Housing: More Short Sales Coming?

 

John Lounsbury submits:David Streitfeld has an interesting article this morning in The New York Times discussing the outlook for an increase in the number of housing short sales and government efforts to facilitate these. A short sale is one in which the lender agrees to accept a sale price less than the outstanding mortgage balance. Short sales can be advantageous to both mortgagor (borrower) and mortgagee (lender). The credit impairment for the borrower is less than for a foreclosure. The lender can often recover more of the outstanding debt than by going through foreclosure. Even if the sales prices are comparable, the short sale occurs much more quickly and with significantly less attendant expense than do foreclosures and subsequent resale.Complete Story »

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  • Kimball Corson submits: There was a big jump in real estate short sales in January. A short sale is one made by a lender on a foreclosed or repossessed parcel of real estate, typically a house, at a price below the balance due on the property. This is a big adjustment, on average, but one needed to induce buyers to undertake the risk of further declines in real estate prices and lenders to get the properties off their books.

  • BusinessWeek - Home prices have dropped as much as 50% in some parts of the country, and many readers in those areas keep asking what they can do to stop the bleeding? In my last article, I described various strategies available to lower your monthly mortgage payments. But what options do you have if you are so far underwater that refinancing is not feasible and you are desperate to get out from under? The short answer is the short sale. What is a short sale? It is when you sell your home (including sales commissions and other closing costs) for less than you owe on the mortgage. ...

  • BusinessWeek - Home prices have dropped as much as 50% in some parts of the country, and many readers in those areas keep asking what they can do to stop the bleeding? In my last article, I described various strategies available to lower your monthly mortgage payments. But what options do you have if you are so far underwater that refinancing is not feasible and you are desperate to get out from under? The short answer is the short sale. What is a short sale? It is when you sell your home (including sales commissions and other closing costs) for less than you owe on the mortgage. ...

  • Question 1. We would really like to get rid of the house, but we don't want to let it go into foreclosure. Someone mentioned a short-sale. If our lender agrees, should we try this? What impact will it have on our credit rating? - Confused in California

  • Tom Lindmark submits:Another Monday brought another set of plans to straighten out the mess that housing has become. This time, there’s a two pronged approach. Pressure the banks into writing off their second mortgages and get the homeowners to move on via short sales. Here are the details as I see them:Complete Story »

  • Karl Denninger submits: In a display of idiocy reminiscent of what was done here in the US a couple of years ago, Reuters has up a wire report (headline only) that Germany intends to ban "short sales" at midnight (presumably their time) this evening.

  • Q. We have to relocate because of my husband's job. Our home value has fallen nearly $100,000. We would like to get rid of it, but we don't want to go into foreclosure. Someone mentioned a short sale. What impact would that have on our credit rating?

  • Keith Jurow submits: After several years of resisting short sales, the major banks have finally changed course. They have concluded that encouraging defaulted borrowers to pursue a short sale is preferable to waiting for the owner to leave, or worse yet, damage the house before being foreclosed.The advantage for borrowers and lenders is clear. John Campbell, publisher of the Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance monthly report explained in February that

  • Currently, the United States has seen more than 5 million foreclosures completed. My expectations is that we are about halfway through the working off of the ill-advised and financially untenable home purchases of the past decade. Meaning, we likely have another 5 million foreclosures to go.

  • AP - For a homeowner who needs to sell but has a mortgage balance higher than the property value, one option is something called a "short sale."

 
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