I have a condo in St. Petersburg that i would love to sell short. i have it listed on realtor.com with the words “subject to lender approval” which i would think would attract short sale buyers. I owe probably $25,000 more than what I think its worth and there’s a 1st and 2nd mortgage on the property. Where else can i go to find buyers?
Does the listing on Realtor.com give your description “subject to lender approval”? I know all listings on realtor.com don’t necessarily take the MLS descriptions. I’m guessing the lender has agreed to consider a short sale. You probably need to drop the price in the MLS below what is owed. It will also help if you had an idea of what the lender will accept.
Stop trying to be delicate and change your wording to “bank has agreed to short sale”
That’s how you attract buyers who are interested in short sale property. It’s a waste of time to expect buyers to read between the lines or to expect real estate agents to undestand what anything means except for a traditional listing and standard property sale.
tatertot - can i legally do that? The bank has hinted to me that the will consider a short sale but they won’t really talk about it beyond that unless i have a written offer. I have tried multiple times to get them to discuss but they just keep saying “talk to us when you have an offer”.
Pretty much all lenders will take the same stand point. They don’t want to waist any time on a ‘maybe’ situation. What they really want to see is a purchase agreement. Once they have a purchase agreement (an offer on the property) they will review the short sale based on the potential buyers offer.
Get with that Realtor. If his buyer is for real they should have no problem writing up a purchase agreement for $50k or $60k to start with. This will get your foot in the door with the lender and the negotiations started.
In order to better your chances of getting the short sale approved you should have all of the necessary paperwork compiled and ready to submit to the lender before you submit the first item. When the lenders don’t have to ask or more documentation they don’t review the file as closely as when they have to continue referring back to it.
The reason you say, “subject to lender approval” is to insinuate that the property can be purchased for less than what the appraisal value of the property is in order to motivate a buyer. There are other ways of saying this that will generate a greater response.
Your goal is to get people calling about the property. Once you get them on the phone you can explain the whole situation in more detail. But in order to generate a maximum response, I would avoid saying anything that sounds as though they will have to wait on a bank. Focus on the money they can save (or make) with the property to stroke people’s interest.
Good Luck! :beer