Are you surprised that many buyers avoid short sales? It’s true. Why? Read on…

As you may know, a short sale occurs when a homeowner, who owes more on their home than it’s currently worth, decides to sell. They attempt to get their lender(s) to accept less on the property than the outstanding loan balance(s). For the lender(s) to consider accepting less than is owed on the property, quite a bit of “stuff” must happen. Going into detail on all that “stuff” is beyond the scope of this blog post (see related links below to learn more), but believe me, it can take many weeks… and sometimes many months.

So, if it takes from many weeks to many months to successfully complete a short sale, then why would a buyer want to take that long to buy a home when a non-short sale home could take much less time (usually only from 30-45 days)? The answer is why many buyers would prefer to avoid them all together… it just takes too long.

In addition, there’s no guarantee that the lender(s) will even agree to accept less than is owed and complete the short sale. It’s not uncommon for many weeks or months to go by, all the while the buyer is anxiously waiting (and getting very frustrated), and then the lender(s) decline the short sale request. The buyer is then back to square one and has nothing to show for it.

Please keep in mind… I am not saying that a buyer can’t successfully buy a short sale. Quite the contrary… they certainly can. However, the buyer must be very patient… and risk a complete rejection of the request from the seller’s lender(s). Usually, a buyer is willing to wait only when they have found THE house… the house of their dreams… and nothing else will do.

When a buyer first starts working with a Realtor, they must talk in depth with that Realtor about their wants and needs…. AND the time frame in which they want to buy. If they are wanting to buy fairly quickly, then maybe short sales should be avoided.

Many buyers would rather focus, at least initially, on the regular sales and foreclosures that are for sale. Usually, those are much easier to buy and close much quicker.

Again, talk to your Realtor about the best approach for you.

Is it safe to buy a foreclosure?

It’s safe to buy a previously foreclosed-upon house if title insurance is available on it, experts say.

The “robo-signing” scandal in which banks and law firms cut corners on foreclosure paperwork caused some lenders to suspend foreclosures this fall while they reviewed their procedures.

What would happen to the buyer of a foreclosed house if the home previously had been wrongly repossessed?

As long as the new lender and new owner have title insurance, the former owner can’t seize the home back.

The new owner will keep the house, and the displaced former owner might be compensated with money.

“To the extent that a borrower who was foreclosed upon has recourse, it’s against the foreclosing lender, and they can seek monetary damages. But the property’s gone,” says Mark Skilling, the chief operating officer and general counsel for ForeclosureRadar, an online foreclosure data marketplace.

“The current owner who got title insurance they get to keep the property. They’re a good-faith purchaser,” Skilling says.

Most buy from banks
That’s welcome news for homebuyers who rummage through the bargain bin of foreclosed houses.

Few consumers buy houses at foreclosure auctions. More commonly, consumers buy foreclosed properties from the banks that seized them.

The term for such houses is REO, for real-estate owned by a bank. Some real-estate agents specialize in selling REO properties.

A good share of REO houses are decrepit. Many sit empty for months before they are sold, and they end up in such bad shape that they are ineligible for mortgages. Investors often buy these REOs with cash, fix them up and sell them, just like the house flippers of the boom years.

Whether bought from the bank or from a flipper, almost all REOs are listed through real-estate agents.

Armando Montelongo, the former host of “Flip This House” on the A & E network, says certain phrases in the listing such as “completely rehabbed” or “newly remodeled” are signs that the dwelling was a foreclosure and is now in good-enough shape to be eligible for a home loan.

“It’s the benefit of buying an REO from somebody who flips properties, versus buying an REO straight from the bank,” says Montelongo, who lives in San Antonio.

Properties with a past
However the foreclosed house ends up in a buyer’s hands, issues that lurk in the property’s past could “cloud title” cast uncertainty on the buyer’s ownership rights. Title insurance protects against such defects in the title, such as undiscovered liens, forged signatures or defects in documentation.

There are two types of title policies. Lenders policies protect lenders, and owners policies protect owners. A mortgage lender always requires a lender’s title policy.

Owners policies are optional and are recommended for properties that have been through foreclosure.

“From the consumer’s perspective, I don’t think they have a lot to fear as long as they’re able to purchase title insurance on an REO property,” says Ivan Choi, national default sales executive for New Vista Asset Management in San Diego. “By and large, the title companies are still out offering policies.

There have been reports that title insurers have refused to issue policies on some homes foreclosed by lenders involved in the robo-signing scandal.  Responding to these reports, Fidelity National Financial the largest mortgage insurance company issued a statement that “this situation will not have a material adverse impact on its title business.”

The statement said “new owners and their lenders would have the rights of good-faith purchasers which should not be affected by potential defects in documentation.”

Those “good-faith purchasers” won’t be kicked out of their houses, Skilling says. He adds that Fidelity’s message is that “they’re still going to underwrite on REO properties.”

This article was reported by Holden Lewis for Bankrate.com.