Buying A Home

[jpeter]

The bank has been mulling my offer for a month now, any insights to past experience?

Jack

[Len Malena · Accepted solution]

Short Sale approval use to take 3 to 9 months, lately the banks seem to be getting much better. I've had Short Sale approvals in as little as 3 weeks. Current average is probably 30 to 60 days. If 2 loans or other leins involved this can certainly change all timelines.

And then of course the usual escrow period starts, 30 to 60 days, for buyer inspection, appraisal, loan processing, etc.

[home2011]

Do you have any inside pictures on this home (bc7423568).  Is this home in good shape?

[Len Malena]

Sorry, I don't recognize the MLS #, what city are you looking in?

[home2011]

Baltimore, Maryland

[NunJo]

In a word - too long - short sales are a total nightmare, we've been involved in (now) three of them over the course of four years of looking seriously, they all fell thru - usually because of: info not being told by either seller or listing agent ie: sagging roof issues, tax leins, OR a banks incompentence/lagging on getting the answers you need to move ahead on the deal (the arrogant ING was the culprit last time) before escrow closes (and then they won't bother with granting a measly 10 day extension when it was THEIR fault to begin with!)

My advice is to either steel yourself for a LOT of frustration, let downs and set backs or just stay away from them if possible.

The banks have our billions in bail out money and for the most part really don't seem to care about selling houses, working with buyers or helping home owners out with loan modifications. In other words, useless.

Should have let them fail....Sour grapes? You bet! I have yet to see them use OUR bailout money to help this situation get any better! They are hoarding it and not doing one thing to make this mess better or being of assistance to those of us trying to buy right now.

[ahappysoul]

I made an offer on a property the first day it was on the market. It took 6 1/2 months for the bank to accept my offer and another 20 days to make settlement.  It didn't help that the bank had no idea that the property was going into a short sale and there were two mortgages involved. The second bank didn't know either.  It was a long drawn out process.  It did help to have an aggressive realtor pushing the bank for me.

[jpeter]

Thanks for the responses.  I agree NunJo...it's a slow going process and I still haven't heard anything.  Thanks for the feedback, Len and ahappysoul, it's good to know I'm not alone in the long waits.  Any ideas how to speed it up?

[ariellynn]

We started house hunting about a year ago. We started with short sale' listings, one we had a better offer but the 1st person got a chance to come up with the same so that one fell through. 2nd & 3rd -we put two contracts in -adviced by realtor to which one would process first. You are not obligated to wait while the bank mulls over offers. They could chose from a number of them. So keep looking. We ended up waiting on one we particularly liked, which then lost one that did come thru 'by owner' but there were things we just didn't want to settle for as we were looking for a particular "long term" living home. We were led to believe our offer was acceptable, & the offer date had a closing date which ended up "we were the only one's who made an offer" so we thought we were a sure win. Unfortunately the bank came back from the offer of $120k to $146k with considering maybe taking 10k off. Although our financial lender said we' were approved going that high, we didn't want to stretch our budget & knew there was a house out there perfect for us...so then we found one very nice, remodeled from the inside out... turned out to be a flipper... someone who comes in -like the tv shows-- buys a bad house, gutt's it and fixes it up....all said and good but there's a law they have to keep in 90 days, OR do their own qualifications / loans, appraisels twice...etc... not to mention they didn't want to go thru our lender / VA rep....so we passed on what looked shady.

We then figured we needed to go about this in a different way.... find a by sale by owner. Before they go into short sale/ foreclosure problems. We ended up finding an awesome deal. Perfect price. I would have liked to had a newer home [ours 1983] but it passed all the inspections...and the owner came back with a counter offer to not only pay half the closing but 3k in repairs... needless to say our mouths dropped open. We have had some issues to fix since acquiring the home in January. But there is great potential...and quiet {non graffiti] hidden area] 'something to come home to' atmosphere.

In the economy if you have the down / closing cost I suggest looking at all varieties, not just short sales... many of those are 'as is' and without recourse. The interest is still quite good & don't be afraid to change realtors if you don't feel they are accomplishing or giving you the attention or finding homes you want. I did alot of the leg work in finding the home lists... look around the many sites -- and show your realtor the one's your interested in.They tend to show you more expensive one's or one's you might not be so inclined... it's not a super fun event but at least you won't find one later and have regrets of buying a home that you end up putting to much money in to make it liveable.

Hope this helped. [p.s. we changed realtors 3 times] your not committed till you sign a contract on a particular home.

Good Luck

[Len Malena]

Working with a local Realtor who is familiar with the area and experienced with all the problem homes on the market these days is critical as many of you have mentioned. When you are pre-approved by a bank for a loan amount, there is no reason for a Realtor to try and upsell you, getting a loan that you "qualify" for is already tough enough these days.