Is There Leeway in Making a Lower offer on a Dunedin Short Sale?

A Dunedin Short Sale Question: 

Q:  I’m thinking about putting an offer your listing in Baywood Shores MLS 7346686.  I see that it’s a bank preapproved short sale at $283k (subject to 3rd party lender approval). My question is, how much leeway do you think there is on making a lower offer?

Also, I know that sometimes banks can take several months to accept/deny an offer.  Is it because they are waiting to see if they can get a better offer? If so, is there a way to write into a contract that if they receive a better offer during this “waiting period” that we may consider renegotiating ours at a higher bid?

A:  Hi Tina – Please give us a call and we’ll fill you in completely on the particulars of where we are with both lenders, other offers, suggested offer amounts, etc.

We are Pinellas short short sale experts and would be happy to fully familiarize you with how short sales work. Generally speaking, the banks are taking so long because they are so overwhelmed with case files that they can’t keep up with the workload.  Pinellas short sales are unusual in that the homeowner doesn’t have a vested interest in the amount the home sells for (they just want to know that they are out from under the house payments), so it’s just the lender(s) we are negotiating with. The bright side of this is that the banks aren’t emotionally tied to the outcome as is the case with your typical home sale, and things are handled very matter-of-factly.

All agents handle short sales differently. With the homeowners approval, we present all reasonable offers in the order received (but the seller has the ultimate say so as to which offers to accept, deny or negotiate before we submit to the lender), because we believe it’s only fair to treat buyers with the respect they deserve. So, if offer #1 and the bank don’t come to terms, then offer #2 steps in, and then they have the opportunity to negotiate the price, and so on.

Note that most short sales are not handled this way!  Many agents submit multiple offers to the banks (I’ve seen more than a dozen on a single property), and then it can turn out to an all-out bidding war with no assurances for the would-be buyers.  This is a subject for another post…..

With a Tampa Bay short sale, we have 3 vested parties to satisfy.  We, of course, want our buyers to get the best deal possible.  Our homeowners want relief.  The lender wants to avoid the cost of foreclosing and to net the maximum amount possible.  

Short sales are a WIN-WIN-WIN!  

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