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Because I am very active in Short Sales in the Portland, OR metro area, I get all kinds of questions by email and phone.

As much as possible, I try to keep the questions and answer in email form.  One of the most common questions I get is:

"should I short sale or not".  My answer is almost always "it depends".  Basically, whether a short sale is a good strategy to unload a property, or not, depends on the specific situation.  The email sequence below is a good example of this.

Email Sequence:

Customer questions are in navy.  My replies are in blue.

Hi -

I have an initial question on my possible options. I got divorced 2 years ago and still jointly own a house with my ex wife, which is under water by aprx $55k, I owe $260k. I am current on my mortgage.

I have a first for $200k and a second for $60k. My problem is I could afford to pay the defect, but don't want to pay her 1/2. Additionally I'd like to not impact my credit or damage my chances of buying a new house in the next few years.

Please could you let me know possible options from your perspective, so I can begin a plan on selling my house.

Thanks.

Ken

Ken,

Thanks for contacting me. 

It seems to me you are not much underwater.  Maybe you need to buy her off the title and keep the house.  The ticket is to do it now rather than when there is equity, because you will get there.  At that point she will want her cut, even if she is not paying now.  Cash plus resentment area bad combo.

Is the property vacant?

Another option is for you to pay the short fall of the sale if you want to sell with no default.   That would be around $80K by the time you add the second mortgage, the unpaid part of the first, the real estate commissions and other things.

Hopefully this helps.  For a short sale you need to default.

Oscar

Thanks for the quick response Oscar. The house is not vacant, I am actually currently residing there.

I assume that default is the worst possible option and would completely ruin my credit (and potentially leave me exposed to lenders wanting to come after debt recovery)?  I have a feeling this would be my ex's preferred option, which I want to steer clear of. Do you know if a default in her name would impact her new husband or just limit their future lending options as her credit will be poor (that could be a good deterrent).

I guess my other option could be to buy her out, then potentially look at renting it, although my mortgage is currently at 6.5% :(

Thanks again.

Ken

Ken,

It seems you are better off buying her out.  You will have to pay for rent or mortgage anyway.  Offer her $2K for getting out of the title.  Do it at a title company.  I can connect you.

Don't take this as legal or tax advice.  Just a pointer.

Let me know if you need anything else. 

Oscar

Oscar Morante
Ph:  971-222-3734
Fax: 866-844-7009
PDX Experts Real Estate, LLC
www.PDXExperts.com
534 SW 3rd Avenue
Suite 305
Portland, OR 97204

Real Estate Agent
Realtor

Thanks for following my blog posts.  As you know, I do short sales in the Portland area.  This is about a lower end short sale property in Portland.

Back in May of last year (2013) a lady called me.  She and her mother wanted to sell a property on a short sale.  I usually don't take transactions under $200K.  It is not because I am above that.  It is because, I have calculated that I may take too much work and not make the hourly fee worthwhile.

For Portland, a property under $200K is for sure a lower end short sale.  Anyway, what maters the most in a short sale, is total cooperation.  They were willing to vacate the property, clean it and let me know as soon as they were good to go.  I totally forgot about the subject.  Suddenly, I got a call in September.  They were now ready to list the property and were ready sign the listing.

Sometimes things start easy.  The next day after listing the property, I went to place a lock box.  As I was driving out, a saw an evident Realtor type lady park in front of the house.  From my car window I asked her if she was a Realtor.  Of course she was.  Anyway, a few hours later I got the offer from her for this short sale, plus a back up short sale offer.

The short sale was with Ocwen.   I had just closed a transaction with Ocwen.  That was the only part I did not like about this short sale.  It seems Ocwen has two branches.  One that works out of Texas through Equator.  The other one is in India.  To my luck, this short sale was with the Texas group.

The only part that took a while, was waiting for a document the seller could not find and had to be re-issued.  Other than that this was a fast deal.   I am usually present at the appraisal or BPO.   The BPO came laughably high.  Some agent from Re/Max did it.  I don't even remember the name or want too.  He called to ask if there was access.  Anyway, I was able to prove that the offer was very good and the BPO so far off.

So I got my short sale approval in about three weeks after I actually sent the documents.  However, the buyer's inspection showed mold in part of the crawl space.  I presented the evidence to Ocwen.  They adjusted their net so it now worked again for the buyer.  The short sale was approved in about one month total. 

Time Summary:

From listing to paperwork submission (including getting the offer) took one month.  This is because of the missing document stated above. 

Short sale processing  took another month

Closing was same week as short sale approval because it was a cash deal

In this transaction I made around $175 per hour.  Better than expected.

 Here is a link to the property in my web site PDX Experts Short Sale 2

and

Understanding a short sale approval letter is a critical skill for a real estate agent, homeowner selling on a short sale, investor buying on a short sale, and anyone affected by a particular short sale transaction.

Most banks approving short sales are national.  This means they have loans in most states.  However, they often have legal council for the states they have loans in.  Because of this, often they will adjust their short sale approvals based on what works on the state were the property collateral to the loan is located.

This subject can get real technical.  That would be outside the scope of this blog post.  Lets focus on what the person selling on a short sale (homeowner) really want as first choice.  That is to not owe after the short sale. 

Just to not miss any components, there are three important concepts to understand.  Here I am simplifying to the maximum.

• Short Payoff:  The bank gets paid less than the total present value of the loan balance and releases its interest on the property.  So the property is no longer collateral.
• Release of Lien:  A type of short payoff in which, the shortfall between what is owed to the bank and obtained from the sale, is still owed by the homeowner.   Basically the homeowner still owes to the bank
• Short Sale:  A type of short payoff in which the homeowner does not owe anything to the bank after the property is sold. 

Needless to say, all homeowners want a short sale.  The question now is to know what is that the short sale letter actually means behind all that legalese wording.

How to Distinguish a Short Sale Approval Letter:

A short sale approval will always clearly state that the loan will be satisfied in full for less than the amount owed or very similar wording.  See sample below.

How to Distinguish a Release of Lien:

A release of lien letter will always indicate that the lien will be released but the debt will not be satisfied in full.  In addition, most likely, the homeowner will have to sign a promissory note at closing.

Oscar Morante
Ph:  971-222-3734
Fax: 866-844-7009
PDX Experts Real Estate, LLC
www.PDXExperts.com
534 SW 3rd Avenue
Suite 305
Portland, OR 97204

Real Estate Agent
Realtor