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Short Sales in Kitsap County

By Terri Warden Arcieri

Real Estate Agent with Better Homes & Land Real Estate

October 31, 2010 04:24 AM

man carrying house In Kitsap County Washington Short Sales are almost 50% of our listings. The prices were escalated so much the last ten years it isn't surprising that they are all on sale now.

People were able to refinance or take equity loans on their homes every six months because their home values were rising so fast. I owned a Mortgage and Real Estate company at the time and I really would see the same people coming back every six months to draw money out of their homes. At one point I had to tell one family no I wouldn't refinance them any more because they were causing more harm to themselves by refinancing for dental work or a new fence around the yard every six months. Unfortunately they just went some where else and did it anyway.

I see this adjustment in prices caused by short sales and foreclosures as a good thing. I know there is a lot of pain now but the pain was actually caused by the artificially inflated prices over the last ten years in Kitsap County. We are just seeing the ramifications now.

The areas I work in are mostly Bremerton, Port Orchard and Silverdale and when I pull up listings to show to my clients at least one half of them are short sales.

Since I am a CDPE Certified Distressed Property Expert working with short sales as a Listing Agent or as a Buyers Agent it is not really a problem. I just have to educated my buyers and sellers to the process and the length of time it takes and it seems to work out smoothly.

Short Sales are a process or a series of steps a real estate transaction must take to be approved by a the Lender who by the way has the final decision. If the short sale package and offer are put together correctly before the negotiation with the Lender, usually they are approved.

People tend to make them out to be more difficult than they really are. If you have an Educated Real Estate Agent workng with you then you are miles ahead and can get through a short sale comfortably.

Its a great time for Real Estate Investors and Buyers to buy homes at great prices and at great rates.

If you would like to search for Foreclosures and short sales anywhere in Washington State go to my website http://better-homesandland.com

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Nyles Courchesne

Peskin, Courchesne and Allen, P.C. - Springfield, MA

Massachusetts Real Estate Attorney

Short Sales have taken up a great deal of my practice as well. I am polling AR folks to see how they are handling the short sale process: I have a growing short sale practice and I was shocked to see the new language in the last few BOA short sale payoff letters that I received for my clients. The letters indicate that BOA reserves the right to proceed against the borrower for the deficiency. I have been warning any new short sale clients that this is the offer that they will likely receive. One of my clients mentioned that if he applied through the HAFA program the bank could not pursue the deficiency. I reviewed the program on-line again and I think my client is correct. That left me with 2 questions 1) When we initially engage BOA on the Equator System, can you apply for a HAFA short sale on that sysytem or is this done outside of Equator; 2) Is the HAFA program the first step in everyone's approach to a short sales regardless of what bank they are dealing with, i.e, apply under HAFA first and then go into the regular short sale program second? Thoughs?

Nov 21, 2010 11:49 AM

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Terri Warden Arcieri

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