Naples Short Sales
Naples short sales are no different than short sales elsewhere. If you’re a seller in Southwest Florida and your home is worth less than the outstanding balance on your mortgage, a short sale may be an option you should consider.
A short sale gets its name from the sale of an home or other property in which the money received from the property sale will fall short of money owed on the property. See Wikipedia for a more detailed explanation of short sales.
We’ve been involved in helping short sales sellers since 2007 and can authoritatively review your situation and options with you. We’ve successfully sold short sales properties in Marco Island, Naples, Bonita, Estero, and Ft. Myers. Anyone can list short sales but not everyone can get it sold and accepted by the bank.
First, we’ll need to find out your history regarding your finances and your home that is the candidate for Naples short sales. If you just want to dump the property because you’re underwater but you’ve got a great paying job and assets, short sales are not for you. There’s got to be a reason that you’re having a hard time making ends meet, that you’re falling short on your monthly obligations, unable to maintain the home and household, etc. If you just made a bad investment, you most likely will not qualify for a short sale. Basically, the more difficult your hardship is, the more likely you’ll be successful in selling your home as a short sale.
If you don’t have hardship or there’s a minimal hardship, then it’s pretty likely that your lender is going to want you to contribute to the deficiency or difference between the sales price and the amount owed. It’s not a hard and fast rule but it may be a possibility and you as the short sale seller should be aware of that possibility. Our goal is to have you contribute nothing and be forgiven the outstanding balance.
Selling your home
Just because your Naples home is a short sale doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be maintained and attractive. You may have a lot going on that prevents you from keeping the property pristine but you still want to present your home in the best possible light to prospective buyers just as though it were a normal sale from which you’d receive funds. You don’t have to update the house but at a minimum, the house should be clean and maintained as best as you can. In the case of a short sale, you are getting a monetary benefit as you’re hopefully getting forgiven the loan so you should do whatever you can to maximize your chances of getting that done.
Offers and Short Sale Packages
Once we list your home for sale as a short sale, we work hard to get an offer in place. Once the offer is in place, we prepare a full short sale package to submit to your lender for review and approval. It includes the offer, your financials, the MLS listing, our comparative market analysis, a settlement statement and notices from the HOA regarding any outstanding HOA fees. We’re persistent and we work hard to get our short sales approved by lenders by pricing our properties at market value, presenting the lender with all the information needed to make a decision, following up with the lender, and answering our phones when they call or require additional information.
Closing the short sale
When your short sale is approved by the bank, you don’t have to move immediately, just once the closing is imminent. Buyer’s offers are usually good for several months and short sales can take as few as 30 days but often it is several months for the approval. Once we get the approval, you’ll have 30-45 days to move out and find a new home.
We’ve worked with numerous short sale sellers and buyers. If you’ve got any questions, we’d be happy to sit down with you and answer those for you.
We look forward to hearing from you!
Mike & Anna Bryant
