Barb

The address for the property you are enquiring about is not showing for me, so I can't be specific. But if it is just pending, or if the agent hasn't changed the status from pending to sold, then the final price won't show up until the status is changed to sold. I am sometimes finding that when the banks are taking over properties, the price is shown as 0. There are also situations where the new owner can request that the final purchase price not be made public (often used for extremely high end properties) but I believe those are still available to agents via the MLS. Without knowing the exact address, it is impossible to tell, but I hope this helps somewhat. - Fri Nov 7 2008, 20:23

Verbal approval of what and from whom? When I am the listing agent, if I get "verbal approval" that the bank is willing to take a certain amount for the sale of the property, we then request a payoff statement. That is the commitment from the bank that they are indeed accepting that amount of money, and usually we have to close the escrow within 20 - 30 days. Ask your agent to call the listing agent to see if they have payoff statements for each loan on the property. If they don't, then the bank is still analyzing the loan, offer and seller's situation, and it could be a long time indeed before you know if the bank will sell, sell at your price, or sell at another price.

If you just have verbal approval from the listing agent, that is basically worthless. The bank is the final decider in a short sale. Good luck. - Mon Nov 3 2008, 11:00

Well, in the short sale addendum, it very clearly states that the property may continue to be marketed and offers continue to be presented to the bank. According to the board, the property is supposed to be marked pending lender approval, but the selling agent must take the complaint to the listing agent, or, if no help is given, to the broker or to the board.

But you still have the issue of other agents writing offers on the property. In my experience, offers continue to come in until the day I get an answer from the bank. By then, 15 other offers have fallen by the wayside, due to the length of time it generally takes to get responses.

And it is the wild west in my experience with short sales - every bank is different, every transaction is different, each lender has different ways of processing the firsts and seconds, some are using collection agencies, some have the same negotiator for both the first and second - there are few "rules" that are being followed. Some banks will only take the highest and best, some negotiators want all offers. Maybe you haven't worked on as many as I have, but as I said, each one has been different from the one before, and my term "the wild west" is just ot refer to the no rules, guidelines, or common practices among the banks and how they are managing the short sale process. - Fri Oct 24 2008, 09:59

It is sort of the "wild west" out there right now. If you signed a "Short Sale Addendum" you will notice that the listing agent has the obligation to keep marketing the property and to present any offers that come in to the bank. It is the agent's fiduciary duty to get the highest possible price for the bank, and that means that yes, someone can come in with a higher offer than yours and potentially get the house. I always ask the listing agent to give me, the buyer's agent, a call when that happens to see if my buyer just wants to hang out, or to raise their offer to match. Remember, lots of offers get written on short sales, and about 3/4 or more of them withdraw their offers before we even hear from the bank. So even if your offer isn't the highest, the higher offers may drop off.

Regarding not getting a signed copy of the contract from the sellers, it really is meaningless, because the seller doesn't really have the right to sell the property without the approval of the bank, (explained in the short sale addendum). The short sale addendum explains all this, your rights and risks. YOur agent should have explained all this to you, the pros and cons of short sales (as you are finding out) and made sure you utilized the short sale addendum.

It doesn't really seem ethical to market the property at a lower price than it is is listed for, but I don't think there are any laws against it. You would think that the seller would have an issue though - they are the ones who approve or refuse a price change.

Good luck. Barb Wilson - Fri Oct 24 2008, 08:40

The transaction goes like this - you the buyer signs the loan documents at the title company, as well as a lot of other documents, the loan docs are sent back to your lender to verfy everything, then the lender wire transfers the funds to the title company, the title company verifies everything and sends the funds to the seller's bank, the transaction is recorded, and then you get the keys.

Generally, if you sign docs on a particular day, the following day or second day you will get the keys. Your agent should be able to explain all this to you . - Mon Oct 20 2008, 20:27

Why do you want to know? Is it in your neighborhood, or in a neighborhood you want to move to? There are still auctions at the courthouse (where you need cash or cashier's check for the full amount you are paying) and those may be lower priced than a home on the market (the buyer at the courthouse is responsible for all unpaid taxes, etc.). It can also just be the price that the bank took it back for, the amount of the first loan. - Mon Oct 20 2008, 20:20