What happens with a short sale is that you have to fill out a lot of paperwork; a lot of this is actually just details such as the property address, how long you’ve owned the property and who the lender is. They want to see your tax returns, bank statements, your current profit and loss statement if you’re self-employed or your two most current pay stubs if you are employed elsewhere. There’s a whole package of items that will be required when processing a short sale.
What we do is we compile all of those documents together and put the property up for sale. Once we get a buyer we bring the offer in and compile that will all of the other elements; in many cases we will need a hardship letter from the homeowner. We get all of these documents put together and send it off to the lender to their loss mitigation department. This is the department that processes it and gets it ready for submission to the investors. Once the investors take a look at it they decide whether or not they will approve the short sale. Part of this process also involves getting the value of the property, which is the most important part of the process. They’ll often send a realtor out or a broker price opinion agent, we often call it a BPO; it’s actually a form of an appraisal. In some cases some lenders will actually send out two assessments of value, a BPO agent and an appraiser; in many cases they’ll send out two different opinions to get the value. This is really one of the most important steps in the short sale process, getting the value.
If you have additional questions about the short sale process or would like to learn more, please visit www.ToniPatillo.com or contact us via phone or email at your earliest convenience.