Sandy Short Sale

Yay! Another short sale that worked out. I listed this home last year and it became clear in January that we weren't going to be able to sell it for what my sellers owed. My poor sellers fell on hard times and also couldn't make the payments and so we decided that a short sale would be the only way we'd be able to sell it.

We received an offer on this home in April. The buyer was a first time home buyer who wanted to get the $8000 tax credit (which would mean that we needed to close by June). I talked with the agent and said that I had no control over when the bank approved the offer or even IF the bank would approve the offer. She said that her client wanted the house even if we wouldn't be able to close in time for the buyer to get the tax credit. That made me feel comfortable about moving forward.

I got the bank (B of A) all of the documents and I followed up with them at least weekly and we didn't have an approval in time to close by June. The buyer said that she would continue waiting because she really liked the home. Then she found out that the government extended the deadline to close until Sept 30th. She was elated. So the beginning of September we still didn't have an approval. Everyone was getting nervous at this point...was Bank of America going to turn their brains on and approve this offer since the buyer had been waiting and waiting and hoping for the tax credit?

Somehow the loan officer started working on the loan without the final approval. We got the approval from B of A on Sept 28th and everyone was quite literally scrambling trying to pull everything together in 2 days. It was impossible. The loan officer called us at 2 pm on the 29th saying that there were appraisal required repairs. I met the other agent at the house and we got some help to make a few repairs ourselves. Needless to say, although we worked our brains out and it didn't close until Oct 6th.

So the good news is that it closed and the buyer is getting a good deal but the bad news is that Bank of America is slow and the poor buyer didn't get the $8000 tax credit.