Short Sale Process, from Start to Closing

Our goal is to make a short sale easier for you than a regular listing. Of course, it'll never be "faster" than a normal listing but because of our systems, it will almost definitely be faster than a normal short sale by yourself or working with anyone else. The following steps help to ensure the best, fastest service possible.

Please note: all actions that we take on your client’s transaction (as described below) are directed and supervised by a licensed attorney and/or by you, a licensed real estate agent.

Step 1: Initiation

Once you have the listing agreement from a short sale homeowner, get started with us by clicking on “Initiate Short Sale” above. Enter your client’s information and yours, then click submit. You’ll be directed to a small set of agreements that we need from you. This is not everything, just the basics. We’ll handle the rest.

Step 2: Provide Agreements

You ensure the return of the required agreements. For a list of these, please CLICK HERE

Step 3: Transaction Setup (all parts occur simultaneously)

Part A: Document Acquisition

Once you email or fax us the executed agreements, we begin the process of gathering documents from your client. If you have already gathered these, go ahead and send those to us too - this step may not be necessary and the process will proceed even faster.

Part B: Authorization & Verification

We submit the authorization form to the bank(s) and gather initial loan information from them. This is important to determining the type of short sale that we’ll be pursuing on their behalf. We also confirm all information provided by the homeowner, check for foreclosure dates and begin communication with the foreclosure attorney, if necessary. We also confirm HOA dues and perform a title search to check for unknown liens or judgments.

Part C: Pricing analysis

Using a unique formula for each bank and/or investor, we review the property and provide you with an ideal price range for the home… from the Bank’s perspective. This can often be different from Market Value and will help you to avoid over or under pricing your listing. This step is skipped if you already have an offer to purchase for the home.

Part D: Offer Creation

If your short sale doesn’t yet have an offer, we create a special webpage for your property which includes a copy of a properly formatted, property-specific, semi-blank offer to purchase. When you require the use of this form for all offers, you give your client the highest level of protection and substantially reduce the potential for errors or delays.

Step 4: Offer/Contract Analysis (if a contract is available at short sale initiation, this is included in Step 3)

The executed agreement between the buyer and the seller is the most important document in a short sale. Once received, Short Sale Carolina (under the direction & supervision of The Law Office of Brad Watson) will review every detail and look for anything which can cause serious delays in your client's short sale. If we submit it right, the first time, we can save days or even weeks of additional waiting down the line. If you have an existing contract, we will almost recommend some changes and occasionally, it will need to be re-written entirely.

Step 5: Contract Submission/Negotiation

We submit a comprehensive short sale package to the homeowner’s bank, formatted specifically for that bank. We don’t use a cookie-cutter approach; each package is different, depending on what works best for the bank, the investor, and the homeowner’s financial situation. Also, every package is completed by a seasoned short sale expert and then reviewed prior to submission by an administrator.

Step 6: Follow up

This is where we really Excel; above and beyond anything that an individual agent would have time to do and certainly further than any other short sale firm you may have worked with.

First of all, we follow up with the bank about 40% faster than they recommend. Put simply, if they tell us to wait 5 days, we only wait 3 because after all, we never trust the associates at the bank. With that in mind, we never assume that they received our documents either. We always confirm receipt verbally, within 48 hours. And down the line, we anticipate the need for additional documents before the bank asks us. If your client’s bank statements are getting old and about to expire, our system recognizes that and automatically generates reminders to the homeowner. This allows us to submit updated pay stubs, bank statements, etc. to the bank proactively – saving you time and getting everyone to closing faster.

Along the way, every single detail is emailed to you automatically. But even better, we also update your homeowner, the buyer agent, the buyer’s lender and even the buyer themselves when applicable. Once you have a contract on your short sale, we literally handle everything else.

Step 7: Closing Coordination

After written approval is obtained for your offer, we don’t drop out of the picture like everyone else. We continue to work with the homeowner, the buyer agent and the closing attorney to ensure that all of the closing details are addressed and that the transaction is finalized without issue. You can be involved as little or as much as you like but if you’d prefer to focus on other aspects of your business, we’ll handle everything so you can go get more listings!