How Buying a Short Sale Can Be a Lot Like Buying in a Red Hot Seller's Market

This week I wrote more offers for short sale buyers in San Jose. My clients, who must be the nicest people on the planet, commented that they felt badly that I had to write so many offers to try to get them a house.

Right then it struck me how very similar this experience is (in some ways) to when buyers are trying to get into a home in a hot seller's market.

In Silicon Valley, a lot of entry level single family homes are coming on the market at $500,000 or so. These same places were purchased by their current owners a year or two ago for perhaps $600,000 or $640,000. If the condition of the home is really good, and the seller and listing agent have priced it aggressively, the home will get multiple offers.

What should happen is that the listing agent and seller work out the offers until there is one best deal that the seller accepts - subject to lender approval. An entire short sale package, complete in every way, should then go to the loss mitigation department of the lending institution(s). One accepted offer should go forward. If better offers later come in, they should be sent to the lender too - but not signed by the owner.

In some cases, though, the seller's agent doesn't respond to ANY of the offers that come in, but instead sends them all to the bank. My buyers' offer was one of six that went to Countrywide two weeks ago. We had no response from the seller (we allowed the contractual 3 days in the form), so our offer is technically dead. My buyers are more than in limbo - if their contract had been accepted conditionally by the seller, at least they'd feel like there was a chance of buying that home that they really like. But with no word, and no sense if Countrywide was even on task with doing what's needed next (having a BPO, broker's price opinion, like an appraisal or CMA, ordered or on schedule), it's hard to see the end in sight.

So the buyers move on mentally (if still hoping that a miracle will happen and they can buy that first home) and view and chose more homes. Since short sales are a slim chance of success, what else can you do but keep trying?  Write another offer. And another. And another. Sooner or later, you'll actually be able to buy a house!

When it's a strong seller's market, buyers write offer after offer in the hopes that one will be accepted.

Now, too, buyers are having to write a lot of offers in hopes of just buying a house.

This time, though, the playing field is muddy. Even if your offer is accepted by the owner, you, as a buyer, are never sure if the bank is going to be asleep at the wheel or able to respond quickly enough to get the deal to close. The uncertainty causes a lot of anxiety, and a lot more work, than is necessary.

But there's a silver lining in all this for the hardworking buyers: right now, the longer it takes, the more house the buyers are getting for their money. That's the good thing going on. In a sellers market, prices rise so fast that buyers can be "priced out of the market" because they can't get ahead of the curve quickly enough. This is the same situation in reverse that banks are facing now. If they can't respond fast enough, prices continue to fall and buyers will not be willing to pay in 45 or 60 days what they were willing to pay today.

As in the overheated sellers' market, in this insane market where in some areas virtually every property for sale is a short sale or banked owned (REO) property, buyers and sellers are anxious and afraid - afraid of leaving money on the table, afraid that a better deal would be had "if only...." (fill in the blank r.e. timing, staging, or anything else).

In both markets, agents are working very hard and often aren't getting paid. Or they work twice as hard or three times as long before they can successfully close a transaction.

There are a lot of similarities in these polar opposite market conditions. In both it can be, for agents anyway, "all work, no pay". For buyers or sellers, time is money - lost or made! There's a sense of a loss of control.

Luckily, these kinds of extremes don't last forever.