I just found out yesterday afternoon that my entire department is being dissolved, I guess we’re part of the 20,000 employees that AT&T is laying off. I would like to get started now trying to sell my home, I don’t want to wait until my house is in foreclosure before I make a move. Does anyone know if banks will work with a home owner to short sell their property before payments are missed? I would really like to just sell my home as quickly as possible and look for something cheaper while I still have my job. If I could arrange a loan on a much lower priced home, I can find a job at Walmart if need be and still manage to make the new mortgage payments.
I would love to speak with an experienced investor about what some possible options are for someone in my position.
Search under “short sales”, but I believe I read that banks won’t negotiate unless you are in default.
It seems like a long shot, but can you swap houses with someone who has a lower payment? He gets a nicer, bigger house, you get lower payments. You each swap subject to, or assuming the other’s mortgage. Just get title insurance for safety. I don’t know if anyone has tried this yet. If not, why not? You transfer loans, I presume no equity.
I have a file right now with Countrywide and they said they WOULD entertain a short sale even if the person is NOT behind on payments. It would be determined by the person’s hardship and decided by the investor holding your mortgage. Countrywide, itself, doesn’t have a policy to allow short sales in this manner, but every case is different. If you can prove your hardship, then they should work with you.
Call up your bank… get connected to the loss mitigation department… and explain your situation and ask them for some options. Tell them you’re trying to sell your home and you can’t get a breakeven price for it so chances are that you’ll have to sell at a loss, or else you’re mortgage payments will stop.
At this point though, I would make sure that the person doing your short sale does everything possible to make sure they don’t pursue you for the deficiency amount.
Many years ago, I was looking at a property that was advertised FSBO as a short sale. I was told by the owner that their lender would accept a short sale offer. I found out later that the offer had to be at least 85% of the outstanding loan amount to be acceptable to the lender.
Never hurts to ask your lender. They may be very proactive about short sale offers in this real estate climate