Banks wise up. Oppenheim Law has been touting 2011 as the “Year of the Short Sale,” and it appears banks are finally catching on.
Two of the nation’s largest lenders, Wachovia and JP Morgan Chase, are choosing to forego the lengthy foreclosure process by giving select homeowners $10,000 to $20,000 to complete a short sale, according to The Sun-Sentinel.
Much has been written about the problems banks are now facing when they chose to foreclose on underwater homeowners including extensive delays, mortgage documentation issues, evidentiary problems and especially high costs. The fact is that foreclosure defense attorneys have ensured that the foreclosure process is highly inconvenient and expensive for lenders.
Because of these inconveniences, there is growing sentiment that the banks need to explore alternatives for dealing with delinquent homeowners. As Oppenheim Law has continuously predicted, short sales have emerged as a viable option for the banks. We won’t begin to ask what took them so long…
It’s interesting, though, that the foreclosure process has been so mismanaged that banks are now paying underwater homeowners to sell their property for less than the remaining balance on the loan. The bottom line is that executing a short sale ultimately benefits everyone involved.
Oppenheim Law has represented hundreds of homeowners’ short sales over the past few years and as a result has seen millions of dollars of homeowner deficiencies waived by the banks. Recently, Oppenheim Law has negotiated a $20,000 cash incentive for one of its clients to complete a short sale. Today’s Sun-Sentinel article is evidence that banks are becoming more eager to avoid foreclosure and complete short sales.
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