Is a Short Sale the Right Course of Action for You?

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Is a Short Sale the Right Course of Action for You?

January 21, 2011 by Jackie Hawley

distressed homeowner There are many distressed sellers in North Oakland County MI. I just did my sales updates for Oxford MI and over 60% of the sales in 2010 were distressed sales- bank owned and short sales. I will probably come up with similar numbers when I’m finished with Lake Orion and Clarkston, and the surrounding areas in North Oakland County and Southern Lapeer County seem to be about the same.

One of the numbers that really sticks out is that the bank owned sales are down from 2009 but short sales are up significantly. Because of this phenomenon there has been a HUGE proliferation of so called experts into the field of real estate sales. Agents who couldn’t earn a living in a normal market ran out and got a 2 hour designation and are now “short sale experts.” Attorneys who are seeing their income decline in Michigan’s bad economy are getting into negotiating short sales on behalf of home sellers- attorneys who NEVER practiced real estate law are now “legal experts” in the short sale arena.

Along with all of these new found “experts” is a major influx of mis-information designed to convince desperate home sellers that of course the short sale route is always the best route. Of course if the homeowner, who is losing his house, choses one of the other options available, these so called experts wouldn’t be able to make a pay check off that homeowners misery.

A good real estate professional needs to go over all of the options available to a distressed homeowner along with the potential consequences of the various options. Whether to sell via short sale, give the house back (deed-in-lieu of foreclosure), attempt a mortgage modification or simply allow the house to go into foreclosure should be a decision that has been invested with a lot of thought. Whatever you decide can have a long term impact on your life.

Because of instances where I have felt the seller was getting sold a bill of goods - I have decided to write blood sucking specialist a series of blog posts explaining in detail the different options available to the distressed seller in North Oakland County MI and Lapeer County MI. For a quick primer on how the foreclosure process works in Michigan, please visit a post I wrote back in September, 2010. And one thing that I have discovered over the years- there have always been “experts”, but I can’t remember a time where an agent pigeoned holed themselves like the foreclosure agents and short sale agents of today. Many of the short sale agents only deal with short sale listings. So it is not in their best interest to talk a seller out of the short sale route. I think about 2/3 of my listing appointments with distressed homeowners result in that homeowner NOT listing- with me or anybody else.