Short sales continue on, with no end in sight.
Buyers continue to inquire about them, ask to see them (sometimes they have no choice in their price range) and to view them as potential deals.
Short sale REALLY is a misnomer, as we all understand. Nothing could be further from the truth, but some folks still do not understand what short sale actually means.
The complexity and frustrations around short sales continues to be readily apparent. Witness the on-going stories that still pop up almost daily on my blog post Buying a Short Sale, written back in January 2007. I have yet to find a buyer who found a great deal and who was not totally frustrated by the process (and I have had offers in on at least 10 of these properties with no resolution - but there ARE exceptions).
Perhaps there should be a contest to find the longest short sale transaction from time of offer until closing. Or the one with the greatest number of offers.
When they first became the stuff of media headlines, and buyers were all hot to get hold of them, the word short sale in the MLS or an ad seemed to be a huge draw. The lure of a potential great deal, and the possibility for buyers, who felt they had been taken advantage of by sellers in the past, to finally get their due. How exciting.
Hah. Well, we quickly learned how that is a fallacy. Short sales have continued to dominate many markets, and are used by the media as a barometer of housing market conditions. But I wonder how much progress is really being made in terms of getting these to closing, versus going through the foreclosure process to completion.
Short sale is now a marketing ploy of a different color. Instead of a lure to capture the interest of deal-hunting buyers, “NOT A SHORT SALE” has become the mantra of many listing agents, who gleefully declare THEIR listing is not one of these, especially in those areas where short sales are prevalent. Or “NOT A SHORT SALE BUT PRICED LIKE ONE,” perhaps equally popular and alluring.
There now seem to be as many listings with this sort of declarative as there are those who bemoan the fact that this IS a short sale, subject to approval of the lender, yada yada…
What will the next sea change be?
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