870-2115 if you are considering a short sale. I will answer your questions, send you a short sale package and help you, or have one of my trained agents with a high successful closure rate help.
Short sales are not for everyone. However often they are the best alternative to suffering the consequences of being severely upside down in a home loan.
If you are a Realtor and tired of beating your head against the wall trying to do short sales, you are welcome to call me too at 208-0870-2115. We regularly have Realtors refer their short sales to us and we pay a very good referral fee. We do have several Realtor References that we can give to you attesting to their experience with us.
If you are reading this I know you are looking for some immediate online information. So here it is:
- A short sale is when a home owner (borrower) cannot sell their home for as much as they owe and a lender agrees to accept less than the full amount owed to remove their lien(s) on the property and allow transfer of the property.
- A short sale is usually less detrimental to your credit than foreclosure. It does affect your credit but often is recorded as a settled debt.
- Through 2011 there have been no Federal or Idaho State taxes owed on forgiveness of debt for owner occupied short sellers. However investors may be taxed on the forgiveness. It may be possible to have that wavered.
- There is not yet good regulation on who who can negotiate short sales with a bank. An "investor" can. Only a licensed Real Estate Broker or agent, or an owner can advertise and mediate the sale of real estate however (in Idaho). Realtors are not required to have any special training for negotiating short sales. So as a result the field is full of people attempting to do this with little experience, little or no training. There are still scams that are intentional and agents who are trying but just don't know how to do it.
- It is easy for you to get a record of experience. It is easy for us to show you our recorded experience including number of listings, expired or canceled and closed listings. We can also show you any other Realtors record. We can also show you short sale approval letters and provide references and testimonies from sellers and Realtors who have worked with us.
- If you are missing payments you have a limited amount of time to get an offer and negotiate a short sale.
- For some types of loans there are programs available that allow the short sale seller to walk away from closing with up to $3,000 for relocation.
