Tony Cannon

As Ted mentioned, real estate agents are not really qualified to answer such questions.

I would recommend the Lawyer Referral Service. After hearing a description of your situation, they will put you in touch with a knowledgeable attorney, and your first 30 minutes are free.

http://www.lawreferral.org/

If you have the paperwork from when you bought your house, the preliminary title report might be useful to bring to that consultation. If you don't have a report, but do have the name of the title insurer, you may be able to call them and get some of your questions answered also. - Sun Nov 16 2008, 18:09

The October 3, 2008 sale you see reported on Trulia was the Trustee's Sale when the bank foreclosed on the homeowner. Countrywide is now the owner and it should come back on the market shortly as a bank owned property.

It was listed for 240 days as a short sale from April to December 2007, but apparently that was unsuccessful.

Is this a home you are interested in purchasing? - Sun Nov 16 2008, 17:55

Normally, in a short sale situation such as this one, you may have to negotiate with the seller and/or the seller(s) lender and even negotiate a little bit with the listing agent to find out how your offer will be handled.

It appears there is at least one offer already at the seller's lender(s) for review. If your offer is better than the one already on the table, your offer may be accepted by the seller and then presented to the bank for consideration right away, or it may go in backup position. If your offer is not as good as the first one, the listing agent or seller may not consider it all.

Regardless of the asking price, or even what the first buyers offered, you may only want to get involved if you feel your offering price has some chance of being considered by the sellers lender(s).

As Rita said, there is a lot involved in a short sale, and I have just touched the tip of the iceberg. You will need an agent who knows their short sale tricks or you may get very frustrated otherwise. Rita and I both had listings in this Valencia neighborhood at the same time in 2007, so local knowledge like that is always good to have also. - Fri Nov 14 2008, 21:53

The lack of response fromt he bank is normal. The banks, listing agents, and asset managers are often overloaded with work and the emotions of the buyer are the last thing from their minds. Have your agent stand firm on waiving the per diem, and have them push to get a signature. I'm sure the bank doesn't want to lose you as a buyer, and taking your deposit doesn't serve their goal of getting the home off their books.

On a recent REO deal, I had to call Freddie Mac directly to get a signature even though I was representing the buyer because the listing agent wouldn't do anything but tell us to wait(everyday for two weeks waiting to close gets a bit old) and escrow didn't have the right contact people. The next day after my phone call and we got the document and were able to close.

If it's any consolation, your closing later in the month will mean less closing costs for you(less property taxes and prepaid interest).

Good luck,
Tony - Tue Nov 11 2008, 21:16

It usually takes a while(3 months) for a lender to review a short sale file and come up with their determination of what they would be willing to sell the house for.

If this is a newly listed short sale, and it was priced under market, the price increase probably means the listing agent got multiple offers and he/she increased the listing price to be about the same as the highest offer he already obtained.

Your question should be whether all offers were submitted to the bank(s) or they just submitted the best. Ideally, you would get the seller signature on your offer so you at least know some of the contractual obligations, but some listing agents don't work their short sales this way.

If all were submitted, and you don't know where your offer stands compared to the others, you may be waiting 3 months only to find out the lender chooses one of the other offers. The lenders don't always come back with a multiple counter offer asking for everyone to submit their "highest and best".

In situations like this, it is important to have a buyer's agent who knows the tricks involved in short sales. - Sat Nov 8 2008, 18:55