Buying or Making Offers on Short Sale Properties

Several things to know when making offers on short sales.

1) Buyers must be patience. The bank does not care about you, your wants, your credit, or how much money you’re putting down. They’re working thousands of short sales at any given time, you just have to get in line and wait your turn. If you can or will be patient you can get a heck of a deal.

2) Seller must be available to sign contract. Short sales are not bank owned properties, the bank is allowing the seller to sale the property  for less than is owed, therefore the seller must be available and willing to sign contract. Every bank is different, some will want the seller to sign before the bank accepts to show intent, other banks will not want seller to sign until the bank gives the ok. This process can take anywhere from 2 weeks to several months.

3) Pre-inspect home. All short sales are sold as-is. The last thing you want to do is wait weeks or months for the bank to accept your offer and then find out ther’re major issues with the home. It never hurts to ask the bank for a major repair. If  it’s a lender required repair, that may be the help you need to get the repair done or get your earnest money back.

5) Protect your Mortgage Qualifcation. They’ll be plenty of time to buy things for the home after you close. DO NOT open any new lines of credit, don’t buy anything that requires a loan or payment, and don’t buy any big ticket items until after closing. The last thing you want to have happen is to lose your loan qualification.

4)Earnest money. In NC you don’t have a contract unless you have some amount of earnest money. Have your broker write the offer so that the earnest money will be deposited upon acceptance of offer, not at the time of offer. This way you don’t tie your money up and lose interest.