Caroline Tsou

Recently I have lots of buyer's inquiries on buying un-approved short sale. un-approved short sale occurs when the seller owes more money than the house is worth and the selling price of the house is subject to the lender's approval.

For un-approved short sale, the listing price is not real because it depends on the final approval of the bank. It will take about 2 to 6 months to buy a short sale and the chance of buying it successfully is only 50/50 due to lots of uncontrollable factors such as:

1. Buyer finds another house that is a better deal.

2. Seller gives up on the house by not paying the loan.

3. Bank declines on buyer's initial offer and counter back at a higher price.

4. Multiple buyers bidding on the same house over 2 to 6 months short sale process.

For un-approved short sale, the most logical approach is to avoid it. If the house is really appealing to you, the next most logical thing is to submit an offer first and wait until the price is approved by the bank.

Once it is approved, you can start the regular process by looking at the house and compare it with other similar houses for sale at that time to determine whether you want to proceed with the purchase or not.

Due to the level of uncertainty, educated buyers are staying away from un-apporved short sale and focus their search on bank owned properties, approved short sales and standard sales.

A staged home will sell faster. Here are some showing tips to help sellers stage the house for faster selling.

1. Make It Bright
It is important for buyers to see all the lovely features of your house. So, roll up the blinds and turn on all the lights to make the house bright!

2. Make It Clean and Organized
Be sure to arrange the house so it is clean and organized.

3. Make It Private
Leave the house during the showing and put the pets in the garage to allow buyers to enjoy the viewing of your house at their own pace with privacy.

With little effort, we can ensure successful showings of the house and get it sold quickly!

In a down market where most houses stay unsold, in order to get the house sold successfully, there are 3 important steps for sellers to prepare themselves and the house ready for sale.

I. Treat The House As A Merchandise
Psychologically, sellers need to get emotionally detached from the property and treat the house as a merchandise by making it available for showing as much as possible.

II: Hire A Good Agent
Seller will also need to hire a good agent who is a neighborhood specialist. A good neighborhood agent shall be able to perform 2 tasks.

1. Price the house correctly
Houses with pool and/or view worth about 5 to 10 % more depending on the neighborhood. Houses sitting on the t-junction or bordering the main artery route may sell up to 10% less. Does you agent has that level of market understanding? Will your agent be able to articulate the correct value by supplying comparable to substantiate the claims?

House will not be sold if it is overpriced. Most houses for sale will sit on the market for 6 months until it is expired. After 6 months of down market, it may be huge financial lost for sellers since home value dropped about 25% to 45% in one year depending on the area.

Therefore, it is very important to pay close examination of the value the agent is advising and make sure it is calculated by adding and subtracting the pool, view, t-juntion, main artery route factors into the calculation to ensure accurate assessment of the true market value.

2. Market the house correctly
Check the agent's marketing efforts with his/her other listings. Does the agent take good picture of the house? Is the photo of the houses showing only part of the house but not the whole house? Are the interior photos very dark and make the house look ghostly and undesirable? Does the agent makes good marketing flyers that are informative and pleasant to look at? Compare the marketing efforts of the agents (photos, flyers...) and see which agent's promotion makes more sense to you as a buyer. House will not be sold with poor marketing promotion. Therefore, it is very important to look at this aspect closely when picking the right agent to market your house.

III: Dress Up The House Like A Model Home
Sellers need to depersonalized the house by dressing it in a desirable decor very similar to what they do in the model homes by performing the followings:

1. Paint the house with stong color such as red, blue, green, yellow, black walls to neutral tones such as white, beige, mocha and chocolate colors. It is the same for the carpet as well.

2. Remove the clusters on any counter surface. Leave only couple of decorated items.

3. Maket the house as bright as possible during showing by roll up all the blinds and turn on all the lights.

4. Use a shopping cart test to see if you can push an imaginary shopping cart through the house, remove those excess furniture to the garage that is blocking the hallways so the house will look spacious.

5. Fix all the defects of the house and modernize the faucets and light fixtures. If budget allows, hardwood floor and granite countertop will also be a plus. Those are small upgrades that can bring sellers higher selling price.

One of the houses I sold in 2009, the seller put in $2000 upgrades and sold the house for $30,000 more than what their previous agent was listing the house for. Painting, woord flooring and countertop upgrades are always very good investment when it comes to selling of your house. They works wonders on increase the value of the property.

Once seller is ready to let go of the house emotionally, hire a good agent to price and market the house correctly, and dress up the house like a model home, the property shall sell itself the moment the buyers step into the house!

According to the lease agreement, tenant can not use the deposit as the last month rent. If tenant insists on not paying for the last month rent and ask the landlord to deduct the last month rent from the deposit, you will need to start the eviction process.

Depending on the amount of deposit and level of damage to the property, on the worst scenario, you will probably need all the deposit to fix the damages. If you allow tenant to use the deposit for the last month rent, you may end up suing tenant for the damage in small claim court. So if your tenant does not pay the last month rent, you will need to do the followings:

I: Serve 3-Day Notice to Pay or Quit notice

Fill out the form (click here for the form)
This will serve as a legal communication that the tenant need to pay you rent for the last month and can not live in your house for free. On the bottom of the form, pick option 3 Post and mail. Post one notice on the front door and send a copy to the tenant in the mail.

II: Wait For 3 Days To See If The Check Arrives

III: Start The Eviction Process
If you did not receive the check on the 3rd day, you can report tenant's late payment history to the credit bureau reports and start the eviction process.

To start the eviction process, contact any eviction lawyer or Express Eviction

Click here to see Express Eviction's BBB rating

Below is a chart showing the number of houses sold in Phillips Ranch from 2006 to 2009. In February 2009, 4 properties were sold and 15 properties went into escrow in Phillips Ranch.

Below is a list of the 4 properties sold in Phillips Ranch in February 2009.

There were 52 properties for sale and 4 sold last month making February's sold rate equals to 8%.

3 out of 4 properties sold last month were bank owned. Chance of privately owned homes sold is only 2%.

In order to get the house sold, private owners need to either price their house aggressively like the bank owned ones or upgrade and modernized the house completely to make it a 100% turnkey condition to entice buyer to purchase their home.