Short Sale Echoes We Keep Hearing...

   Once again...too often again...we hear the stories of realtor who listed the house for the price that the seller determined....adding the mortgage, the Home Equity loan, the credit card debt, the commission, taxes, and "start over money" and came up with a list price that the seller would find acceptable.

       Months later...the overpriced home is on the market...the seller(s) can't afford the mortgage...they borrow payments from relatives...add to their credit card debt...continue to deny the reality that the equity that they imagined, wished for...."needed" is not there...not today...not for a long time...and not to the degree that they "need" to pay all the indebtedness that continues to accumulate.  The hole gets deeper and the realtor allows it...she/he has a listing after all. Maybe that will attract other buyers...maybe she/he will list other homes in the neighborhood....maybe she/he will be "Listing agent of the month" in his/her office, brokerage.

       Maybe....the realtor should read the code of ethics....maybe the realtor should be honest and explain how prices are really determined for the sale of home....not from the wish list of the distressed seller but from actual sales in the market.

   Sometime the realtor pretends that in the end, they know it will be a "short sale".....the listing says things in the private remarks to realtors like "probable short sale"...Probable ?  Probably if the buyer doesn't pay cash and doesn't want an appraisal ?

      Some day.....some seller somewhere will realize that the realtor should have walked away if he/she insisted on a price that would never happen for hundreds or tens of thousands more than the market commands. Some day....a seller will take legal action against that agent and the brokerage unfortunate enough to have the agent under their name...roof....reputation.

       If this situation sounds like someone you know...a neighbor, friend, co-worker, who has had their home on the market for months....in some cases we have heard over a year....a short sale may be the answer...If you don't ask...you won't know....Save a homeowner or yourself from foreclosure...Call a realtor with successful short sale experience and learn the alternatives available for your situation.  The stress, credit,...new life you could start could be your own.