From the title, I suspect that you think that I am going to write about how the price of a short sale house affects the value of the neighbor's houses. While that is true, and the same can be said of the prices of REO houses, I am writing about how a short sale can impact the neighbors in a different way.
The Medford Team has a new short sale listing. I was visiting the house, chatting with the owner, discussing last minute details before it goes live on the mls, and installing the lockbox. I finished and was headed back to my car when the neighbor from next door caught my attention. He introduced himself and asked if there was a way that they could know that the next occupant of the house was "legitimate". I did not understand and told him so. Well, it turns out that he has a friend who was neighbor to a house that was being sold. The house may have been a short sale or an REO or, even an equity sale. Point is - it was vacant. New occupants moved in and introduced themselves as the new owners. They were friendly and pleasant and told about how delighted they were about their new home.
Can you see where this is going? They were not the new owners! They were squatters! Bold and proud - they just moved in and claimed the house in the name of - what? - squattership?
The neighbor to whom I was talking was concerned that there might be a similar incident next door to him. Do we live in a crazy world or what? He has a right to be concerned. The tale of his friends experience with squatters next door is not the first incident of its kind of which I have heard. Fortunately for all involved, our seller is not moving out and will be there to watch over the house until an actual sale take place and legitimate buyers can move in.
Short sales are now a large percentage of our real estate business. The longer that we are in the real estate business, the more we learn. I did not think that I would have to learn about squatters but we live in interesting times.
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