You can get information on the Buying and Selling forum also.

Thanks Marie. Didn't know we had that forum!

All kinds o' useful info appears here - and the price is right!

o j

A close friend is a realtor. 6 months or more to close, or fall apart, both are typical. Expect a long long escrow at best, I understand.

short sale does NOT mean short time!

My son and future DIL are in the process of buying a home (in CA) through short sale. It has been 6 weeks since the seller agreed, but no word from the bank. This is an all cash offer and one would think the process might be quicker because of no financing, but from what the agent is telling us it could take up to 6 months and then still fall through. My neice and her husband bought a short sale and it took 8 months. Luckily for them they were able to stick it out, but what a roller coaster ride it was.

DD bought one last year, here in Idaho. It was 33 days from offer to closing. I know that is unusual, but not impossible. The market was very depressed here too, in the Boise area. Good luck and I hope you find something that works and quickly. I am not good on waiting. LOL

I've gone to make offers on places but several have already been sold. Much depends on how badly they want to sell it and of course what they have it listed for. Sometimes they list it high. They're likely to try to get as much as possible so if you leave an offer open-ended, they'll often sit on it and look for better offers feeling they have a fall-back offer. Around here I've noticed they make it very clear that they won't accept any offer with a sale of existing home contingency on it. It's automatically rejected. Not sure if you put a accept or withdrawn on it by such and such a date will work. Since they own it, they kind of hold the cards on time for how long it'll take.

Personally, I would try to work with the listing agent if possible. They'd have a bigger incentive to close the sale to get the extra commission and possibly would push the seller to deal.

I've seen a number of homes outstate that have dropped price by 1/3 - 1/2 and more. I'd think that they'd try to deal those rather quickly but of course it'll depend more on the bank and to an extent, the real estate agent.

Good luck.

We're renting in Orlando (relocated 3 months ago) and according to the current stats in the newspaper, prices have increased dramatically since last year in certain zip codes. My realtor sent me the list of current short sales. I've got time on my side (lease thru Oct.) I just want to hear from people who have gone thru it. Thanks to y'all who have posted your experience/knowledge!

Neighbor sold her one bedroom by short sale. Offer for a cash sale the third day it was listed.

She was out and moved into an apartment less than two months after her condo went on the market.

And new owner moved in right after she left.

they just had a special on it on hgtv..and out of 3 couples only one got it farily soon, one couple 75 days and the last gave up...

My niece and her husband are buying a second home via short sale. It took many months before they finally got word that the sale would be going through. I don't know that you can expect that to go too quickly, from what I've heard--but I'm also sure that times vary greatly from place to place, sale to sale.

My neighbor selling hers, just got lucky, I guess.

It took my friend several months to sell his place through the short sale process. He had an aggressive realtor who stayed on top of the banks and followed through every step very quickly, but the banks just didn't move very fast. Luckily, the buyers didn't have a time constraint, so they didn't drop out of escrow.

I don't know much about this, but I would think that it would take quite awhile because the bank is accepting less than what is owed on the property. It might depend on how much less is being accepted.

I'm in Lakeland, FL - one of the markets that got hit the worst but supposedly one of the ones for the best rebounding in the country. Our neighborhood is 30 years old or so. In the last couple of months 4 homes have sold - the one next to us was a foreclosure. It had a contract within a week - plus many others who were looking at it for investment (flipping). Since it was a Fannie Mae, the first 2 weeks were owner occupancy bids first. The first offer was accepted by the bank. The young couple closed on it within 6 weeks and are in the process of remodeling and will be moving in within the next week or so.
The second home was owned by a lady who finally passed away from Cancer. Her children were here with her and sold the house without even putting a sign up.

The third house was owned by an elderly man. He had to be moved closer to his children so they could take care of him. They came down to move him up there and sold the house via word of mouth that same weekend to a young couple.

The fourth house is 3 doors down from me. It was a short sale. The couple closed their business here and wanted to move to a retirement community. They had bought it about6 years ago at the peak of the market and basically paid top dollar for it plus came in and did a lot of updating. They were in upside down and wanted out from under it since their business wasn't doing well. I don't know what they sold it for but it sold before the sign went up and has closed already. That was about 2 months ago. We have two more homes in our subdivision that are for sale. One is in foreclosure and got caught up in the BAC poblems. The other is also a short sale. It is a plain Jane house - no landscaping or curb appeal. Not sure what it will go for but it was also bought at the peak of the market.

So I agree, things are looking up but I think more houses will be going on the foreclosure market since the issues with BAC and other banks have been resolved. The one next to us was held up almost 2years before it was listed. Once it was up for sale, people strted looking at it immediately. Alot of investers but owner occupants have a priority in some instances. Good luck.

do i understand that you can have a home inspection but end up buying "as is" cause the banks sure won't make repairs? unless the price is way below your qualification, you might be getting in way over your head...

Some negative reports resulting from a home inspection might mean that one could dicker with the bank for a reduction in price ... but I agree that it's doubtful that they'd be willing to make repairs, when they'd lost money.

But - as they tell us - yesterday, with its prices, mortgage levels and agreements ...

... is yesterday.

Today's a different ball game.

ole joyful

The foreclosure next door was in need of repair - the major thing was a pool that basically caved in. The young couple just filled it in. It was listed for $119,900 and we were told that they offered $98,000. Thats for a 4 bedroom, 21/2 bath. They had an inspection and nothing major noted - roof is good, electric had a minor issue, fence is falling down and parts will need to be replaced.
The kitchen had just been remodeled as far as cabinets and counters but the new appliances were taken by the owner who basically walked out.

The short sale house was bought in 05 or06 for $179,900 and I think they did about 20,000 update to it. Heard it was listed for $189,000 but I don't know what it sold for.
Its a bigger 4 bedroom, 2 bath with pool and enclosure - much nicer condition and yard.

We were interested in the foreclosure house just so that we could control who lived there. We had planned to make an offer for about $85,000 cause we had been told it would take about $25-30,000 to fix it up depending on what you did to the pool and then of course you would have to make a profit on your investment. This young couple will do okay with it as they have had family/friends help do all the work. Since they busted up the pool and filled it in, they saved alot of money plus they now have a decent size yard instead of the pool that took up most of the yard.

Thanks all for the feedback! Update: we are looking to buy NE of Orlando in a town of 35,000 with top rated schools in the state & voted in the top 10 places for families to live by I think Parent's magazine. 2 months into it, we've found in our price range, there is very little inventory and most of it is short sales. And most of those are short sales that will fall through (i.e. listed at 199,900 but owed 360,000 on 2 mortgages.) There have been a few foreclosures that usually have contracts on them the day they're listed and they're pretty much going for market price. No deals there so far. As far as privates sales, they are few and far between and snapped up quickly. The "shadow inventory" is being released slowly and forcing prices up (already up 6% this year in our town, 13% in the greater Orlando 4 county area.) We have an offer in right now but it's doubtful. The adventure continues. . . .

I can't understand why the bank makes you wait so long. I would tell them one week for an answer or I would move onto the next house.

SamKaren
Your resident dj