Ray of Hope in Gloom – SF Bay Area
In California, particularly in the San Francisco Bay Area – Santa Clara – and San Manteo statistics reveal the prices of residential properties is picking up. Compared to December 2008, the prices have gone up by 15.2% in most of the Counties, in December 2009. This is encouraging trend, especially for those troubled home owners selecting the opportunity of short sale, as a viable alternative for foreclosure.
While listing the properties awaiting foreclosure, home owners can hope for a better price as a compromise short sale. Single family houses and condos are readily picked by home buyers in this region. So the owners of these properties are better positioned for embarking on loan modification requests, with their lenders by choosing the option of short sales.
One may ask what the advantages are for going in for a short sale. Well – they are so many. First and foremost is the avoidance of foreclosure – which is a worst nightmare of an honest American.
A foreclosure is causing avoidable hassles for the mortgage lender – public auction; uncertainty of getting the opening bid; Court costs; paper work; cost of upkeep and maintenance of properties repossessed; safeguarding the vacated properties from vandalism; loss of interest on the mortgage loan till the disposal of the distressed property.
On the other hand, the distressed home owner-barrower gets immense relief by short sale. The prestige is saved by selling the property, as a normal sale in the open market, instead of branding it a foreclosure. A reasonably good price can be asked for, judging from the trend now prevailing in SF Bay area.
The government has issued new guidelines for short sale – approval by the lenders; short time limit for considering and responding to a loan modification request; describing the terms of short sale; extending financial assistance for moving cost and so on.
From the prospective buyer’s angle also a short sale has immense advantages. The buyer deals directly with the home owner. A complete survey of the property proposed to be bought is possible. A good bargain exists in the sale price. The buyer is dealing with a motivated seller – to avoid foreclosure, the home owner will be too willing to discount the price generously.
In the existing situations of foreclosure crisis, which has affected the SF Bay area to the worst, the profitable route of Short Sale is unquestionably the win-win situation for all concerned.
