Montgomery County Short Sales- Short Sales- Information For Sellers and Buyers.
Once a week, we get calls from Sellers who no longer can make the payments on their home and are trying to find out what a short sale is and how it works. Most of the calls we have received this last week are from sellers who have already determined they are in a hardship situation and are considering their options. Some even have spoken to an attorney or tax advisor and have been advised to consider a short sale.
Pricing your Montgomery county home competitively enough to encourage offers from buyers is one of the most important things to know when you list your property as a short sale.
If you are a Montgomery county real estate agent you must not only have the foresight to know what a Brokers Price Opinion will come in at but also to have some understanding on what a buyer's appraiser is going to be looking at for comps. Pricing a home too high will create headaches for a seller and in the end, possibly making them lose their home to foreclosure, then you've helped no one and probably made things worse. At the same time, pricing too low will get offers that have no chance of being accepted since the lender is not going to approve sales much lower than their BPO.
We listed 2 short sales this past week, where the seller found my blog and called us after reading my series of posts about how to do a short sale. We had one owner call us to list his house but it would be better for him if he does whatever he can to keep his house, so we did not list his house. Instead, we are sending him to resources that may be able to help him keep his home, like the recent federal program, that is another series of articles I've got planned.
Montgomery County Short Sales: Beware Of Bad Advice! *The Tragic Consequence Of Overpriced Listings* Whenever I take a listing it is my duty to find out why the seller must sell. I am amazed at how many sellers we talk to who tell us their agent never even asked them why they needed to sell. Don't you think that the motivation of why a seller needs to sell needs to be taken into consideration with your pricing? Of course it does.
A seller calls us in dire straights and needs to sell their home with a short sale and asked us to list his house. As I began to inquire about her property and qualify him for the short sale process he informed me a very sad story......Please keep reading, you will see there is more to this story than his wife getting laid off of her job.
Two years ago, yes, read that again, 2 years ago he listed his house with an agent who over priced their house. Now, the seller had no idea at the time of what price to ask. He depended on his agent to tell him what that price was. He asked the agent to be honest with him about what the house should be listed at. This agent had all the opportunity in the world to price this house to sell. The seller even told the agent of his families financial situation. The house gets listed too high, simply because the agent was clueless and didn't listen to his client.
Now at that time they only had one mortgage on the house and they could have sold it for a profit because they had equity in the house. This was in 2006. The market was OK, however, the amount they owed compared to even a low ball offer was still a great deal to this seller. Now, the agent takes the listing, puts it in the MLS and walks away. After a few months of not hearing from their agent and after looking online to start to see what the other homes around her were listing for and selling for the seller calls his agent to ask for a price reduction! So in a few months the market had eroded and their home was worth even less than when they listed it, what ws that agent thinking? Did he want to be a hero? Why didn't he just list it as a Montgomery County Short Sale.
If you read the story from above, you would know why it is so important, and I can not stress this enough, that you choose an agent who knows how to do Montgomery County Short Sales and has experience working with Short Sales. Ask your agent if they have closed on any short sales in your area. Selling your home as a short sale takes commitment, perseverance, patience and expertise in negotiations and follow through of actions.
Do not leave your Short Sale to chance. Time is of the essence in doing your Montgomery County short sale. They are not easy and require agents with systems in place and a support staff to follow through with all aspects of the process in a systematic fashion. People's lives depend on it. So 6 months goes by and nothing happens, no showings, no offers. The seller is a nice man who knows nothing about real estate and hired an agent to do what he did not know how to do. So then they list with another agent and basically the same thing happens again. The market was falling fast at that time and the agent had no clue about pricing a property to sell in a falling market. So again the seller was behind the eight ball with no room to get out.
And now what does the seller need to do because of the inept and inconsiderate agents he had to deal with? Well, he had to get a second mortgage on his house just to keep living in this house and keep the payments up on the house and the bills. He never would have had to take out this second mortgage in a falling market if the agents had priced this house to sell in the very beginning, they would have walked away with money in their pockets and a song in their hearts.
TRAGIC STORY, The seller knows the only recourse now is either foreclosure or doing a short sale.The reason he has to do the short sale is because the agents did not list her house at a price that it would sell. He watched as houses around his sold and theirs did not. There is nothing wrong with the condition of his house. It was the pricing. If we had the listing in the first place the house would have been priced to sell and he would be walking away with cash in his pocket 2 years ago!
Contact James Harner CRS, Certified Short Sale Realtor of the James Harner Group, Inc. Licensed Realtor® in PA at Richard A. Zuber Realty at 610-310-7646 for a confidential consultation.
To list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Boyertown, Collegeville, Eagleville, Limerick, King of Prussia, Phoenixville, Pottstown, Red Hill, Royersford, and the rest of Montgomery County PA Homes and Chester County PA Homes, call me directly at 610-310-7646 or skype me @ james.harner
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