Today I received a counter to my counter on a short sale listing I have. The property had been in escrow for 60 days previously and we have a verbal approval from the first and we are waiting on the appraisal and demand from the second deed to move forward. It is looking good for a 30 day close at this point.
Anyway, my real point is this: I always ask my short sale buyers (when I am representing the seller) to deposit their good faith money immediately. This is what binds the buyer to that transaction. This is the second time this has happened in a week. I'm sorry, but I treat a short just like any other transaction. Why would I want to take my client's property out of the MLS if the buyer was not going to deposit their good faith money? And it is against our MLS rules to have a property under contract and still keep it active in the MLS. Makes sense to me because what if you DO get another offer you want to accept while you are under another contract? What voids that original contract out and gives you the right to accept the other contract?
I must note to you that I did just accept an offer with a $1000 deposit (which my broker does NOT allow us to do because he's seen more buyers walk from a $1K deposit usually 90% of the time) but it had an increased deposit in 10 days when the buyer's tax refund was coming in. I have heard of agents accepting half the deposit initially and the other half when written approval comes in. I think that is okay if the total deposit amount is substantial.
The culture of short sales in this market sometimes seems so illogical to me. It doesn't seem that hard to understand the point of treating a short sale like any other transaction, but some agents feel like they should be able to break the rules and laws. And no wonder so many short sale buyers walk. They feel like they can tie up your listing and keep shopping the market. Did anyone explain to them what a short sale was????
How do you handle good faith deposits on short sales?
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