Short Sales Could Help Homeowners Facing Foreclosure

Reported by: April Norris
MyEyeWitnessNews.com

BARTLETT, TN — There have been recent reports about the housing market rebounding, but some Mid-South realtors say they don’t see that.  They say they expect to see more foreclosures this year.

Stephanie McKinnie says when her husband died in 2008 she couldn’t afford their rental homes anymore and thought there was no other choice, but to foreclose on them, until she learned about short sales.

She says, “It was a blessing because I was just overwhelmed with really not knowing what to do.”

Unfortunately, McKinnie quickly became a statistic. Nationwide, one in 7 1/2 people are not making their mortgage payments.  Bartlett realtors Bob and Rita Driver say many people like McKinnie don’t realize foreclosure isn’t your only option.  In 2009, they helped 28 homeowners from destroying their credit by doing a short sale.
They have 60 cases now.

Rita Driver explains how it works in simple terms, “If I owe the bank ten dollars and I can only get eight for my house, the bank will allow me the opportunity to give them the eight.”

But, she says the process isn’t always simple.  To qualify you have to owe more than your home is worth, have a hardship and be able to prove an income shortfall.

Bob Driver says, “With short sale they can go back and look in a couple of years with confidence they’ll be able to buy again, with foreclosure it could take quite sometime.”

Alex Charfen, CEO of Distressed Property Institute trained the Drivers on short sales.  He say he has been spending time in Washington hoping to simplify the process for sellers.

Charfen says, “So with Washington, we’ve been working on stream lining that process working on universal documentation so each short sale has the same documentation or at least the same basis for the same documentation.”

He says short sales could take weeks or even up to a year to complete, every case is different.