Thread: Short Sale

your agent is best to answer this question - as taken off the market can mean something different in every area of the country.... Short sales do take time, patience and a lot of work on your agent's part.... sit back and enjoy the ride.... call your agent

yes, you can ask your agent.

Has the seller signed your offer? The property could have come off the market for any number of reasons including the seller accepting your offer. Have your agent ask about this for you.

the Realtor needs to show the bank he couldn't sell the home at a certain price. It is taken off the market while the short sale is being mitigated. When the bank comes back with a an acceptable offer it will be put back on the market.

Has the seller and bank signed off on your contract. Short sales can take up to 90 days-4 weeks is kinda pushing it.

If I handled the short sale I would wait for my mitigating attorney to get my the number i need to sell the unit for FIRST than I would list it for that number. If I find a buyer the offer needs to be that number and we close as soon as the buyer is ready. I dont wait on the bank....

It is true that short sales take time and require patience, however 4 weeks and nothing? Very abnormal to me.

I would get in touch with your agent and make sure they are diligently following up with the bank on the status of the deal. Sometimes when a short sale packaged is faxed to the bank, they "didn't get it"!

So for all you knowm, the bank may not even be evaluating the deal.

Just make sure you have an aggressive Realtor who knows how to handle those boys and girls over at the lender! It takes some tough skin my friend! LOL

The banks are very overwhelmed and if you had a Country Wide load as an example you are now dealing with Band of America and I would say that with as much Toxic assets that Country Wide had when they were absorbed by Band of America. B of A over night doubled there short sales and are taking up to 4 weeks to get the appraisal ordered to approve the acceptance of the short sale.

Originally Posted by goofygirrl

My husband and I put an offer on a house that was a short sale. It has now been 4 weeks and we still not have heard anything. We did find out however that the house was taken off the market. We are the only offer on the house. Is this a good or bad thing?

Questions... Was it listed, or was it FSBO? (Taken off the market doesn't imply anything.)

As far as 4 weeks and nothing... Would indicate to me that the offer was rejected. (Though it could be back-logged.) I have never been too successful with working a SS through a Realtor... It is a lot of negotiating, a lot of proving worth, etc. Though it is theoretically possible, my experiences are that the amount of work doing a SS, going through a middle-person, is not good.

I know that CW used to not even open offers on properties, until it "aged" for 45 days... I doubt they are still letting offers sit, since they are overwhelmed, but you never know. (Just an example, since I don't know who the lender is.)

Anyway, without more specifics, it is hard to know where you stand... Like others mentioned, if you went through a RE agent, talk with them, to see if they heard anything... But usually nothing means the offer was just ignored due to lack of proof for the offer. (I am assuming that it was lower that what was owed.)

Later!

Was your offer accepted and now you are in negotiations? Or are you waiting 4 weeks to see if they accepted your offer? It should not take 4 weeks to get an acceptance but it may take way longer than that to finalize negotiations. It depends who is doing the negotiating. We often get the negotiations done in 45 days but that is not the norm. 3 to 6 months is the norm.

4 weeks means nothing! Realtors often take a short sale off the market while a short sale proposal is pending. Some do it because some local boards do not have an option for listing the property where multiple offers are accepted. Other boards only allow backup offers in the event the first offer is rejected.
A short sale is not approved or rejected by the lender (the servicing lender); rather it is approved or rejected by the secondary market investor (SMI) who actually owns the note. If a private mortage insurance (MI) carrier has paid a claim, they will be approving or rejecting the proposal as well.
Recently, many SMI's have changed the ways they evaluate a short sale. Rather than a short sale versus bank-owned analysis, many now use a minimum threshold percent net receipt to lender of the fair market value. For example, if it is a Fannie Mae owned note, then your proposal will be accepted if the net receipt to them will be 84% of the fair market value if your purchase contract was signed and accepted more than 60 days after the property was listed.
I am seeing many proposals taking up to 120 days or more for approval. Part of the reason is the government takeover of some SMI's, and other entities facing severe financial problems with overwhelming numbers of short sale proposals. My brother is a top executive with one nationwide entity and his company went from 50 proposals per week to more than 800 per day, without the ability to add staff quickly enough to handle the overwhelming cases.
I hope this is helpful to you. Lots of luck!