Doing a Short Sale in Portland

I do a good bit of short sales here in the Portland, Oregon area.  I want to share with you my experience working with Resurgent Loan Servicing. 

As of this moment, I only have one deal with Resurgent Loan Servicing.  I am supposed to get my short sale approval tomorrow at the latest.  Lets see.

So far this is how it went.

I got this short sale listing back in June 2013.  I had to discount the property several hundred thousand Dollars before I got my short sale offer.  The property is very nice but located in very specific enclave of 6 houses only.  So it is a tight neighborhood and very nice.  Great place to raise children.  All the neighbors.  This property was bought in 2008 for $1.1K.  I knew that although the property is desirable, I would have to discount a lot.  I got the property listed as soon as it vacated. By now, the roof is overgrown with moss, so is the patio, the swimming pool is green and the nice landscaping turned into a jungle.  So that is what I had to play with in this short sale.  Here is a link to the property info

PDX Experts Short Sale 1

I got my short sale offer in September.  The offer was from one of the neighbors' brothers.  He and his wife are salivating over the property.  So they made an offer with 30% down with me as their agent too. So I am dual agency.

The sellers accepted the offer at $600K.  However, then they talked to an accountant, and guess what?  He told them to better let the property foreclose.  That short sales are a waste of time.  The problem is that they will soon be too long out the property, so the bank will 1099 from foreclosure loss.  The longer it passes, the bigger the 1099.  Although the sellers have not paid since end of 2009, they are not yet in foreclosure.  Anyway, they deliberated got going.  Then an attorney told them something similar.  That made them vacillate but came around again.  Eventually I got the paperwork and got the short sale started for good.

One critical thing to do with a property like this one, that basically has no comps, is to escalate the price down.  This is not advantageous for rapidly bringing buyers, because the property tends to initially show high in the MLS. However, the listing history is very important for showing the appraisal the validity of the offer.  Needless to say, as in most of my short sales, I was well armed the appraisal day.

As much as possible I like to be present at the short sale appraisal.  By this time, I have almost developed a relationship with the appraisers that gravitate towards the short sale transactions.  The gentleman in charge of this appraisal had appraised at least 4 other short sale for me.  By this time we are definitely on first name basis.

This is a typical short sale.  The property does not really need repairs.  It needs to be refurbished.  So I had the buyer provide me a professional construction estimate.  This is very helpful for the appraiser. 

The short sale is with Resurgent Loan Servicing.  They are based in Houston Texas.  I find the reps helpful, but full of hindrances.  Communicating with them is for sure complicated.  The reps can only have conversations with the agent.  They can't get or send direct emails or faxes.  They can't leave voice mails either.  So if you are not available when they call you, it may be several days until you hear anything about the short sale.

Fairly quickly I got the net amount the bank wants to get out of the short sale.  So I adapted the HUD1 form settlement statement to meet the requirements.  The were a few minor adjustment needed.  The problem is that because of the communication issue mentioned above, it is hard to know if all is well.  So that is were time is wasted. But the short sale is almost approved as of right now.  I just need the short sale approval letter, which I should get tomorrow.

At some point a week and a half ago the buyer decided that I was getting too much commission and I should discount it so he pays less.  Well, I told the seller.  Then the buyer bluffed by email stating that he was pulling out of the deal.  So I put the short sale back in the market.  Now that I have the short sale almost approved, with the bank 's net defined, I got lots of showing.  Soon the buyer recapacitated, and called and emailed stating that he wanted the deal.  As soon as put the property back in pending I got back up offer for $650K. 
So the buyer is getting a really good deal considering the type of property it is. 

I counted my hours of work on this short sale.  For the most part this deal was hard burst of labor mixed with a lot of waiting.  I think my hourly fee for this short sale will be around $250 per hour.  That why it is better to work with more expensive properties.