Short sales are NEVER approved…

That isn’t true. Here is how one of our agents beat the odds.

Here is the story; “I had a short sale with a large national lender. The loan was owned by Fannie Mae, not the lender. We had an overzealous short sale negotiator. We received a offer for $180,000, which was very close to market value. We submitted that to the lender with all the required short sale paperwork.

The lender came back and said the price needed to be raised to $257,000 and the seller needed to sign a $50,000 promissory note!
Of course, neither the buyer, nor seller would agree to those terms.  At that point, both the buyer and the seller were thinking that the only alternative was to let the property go to foreclosure.

But, I knew that once the home was owned by the bank, the home would sell for even less than $180,000 and the homeowner would suffer from a foreclosure on their record and quite possibly a very large deficiency judgment.

So I did something about it. First, I knew the $180,000 was a good offer that reflected the Fair Market Value of the property. I also knew that Fannie Mae didn’t normally ask for promissory notes. In fact, my experience had told me that Fannie Mae’s policy is to erase the debt when the property is a primary residence (This home was a primary residence.) Here’s what happened.

I went over the short sale negotiator’s head; I escalated the file. I contacted Fannie Mae directly and held a 3 way call with the seller. We found out that the lender had lied. They had never even submitted the offer to Fannie Mae! (it happens a lot more that you can imagine).

They had told us what they thought Fannie Mae should ask for. After I spoke to supervisors in Fannie Mae, I was then called by three different reps for Fannie Mae. Within 72 hours a supervisor (not the original negotiator) from the lender called up and gave me their required net, which was only 162k!. This would now result in having to receive an offer that right in market value range. The problem was that the buyers had walked away from the deal after having to deal with all of the time wasted by the original negotiator. But, since we had a solid, market value number now, we quickly procured another buyer and sold the house.

The bottom line is: the short sale negotiator lied, and got busted lying. I had to know when and how to escalate the file and I had to send in detailed valuation data to prove my case.

As you can see, some agents can make things happen with short sales. As you can see, refusing to take "no" for an answer (and knowing what to do afterwards) helps you to be successful on a short sale.

If you are thinking about a short sale I can help you accomplish that and get back on your feet…call me directly at 561.602.1258. Or email me at SSinfo@thejacksonteam.com

When we talk, I will explain how the process works in detail and answer any questions you may have.

Thanks for reading, Steve and Jackie Jackson.