Short Sales
Short Sales by Melissa Zavala | January 24, 2012Rumors, just like viruses, spread like wildfire. One of the biggest topics that goes through the rumor mill seems to be the subject of the pre-approved short sale. Is there some such a thing as a pre-approved short sale? – a short sale whereby the seller calls the bank and the bank agrees to a short [...]
Short Sales by Melissa Zavala | January 17, 2012If you have ever received a short sale approval letter, you have probably felt quite a strong thrill. All of the drama involved in negotiating a short sale, keeping the buyer and seller content, and finessing the details with the bank make the approval letter feel like a multi-million dollar win on a scratch ticket. Unfortunately, just [...]
Short Sales by Melissa Zavala | January 10, 2012One of my Realtor® friends showed me a letter that her client had received about a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure program (à la Fannie Mae) whereby the seller would receive up to $7500. My friend was a little displeased that her client had received this letter because she was about to close the short sale transaction. [...]
Short Sales by Melissa Zavala | January 3, 2012 
Many people say that 2012 will be the year of the short sale. There are lots of reasons that short sale sellers might be getting off the fence and selling their homes as short sales in the coming year. First off, the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act of 2007 is set to come to an [...]
Read the full article → Short Sales by Melissa Zavala | December 20, 2011 
With over a year’s worth of contributions here on BiggerPockets, I’ve written a few pretty conversation-worthy articles and some that did not seem to hit home for readers. Here were the reader’s top five faves. If you are thinking about distressed properties and short sales this holiday, maybe you can add these to you bag [...]
Read the full article → Short Sales by Melissa Zavala | December 13, 2011 
People are always surprised when I state that I have an almost perfect success rate in obtaining short sale approval letters. Short sale approval letters are not so difficult to come by. Yes, they often take forever to obtain, but often it is not the short sale approval letter that gets in the way of the closing of the [...]
Read the full article → Short Sales by Melissa Zavala | December 6, 2011 
I had a call last week from a buyer’s agent who was frustrated because the bank did not accept her buyer’s (very low) cash offer on a short sale. In fact, the bank did not even make a counter offer. The bank employee made it clear that the offer was significantly below the BPO value, [...]
Read the full article → Short Sales by Melissa Zavala | November 28, 2011I received an email over the long weekend from an agent who had a short sale question. It seems that his sister needed to sell her home as a short sale. He wanted to buy it, and he wanted to represent both sides in the transaction (remember that California allows dual representation). All I could [...]
Short Sales by Melissa Zavala | November 22, 2011 
Equity investors and folks buying short sales are often involved in a waiting game—only to learn at the end that the bank is not interested in their offer because their offer price is too low. But there are other factors that can impact the closing of a short sale at the eleventh hour that have [...]
Read the full article → Short Sales by Melissa Zavala | November 15, 2011 
Triage is a form of prioritizing patients in an emergency room so that those with the most severe or life threatening injuries are attended to prior to those that have milder injuries. While reviewing multiple offers has little to do with medical emergencies, it is vital for listing agents to consider and prioritize offers based [...]
Read the full article → Short Sales by Melissa Zavala | November 1, 2011 
When checking out newspapers and magazines and even the Internet, I see many agents who advertise that a short sale transaction can be closed at no cost to the seller. When I see those ads, I always look for the fine print (and I do not always see any). When you take a short sale listing, [...]
Read the full article → Short Sales by Melissa Zavala | October 25, 2011 
I cannot emphasize enough that all of the pieces of the short sale process, when handled well, will result in a successful short sale closing. The first step in the process is the most important, and that step includes pre-qualifying the seller. No jokes here. Just like getting a loan pre-qualification or pre-approval for a home [...]
Read the full article → Short Sales by Melissa Zavala | October 18, 2011 
As I walk through the wacky world of short sales (and boy do I do a lot of walking), I have all sorts of experiences with short sale purchase contracts. I’ve seen listing agents who send all the contracts to the short sale lender for review, and I’ve seen buyers use letters of intent as [...]
Read the full article → Short Sales by Melissa Zavala | October 11, 2011 
In our local market in North San Diego County, most of the homes listed at the lower end of the financial spectrum receive multiple offers. I frequently get calls from agents asking what they should do with these offers, how they should evaluate them, whether they should write a counter offer and what it should [...]
Read the full article → Short Sales by Melissa Zavala | October 4, 2011I love the old game of telephone. It starts with a whisper of one thing, and turns into a yarn so implausible that it barely bears a little semblance to the whisper. I heard one just the other day: Banks are approving short sales without purchase offers. (But, wait? Many banks having been doing that [...]
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