One would think that after living in the world of short sales for so many years they would be getting easier. Sadly, my experience indicates otherwise. I remember a post about short sale progress I made back in 2008 where we finally got approval after 5 months of waiting.
I was just contacted this week about short sale approval for an offer written in March... hmmm, that's about 5 months. The difference with this one was that instead of getting approval, we received a counter offer with the seller's mortgage insurance company requiring an additional contribution in the 10's of thousands of dollars to approve the transaction. The seller doesn't have it... so that leaves the buyer!
Had another short sale response last week from an offer made in April... not quite as long, but the seller's mortgage(s) again required more money from the seller to get approval to close. Again, the seller didn't have it. The buyer offered to contribute the additional cash needed to close... but the mortgage companies are not being very cooperative in making it happen even with additional funds from the buyer.
In both these cases it wasn't a matter of increasing the sale price (which could be financed), it was additional cash required to satisfy the seller's mortgage(s). Apparently this has become more common in the last few months. Both of these buyers had the resources to move forward if they chose to do so, but that often isn't an option. Think about the potential consequences of waiting around for a short sale before deciding to go that route for a purchase... would you be willing/able to bring more cash to the closing table if required to close the transaction?
Maybe that is why there is a 9.0 month supply of traditional properties for sale (not foreclosures or short sales), a 4.4 month supply of foreclosures for sale (prices are best for foreclosures, but they often need a lot of work)... but a 22.1 month supply of short sale properties for sale! This is based on data for the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area provided by The Thing from the Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors. Check out what is happening in your Twin Cities neighborhood.
Sharlene Hensrud, RE/MAX Results - Email - Minneapolis - St. Paul Real Estate Market Information
