My New Blog

Growing up in West Virginia, many relatives loved to go to the “bent can store”. Damaged groceries were sent to the store to be sold for cheap. As a kid, I never really thought about it much. Money was tight back then and my relatives were excited to go because of the great deals they might get. Now I know that buying damaged groceries sounds like a risky proposition and not too appetizing either. But these relatives were being flexible to get a good deal.

In the Charlotte real estate market, there are many great deals to be found, but buyers have to be flexible. There are plenty of short sales (pre-foreclosures), foreclosures (bank owned or REO) and sellers that are motivated to sell. These homes often require a potential buyer to look over the imperfections in the home and not get upset with the added hoops to jump through.

 recently sold a short sale home that was listed at one point for $1,250,000. My buyer was flexible and got it for $730,000! The home was new, but it wasn’t perfect. The investment group that had it built realized they weren’t going to make any money on the home so the never went back and finished the little details. There were several delays in closing. Because the bank that currently held the note on the home had to agree to take a substantial loss, there was added heartburn. By being flexible, my buyer ended up with a phenomenal deal with little extra time spent with inspectors, contractors, paperwork, and a little antacid.

There are great deals in real estate to be gotten today in the Charlotte area. Buyers need to be flexible. A good agent can help minimize the hurdles and predict some of the speed bumps along the way. But no agent can eliminate or foresee every problem.

Short sales are taking way to long to get approved. Six or seven months is just too long to get an approval. The rule of thumb is the initial buyer that makes an offer on a short sale home is not the buyer who ends up with the home. Why? Because that buyer gets frustrated and finds another home. In the Charlotte North Carolina real estate market, there are plenty of other nice, suitable homes that meet the buyer’s needs.

Banks usually won’t consider approving a short sale for a seller without an offer from a potential buyer. Why would the bank want to waste time running the numbers and a buyer might never come along? This is not the case in Charlotte where homes are steadily selling. But look at California, Florida and a few other states. It’s REALLY hard to sell there.

This “no approval till we get an offer” process is causing some sellers and their agents to tiptoe on the border of fraud. To get the process started, the seller and their agent may have a friend or an investor to make an incredibly low offer. This is done to get the ball rolling on the short sale approval with the bank. The problem is that the buyer doesn’t really intend to buy the home. The seller and their agent are trying to get the bank to tell them the terms the bank will find acceptable for a short sale. Even if it’s not fraud, it’s not real.

To get a short sale done property in the Charlotte North Carolina area, a seller needs to find an experience and trained agent that knows how to handle short sales. All real estate agents are not the same. Just like doctors or attorneys, agents may have expertise and experience in a special area. Believe me, short sales are a special area.