Seller Responsibilities & Costs in a Short Sale

Sellers will l need to have electric, power and heat maintained through closing. Buyers will need to be able to view the property and have inspections and appraisal, all which require functioning utilities. Cutting the grass is also a good idea. If you are not paying the mortgage, the lender has someone driving by the house periodically to see if it appears maintained. If it is deemed abandoned (tall grass, no power etc), the lender will move to change the locks and winterize and secure the home, creating endless access issues. It is nearly impossible to close a short sale on a home that is not maintained.

A short sale addresses your mortgage debt. It will not address your HOA balance.  While your lender will allow most costs of sale to be paid out of the proceeds of the sale with their approval. This will never include large past due HOA balances. HOA's also move much faster than lenders do. While a Florida mortgage foreclosure can take years to complete, HOA's move much quicker to foreclose on your property. This means you can be in the middle of doing a mortgage workout, and the HOA will foreclose and take ownership of your property, leaving you with no options to move forward.

Keep the home in show shape, and try to accommodate as many showing requests as possible. This is usually fairly easy for a vacant or owner occupied home, but tenant occupied homes can be a challenge to show and require extra attention. Once a buyer is secured there will usually be no more showing requests to accommodate.

Missing documents is the single most common reason for delays in short sale processing. Even a single missing page from a form will halt the file completely. Even worse, if you expect the lender to reach out to let you know, it could take weeks, or simply never happen at all. Here at Reid Real Estate Group we regularly follow up with the lender and figuring out if anything is missing. When it is, move quickly to provide the documents to keep the file on track and moving.