CCAR (Contra Costa County of Professional Realtors) sponsored a panel of speakers that addressed the world of short sales this morning and here are several of the take away messages that i want to share:
1. Approx. 30% of listings in our county are short sales.
2. Closing rate is 2-8 times lower than non short sales.
3. Short sale sellers (and foreclosure candidates) must be very careful to use all the same information on all docs that were on their original loan docs and avoid fraud charges and other legal issues.
4. Technically, a loan can go into default after one missed payment but most often notices of default do not get recorded for many months and many payments after the first one.
5. A seller's CPA should be consulted to understand specific tax consequences of foreclosing or a short sale.
6. Lenders can come after 401k retirement plans even if they were not listed as assets on the original loan docs.
7. Agents may not want to make short sales part of their future business plans and if they do-- they may want to refer the short sale biz, employ a third party to help or plan on learning a lot more about them and becoming a specialist.
8. It is common for third party specialists to take one half of the commsion for their work.
9. At times (most of the time) it becomes very difficult to get lenders to be responsive to calls and requests for cooperation and assistance once a sale becomes a short sale.
10. These comments and observations are 100% my interpretation and any lawsuits that result from them should be sent to my wife.
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