If a house is listed as a short sale, you may be able to get a good deal.
If you're looking to buy a house, you may be able to find a bargain if you investigate properties that are going for a short sale price. This means that the house isn't worth what the current owner owes, so the lender agrees to be shorted, or paid less than is owed. For example, the owner may have purchased the home two years ago with a $100,000 mortgage, but now she can sell it for only $85,000. Sometimes houses listed for a short sale price are in the pre-foreclosure process, meaning the borrower has stopped paying the mortgage and the lender is in the process of taking back the property.
Instructions
1. Find out how much interest there is in the property among buyers. If it's been listed for months and no one has made any offers, there's not much interest. If it's only been on the market for a week and it's been shown every day, there's a lot of interest.
The more interest a house attracts, the higher a price it will sell for.
2. Determine what repairs the house needs. Ask the current homeowner what should be fixed, or get a home inspection.
The number and cost of repairs needed will affect what you can pay for the house.
3. Decide what you're willing to pay for the house based on your finances, what other houses in the neighborhood are selling for (your real estate agent will know this), how much interest there is in the property and the cost of necessary repairs. You can discuss this number with your real estate agent to get a better idea of whether your offer is likely to be accepted or rejected.
4. Ask your real estate agent to write up your offer. This offer will go to the sellers, who will probably sign it (they get no money from a short sale transaction, so the price you're offering to pay the lender shouldn't matter to them). The sellers' agent will then submit your offer to the lender, who will decide whether to accept, counter or reject your offer.
Tags: short sale, your offer, your real estate, estate agent, much interest, real estate, real estate agent
