I want to short sale my house in Warren, MI as a means of avoiding foreclosure. My house isn’t in foreclosure YET, I haven’t paid December or January. We can’t afford to live here anymore because of various reasons. Do I just call real estate agents or those we buy ugly houses people? The bank said I need to attempt a short sale before I can do a deed in lieu.
It’s 2 bedroom house with no basement, and the pay off is like 71,000.
Jen
You can’t short sale your own house. If it’s a good candidate, you need to have a buyer who is willing to do it.
WeBuyForeclosures.com or any of those sites will link you to an investor who may be interested.
I had to try a short sale for my home, as our finances wouldn’t cover the mortgage anymore, due to other people in the house not paying their way, insurance costs becoming almost extortion, etc, so our bank agreed on a price with an investor we found through an online search. It took 6 months for them to get all the paperwork arranged and agree on a price, and just three days before the closing date, the investor dropped out, as the market in our area got so bad, he would’ve suffered a huge loss if he tried to sell it afterwards. We’ve now started the deed-in-lieu procedure.
The lender was pretty easy to deal with during this, though, and surprisingly understanding. We sent them a hardship letter, and all the financial info they asked for, and the rest was really just waiting. They did require us to list the home, though, which we had done, to no avail, hence the investor’s participation.
If you do decide to go with an investor, be sure of their intentions with the house. I was very PO’d that all this fell through because he couldn’t get anyone interested in it and wouldn’t be able to get rid of it right away. After the last year, I’m very bitter toward homeownership now, and the outcome of the short sale has made it worse, but it would’ve worked out under different market circumstances. All the best to you.
If you already belong to a reia, by asking around you should be able to narrow your possibilities of the best investor to work with.
steve