For several years I have avoided short sales like the plague because they were rife with problems. All too often we would work diligently to find a prospective buyer only to be delayed for months by the lengthy and difficult process of trying to get the seller’s lender to accept a payoff of less than what the lender was owed. In fact, until recently there was nothing short about short sales when it came to the typical elapsed time from contract to closing. In one extreme case we had a couple of years ago the buyer’s offer was in negotiation for several months until the property was foreclosed on anyway by the seller’s intransigent lender. Fortunately, this is now changing and short sales no longer have to be a long headache for all of the participants.
Because of the sharp drop in value from the lofty heights we reached during the real estate bubble, many sellers are finding that their homes are worth (sometimes substantially) less than their outstanding mortgage balance. Although I previously felt that there wasn’t anything much that I could do to assist these sellers, the short sale option now shows much more promise. In fact, 66 of the 566 residential sales that have closed during 2011 were listed as short sales. Here is a list of completed short sales that have been closed during 2011 by Gatlinburg area real estate agents and if you want to view the individual details of these properties please click here.
IF on the other hand you are interested in short sale opportunities that are still available please click this link. Although it is an extremely challenging time to sell, it is a wonderful time to buy. Don’t wait until this period passes and then wish you had chosen to invest – What else besides real estate are you aware of that is selling for as much or even less than it did 10 years ago???