1.  We will analyze your situation and let you know if it meets our criteria.

2.  Most lenders will not consider a short sale unless an offer has been made for them to consider.  We will make an offer to buy your property, so long as it is in our "sweet spot".  We are Buyers!

• Over $100k Fair Market Value

• Decent selling condition (Ugly is ok, but no major problems)

• Generally not over 50 years old

• No condos, town homes, lots, unfinished new homes, or mobile homes

• Good chance for resale (at the right price)

• You have experienced a long term hardship and cannot pay off the note or continue to make payments

• All owners are cooperative and willing to vacate prior to closing

• You are not a candidate for a loan modification or forbearance

• Foreclosure sale is more than 30 days away

• The property is over-leveraged (no equity)

• The property is not included in any current bankruptcy proceedings.  If so, call us when it is dismissed or discharged.

3. Lenders generally require that your property be listed with a Realtor.  We will refer you to a Realtor that understands the process and can list your house for you.

4.  We gather some up front paperwork that will be necessary for the Short Sale.  The first one will be an authorization form signed by you for us to speak with your lender(s) regarding the home loan(s) and what they require for the short sale. Click Here to download an authorization form that you can fill out and send back to us.  We will contact your lender to verify some information and confirm their requirements for a short sale.  Also, we need some information to evaluate your situation.  Click Here to download a Short Sale Questionnaire.

5.  We will meet with you to execute some documents between ourselves that will allow us to negotiate the Short Sale, and allow us to resell it after the Short Sale is complete.  Once we get this up front paperwork completed, you really don't have to do much, other than allow your house to be shown if you are still living there.

6.  We will submit the Short Sale offer to the lender(s).  The lender will do an appraisal or a Broker Price Opinion to determine the value of the property.  Once the BPO is completed, we will negotiate with the lender(s) to determine a final price acceptable to them.

7.  While the Short Sale is being processed (which can take several months), we will market the property for resale to an end buyer.  Any buyer that we find will know that their purchase is contingent upon the short sale working out.  You might ask, why would an end-buyer pay more than we do?  Well, it's a proven fact that a buyer perceives a distressed property differently than they do a "retail" (non-distressed) property.  When we buy it, it is distressed and we purchase at a discount.  When we resell it, we have cured the distress and it can be sold at a retail price.

8.  Normally, by the time offers are being made by end-Buyers, the Short Sale process will be well under way.  Short Sales can take anywhere from 2 to 6 months from start to finish, depending upon the lender and the situation. Time to closing for an end-Buyer is reduced to 30 - 60 days vs 3 - 6 months (or longer) that a normal Short Sale can take.  Many times an end-Buyer will walk away from a short sale because it takes so long.  Our method helps prevent that.

Pay attention here....the worst case scenario is that the offer made by an end-Buyer is not enough to satisfy the lender for a short sale.  In that event, nothing we could have done would have prevented the house from going to foreclosure.  There has been no cost to you, and you are in no worse a position than you were before we started the short sale.

The best case scenario is that the foreclosure is prevented, the house gets sold, you get on with your life without a deficiency hanging over your head, the lender doesn't have to take the house back (and saves money), your Realtor makes a full commission, and we make a profit for putting it all together.  That's a win-win-win-win.

A summary of the Process:

1.  You must be both interested in selling and participating in the short sale.

2.  We determine the likelihood of success based on the ability to negotiate a discount and the ability to resell the property.

3.  We confer with the listing agent to explain the process and coordinate required documents.

4.  Certain Short Sale documents are obtained from the homeowner in foreclosure (or about to be).

5.  We prepare, submit, and negotiate the Short Sale package, driving the entire process for all lien holders.

6.  If the property is not already listed, it is listed on the MLS.

7.  We make an offer to start the process.

8.  We request the lender postpone the foreclosure auction, if needed.

9.  We follow up on offer and trigger a BPO (Broker Price Opinion) or Appraisal.

10.  We prepare a repair estimate, if needed, for the BPO agent.

11.  A BPO is ordered by the lender to determine an "as-is" value.  This is used to determine how much they will take to release their lien.  We will meet with the BPO agent to let them into the property.  We want to make sure they know all of the facts and come up with a reasonable value of the property, because if they value the property too high the Short Sale will not be successful.  Most times the lender doesn't even let them know it is a short sale situation; a distressed property has less value than a retail property, as it is not "retail ready" and doesn't meet the expectations of a retail buyer.

12.  After the BPO has been completed, the lender will let us know if our offer is acceptable to them.  If not, we will negotiate to obtain an acceptable price.

13.  While we negotiate with the lender, with your permission we market the property to find a "low retail" buyer.  We can pursue a retail buyer because we will remove the stigma of a distressed property and make the property "retail ready".

14.  The negotiated settlement will stipulate that the lender pay all Sellers closing costs.  We will also negotiate that the lender will not pursue any deficiencies against the homeowner.  We will work closely with the homeowner if a lender is insisting upon payment for any or all of a deficiency.  The decision to accept or reject an offer by the lender is completely up to the homeowner.

15.  Closing will occur with a closing agent that we specify.  Short Sale closings can be tricky, and we want to make sure it is handled by someone with proper knowledge of the Short Sale process.

16.  FULL commission to be paid to agents at closing of the end-Buyer transaction.