Alright, in our attempt to be the number #1 short sale website in Georgia, Atlanta and all the surrounding areas, we’ve added some new features to make your search for short sales easier.
Map Search
When you click on Atlanta Short Sales, like you see on the sidebar of this page, you’ll see a new link at the top of the page to see the properties on a map. This should help you pinpoint where the short sale listings are located in comparison to the others. Try it out.
Schedule a Showing
You can now schedule a showing online. At the top of every listing, there is a link to schedule a showing. Just click the link and schedule the date you’d be available to preview the short sale property. It’s that simple. In the comments section, just provide us with some additional information, like: are you pre-qualified, are you a cash buyer, times you’d like to see the short sale listing, etc.
Share a Listing with Friends
Also at the top of every listing page, there is a “Share” link. Click this link and instantly share that particular listing with a friend by sharing it on Twitter, Facebook, Dwellicious, Google Buzz, or even email a friend.
Let us know if there is anything else we can add to make your search even better or if there is additional information we can provide to short sale sellers.
What is a pre-approved short sale? We see this all the time here in Georgia MLS. If you’ve been searching short sale listings then you’ve seen it… “PRE-APPROVED SHORT SALE!” Most of us know that short sales take some time to get that lender approval. And, agents will actually deter buyers from putting offers on short sales because they can be time consuming.
BUT, There are two things going on right now with short sales here in GA that you need to know if you’re in the market to buy a short sale property.
Pre-Approved Short Sale could mean:
#1- There are so many short sales on the market, there’s a good chance that the one you’re looking at has been under contract before. Which means, an offer has already been sent to the bank and the process was started before. This is a good chance to jump into the drivers seat, submit your offer, and possibly close quickly.
#2- Banks are wising up. When a borrower starts to default on their mortgage, the lender will contact them to see if they qualify for a loan modification. If they don’t qualify for a loan modification, the lender will assess the value of the property by means of a BPO (Brokers Price Opinion – an agent visits the property and pulls comparable sales from MLS) or AVM (Automated Valuation Model – Software shoots out a value based on data). Once the bank comes up with a value, they estimate all other closing costs a seller would have to pay and calculate what they want to net. The homeowner calls a short sale agent to handle the short sale or the lender will refer a local short sale specialists like us. We receive the information about what the bank wants to net and list the house with a price close to this number. Once a lender pre-approves a short sale like this, we’ve seen lenders accept short sale offers from new buyers in as little as 3 days.
This form of pre-approval, by lenders pre-calculating the numbers on short sales will become more common practice as they get better at handling the high number of short sales here in GA.
So, to recap, a pre-approved short sale could be a deal gone bad you can jump into the drivers seat on OR a pre-approved deal where the lender has already told the agent the numbers they are looking for. Happy short sale buying. If we can help you jump into any of the deals you see on our site, give us a call.
