[quote=Jazzman] . . . I have had offers accepted in three highly desirable places, Santa Barbara, Maui, and France WELL BELOW asking price. However, in each case I went against my broker’s advice and beat the so-called odds. Tenacity, patience and a firm belief it’s a buyer’s market is all it takes. Any hint of uninformed buyer competition and you walk away. Home prices are still very over-valued in many high end areas. The housing market has been socialized, and the industry needs to be grateful for the benefit check it receives from the tax payer. So it’s not the market is “a buzz”, as there is no true market, and many realities still haven’t been absorbed by everyone.[/quote]
Jazzman, I completely agree with your strategy here. If I or my client(s) ever made an offer on property (right here in SD County) where the seller was NOT “institutional,” the seller got only 72 hours to accept it outright, reject it or counter it (yes, even if the seller was out of town). After all, there IS/WAS such a thing as a fax machine, even back then, lol!
On the few occasions where we/I submitted a written offer on a property and the seller’s agent “claimed” they had other offers in hand so we/I needed to “come up on our offer more” (without formally rejecting the offer or countering it) we walked.
This agent behavior is nothing more than unprofessional “game-playing” while leaving serious interested buyers on the hook indefinitely so they can play one buyer against the other – whoever can come up with the most “cash” wins.
This is one of the main reasons I wouldn’t “play the game” as a short sale buyer/buyer’s agent. Often, before closing, the seller is requesting “walking $$” as an “11th-hour closing condition.” I don’t believe a defaulting “seller” deserves one penny. Much more often than not, they have already ridden the “equity-extraction train” and “free-rent train” long enough. Their “party” has been long over for quite some time.
I don’t even believe in “short sales.” If more than one TD holder has been defaulted on for the same amt of time, the 1st TD holder should file the NOD first. The 2nd TD holder is welcome to come to the trustee’s sale, bid the opening bid amount and take its encumbrance “subject to” if it is interested. If only the 2nd TD holder is in default, it should commence foreclosure proceedings first. In any case, both TD holders should follow through with foreclosure promptly, beginning with whoever has the longest period of default. This will lessen the running interest and late charges and thus lower any encumbrance due to the 1st TD holder at the time of trustees’ sale.
And I don’t believe “short sales” net more $$ to the defaulted upon lenders than filing timely NOD and NOS and conducting a timely trustee’s sale does. CA foreclosure law is all laid out for lenders to use for a reason. The “better short-sale outcome” mantra is just another “fallacy” we’ve been fed by the RE sales industry who has profited immensely from “short sales” in the form of sales commissions, escrow fees, title ins premiums, mtg commissions, SS negotiator fees, etc. And the SS “seller” receives a “slightly better” outcome (+ all the cash they pocketed free from their “extracted equity”) in the form of less points taken off their FICO scores. WHY SHOULD WE CARE ABOUT THIS?? For most SS sellers, who undoubtedly had low FICO scores to begin with, it makes no difference if 100, 200 or 300 points come off their FICO score, due to other debt problems besides their upside-down property (i.e., if a SS seller’s current FICO score was 630 PRIOR to defaulting on their RE loan(s), then WHO CARES how many more points come off of it)? Their goose was already cooked.
It’s a buyer’s market and the most highly qualified buyers should win, NOT necessarily the ones willing to pay cash “bribes” out of escrow.
