Buyers Are Not Relevant to a Short Sale

The Sacramento Bee this weekend said what I have been saying for years -- that buyers are not relevant to a short sale. I regularly receive emails from distraught buyers all over the country, pleading with me to help get their short sale approved. Like I explained to the reporter for the Bee who interviewed me to put together the path of a short sale, buyers are just along for the roller-coaster ride. They are incidental.

Well, they do need to offer a realistic price or at least be willing to meet a bank's counter offer if their price is too low. I lost a short sale last week due to pricing. I told the seller that the list price the seller wanted was not high enough. I predicted a buyer would offer at least $10,000 less on top of asking for 3% for closing costs and, sure enough, that's what happened.

I asked the buyer's agent to check the comparable sales before writing the offer. When the offer arrived, I told the buyer's agent it was too low. The buyer's agent disagreed. The seller wanted to accept it, so I sent it to the bank and crossed my fingers.

Sure enough, the bank's counter came back at my suggested list price. Neither side would budge, so the short sale was rejected. And you know who everybody is pointing their fingers at, right? Yup, people often get mad at the bank or ticked off at their agent instead of looking at what they did to cause the outcome.

More Articles by Elizabeth Weintraub:

• Short Sale Offer Tips
  
• How Long Should You Wait for Short Sale Approval?
  
• 6 Things to Know About Buying Short Sales

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_{At the time of writing, Elizabeth Weintraub, DRE # 00697006, is a Broker-Associate at Lyon Real Estate in Sacramento, California.}