Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Sacramento Short Sales "Back with a Vengeance"

From Kiplinger:

In a short sale, a bank allows a delinquent borrower to sell the house for less than the mortgage amount and turn the proceeds over to the bank as payment in full. Scott Williams, a real estate agent in Roseville, Calif., near Sacramento...says he was actively involved in short sales in the 1990s housing slump in California, but that the practice pretty much disappeared for several years. Now it's back with a vengeance. He's already handled about ten short sales this year and has 40 more short-sale homes in his inventory, ranging in value from $180,000 to $600,000.

"Most of these cases are homes that were purchased within the past couple of years, at or near the peak of the market," he says. "Most were purchased with 100% financing or creative loans that after two years of artificially low payments, the loan adjusts to market rates. That can add hundreds of dollars to the payment and some of the people just can't plain afford it."
From Roseville & Rocklin Today:
With the changes in our Sacramento real estate market there has been an increase in foreclosures and I have been seeing advertisements and getting more questions about "short sales."
...
As we are entering this "increased foreclosure" phase of the real estate market I believe, based on experience, lenders will not be as easy to deal with as they will if this continues for two or three years.

2 comments:

TMC said...

I think Mr. Williams is handling the short sale on my brother's house.

They are currently in escrow.

My brother bought at the very very top, despite my telling him not to. Live and learn I guess. It should be loads of fun when the IRS sticks it's hand out come April 15, 2008.

BFB said...

So where can the average person get information on short sales, other than simply making lowball offers (and not hiring a buyer's agent)? I assume it's something they work out with the bank ahead of time.

Slightly off topic: we've checked out a few open houses in the E. Sac/midtown area. I am amazed at 1) how many are unoccupied, and 2) the new trend of "presenting" these empty places. Lots of Cost Plus furniture, flowers, etc. Gone are the days when it sold itself, even in the 95814/16/19 zips. Now the prices need to drop a bit more (they have been, just not fast enough, dammit!).