Colorado Springs Vintage Homes Blog

How do you price a Colorado Springs short sale?

The Art of Pricing a Short Sale

Part IX of Colorado Springs Short Sales Series

 Interested in selling your house as a short-sale?  Email Kathy Torline  KTorline@msn.com or call 719-287-1049

I’ve had some agents tell me that it seems like everyone will be a short sale expert by the time all this is said and done.  Ladies and Gentlemen, I have to say that there are very FEW experts in short sales in this market; as I think every situation is different and every lender is different.  No two situations are the same.   Here are some of my favorite comments about short sales from other agents …………..

The seller needs to fix the roof, it won’t pass inspection.  If the seller had the money to fix the roof, he wouldn’t be in a short-sale.  Did you see the verbiage sold “as-is” in the MLS?  Did you see that it was listed as cash or conventional financing only?

Why can’t the seller keep the utilities on?   Again, if the seller had the money to keep the utilities on, he probably wouldn’t be in a short-sale.

And my favorite …………. I’m going to advise my seller to price the house really cheap, that way I’ll get several offers to send to the lender.  I know the lender will accept any offer they get.

OK, so you are going to ask me: “And what does it matter if the property is priced really low?”  In my opinion, it matters a lot.  The mentality of some agents that start working in Short Sales is to reduce the price of the property making it as cheap as possible without studying the area and the subdivision to have a clear idea of how much the lender will be likely to accept in an offer.   It’s important for agents to do their homework.

Do you think an agent that lists a Short Sale at a really low price is really helping their client?  Acting in their best interest?  How many of these offers have a realistic chance to work?  Lenders pay for appraisals and BPOS, and if the numbers do not make sense, they foreclose anyway.

I just took a new short sale listing last week for a condo in Colorado Springs.  Before I met with my client, I thoroughly researched the Solds, the Actives, and the Expired Properties; as well as the days on market.  I showed my client the research and we jointly decided on the price.  My seller doesn’t have the luxury of leaving it on the market for 6 months, as it will be foreclosed on; so we priced it aggressively but not at a “firesale” price.

It’s an art to price short-sales, as in my opinion they need to be a little below the market price to entice potential buyers; but if they are too low, the lender won’t accept the offer.  REMEMBER:  The lenders don’t have to accept an offer they don’t consider fair and reasonable.

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Kathy (719-287-1049)   KTorline@msn.com

Tags: colorado short sale, Colorado Springs CO homes, colorado springs co realtor, colorado springs colorado real estate agent, colorado springs realty, colorado springs short sales

This entry was posted on Friday, January 16th, 2009 at 3:56 am and is filed under For Sellers, Foreclosures and Short Sales. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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