T or F: You can’t do a short sale unless you are behind in payments…FALSE

As you may have read in the Palm Beach Post and other national publications yesterday, banks are now very agreeable to approving short sales where the owner has never been late on their mortgage payments.

About 29 percent of all Florida home sales during late summer and early fall were short sales granted when the homeowner was not yet in foreclosure, according to a new RealtyTrac measure of non-distressed short sales. That’s an increase of 32 percent from the previous year.

In Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties, 21 percent of sales were of properties where the owner was not in foreclosure, but owed more to the bank than the home was worth — a 49 percent annual increase. The difference between the sale price and unpaid mortgage balance in South Florida was an average of $106,712.

Daren Blomquist, RealtyTrac vice president, said this is a new trend that reflects recent federal changes that expand what can be considered a financial hardship and attempts to streamline the short sale process. It’s also likely that banks are more reluctant to file a foreclosure, hoping to avoid years-long foreclosure proceedings in court.

“We’re hearing a lot more about short sales happening outside of foreclosure,” Blomquist said. “Everyone is celebrating that foreclosures are down, which is good, but a lot of the reason for that is distressed homes are being disposed of further upstream.” (as short sales)

In a short sale the bank agrees to sell the home for less than what the owner owes on the mortgage.

The bottom line is banks are trying to reduce the number of homes on their books any way they can.

If you are upside-down on your mortgage, banks are now very open to short sales, even if you’re not behind on your mortgage. With the current  political atmosphere you never know how long banks will be willing (or able) to approve short sales like this. Also, these short sales cost you, the owner, nothing…and quite often, we can get you qualified for a cash bonus, payable TO YOU, at closing.

Call me, confidentially, at 561.602.1258

Thanks for reading…Steve Jackson