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Here is a link that might be useful: Short sale link

Thanks terriks.

Very interesting article --
And it certainly makes sense --

Yes, yes, yes! Is all I can say after reading that blog post.

I definitely feel that there needs to be some sort of regulation regarding all these short sales being advertised at incredibly low prices - that are NOT approved by the bank. What a joke. It does nothing but tease buyers and hurt other sellers. And try as you might to explain this to buyers they can't help themselves but to try and get that amazingly unbelievable steal of a deal - which does nothing but waste 2-3 months of their time (after which they're back at square one), and possibly cause them to miss out on a great home they would've really gotten a good deal on (not a crazy steal, but a good deal none the less).

I don't think a price which has not been approved by the bank should be allowed to be marketed. It is completely misleading and counterproductive.

/rant

If only 5-15% of short sales make it to closing - what happened to the other 85-95% of them? Did the homeowner "find" the money, did the bank delay the ARM reset, did foreclosure occur?? That is what I'd like to know.

My friend said they are going to short sale a home they have that they no longer live in. They have already moved out of state and bought another house. He is making it sound so easy and I am not sure it is going to be.

I would never post information from a blog and present it as factual evidence of anything. Here is one reason why: the blogger corrected one piece of information in his blog yesterday admitting that he was 100% wrong in what he wrote. Here is his correction:

"Sidenote: A home should NOT go under contract until the BANK signs it, but many agents will make this mistake. The seller signing it means nothing, and it should stay on the market as Active."

"Updated Correction 2-29-08 I'd like to thank DAAR CEO Jeanette Newton for this correction. I'm excited that she is participating in blogging!
My above sidenote about when to go Under Contract is 100% wrong. So let me explain... IF a seller signs the offer, as written, it is to be listed by default on the MLS as Under Contract with No Kick Out. The problem for the seller is that most MLS websites will remove the listing, so the chance of a better offer (and a higher chance for the bank to accept) is slim to none."

A blog is merely an on-line diary and presents one person's opinion on a subject. It is not a news source and the information contained therein is not vetted by anyone. Now this particular blogger may be an excellent read and the rest of the info in his blog may be completely accurate. However, just because he says short sales are fake listings, I wouldn't necessarily take that info to the bank (pun intended).

"My above sidenote about when to go Under Contract is 100% wrong. So let me explain... IF a seller signs the offer, as written, it is to be listed by default on the MLS as Under Contract with No Kick Out. The problem for the seller is that most MLS websites will remove the listing, so the chance of a better offer (and a higher chance for the bank to accept) is slim to none."

Each MLS has their own rules and regs, so, what is stated above might not be the case for my MLS or others, where I can change the listing status to "under contract/continue to show", or as instructed by my client to keep the listing as active, knowing I can be fined by the MLS for doing so.
But that's a chance I have to take if directed to do so by my client.

I agree that a blog entry should not be called an "article." The biggest difference between a blogger and someone who writes articles for the media is that a blogger has no editor to answer to.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed reading it. I've also wondered about short sales. When the DD and SIL were househunting in Wash, DC last fall, they saw one that was listed as a short sale. The list price was given as 300K. They didn't make an offer because, while the place was very spacious for that price bracket, the floor-plan was very awkward. However, they did find out that others had and that the actual selling price was 350K.

True, a BLOG is only one man's opinion -- But his reasoning makes sense and he has a decent breadth of experience from which to draw his conclusions. And sadly, many of the articles that make it into our newspapers and magazines aren't any more 'vetted' than that BLOG.

While I wouldn't call them "fake listings", it does seem smart to be very wary of them and to refrain from placing too much weight - buy side or sell side - on listings with a poor chance of closing.

"And sadly, many of the articles that make it into our newspapers and magazines aren't any more 'vetted' than that BLOG."

The the basis of that claim is?

A personal blog isn't vetted at all. So you're claiming that many newspaper and magazine articles are published as submitted, with no editing whatsoever?. That is certainly not standard journalistic practice.

"If only 5-15% of short sales make it to closing - what happened to the other 85-95% of them? Did the homeowner "find" the money, did the bank delay the ARM reset, did foreclosure occur?? That is what I'd like to know."

Unfortunately, those other homes probably go into foreclosure. A lot of borrowers and realtors are not very motivated to put the time and effort into a short sale. Especially in areas where properties aren't selling. And if the property was a rental property, it probably is not in very good condition.

question.

If banks don't mind forclosing on homes that are covered by the mortgage insurance that the home owner payed for does the home owner get any benefit, like not having the foreclosure on their credit history?

I believe the only benefit foreclosed homeowners would get is that the bank wouldn't come after them for whatever deficiency there might be after the bank sells the house.

"A personal blog isn't vetted at all. So you're claiming that many newspaper and magazine articles are published as submitted, with no editing whatsoever?. That is certainly not standard journalistic practice."

I'm not a journalist but editing to me is word smithing. They don't want to be sued or called on their facts so they word things carefully and check their grammer and spelling.
That's not vetting. What I see in "reporting" today is a trend to such a generalized big picture, a 2 minute sound bite (even in print sometimes) it might as well be worthless. Lately it seems like more and more are running "stories" when they are really opinions. And no I don't think they check "sources" like they should. AND I see a lot of cribbing from one news site to another. Or maybe its just the companies send their reporters to the same hot press conference or car wreck, they all use the same sources and they all sound the same. Answering the same questions and usually missing the same pertinent details I'd really like to know.

Well said Mary -- and that's what I meant. Just because you hear it on the news or read it in the paper or a magazine doesn't make it true. With very few exceptions and getting fewer...

I don't understand you, Sweeby. Your initial response to the blog entry was "Very interesting article --
And it certainly makes sense --." So not only did you, like the OP, mislabel the piece, but you seem to have agreed with what it said.

You apparently didn't notice that the conclusion the blogger reached -- that "Short Sales are Fake Listings" -- was hardly justified by the evidence that only 5-15% of the listings resulted in closed sales. As others have pointed out on here, there are a number of other reasons one can think of as to why not all of the listings resulted in sales, the most obvious being that they went into foreclosure.

It's very unlikely that a piece like that would have gotten past an editor's eyes at any kind of reputable news source. The places where you might see it published would be in journals of opinion or in openly polemical publications, and I think we all should know that sources like that deserve a higher level of scrutiny.

So my question back to you is why you urge such high scrutiny of edited sources like newspapers and magazines, but are willing to give bloggers a free ride?

You're certainly not alone in that. It seems to me that most people are much more willing to believe some piece of hokum that somebody sends them by Email or posts on a forum like this than they are material from edited news sources. I understand the scepticism about the mainstream media, but I don't get why they unquestioningly swallow everything else.

Maybe it's just a question of believing anyone who tells you what you WANT to hear versus having to listen to what you DON'T want to know?

I apologize for offending you Feedingfrenzy, because clearly I have, and that wasn't my intention. Some people put a great deal of time and effort into checking their facts, and into both supporting and wording their conclusions appropriately. And sadly, that level of effort rarely gets the mass public appreciation it deserves, and I can understand how a dedicated and ethical writer would get frustrated by all the crap that gets published alongside the 'good stuff'. I was referring to that 'crap' with my 'unvetted' comment. Please accept my apologies --

But I do still stand by the core point of my post, which was:
"While I wouldn't call them "fake listings", it does seem smart to be very wary of them and to refrain from placing too much weight - buy side or sell side - on listings with a poor chance of closing."

No apologies necessary since I never felt offended. I'm sorry if my post came off that way because that wasn't my intent.

I actually agree with what you just said about being wary of short sale listings. While I don't think they're outright fakes in most cases, I suspect a lot of them are come ons and intended to try to stimulate competing offers, as the example of the DC house I mentioned illustrates.