Did You Know Your House Is a Short Sale?
It is like holding a deck of 51 cards and not knowing which card is missing in the world of RI real estate: you need to know what is 
missing when selling your home. The duty of a real estate agent is to give a fiduciary responsibility to the seller and to do their due diligence when selling a home. So why would an agent not know if a house they have for sale is a short sale? Because they did not do the necessary follow through with the seller and the town of record.
A short sale means that the homeowner selling the home owes more on the mortgages than the market value of the home.
Home buyers do not usually pay more than the home value. It means that all the mortgages (could be 1 or 2 mortgages), equity loans and liens on a home be added together along with closing costs ( attorney fees, recording fees, tax stamps and agents commission) be added together. That is the bottom line cost to selling a home and anything above this figure is profit to the seller (in a short sale there is no profit returned to the bank or the home seller).
The real estate agent must be drinking bottles of tequila to not get this right upon listing a home. It is or it is not. Easy to figure out. Pull the mortgage statements from the seller and check with the recorded documents at the town hall to see what is owed on the home. It is a MUST!
Upon taking home buyers out to see houses this weekend, we encountered a home they liked and put an offer in on the home. It was a market value offer since they liked the neighborhood and wanted the home. It was $5000 off of asking price. The listing agent calls me back the next day to say the seller can not take the offer and I ask why not. The listing agent says the seller won’t have enough money to pay off the mortgages! Well she would not have enough money to pay the sales commissions either then and why did she not disclose this on the listing. The listing agent was quiet when asked the question and finally said. “I thought she would get her asking price!” Oh my goodness, this is no way to list a home and this agent has obviously no experience with short sales. Shame on that agent for not doing the due diligence needed for this seller and looking at the homes sold recently that were comparable.
Words of wisdom will abound here but lesson learned for this seller. Know the abilities and track record of your RI real estate agent. Not all agents are created equally or knowledgeably and the one who sold you your home may not be the right real estate agent to sell your home now. You want it sold and not foreclosed on by the bank. Time is of the essence through the short sale process, dealing with the banks with their systems, obtaining a waiver of deficiency judgment for the sellers and being very persistent in getting the offer to closing quickly. This is what I do everyday with my legal and negotiating team successfully.
As a southern Rhode Island short sale agent, my duties to my sellers are to get their house into agreement and get the lender to agree and negotiate to the terms of the sale.
Sometimes it takes 4 weeks and sometimes it takes 4 months but my legal team works hard with me with making the closing happen for my sellers. Thinking about a short sale, do not delay but call me at 401.529.7849 or email me at Ginny@RiHouseHunt.com today. Need more information about doing a short sale? Call me to set up a confidential appointment today. When you list your home for sale you must know whether it is a short sale or not.
Did You Know Your House Is a Short Sale?
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