So youve had a few agents out and there has been some talk about selling your home as a Short Sale. You think that you have this short sale stuff down cold? Really ? Here are a few things that might not have come up in the conversations that you have had about selling your home Short.
Short sales must go through an approval process. There will be a lot of people involved along the way to that Short Sale approval and eventual closing , that is if your fortunate enough to make it. One such person will be the BPO agent. BPO stands for Brokers Price Opinion. It is much more detailed than that of a CMA or Competitive Market Analysis and a lot less detailed than the Appraisal. As the name implies it is an Opinion.
If youre a Seller you should know that know matter how good you believe your agent is the lender will still reach out for that opinion of value from the BPO agent.
The BPO agent will base there opinion of value using Current properties on the market, and recent Sales from a fairly tight geographic area all tempered by a a long list of the lenders guidelines. Square footage is one of those guidelines on the list.
Now some time ago in Portland Oregon the MLS decided to include all Square footage into the size of the home. Yup that includes Basements finished or not. Garages are not included. But did you know that a finished basement or even a finished lower level in a Daylite basement is not seen as living area or fully used in a BPO.
BPO standards use what is known as GLA or Gross Living Area which only uses liveable square footage above grade. Any lower level square feet may or may not be used as contributing value but not as a direct comparable for sturctures.
What that means is that if you have a 2000 sq foot home with a daylite basement havng 4 bedrooms and 2 full baths where two of the bedrooms and one of the baths is on the lower level in the eyes of the lender you have a 2 bedroom 1 bath 1000 sq ft home and all of the comps should be within 20% of that.
In addition when the BPO agent is looking for comps for the most part we do not use Short Sale Listings and in many cases we are not allowed to use them even as Solds.
Want to learn more and make sure your pricing your Short Sale correctly? Choose a Certified Distressed property expert CDPE for short. As a CDPE and active BPO agent processing some 50 or so BPO's per month I can guide you through the pit Falls. Give me a call or email me for a private no obligation conultation on what steps to take in preperation to selling your home Short.
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