Santa Rosa, California Home Sellers--Can you qualify for a Short-Sale?

Santa Rosa, California Home Sellers--Can you qualify for a Short-Sale? The big 3 questions asked up and down the Hwy 101 Corridor! Home Value leading the pack!

The qualifications for a short sale include:

1. Financial Hardship - There is a situation causing you to have trouble affording your mortgage. This could be all manner of issues; losing your job, one of the household bread winners losing a job, your Sonoma County company decides to relocate to Texas and you need to follow them there, you have huge medical bills for a family member, perhaps you need to now care for a parent or relative and need to move? All of these issues should be presented and DOCUMENTED in writing and sent to the lender. AND the biggie-how much is your current value of your house! Your Realtor can help you here! What we do on the Kelly-Norman Team at Keller Williams Realty is not only providing our clients a Broker Price Opinion on the home's value but pull a www.ForeclosureRadar.com map on their immediate area. This will show us the extent of the foreclosure present and future inventory in our clients Petaluma, Rohnert Park, Cotati, Santa Rosa, Windsor or Healdsburg Home.
2. Monthly Income Shortfall - "You have more month than money." A lender will want to see that you cannot afford, or soon will not be able to afford your mortgage. This is where you sit down and write down your monthly budget. If you have more "month" than money the lender will need to see this in hard numbers. And you need to be thorough and detailed. The more information you can provide to your lender the better off you'll be. However, if you write down the payments for your two cars, motorcycle, powerboat, horse boarding, they may look askance at THOSE expenses as somewhat not in keeping with someone who NEEDS to downsize! Just be aware of this.

I once saw a short-sale listing which featured a complete and FULL wine cellar! Do you think the lender might take a slight offense to a borrower saying they need to sell their home short because they have NO MONEY and there sits $10,000 worth of wine in a temperature controlled wine cellar?!!

3. Insolvency - The lender will want to see that you do not have significant liquid assets that would allow you to pay down your mortgage. This does not MEAN retirement funds in a Keogh or IRA. However, having a large savings account means you have money to "bring" to escrow to make up a short-fall discrepancy. And be careful of playing games with a lender. Don't make a huge withdrawal and give the funds to your parents for "safe-keeping"! Fraud is still fraud. Also, if you purchased your house with some creative loan application and/or financing, you may wish to think twice about calling attention to your previous lender's hanky-panky!

So those are the three primary qualifications. Here are some additional tips: Make a pdf of all of the information need; tax returns, bank accounts, work related information, hardships reasons and documentation and keep it on your desk top. The lender will ask you to send it to them. Then they will tell you they don't have a record of it being sent, or they lost it, or the guy or gal working on it is no longer here and went back to Home Depot!! Don't get crazy, don't yell and scream (or at least put the cell on mute-scream and yell, then come back all calm and composed!) but ask for an email address where you can send it. Keep a folder in Outlook or Gmail on correspondence with your lender.

If they won't give you an email address get a first and last name. Emails for the big banks are based on their names usually with a dot between the first and last: Bill.Smith@bigMegaBank.com if they want it faxed, keep the receipts, time sent, etc. Also, buy one of those composition books and label it: "My Loan Mod" and keep a phone, correspondence log with date/time and notes as to what was said, what was required, when you fulfilled your task, and WHAT will be happening next! Also ask them, "What's going to happen next?" Keep, keepin' on and remember the squeaky wheel gets the grease! Good luck and remember-- advanced fees paid are NOW ILLEGAL! If someone wants money up front to get you a loan modification they are NOT to be dealt with!! Good luck!