With the economy heading downhill, more and more people are hearing about real estate short sales. The concept of real estate short sales is not new to most experienced real estate investors but for a homeowner it is an eye opening concept worth knowing about.
When a homeowner is upside down in his or her mortgage, he or she will often hear people pitching real estate short sales to him or her. An upside down mortgage is when a homeowner owes the bank more than the home is worth. If the home can only be sold on the market for $100,000, for example, the homeowner is upside down in his or her mortgage if he or she owes more than that amount.
Homeowners with upside down mortgages have one solution left to them; Real estate short sales. For a home that is upside down, even if the homeowner were to sell it on the market, he or she wouldn’t make enough money to pay off the mortgage balance and will still owe the bank even when the home is gone. This can be a real financial burden on the homeowner. Many people in this situation end up filing bankruptcy.
Fortunately there are people, such as private investors, willing to do real estate short sales with the banks. Real estate short sales are homeowners’ only hope when the home is upside down. How real estate short sales work is that say Bob owes his bank $210,000 but his home is only worth $160,000. Then a real estate short sale is done for Bob and the bank accepts it. This frees Bob from all of his mortgage obligation. He wouldn’t have to pay the whole $210,000.
The downside is that Bob cannot stay in his home. With real estate short sales, homes must be sold to third parties. This is because if Bob’s bank knows that Bob can only afford to pay what the home is worth, then the bank will not be lenient about the extra $50,000. Besides, what’s to stop people from pretending that they cannot afford the mortgage payments to deceive the bank if it were that easy to do.
In order for real estate short sales to be accepted, there must be third party buyers who convince the lenders that the homeowners cannot afford to pay what they owe. This often includes proving that the homeowners are in bad financial situations such as loss of jobs, medical bills, and divorces. Many convincing letters will need to be sent to the banks.
Homeowners in the middle of real estate short sale deals should not rest assured because not all real estate short sales are accepted by the lenders. Some real estate short sales are rejected because the buyers are not experienced enough to do them right. Some times, banks feel that the real estate short sale offers are too low and prefer to foreclose and sell the homes in auctions instead of accepting the real estate short sales.
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