What is a Short Sale?
A Short Sale is a property sale in which the proceeds from the transaction
are insufficient to pay all liens and selling costs.
Bellingham & Whatcom County have been fortunate in that until recently we have not experienced many “Short Sales”. Unfortunately, things have changed, and more Bellingham & Whatcom County real estate is being listed for sale subject to the lender’s approval of a short sale.
Since a lender has a lien on the property in the amount of the loan, if a sale will not generate enough money to pay the loan amount and the closing costs, a seller cannot transfer title to a buyer unless the lender agrees to accept less than the amount owed. The process of such a sale is that the seller picks a list price, the seller and buyer reach agreement and that agreement is submitted to the lender for approval. Since it is the seller who has established the list price, rather than the lender, no one knows what the lender will actually accept. The lender, of course, would like to get as much of the loan back as possible, so that approval may take months, or may never be given. In the meantime, the seller and buyer must simply wait.
To Search for Short Sales in Whatcom County click a city name below
On October 25th, 2008 in Bellingham & Whatcom County the NWMLS (Northwest Multiple Listing
Service) showed that there were 89
active listings which were short sales,
with 54 others under contract for sale & 60 homes sold as short sales over the prior 6 months. The community breakdown
of these numbers reveals the following:
- In Sudden Valley there were 12 homes on the market as “Short Sales”.
- In Birch Bay & Blaine were 12
homes offered as “Short Sales”.
- In Lynden, there were 5 homes marketed as “Short Sales.
- Bellingham were 40 homes listed as “Short Sales”.
- There were 10 homes in Ferndale & Custer
for sale as “Short Sales”.
- The remaining homes listed as “Short Sales” were sprinkled
throughout Whatcom County.
Please note that these figures only include residential real
estate - not condos, vacant land or other types of real estate.
A Guide To Short Sales, Distressed Properties & Forclosures
The current Bellingham/Whatcom County housing climate has created crisis for
some homeowners and opportunity for some home buyers. As in any time
of instability, there is the potential for risk on both sides. The first
step to managing risk is to know the terms; the second step is to have
some knowledge of the process; the third step is to have some knowledge
of the potential pitfalls.
Short sale and foreclosure are terms we are hearing a lot
recently in discussions of the Bellingham and Whatcom County real estate
market, and many people use them incorrectly, which gets everybody mixed
up. Let’s try to make some sense of all this…but to do that we need to
add a few additional terms. We’ll talk about equity, default, distressed
properties, bank-owned, REO and foreclosed. Don’t worry, it really isn’t
all that hard once you know the vocabulary.
Let’s start by defining the basic terms:
Equity – The amount left over after you sell your house and
pay off all the liens (think mortgage, taxes, etc) and costs of sale
(think real estate commission, repairs to sell, Washington State and
Whatcom County excise taxes, title insurance for the buyer, escrow or
attorney fees, etc). Many sellers forget about the costs of sale when
calculating their potential equity, which is why you should always get
a “net sheet” from your real estate agent. Note: an appraisal, a listing
price, an estimate of value allow you to calculate only “potential” equity
– you don’t know how much you really have until the check is in the bank.
Short Sale – A sale in which there is negative equity. In
other words, the sale price does not cover all the liens and costs of
sale, so the seller must bring money to the table to close. If the seller
can’t or won’t add money to close the transaction, (s)he may ask the
lender to take less than is owed. The seller cannot sell under this circumstance
unless the lender agrees, because the seller cannot provide clear title
to the buyer. Note: whether the seller is or is not current on the loan
payments has nothing to do with whether a sale is “short”.
Default – A borrower (property owner) is in default when
they have violated the terms under which they agreed to pay back their
loan. Typically, this means they are at least 30 days past due on a payment.
At this point they will most likely get a call from their lender or a
written Notice of Default. It is very foolish to ignore these. Note:
a seller in default can have a huge potential equity or none at all.
Distressed Property – An owner’s primary residence which
is in the foreclosure process or in danger of foreclosure because the
owner 1) has defaulted on the mortgage; 2) is at least 30 days delinquent
on the mortgage; 3) believes that they are likely to default on the mortgage
within 4 months or 4) at risk of loss due to nonpayment of taxes. This
is fully defined under RCW 61.34 and holds pitfalls and additional responsibilities
for buyers who offer to help a seller avoid foreclosure. This is a Washington
State consumer protection law and penalties are steep.
Foreclosure – The process between the Notice of Default and
the auction on the steps of the courthouse. After default, fees & penalties
are assessed and the interest rate jumps to the “default rate” as specified
in the promissory note that the seller signed when they borrowed the
money. During the early part of this process the seller can “bring the
loan current” by making all past due payments plus extra interest, penalties,
etc. The time comes, however, when a seller’s only option is to pay off
the amount owed (which at that point has grown substantially due to the
extra fees). This can be done by refinancing the loan (but by this time
they probably can’t qualify) or selling the house. The seller does not
need permission from the lender to sell, so long as there is sufficient
equity to pay all liens and costs. Remember, a seller can be in the foreclosure
process but still have equity in the house.
Foreclosure Sale – The
final step in the foreclosure process, when the house is put up for
auction on the steps of the courthouse and
is purchased, usually by the lender, but potentially by
anyone. The details of foreclosure sales are an article in themselves
(there a number of
books available on the subject), so we won’t go into them
here. Suffice it to say that when it is over, the borrower no longer
owns the house
and has a period of time to vacate.
Bank Owned, REO (real-estate owned), Foreclosed –
These 3 terms all mean the same thing: the foreclosure process is over
and the
bank (or whoever bought it at the auction) owns the house.
As you can probably tell by now, the primary confusion arises
because people often refer to a home at any point in this
process as “a foreclosure”. What we have just seen is that
the conditions which
govern what can happen to that home at various times in
the process are very different, which means that the impacts on
a homeowner and a buyer
are very different......
To view the rest of the Short Sale & Foreclosure article by Lylene Johnson
click
here
