First allow me to preface that I do know a lot of people are victims of this economy — REAL victims — those who have lost their job or health without warning or much of a cushion to soften the blow.  I don’t want to make light of that at all…However with that being said, there are some exceptions of people who can’t be “bothered” with the turn in the economy.  

I love being a Realtor (specializing in resale listings) however since the turn of the market I began focusing on short sales which seemed like a two sided logical choice really:  restructure my business model on what is selling while actually trying to help some clients avoid foreclosure.  While I am so happy to report that I have made a real difference in my client’s lives by short selling their home and obtaining full lien satisfactions, I have also stumbled into some interesting (and ironic) stories that are worth sharing.

While the scenerios below are not common occurances during my prequalification phase, they are instances where I walked away without taking the listings:

1.  Seller’s home has depreciated almost 90k in the last year and a half.  Seller has decided she shouldn’t be responsible for loss and called mortgage company to tell them they needed to refinance her at not only a lower rate but also so her loan amount is more in line with market value.  When they denied her request, she stopped making mortgage payments and is now having garage sales attempting to sell everything in the home INCLUDING the kitchen cabinets!  When I tried to explain to her that we are all in the same boat she responded “I don’t care what kind of situation YOU are in, I just care about me and I will not put up with this!”

2.  When taking photos of a recent listing I was about to take the seller nonchalantly mentioned ”Would these rooms look better with new furniture?  I just bought all new furniture but the store is holding my purchase as it didn’t make sense to deliver it only to move it again if the house goes to foreclosure auction.”

3.  In my prequalification interview the seller told me she has decided to sell a rental home in the suburbs.  When I ask if it has been difficult to rent, seller replies “not at all, I’m just tired of being a landlord and figured since I just bought a new Mustang I won’t need my credit for a few years” so she just stopped making payments.

4.  When speaking over the phone the seller says that home ownership was more than they planned and were behind on payments.  They have owned the home for a year but haven’t made any payments for six months.  When I arrive at our appointment, the seller drives up in a brand new Mercedes with the vanity tag “RICH DADDY”.  When I explain that they will need to show financial hardship for a short sale to be approved they let me know that all their cash is funneled through a corporation so they can adjust their numbers to make it work.

*shakes head*

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This entry was posted on Sunday, February 28th, 2010 at 4:10 pm and is filed under Short Sales. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.