Borrowers can avoid this exit with a short sale!
For 5 years now we’ve been a huge champion of the short sale. We’ve been banging and banging away at the banks because they didn’t share our opinion.
There has long been an institutional reluctance among our nation’s lenders to embrace the short sale, but it appears they are finally coming around.
According to Corelogic’s most recent numbers, short sales accounted for 9 percent of all residential transactions last November.
In January of 2008, they represented only 2 percent. That’s a 350% increase in the amount of homes sold at short sale.
Hallelujah.
It may have taken them a while, but the banks are finally letting go of the arcane notion that foreclosing on a delinquent borrower is always the best option for them.
The short sale has and will always be a much better alternative for the banks. In many cases, when modification isn’t an option, a short sale is better for the existing homeowners as well.
It’s good for the banks because it’s the fastest way to bring down their massive backlog of foreclosures.
Now that more and more foreclosures are lingering in the courts, banks now realize its the simplest way to get these homes back on the market, sometimes in just a few months.
They may not get back the full value of the home but their losses are about 15 percent less than if the home was foreclosed on, according to Bloomberg News.
It’s good for the borrower because they can walk away, legally, with little or no debt at all. Some banks are even offering cash incentives, as much as $35,000 in some cases, to entice homeowners to sell back their homes.
(more…)
