Our Short Sale Adventure

YES, this is "the" house

The American Dream, to own your own house with a white picket fence! Isn't that what everyone in America would love to do, own their own home? When the mortgage crisis kicked in it almost paved the way for lower income families to now buy homes that were more or less "discounted" for sales some up to 50% it also presented another problem, having to deal with these banks that are holding the current mortgages on these homes. A lot of homes went into foreclosure and that is where the deals kicked in, but a lot of homes also went into a pre-foreclosure state, which allowed for an agreement between owner and bank to sell the home at a lesser value than what it's worth or the mortgage is for, a discounted amount per say or a "short sale". That term really is deceiving, short sale, makes one think you are buying a home that the sale is going to move along really fast, hmmm not so much the case... short sale meaning it's being sold short of what is owed on it. Now by allowing sellers to sell homes for short sales it keeps the foreclosure off of the sellers credit, the seller can apply for financial hardship to have the balance of the mortgage(s) forgiven, and the banks get a hefty bonus from the government for letting the house go on a short sale instead of having to deal with a foreclosure and well they in turn pretty much get every penny they are owed after this big government bonus. Sounds like a good plan, right? Like a win win.. no one owes anything, bank gets all their money, and someone now has the American Dream of owning their own home for substantially less than it's true value... Well I hate to break it to you, this is not the case at all.

Moving to Not Moving to Moving again

Where do I begin? Everyone knows we are in the middle of the very slow process of buying a short sale. Why we are stuck on this particular house, I'll let you know why.  It is a one floor home, 2000 sq ft, 3 bedrooms, 2 full bathrooms, built in shelves in the kitchen, living room with wood burning fireplace, family room with gas burning fireplace, 2.5 car garage, with an inground pool. Our last trip through I should have taken some pictures for all to see, but I was far too busy trailing my friend Kenny through the house because he was sort of doing an "inspection", maybe he would see things we didn't.  He too said the house was solid as a rock, saw nothing major other than cosmetic work and also suggested a new furnace, which is what the bank holding the short sale suggested also.  It was a process just to get the loan, the bank demanded cash or a FHA 203K rehab loan.  These loans basically let you do your remodeling and tag the cost onto the top of the loan.  So there is no second loan/mortgage with a super high interest rate on the house, it is all bundled into one. The furnace alone is approx $5000, the outside needs to be scraped and painted, a few rooms painted, some windows resealed, and the pool opened and cleaned. We figure about $10,000 in work, but considering that this house is on the tax rolls for $160k and we are getting it for a little over half of that, the 10 grand in work won't matter.. it will make it all that much more better!