The Short Sale!

An emerging trend that will garner permanence or just another passing fade in today’s marketplace? What do you think? Well whatever your proclivity on the subject it is my firm belief that as professional REALTORS® we owe an obligation to ourselves and the clients that we serve to know something about the subject. There are a number of definitions espoused on what the definition is and my favorite just happens to be: “a sales transaction where a seller’s lender agrees to accept a payoff of less than the balance due on the loan.”

As of August 1, 2007 the Arizona Association of REALTORS® has added two new forms to their arsenal of pre-printed forms. We now have a Short Sale Addendum to the Residential Purchase Contract and an Addendum to the Listing Agreement. Both forms are the result of a perceived notion that we will be experiencing an onslaught of foreclosures and/or pre-foreclosure seller dilemmas in the months ahead. Nationwide predictions of real property foreclosures over the next five years or so are in the millions. A scary thought isn’t it? And in my view it doesn’t look like it’s going get any better, any time soon, based on daily newspaper reports on failed mortgage companies, the “credit crunch,” and the subprime mess.

So what does the best-prepared practitioner do? They prepare for the worst and make sure they become re-aquatinted with the fundamentals of the foreclosure process. They learn to identify the characteristics of a short sale. They recognize the differences between foreclosures and short sales and how to advise their client in each circumstance. They perform a service to the client if they know how and if they don’t they refer their client to someone that has the expertise in this area. In other words they do what’s right by helping their clients through these challenging times and become the proverbial problem-solver.

If you have an interest in doing the right thing and want to learn more about the short sale contact me directly and I’ll send you my 3-page guideline for REALTORS® on the subject of Short Sales.