How to prevent foreclosure

Prevent Foreclosure by Understanding Short-Sales

As Foreclosure rates hit record levels, more sellers are turning to short-sales as a way to avoid foreclosure.  Here’s what you should know:

·        In a short-sale, the seller can have his/her real estate agent arrange with their mortgage lender to accept a price that’s less than the amount they owe on the property.

·        As part of this arrangement, the lender typically agrees to forgive the rest of the loan.  Because there are no deficiency judgments in California, the bank cannot come after you for the amount lost (Amount owed to lender – Price it sold for).

·        As a result, the seller doesn’t have to go through a foreclosure, the buyer then closes escrow like a normal transaction.

How this Benefits You?

1.      No foreclosure on your record.  Rather it will show as a “satisfied” or “paid” debt.  This will allow you to pre-qualify for another home loan in about 2 years, as opposed to 5-7 years with a foreclosure.

2.     WE deal with all the calls by the bank and negotiate your liens while arranging all the paperwork with no expense to you.

3.     We negotiate with the bank and buyer so that you owe NOTHING at the close.

4.     The process can take months and during this time you may remain in your home, while the lender “collection” calls are handled by Torelli Realty.

5.     Often times we can even arrange for partial moving expenses for the seller.

Are You a Frustrated Buyer?

Are you a FRUSTRATED BUYER?

I receive many calls from frustrated buyers these days and they tend to be “ticked off” for 1 to 3 major reasons:

1.       They’re sick of short-sales.  This is a typical result of an inexperienced short-sale agent.  Just because an agent has been doing business for many years does not qualify them as short-sale experienced.  This market constantly changes and especially in the past years; surprisingly very few agents have managed to adapt.  Ultimately, buyers are submitting offers and waiting forever to hear back, and many times buyers miss out on other opportunities in the process.  Or they get their hopes up on an under-listed house of their dreams only for the bank to eventually reply with a denial or counter at a higher than affordable price.  There is a strategy an experienced short-sale agent takes to avoid viewing homes with little chance of meeting you needs in a timely manner and making the more difficult deals work.

2.      They’re being shown every house they’re NOT looking for.  3 potential reasons: 1. You may be unrealistic with your perimeters within your speficied budget.  2.  Your agent is very local to his or her market and doesn’t know or want to show you homes outside his "specialized" neighborhood or 3.  Your agent is ONLY showing you standard equity sales and not short-sales or bank REOs.  Depending on the situation, this may be the right move but at times agents just don’t want to take on any challenges to complicate or delay the transaction with disregard to your needs.  

Always be sure to ask your agent what the differences between equity sales, short-sales and bank REOs are, including their pros and cons.  Working with the right agent will save you time, money, and meet your most important real estate needs without giving you a headache.   

Paul Youssef

Torelli Realty

www.MyIrvineHomes.com  - Irvine

www.PaulinLakeForest.com – Lake Forest

www.PaulinCostaMesa.com - Costa Mesa