Great Expectations Management – Should First-Time Homebuyers Really Be Losing Interest in Short Sales?
First of all, I love the HousingWire news feeds. If you aren’t subscribed to a RSS feed or aren’t keeping tabs via Twitter, you should. Check out www.housingwire.com.
This article was posted at HousingWire on Monday by Kerri Panchuk: ”Survey Shows First-Time Homebuyers Growing Weary of Short Sales”. In it, the author cites a recent survey that indicates a slide in the percentage of first-time homebuyers who have acquired short sales – from 54.1% in November 2009 to 39.7% in August. We are all aware of the technical challenges of short sales; but the payoff in dealing with and overcoming those challenges is, according to the report cited, that “short sales . . . generally sell at prices 27% lower than non-distressed properties . . . .” I got to thinking that if this is true – that a buyer could expect a 27% discount by buying a short sale – then it would be nuts to “grow weary” of them. Nuts, unless of course these first-time homebuyers are entering into short sale transactions with poorly set expectations.
Having orchestrated over 700 short sales over the last three years, we understand just how wrong things can go when expectations are not set properly. So here are a few pointers mostly from a buyer’s agent’s perspective which should go a long way toward helping to manage your buyer’s expectations and toward helping them hang in there to take advantage of the short sale savings.
There is no substitute for good old-fashioned homework and reconnaissance when it comes to making an offer on a short sale. To wit, you should know or try to find out:
