It’s time to take another look at short sales

As recently as a few months ago, if you would have told a real estate agent who specialized in short sales that they’d be raving about a lender’s stellar service and rapid approval times—not to mention significant cash incentives for financially strapped homeowners for pursuing a short sale—you’d have gotten some strange looks.

That’s all changed. And it’s changed faster and to a greater extent than most real estate professionals ever could have imagined.

With a glut of bank-owned properties dragging down the recovery of the real estate market, as well as the national economy, major lenders are more eager than ever before to avoid foreclosure. So they’ve sharpened their focus on short sales. Bank of America, for instance, says they have processed 500,000 loans for short sales this year through their online Equator system. It's not a perfect world--not all short sales close: there are many parameters, including lender and investor efficiency, to getting a short sale closed. California Association of Realtors states 3 out of 5 actually close. But for those sellers willing to do the work, and for buyers willing to qualify and hang in there, there are successful closings.

The biggest lenders in the country have staffed up to ensure rapid processing of short sale applications. They’ve come up with cash incentives, some in the thousands of dollars, at closing for homeowners who pursue a short sale. And they’re proactively reaching out to CDPE agents and putting them in touch with delinquent borrowers.

This is big news and the media has not really caught onto it yet. What’s important for you to know is that whatever you’ve read or heard in the past about long lag times and frustrations with short sales is probably no longer the case.

To find out more,I invite you to contact me and/or to visit my website at http://www.juliahuntsman.com/ to learn more and feel free to contact me any time at if you or anyone you know is struggling with an unmanageable mortgage.