Part of the listing agent's job, when listing a Jacksonville short sale, is to properly prequalify the buyer of your house.
This process is even more important in a short sale than in a regular resale because time lost could cause you to lose your home. There is no way to be positive that a buyer will still be there by the time the bank gives an answer on your contract, but there are ways to minimize the occurrences of buyers simply walking away.
We got an offer on one of our short sales last week and, as usual, made a call to the agent to determine the quality of the buyer.
We were shocked to hear that this particular buyer has five or more offers out on different properties. They wanted to make a lot of offers then buy whichever one got approved by the seller's bank first. The offer did not even have a short sale addendum, nor did it contain any notation about the contract being contingent on the approval of the seller's lienholder.
The tragic part of this is that the various sellers have probably taken their homes off of the market believing that they have a buyer when they do not. As a result that seller is losing valuable time that should be spent looking for a legitimate short sale buyer.
This should not be happening. It is very harmful to sellers and we have seen it lead directly to foreclosure. While there is a chance that any short sale will not get approval, the risks to the seller are much greater than the risk to the buyer. The chances of a successful short sale are high if the short sale is handled correctly by an experienced Jacksonville short sale specialist. If the buyer doesn't have time to wait on a short sale approval (and possibly have to start over if approval doesn't come) then they should not be buying a short sale...period. (An exception would be an FHA when the "Approval to Participate" has already been issued.)
We were able to "save" our seller from this buyer and fortunately got another contract on the property. Our "real" buyer wants the property. The buyer understands the time frame, put down a binder up front, started all time frames, and is going to stick around because they have a reasonable expectation.
Whether you are buying or selling, it is increasingly important to use an agent who is a short sale specialist and will be personally handling your file. We handle all of our own files personally and do not turn them over to a third party and rely on someone else for short sale approvals.
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