Listing Your Home for Short Sale, Part 6: Patience and Cooperation

Listing your home for short sale is not as complicated as you think.  This is the final installment in a series.  If you've missed the prior installments, you can link to them here: 

Listing Your Home for Short Sale, Part 1:  Do You Qualify?

Listing Your Home for Sale Sale, Part 2:  Choosing Your Listing Agent

Listing Your Home for Short Sale, Part 3:  Collecting Your Financial Information

Listing Your Home for Short Sale, Part 4:  The Hardship Letter

Listing Your Home for Short Sale, Part 5: The Authorization Letter

So you've got your Listing Agent, have them authorized to talk to your mortgage holder(s).  You've gathered all your financial information and hardship letter and sent them to the mortgage holder(s) too.  This is where patience and cooperation come in.

First you must wait for a buyer to write an offer on your home.  If you've hired a good Listing Agent, your home will priced right and that won't take too long.  Once you've got the offer that is acceptable to you, you'll sign it and make it a contract.  From there, your Listing Agent will send the contract to the mortgage holder(s) for approval.  Next.....

HURRY UP AND WAIT

I find that weekly phone calls to the mortgage holder(s) get me very little information that makes a seller or buyer feel like there is progress being made. Calling more frequently does not make it go any faster.  Your patience as a seller during thes long periods of no information is appreciated.

After the contract is given to the bank, the bank scans the document into their internal databases.  This process alone can take two or three days.

Next a negotiator will need to be assigned.  Depending on the bank, it may be immediate, may take a month.

Once that negotiator is assigned, they will order an appraisal or a BPO (Broker Price Opinion).   Just getting the BPO or appraisal ordered adn back in the mortgage holder(s) system can take two weeks.  This is an important part of the process because getting a value on the property will tell the negotiator if the contract needs to countered with a higher sales price.

Once the negotiator has determined whether or not the contract needs a counter offer or is fine the way it is, the contract is then given to the investors on the loan to determine whether or not they will accept the loss and approve the short sale.  This can take days or months.  All depends on the investor.

And while all of this is going on, there will be periodic requests for updated financial information, or requests to resend information you've already sent.  Cooperate with your Listing Agent and mortgage holder(s) and don't argue.  Cooperation is the key to success.

So while all of this is going on in the background, and you are about to give up, one day the phone will ring with the news you've been waiting for.  Your Listing Agent will be on the other end of the phone telling you that the short sale has been approved or why it has not been approved.  In my business as a Listing Agent, nine times out of ten, I'm giving good news to my Short Sale sellers.

Short sales are certainly more complicated than regular resales, but they aren't impossible when you are prepared and you hire a good Short Sale Listing Agent.