If you are buying a home in Sequim or Port Angeles involving a short sale, here are three proven steps to making that purchase a huge success. If you’re not familiar with the term “short sale,” it involves buying a home at a price that is less than the current mortgage balance. Most people are familiar with the concept of a car being upside down when the car isn’t worth what is owed on it. Until the recent real estate recession, we didn’t have homes that were upside down. Around the country many homes have had to sell as short sales. Of course, this requires the bank’s agreement to cut their losses and take a payoff on the loan that is less than what is owed.
Short sales are closing every day in cities like Las Vegas and Phoenix, but not in Sequim and Port Angeles. The procedure and the steps to accomplish a successful short sale here are different than the template for the short sale hot spots around the country. As a real estate attorney who handled many foreclosures and short sales, and now who represents buyers in short sales as a real estate agent, I’ve articulated three steps to a successful short sale in Sequim or Port Angeles. If you do complete these three steps, you still have no guarantee, but if you miss one of these steps, you are guaranteed to fail or end up with a nightmare scenario.
3 Steps to Buying a Short Sale Home
1. Know the process and save yourself from disillusionment. Know that negotiating a short sale in Sequim or Port Angeles will be a slow and tedious process, and the bank can leave you waiting, literally not responding for months. The process can drive a normally patient person to say, “Forget it, I’m not going to sit around waiting, not knowing when or if anyone will decide to respond to my offer.” [Again, this is not the same in Las Vegas where there are currently 700,000 loan modifications in process.]
2. Find a Professional Short Sale Buyer’s Agent. Buying a home that must be a short sale is not something you want to do without an experienced professional who has been there, done that many times. There are many nuances and many traps for the unwary. I picked up many clients as a real estate attorney who thought they knew all they needed to know, but subsequently found themselves in deep trouble. When I represent a client as their Short Sale Buyer’s Agent or their Foreclosure Buyer’s Agent, I cost my clients absolutely nothing. Sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? But it is true. The seller pays all my fees as well as his agent’s fees. What I give my clients is a lifetime of real estate experience, including many short sale and foreclosure transactions.
3. Do Your Due Diligence. You’ve got a lot of due diligence to do when buying a home in a new area, and a short sale or a foreclosure will require some additional due diligence because of unique problems associated with distress sales. Also in this process, the bank will submit certain documents to you, in addition to the standard real estate forms used in Washington, and these forms will require legal interpretations as you will be asked to sign them. Some entities representing banks in this process have put together forms that were not drafted by an attorney and give them complete access to all of your personal financial accounts and identity. That is not only inappropriate, but dangerous, and yet many who don’t know or aren’t getting good advise are signing such documents. [I know this because I have reviewed these documents and advised my clients.]
Your ideal home may be in the MLS and listed with an agent, and it may or may not necessitate a short sale, but if it does, know how to go through the entire process and come out a winner.
I hope this information is helpful. If you do find a home that is for sale, and it is either a foreclosure, or was, or it must be a short sale, you can hire me as your Short Sale Buyer’s Agent or Foreclosure Buyer’s Agent. Contact me by email, chuckmarunde@gmail.com, or call me at 360-775-5424. I would love to represent you.
Last Updated on July 27, 2012 by Chuck Marunde
