Seattle Bubble Forum Archive

A short sale is a term that is used to indicate that the seller may end up selling the home for less than the outstanding mortgage (s) on the home. In this case, there is a high likelyhood that this is the case. The home appears to have been financed with lenders associated with sub-prime.

From what I understand, if a home is listed in the NWMLS and the sale is expected to be a "short sale," the listing must disclose this.

Some lenders will take a loss and others may not. Hope that helps.

PS. Some homes that are short sales are not necessarily a candidate for a good buy. In fact, many homes that have sold as a "short sale" have a history of enormous increases in sales prices over a very short period of time, say less than 5 yrs for example. While you may stumble upon a home marketed as a short sale, it would be very wise to see the chain of title/sales over the last few years. With the recent appreciation gains over the last few years, recently lenders have been scrutinizing chain of title/sales on the subject property being appraised. This is to help cut down on the fraud. Just slighly too late in my opinion.

Recontrust is a trustee services company. They're the ones that help the lender foreclose on the home via a trustee sale.

Interestingly, for the states Recontrust services, WA comes in third for foreclosures in process.

http://www.ctcres.com/

They're not the only game in town, though. We have Regional Trustee Services and NW Trustee Services that make up the bulk of the market share in this sector. Yes, these companies are probably in super growth mode. Any laid of production worker (not LOs) could apply to work in this sector.

So it sounds like this property is headed to auction, with the homeowners trying to sell short ahead of the trustee sale. I give chances of this short sale going through as: zero.

If the homeowners have other assets, like other real property, it's not a short sale. It's a "seller signs a new deed of trust at closing, secured against one of the other properties" transactions.

If they have other assets, a lender cannot approve a short sale. Competent real estate agents know this. This real estate agent is going to spend time and money trying to market the property all for nothing.