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… has posted at the Laguna Niguel Real Estate blog. I don’t have a post but I’m in the photo holding the yellow surfboard on the right side.

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Summing Up a Phoenix Short Sale: “I Don’t Even Care Anymore”

Jonathan Dalton, Phoenix Real Estate Agent Such was the statement of one of my clients trying to purchase a short sale here in the Phoenix real estate market. “I don’t even care anymore,” he said. “If they accept the offer, fine. If not, fine.”

Does this sound like the anticipation you would expect to find in someone purchasing a home? But that’s exactly what happens when you embark down the short-sale road and find yourself still waiting for an answer seven weeks later.

Seven weeks.

This property happened to be priced well making it the rare deal in the short sale set. Most aren’t. Most simply are homes that were purchased for too much money once upon a time and now are available at market value.

Market value minus appliances and with deferred maintenance, more likely than not, but market value. And you get the added bonus of a lender with employees who truly don’t care whether the home is sold (or not sold) on the courthouse steps.

In the case of the home we’re trying to acquire, the lender has everything they’ll need to make a decision. It should take about an hour - 90 minutes tops - to run the numbers and come to some sort of a conclusion.

Can’t be bothered, though. And that’s the norm.

More and more buyers and agents are seeing the short sales for what they most often are - an exercise in futility. And more and more I find myself wondering why the sellers bother agreeing to a attempt a short sale. They’ll net nothing since they owe more than the home is worth. And it doesn’t really do a great deal to save your credit.

When neither buyers nor sellers benefit and lenders couldn’t care less, what’s the point to the whole concept?

It’s almost better to let the lenders take the homes back and put them on the market with a legitimate list price, not the “let’s throw darts at the MLS and find an imaginary price” that seems to happen right now.

Most of these homes are destined to be REO (real estate owned - aka bank-owned) properties. The sooner they get there and actually can be sold, the better.

Technorati Tags: short sales, Phoenix real estate

Popularity: 8% [?]