Josh -

My experience with them has been a relucatance of decision making, decision by committe, decisions that might have to be made by multiple lenders, bickering between lenders, agents that could care less, listing scams.....on and on. As I said, I see this from both sides - both as an agent trying to move them and as an appraiser trying to get them ready - they're typically chaos for all involved. I have had a few from the buy side go OK - did two in 15 days with Bank of NGA in December - end to end which was great. Other than those, until there is a set method instituted for lenders to follow with some degree of consistency, I don't see these being anything more than exhausting.

Something else sellers need to remember is that it's not typically a "win" for them - they may be subject to collection of the unpaid loan, tax consequences or more. Getting the home off their hands is just a part of the mess.

Hank

Miammons,

I'm not sure what Hank's experience is, but short sales are great! They are a win/win/win/win for everyone involved. I'd be happy to talk to you about your situation. I'm not local to Dawsonville, but the difference between a miserable experience and a great one is the system that is used to deal with the bank. Take care of the bank situation and half the battle is won. You also have to have some level of hardship.

Contact me if you have any questions!

Joshua Jarvis
770-374-4667

This is a miserable process overall as you probably know - one of the main reasons is that there is no standard method of dealing with short sales and many lenders make it much more difficult than it needs to be.

I complete appraisals for lenders with distressed properties and have had a few listings go that way, on the buy side I've scored several deals for clients. That said, I don't believe there's anyone that's an "expert" in this arena - too many variables. The best that you can hope for is an agent that can present a well prepared argument to a lender demonstrating that a short sale is in their best interest and that they should complete one of given the opportunity. As many of these are decision by committee, this can become a very frustrating process. At the end of the day, the agent has to get you out of the situation in the best shape possible and still placate the lender - tricky operation.

I'm happy to offer an opinion; my contact info is below -

Hank Miller, SRA, ABR
Associate Broker & Certified Appraiser
Prudential GA Realty
678-428-8276