Short Sales Aren’t Easy.
“Surprising” news today from the Los Angeles Times. Conducting short sale real estate transactions is not easy. Short sales, in which an underwater borrower sells the home for less than the loan balance to prevent a foreclosure, can be complicated, time consuming and sometimes impossible to complete.
“The waiting is torture,” said Mark Shandrow, a Keller Williams Realty agent in Long Beach who specializes in such transactions. “The banks are overwhelmed with short-sale requests, and some make sellers wait five months for an answer.” That answer, in many cases, he added, is “no.”
Of course sometimes the answer should be no. For the lender it is an economic decision. A short sale that will easily result in more money than a foreclosure is a no brainer. If the proposed short sale will result in significantly less that what will be realized from a foreclosure, then the answer will probably be no. If the difference is not significant, then the decision becomes more difficult.
Banks aren’t happy about short sales,” said Sherri Frost, a senior loan officer with Sherman Oaks-based Metrocities Mortgage, “but they have few options.”
