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Are affluent home sellers harder - or easier - to work with in a short sale?

By
Real Estate Agent with Datamar, Inc. / Homestead Data

There have been a lot of celebrities in the news that are defaulting on their homes, showing us that no one is insulated from the housing crisis. Yet are distressed homeowners that have been surrounded by affluence easier - or harder - for short sale agents to work with? 

Naturally, agents want to cash in on higher commissions and so we got a lot of requests for distressed homeowners in our pre screened consumer credit database with a high mortgage bracket, for example delinquent homeowners that have an aggregate mortgage balance of $500K and up. Yet the jury is unresolved as to whether this is a group to embrace, or to avoid. 

Some clients say that it’s more difficult to get through to affluent homeowners that are falling behind on their mortgage because the well-to-do already have a bank of professional contacts (lawyers, CPA's and the like)  to turn to for help, or these educated homeowners go to the web and “wing it”, trying to find a solution themselves.

Yet at least one client says affluent homeowners are more easily persuaded to part with their homes. He says, “Affluent homeowners aren’t so attached to their homes, they’re more compelled by numbers. It’s a purely business decision. To them, it’s more of a house, not a home. They aren’t as wrapped up in emotions; they can be moved by the math.” Just some food for thought.

You’ll also have to ask how fast you can unload the listing and at what price range. There’s no value to a million dollar short sale listing if you can’t sell it. Our advice is to be more liberal with the loan balance. 

Where do you stand? 

Comments (3)

Doug Rogers
RE/MAX Coastal Properties - Destin, FL
Your Real Estate Resource!

Interesting blog. Having only worked with the sub 200k crowd I will park here and see if I can learn from others.

Oct 02, 2011 03:11 PM
Brandon Volpe
Datamar, Inc. / Homestead Data - Binghamton, NY

Depending on the median housing prices, which differ drastically sometimes depending on the locale, our client base is sub something. Reverting back to the original post, there's little value to a million dollar listing that won't sell. On the flip side, it's not worth the time and effort to short sale a bottom of the barrell home, so we normally don't want to set the loan balance too high, but nor too low. Thanks for getting in touch, Doug. 

Oct 02, 2011 05:45 PM
mike bitar
Executive Estates - Salinas, CA

Im actually going after the high end sellers. They are much more difficult to handle with the sellers but the pay off is much more.

Oct 02, 2011 07:47 PM