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I saw a house on the internet that caught my eye ( location, price, condition ) on the bottom it stated----short sale...subject to the bank's acceptance of this price
Why would a realtor waste their time listing a place, taking photos, posting a price---------w/o checking first if the bank would accept the sale at the listed price?
Kinda like me advertising a dining room table for sale and adding at the bottom--------sale subject to my wife agreeing to sell
It's because a bank's bottom line number changes every day based on taxes, interest, and other expenses they rack up while the seller isn't making their mortgage payment. Today, they might accept $150k, but next month, they might accept $152,500. They have the final approval of the final number.
Location: Mokelumne Hill, CA & El Pescadero, BCS MX.
6,957 posts, read 22,303,611 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by marmac
Why would a realtor waste their time listing a place, taking photos, posting a price---------w/o checking first if the bank would accept the sale at the listed price?
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Usually, (but not always) we know what the value of the property is and can support the asking price to the bank, which is going to back it up with another Broker's Price Opinion anyway. Banks aren't going to tell us their bottom line up front anyway.
Remember, we're not working for the bank, we are trying to help a homeowner get out of a bad situation. Sometimes in a normal situation when we put a property on the market at a certain price the seller surprises us by accepting a lower number than we expected. The same is true with the bank, except we have even less contact with them.
Typically the bank won't deal with the seller on a short sale until they have an accepted offer. This forces the seller to list the home first then talk to the bank when they have an offer.
There has been some movement to get banks to pre-approve short sales to expedite the process. The government is trying to encourage this through the HAFA program.
Of course it would be nice if the sellers or seller's agent could get an acceptable price from the lender ahead of time, but that isn't how the banks are doing things. If you call up to ask, they tell you to get an offer and present it first, then they will decide.
And HAFA has been a joke so far. I don't know of any bank that is in compliance. We've been told by multiple banks (on the participating list)that they
1) Are not participating
2) Are participating, but only under modified rules that they made up
The bank will not discuss the sale until they are presented a contract. I wish they would give us an acceptable number prior to an offer instead of 3 or 4 months after receiving an offer but they don't. The general idea is to price it at the low end of fair market value and start reducing the price from there until there is an offer. I typically have a pretty good idea of what they'll take.
The bank isn't the owner of record, so they can't make decisions about what happens with the property. What you're asking is just like your bank hiring an agent to sell your house and cutting you out of the process. How would you feel about that? Some banks will preapprove short sales, but many are not there yet. Until they're all on the same page, we have to keep on doing what we've been doing.
And this isn't actually like your dining room table analogy. The bank and the homeowner are not a team. They aren't looking out for each others best interest...it's strictly a financial interest for the bank. It's a very one-sided "relationship". I sincerely hope your relationship with your wife is far better than that of a bank and a homeowner
Quote:
Originally Posted by marmac
I saw a house on the internet that caught my eye ( location, price, condition ) on the bottom it stated----short sale...subject to the bank's acceptance of this price
Why would a realtor waste their time listing a place, taking photos, posting a price---------w/o checking first if the bank would accept the sale at the listed price?
Kinda like me advertising a dining room table for sale and adding at the bottom--------sale subject to my wife agreeing to sell
Last edited by Tish Thompson; 05-04-2010 at 05:51 AM..
Reason: typo
Do you know what the mortgage balance is on a short sale?
I mean say if you have 2 identical homes, 2 identical short sale price listings
Both listed at say 400K
home A has a 450K mortgage balance (shorting the bank $50K plus fees)
vs.
home B has a 500K mortgage (shorting the bank 100K plus fees).
Assuming both homes are mortgaged with same bank, wouldn't home A get approved faster than home B?
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