Real Estate - short sale

[TulsaBandit]

So my fiance and I submitted an offer on a house Wednesday night on a home that has been approved for short sale by the sellers lender. Got a text from our realtor Thursday night saying that the seller has accepted our offer and now it goes to their bank for the final say. Anyone have any experience buying short sales? About how long do you think it usually takes for the bank to give an answer? Didn't take long for it to go through the sellers approval, but I bet the bank takes A LOT longer. Our realtor gave us a time frame of "usually between 2 weeks and 2 months" - which was not encouraging but she hasn't done very many of them to get a good sample size i think.

 

[Old Fart]

Ours ran 5 1/2 months only to crap out at the end.
But it had a second mortage that was dragging it's feet.

 

[tRidiot]

I wouldn't wait 5 1/2 months on a house, personally. There're a billion out there for sale. When I submit a bid, I'd add the stipulation that final binding acceptance must be given in writing within 2 weeks or the bid is void. No way I'm sitting around while some jerk-off at the bank shuffles papers for a month or two.

I'm not a real patient man... when I get the urge to buy something, I buy it, or I move on.

 

[TulsaBandit]

We wrote in our offer that we wanted to close by Oct. 21st giving them a month. I'm hoping it doesn't take as long since the bank has already approved the short sale of the home and the sellers haven't even been living in it for months.

 

[uniquediversity]

there are alot of different factors that come into play. as long as your inspections and appraisal goes well you should be closed soon. but if you have any issues like i did it took 10 months.

 

[soonersfan]

Be ready for anything. Banks are all over the board on this, especially the nationals. The state banks that don't answer to Wall St. sometimes use a litte more common sense and are quicker to respond. Most of them didn't make 100% loans on properties that are now upside down though. It's worth headache if you get a good deal. Good luck.

 

[centraloklahoma]

I have some knowledge about short sales and Bank of America. Your milage may vary depending on many factors including if the house for short sale's loan was through Bank of America or not.

BOA is not pushing many through. The house can already even be approved for a short sale, be in excellent condition, etc etc.. Bank of America has many many internal problems and selling a home for less than what is owed (many times) just is not the way they do business. A family member had a house in Colorado, went through three different buyers wanting to short buy it. The owner wanted to accept the offers and did..but since each offer was 20K under what was owed on the loan Bank of America did not want to do that and ended up in a forclosure and auction. Still has not sold as the original short sale interested parties then backe dout thinking they could get the house in the foreclosure auction. BOA then had two auctions and kept teh base price more than the pay off scaring away the three possible buyers.

This was through the realtor who was part of the short sale approving board or whatever they are called in Pagosa Springs Co. She advised a pre set and already to go short sale can be 6-8 months if accepted by BOA.

Like I said your milage may vary and good luck!

 

[dutchwrangler]

My wife and I received word today that we're closing 9/28. We started the process 5/1... almost five months wait time. I had considered moving on with the search but the wife was in love with the house and keeping her happy was a priority. We were dealing with BOA.

 

[TulsaBandit]

Congrats Dutch!

Ours is not with BoA - according to the disclosure it is with the "builders preferred lender". It's a rather new home and the seller went with the builders lender, though that lender may have sold it off but I don't have that info.

 

[TulsaBandit]

UPDATE - 3 weeks, not bad. The seller's bank verbally accepted our offer on the 13th and we're getting the contract Wednesday. Estimated closing date of Nov 20th, so still keeping my fingers crossed til I get those keys in my hand.