Negotiating a Short Sale
The first step in the Short Sale process is to meet and fill out a few forms, like a financial worksheet and an authorization for me to talk with your lender.
We talk about your situation to make sure you have a hardship the bank might agree with and if you could qualify for a short sale. If we determine you will be doing a short sell, I’ll help you get the paperwork together that your bank will require. When we list your home I will go over pricing and the strategy to get a good offer for your bank to review.
The contracts I use were written to protect you when selling a short sale. You probably don’t have much money on hand, no worries, my commission and most of the closing costs are absorbed by the lender and paid at closing.
We won’t know your final settlement with the lender until you get your “letter of acceptance” from them, but if you don’t like their terms you can negotiate the terms with the lender or you can choose to not go through with the sale.
There is no cost to you if you don’t get approved for the short sale and there is a clause that states that if the lender doesn’t approve your short sale, you can cancel the contract with the buyer.
You will also need an attorney and a tax accountant on your side. The attorney can also be the closing agent and the bank has been absorbing that cost. The tax accountant will be your cost, but it’s well worth it.
Once we submit all the paperwork & the contract to your lender I communicate with them to make sure everything is moving along, all the way until closing.
Here is the process I will work through for you:
- Anything you tell me will be kept absolutely confidential
- You need to cooperate with me and tell me everything
- You need to agree to cooperate with the process and commit to staying in it to the end
- You need to agree to be inconvenienced at times for showings
- You need to agree to keep the property looking the very best it can to get and keep a contract
- Discuss all the options/government programs available to you
- Fill out a financial worksheet that will help me help you
- Gather all the paperwork for the short sale package the bank would need and then some
- Speak with your bank, see if you can qualify for the short sale process
- List your home as a short sale
- Secure a contract
- Do all the work that I would normally do for a sale, including holding your hand thru the process and advising you along the way
- Celebrating with you when the sale closes and you can move on with your life
If you are not sure what to do, or whether there is help for your situation, please, don’t give up just yet. Talk to an expert and understand there are options out there that may work.
This is post 2 of a 3 part series on Short Sales
Read More…
Post 1: 6 Steps to Closing a Short Sale
Post 2: Trouble Paying your Mortgage
Post 3: Negotiating a Short Sale