Short Sale Specialist in Huntington Beach
A Short Sale is when a seller (home owner) is short the equity to sell their home.
Many people mistake a short sale for a home sale that will close quickly. On the contrary, a short sale will actually take more time to close than a standard sales and most foreclosure/REO sales. It is important to plan ahead. Gather all the necessary paperwork and give it to your Realtor as quickly as possible in order to expedite the Short Sale timely. Although the process takes a long time it is imperative that you move quickly so that bank does not foreclose on you.
Steps to a Short Sale for the Home Owner:
1. Meet with a Realtor - meet with someone experienced in successfully closing Short Sales to discuss your current situation. A Realtor can assess your needs and proceed to help you.
2. Provide the following Items to get started: Authorization Letter, Hardship Letter, 2 most recent Tax Returns, 2 most recent bank statements, 2 most recent pay stubs, Profit and Loss statement (if self-employed), Most recent Mortgage Statement.
3. Listing Agreement and all items to list your home on the MLS (the listing paperwork is the same as a regular listing - it's beneficial to fill out all disclosures at this time as well.)
4. Marketing - all marketing is done by your Realtor includes sign, lockbox, flyers, Open House, Broker Preview, MLS etc.
5. Show property - make the property as accessible as possible to maximize as much traffic as possible.
6. Receive Offers - submit all paperwork to the bank - this will stop the foreclosure process. You can see with this step how important it is to price your property just right in order to get an offer.
7. Wait for "Approval"
8. Open Escrow - Once official approval is given the escrow process is the same as regular transaction.
9. Provide Disclosures to the buyer - I recommend this step is prepared much sooner however, at this time the documents will be delivered to the buyer.
10. Close Escrow
Steps to a Short Sale for a Buyer:
(These steps are about the same as any purchase however may take longer becasue all parties are waiting on the bank)
1. Meet with a Realtor
2. Meet with a Lender
3. Show property
4. Write Offers
*This step is the most crucial if you are pursuing Short Sales for the sake of getting a great deal in your area. It's important to know that you can and should write several offers as the time period in this step (waiting for the bank to approve your offer) could take up to 90 days. A short sale is usually priced lower than other homes in order to generate an offer to submit to the bank. When a home is priced low, you can imagine there will be multiple offers and lots of interest. The listing agent knows this and wants to have an offer in order to stop the foreclosure process for the seller. It's better for a seller to do a short sale than to have a foreclosure on their credit.
*As a buyer, you need to understand that your offer may not be chosen to go to the bank, which is why you will want to write several offers. In addition, your agent should be following up on all of the properties that you wrote offers on just in case the buyer backs out. This will give you an opportunity to step in as a "back-up offer" and win the bid and open escrow, thus purchasing the property.
5. Open Escrow
6. Do Inspections and Investigations
7. Sign paperwork
8. Sign Loan Docs
9. Fund & Record
10. Close - Receive Keys.
If you are a Seller in Huntington Beach that needs to move and are just not sure if you fall into the "short sale" category, call me today to discuss. I can help you navigate the process with the utmost care and dilegence.
*NOTE: these steps will work for any area (I'm licensed for California) however I focus my marketing where I live - in wonderful, beautiful Huntington Beach
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