Trilogy Property Solutions, the Legal Short Sale Specialists, interviews Ron Ballard, top short sale attorney on the current state of real estate market to stay on the cutting edge of helping homeowners in foreclosure with doing short sales correctly, legally, and ethically. Its our priority to constantly be aware of new California real estate regulations to make sure that everything we do is moral and abides all foreclosure laws designed to protect homeowners from people who are taking advantage of distressed homeowners. At lunch with Ron Ballard, Esq., and Jeff Watson, Esq. the two top short sales attorneys in the country, we learned even more on how to help home owners legally, correctly, and ethically in this ever changing legal climate on real estate, especially here in California! These times are definitely exposing the greedy from the helpful. Short sales can be done ethically or unethically, and its crucial that homeowners and realtors screen the parties they get involved with carefully. Legal and ethical short sales are done with complete transparency and full disclosure to all parties; the bank, the homeowner, the realtors. This is created through the right documentation and information provided to the right parties at the right time. If someone does not know what theyre doing, they can possibly create enough chaos to lead the property straight to foreclosure. Many realtors are not trained well enough in short sales to prevent a foreclosure, but many homeowners …

Short Sales are frustrating. This is a fact. After helping hundreds of real estate agents analyze and close their short sale deals, WHB Solutions has always asked why, without our help, they would avoid short sales. Many of the answers that come back were consistent with what all real estate professionals have been experiencing with short sales. The main difference in why they decided to pursue short sales was because they discovered WHB Solutions.

WHB Solutions have created a community of short sale experts and real estate professionals working with short sale transactions. It is due to our collaboration that we have been able to get short sales approved. Lender short sale approval guidelines have been a mystery, but through collaboration, we have narrowed down the lender trends and strategies that work and have clearly documented our best practices with short sales. Our short sale strategies have gotten 90% lender approvals on our short sale transactions.

The following are the top ten reasons why real estate professionals avoid short sales:

1) Bankruptcy – When a homeowner files for bankruptcy, it helps to stop a foreclosure process. A short sale can still be performed, but it requires an approval from the bankruptcy attorney to release the property so a short sale attempt can be made. This is just means extra work for a real estate professional and it may increase the time to close a short sale, but it can still be done.

2) Sellers Misleading – When qualifying a homeowner for a short sale, the homeowner must be cooperative. Many homeowners start the process of a short sale yet to cancel the transaction midstream by deciding to walk away from the home or file bankruptcy. If you feel that a homeowner may not have true intentions of going through a short sale, you should walk away.

3) Multiple Lenders – We have closed short sales with multiple lien holders. For example, we had one file that was in bankruptcy, had two mortgage lenders, and five separate tax liens. It was because of a cooperative homeowner, we were able to get the short sale closed.

4) Lack of Agent Knowledge – Many real estate professionals have not done short sales and based on our experience it takes a dedicated resource handling short sales day in and day out to understand what it takes to get a short sale approved and closed. We provide all information to how a short sale needs to be properly processed for a high chance of approval and this is based on the hundreds of short sale files we have analyzed and closed.

5) Banks Taking too long to respond – As in any business, building relationships is important when working with a lender who takes too long to review a short sale file. WHB Solutions has worked enough short sale deals with lenders that we have actually been asked to send future short sale files to the same negotiator because of our proven experience. Many real estate professionals don’t do a high volume of short sales and are not able to establish any strong relationship with lenders.

6) Client Knowledge on consequences – Many real estate professionals do not know how to explain to their clients the consequences of a short sale and do not push for the homeowner to seek professional help when looking at their best options. It is this fact that causes a homeowner to not even attempt a short sale or stop mid-stream in a short sale process.

7) Lack of Communication – We have learned from the experience of multiple short sale transactions that communication has been a key factor to ensure the success of short sale transaction. Buyers were not updated with progress and end up looking for another home. Frequent touch points with the lender were not made and deals fell through because someone did not do their job and the property was sold at an auction. There are many reasons short sales fail due to lack of communication.

Consistency – Every lender has a different timeline when processing short sales and many real estate professionals have experienced inconsistent results, which causes a low level of confidence when working with short sales. All of our short sale education materials teach best practices that we have used to close our short sales that have been proven to work, regardless of the lien holder.

9) Buyers Walking – This is a major concern for any short sale transaction. Putting in hours of work, yet to have it fall apart because a buyer walks away from a deal is not a good feeling. That is why it is important to continue finding backup buyers and setting the right expectations with the current buyer.

10) Staffing/Resource Issues – It is possible for a real estate professional to single handedly become a short sale expert. But it is our opinion that the best results occur when there is a team in place. Unless short sales are 100% of your sale pipeline, one resource cannot be used to make endless phone calls to a lender to get a single transaction closed. Our short sale training materials is formatted in such a way that a single resource can work through a single short sale transaction to closure. Being a member of our short sale community will also aid to the success of any short sale file.

Full Article Resourse:  www.whbsolutions.com/blog/

A Short Sale Can Stop Home Foreclosure & Save Your Credit

Nothing is as detrimental to your credit rating as late mortgage payments and foreclosures. If you have fallen behind on your mortgage payments and are facing home foreclosure, you should consider using a short sale to sell your home now and avoid foreclosure.

One of the most common questions that homeowners ask is, “can I still sell my home if I am in foreclosure?” A Short Sale is simply selling your property for less than what is owed with the permission of your mortgage lender. It is not as complicated as many foreclosure advice experts make it sound, and is one of the best forms of foreclosure help available. There are three steps to closing a short sale: short sale pre-qualification, marketing the property, and closing the short sale.

The first step, short sale pre-qualification, is when you contact your lender and explain that your financial situation has changed and you wish to avoid foreclosure by selling your home. Most lenders have a short sale application that can be faxed or emailed. The application will tell you what documents you will need to gather and submit to your lender in order for them to determine if a short sale is an option. Common documents include paycheck stubs, tax returns, hardship letter, and bank statements. These items show your lender that you are not in a position to repay the loan.

Once your file has been pre-qualified for a short sale, you will market the property to find a qualified buyer. This means hiring a realtor and, if you can afford it, advertising your property in your local newspaper or other real estate publications. Remember, you are not trying to profit from the sale or cover what is owed to your lender. You are simply trying to stop home foreclosure and avoid have a foreclosure on your credit history by helping your lender recover as much of the money they loaned you as possible. It is also important to remember that the foreclosure process can be quite lengthy in some states, so don’t give up using a short sale to avoid foreclosure just because you do not find a buyer immediately.

Lastly, once you have found a qualified buyer, you will submit your purchase contract and the buyer’s credentials (pre-approval letter or proof of funds to close) to your lender. If your lender accepts the offer, then the deal is sent to a title company who will facilitate the closing of escrow. It is also important to order any city of point of sale inspections or other inspections as to avoid delaying your buyer from closing on time.

Once you have completed these steps, you will have stopped home foreclosure and your credit rating will be much better, in most cases, than if you had simply done nothing and lost your home through the foreclosure process. A short sale is a great option to anyone trying to avoid foreclosure.

A few weeks ago I heard about President Bush signing something to help homeowners avoid paying taxes on their short sales. Banks would issue a 1099 when a short sale was approved, and be taxed on their short sale savings. I need a link to read about that story, please. Thank you !!

There may be another option to save you and your home from foreclosure. Short sales allow you to avoid foreclosure and salvage your credit. Contact a knowledgeable RE/MAX agent to find out more.