Who prices a short sale listing?  

Your Short Sale REALTOR

Will the bank give a listing price?

Nope.  95% of the time, the bank request we submit an offer.  Very very rarely, we encounter a pre-approved list price through a seller who has an FHA loan or sometimes through Bank of America's short sale cooperative program.  However, even then it's dicey to say the least.  

Making it as difficult as possible to price, sell, get short sale bank approved, then buyer's bank approval of price for closing, there are several prices that seem to always come up:

  1. Property Appraiser's Market Value:  I've found these numbers to be very high and very low.  However, they do have an algorithm producing this market value.  
  2. Zillow:  Ahh Zillow, the…

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Interesting stats for today's real estate market versus last year's real estate market here in Jacksonville, FL.  This is a look at short sales sold in Jacksonville vs total sales of all properties in Jacksonville.  

On the market right now:

Currently Active Short Sales available for purchase:  1,003

Currently Active NON short sales available for purchase:  3,782

6 month period look back.  Duval County only.  

May - November 2012:  SOLD Short Sales only = 1,055 

May - November 2012:  TOTAL sales = 4,639

Same months 1 year ago

May - November 2011:  SOLD Short Sales only = 827

May - November 2011:  TOTAL sales = 4,177

A great point about this data:  Foreclosure volume is down, but Short Sale volume is up as you can see in the…

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Over 1 in 6 Florida Mortgages are Behind on Payments!

Why are so many home owners in Florida behind on mortgage payments?   I believe its due to several factors:

  1. Tops in underwater home owners:  The more home owners underwater, the more home owners attempting to refi, apply for one of the many jokes of government assistance, short sale, etc.  
  2. Requirement to be delinquent for modification:  That's right, most of the "help" available to home owners struggling to make payments REQUIRE a home owner to be behind on payments.  Crazy, but true.  
  3. Requirement to be delinquent for short sale:  That's right again, most of the banks and investors (including our government Fannie and Freddie) have required home owners to be late on payments in…

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Another happy home seller gets a short sale approval from Bank of America!

This one took several months, and we had to wade through the normal Bank of America mis-direction and re-direction with a little bit of red tape.  It pays to know the system!

Sellers got out due to a military relocation and were forgiven of any future debt obligations from the deficiency balance.  Congrats!

As a matter of fact, the mass majority of our Sellers in 2012 were able to short sale and be relieved from either all or the major majority of their deficiency balance.  I think we will continue seeing this trend in Florida as both Fannie and Freddie have just revamped their short sale process......again.  

Need to short sale a Bank of America mortgaged home?…

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Despite all the rosy reports on a booming housing market nationwide, we can't put lipstick on a pig forever here in Jacksonville!

Foreclosure activity may be down overall nationwide, but some of the largest cities have seen a sharp increase in foreclosure filings.  New York, Tampa, Chicago, etc.  Check out this report from Business Insider on Foreclosures.  Also see the main source at Realty Trac.  

And Sunny Jacksonville Florida's Foreclosures?  Not so good either:

#10 Nationwide for the highest foreclosure activity.

1 out of every 100 homes received a foreclosure filing in Q3 2012

Properties with foreclosure filings:    5,984

Change from Q2 2012:   +44.09 percent  (That's UP 44%)

Change from Q3 2011:  +32.48 percent  (That's UP 32%…

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Another happy short sale customer!

The Nationstar Short Sale is not one of the easiest but they are 100% doable.   This particular short sale had a previous buyer that wouldn't meet the bank's counteroffer, which is very common, but we quickly found another buyer who made a higher offer.

That higher offer was countered by Nationstar, only to have the buyer stay firm with their price and supplying a contractor's list of repairs needed.  Nationstar accepted the offer, and we closed within a few weeks.

The key to a successful short sale with Nationstar:

  1. Experienced Short Sale Listing Agent.
  2. Experienced Buyer's Agent.
  3. Realistic offer price.
  4. Buyer who will give it the needed time for approval.
  5. Buyer and Seller who will both act…

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Interesting read here:  You Walk Away Blog.  

The article linked above has a lot of info about why the housing market is still in trouble.  Undoubtedly, we all know that right?  Well, most of us realistic real estate professionals know this and don't pretend to blow smoke about how great the market is.  

Don't get me wrong, this market is great if you are a Home Buyer in Jacksonville, but as a Seller of a home in Jacksonville Florida - not so good!

2 big points I see from this article:

  1. 11-19 million homeowners are still underwater.  That's a lot of homeowners, and considering Florida was one of the biggest over valued real estate markets in the country, a large portion of those millions under water belong to us Floridians.  Jacksonville is…

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