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.

So, we have about 70 short sales in our group and THEY’RE ALL UNDER CONTRACT but 12 of them. What does this mean? We can handle more. Many of you have downloaded our Georgia Short Sale Guide and we thank you. We’ve answered lots of questions and received many compliments by email. If you’ve been sitting on the fence or maybe you’ve had your head in the sand, now is the time to act.

The buyer tax credit is expiring this month which is likely why most of our short sales all over Georgia are under contract. We keep getting the question Do we Cover areas other than Atlanta and the answer is YES! We handle short sales all over GA. We do this by utilizing the agents in our team and/or brokerage to handle the listing who are close to your house who can let an anxious buyer in at any time, we handle everything else.

We know there are many more of you out there who could do a short sale to avoid foreclosure. We see the foreclosure notices in many of the counties in and around Atlanta. So, 70 is just a drop in the barrel compared to the thousands who will lose their home next month. 200-300 of you visit our site every day, so we know you’re out there looking for a solution. Give us a call.

Applications for mortgages on purchases are up 6.8% from last week according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. This is a big jump compared to refinance mortgage applications which actually dropped 1.3%. What is causing this influx of new homebuyer applications? What does this mean for short sales here in GA?

Well, most agents know that at the end of next month, a huge incentive for new buyers is going away. What am I talking about? The $8,000 Federal Housing Tax Credit of course. We all know that contracts need to be binding by the 30th of April for their buyer to be eligible for that tax credit, and believe me I hear the buzz going around.

So, is this tax credit expiration causing the rise in new purchase mortgage applications this week? I’m not a mortgage trends expert, but I think it’s safe to say, based on the data, that these two events may be connected. If you’re a buyer, you need to hustle and find a property to be binding by the 30th. Short sales are speeding up, so if you are looking to buy an Atlanta short sale, you might still have an opportunity to get a short sale acceptance in time for the tax credit.

We’re working on an entire section of our website for the HAFA program. HAFA stands for “Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives” and it’s supposed to change the way short sales are done. The program takes affect April 5th, 2010. Many lenders are signing up for the program. Here are a couple major changes.

Requires borrowers to be fully released from future liability for the first mortgage debt (no cash contribution, promissory note, or deficiency judgment is allowed).

And the next big change is the $1,500 payment to homeowners who complete a successful short sale for “relocation expenses”.

These changes are huge for homeowners with lenders who are now participating in this HAFA program. Many of the large lenders have signed on. What this means is, faster approval times, which we’re already starting to see, and your lender can’t come after you for the deficiency. The short sale settlement will be it. So, if you’ve recently been denied for a loan modification here in Georgia or you’ve got a foreclosure date coming up, give us a call.

There are three major changes in short sales about to come into full affect.

1.) Prior to new HAMP and HAFA guidelines, a homeowner short selling their house could not receive any proceeds from the closing whatsoever. But, as of November 2009, a new HAFA (Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives Program) allow the homeowner to be paid $1,500 as a borrower relocation fee. HAMP stands for (Home Affordable Modification Program) and applies to loan modifications.

2.) Prior to these guidelines, 1st mortgage lenders could also request a promissory note which was usually a 0% interest note paid over a certain number of years to cover a deficiency.

3.) Lenders could come after the homeowner for the difference of what was owed and what the lender received as a payoff.

These guidelines apply to loans not owned or guaranteed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Also, these new guidelines apply to servicers who are participating in these HAFA and HAMP programs.

* Complements HAMP by providing a viable alternative for borrowers (the current homeowners) who are HAMP eligible but nevertheless unable to keep their home.

* Uses borrower financial and hardship information already collected in connection with consideration of a loan modification.

* Allows borrowers to receive pre-approved short sales terms before listing the property (including the minimum acceptable net proceeds).

* Prohibits the servicers from requiring a reduction in the real estate commission agreed upon in the listing agreement (up to 6 percent).

* Requires borrowers to be fully released from future liability for the first mortgage debt (no cash contribution, promissory note, or deficiency judgment is allowed).

* Uses standard processes, documents, and timeframes/deadlines.

* Provides financial incentives: $1,500 for borrower relocation assistance; $1,000 for servicers to cover administrative and processing costs; and up to $1,000 for investors for allowing a total of up to $3,000 in short sale proceeds to be distributed to subordinate lien holders (on a one-for-three matching basis).

* Requires all servicers participating in HAMP to implement HAFA in accordance with their own written policy, consistent with investor guidelines. The policy may include factors such as the severity of the potential loss, local markets, timing of pending foreclosure actions, and borrower motivation and cooperation.

The fourth point down, about the lender not being able to file a deficiency judgment or ask for a promissory note, is a big one. Many homeowners in Georgia who we have helped have always worried about the lender coming after them or having to owe huge amounts of cash after a short sale.  If your 1st mortgage lender participates in the HAFA program, it prohibits them from doing so. Find out if your servicer is participating in the HAFA program, please visit http://www.MakingHomeAffordable.com/contact_servicer.html

For tons of questions and answers for these programs, go here: http://makinghomeaffordable.gov/borrower-faqs.html#1

So, I had a guy call us from Alpharetta about processing his foreclosure. I was taken back and I actually thought it was someone messing with me. He asked me, “I’m behind on my payments, can you process my foreclosure?” asked him if he understood what a foreclosure was and he said, “It’s where the lender gets your house back.” So, I knew we were on the same page, but there was a little confusion.

I explained what a foreclosure was, which is, the bank takes your house back by filing notice with the county courthouse and your house is then sold to the highest bidder on the steps of the courthouse the first Tuesday of the month. Then, I explained what a short sale was, which is, the bank accepts an amount less than what you owe as a settlement amount…paid in full.

After we talked for a couple minutes, we cleared up the confusion, but it made me realize how much misinformation is out there and how much conflicting info there is out there locally here in Georgia as well as nationally. The press covers a lot of the statistics, (how many foreclosures in Georgia, how many short sales on the market, job loss, unemployment filings, etc) but they don’t cover the options available and the steps you need to take to avoid losing your house to foreclosure. If you have questions about short selling your Georgia home, download our Free Short Sale Ebook or give us a call.

We get this question a lot still, so I thought I would address it again in another blog post and get it back up to the top of the post entries. The question is,

Will a short sale cost me anything?

We all know that in order to sell your house, you need an agent to list it (real estate agent commission) and there are seller closing costs that need to be paid. How do you pay for these items if you’re upside down on your house and you don’t have a lot of cash? Simply stated, none of these items come out of your pocket.

Let me give you a simple example, let’s just say (using simple numbers) your bank allows a short sale on your home that you owe $140,000. The bank says they are willing to accept a purchase price of $100,000. Now, let’s say the commission is $6,000, (could be more, could be less, just for example) your portion of the closing costs are $500, and the buyer needs $2000 to cover some of his closing costs…

What this means is that the lender is really willing to accept a NET of $91,500.

They are accepting the purchase price of $100,000, but the costs associated with the short sale are also coming out of their bottom line.

$100,000
-$6,000
-$2,000
-$500

= $91,500

So, none of this money comes out of your pocket, even though on the closing sheet is shows as being paid by the seller. Your lender is really just accepting less of a total net amount.

I hope this helps clear up some questions a lot of people have. If you have other questions, just call us.

As of right now, you’ll find over 400+ short sales as seen here, Atlanta Short Sales.  From a $1.5MM property in Druid Hills, seen here, to this Mid $100K’s Atlanta Short Sale, with plenty of room for a large family, and plenty more in between. Point is, there are more and more short sales hitting the market, but compared to the number of new foreclosure filings scheduled for go to the courthouse steps March 2nd, 400+ doesn’t seem like such a big number. There are still a lot of Atlanta families who don’t  know about the opportunity to short sell their house.

I didn’t have time to count them all, but if you want to take a look at Fulton  forelcosure notices for March 2nd or you were wondering where they are published, go to Daily Report Foreclosure Public Notices.

Okay, so we’ve been a little busy and haven’t been able to complete the Georgia Short Sale Guide. We’ve had the animated page peel up in the corner for a while, but no link. So, please don’t get frustrated with us. We’re almost finished with it and will post it very soon for free download for any Georgia homeowners wondering if a short sale is the right decision.

Get ready to be walked through the short sale process, see some actual short sale forms, and learn about some little dirty secrets your lender DOES NOT want you to know.

Keep in mind, this is not regurgitated material from some short sale course. The information in this Ebook is from our personal experience with short sales. We hope you enjoy it.

No personal information needed, just enter your email address on this page, Georgia Short Sale Guide, and it will be instantly sent to your inbox.