Hi there, Shawn Polston with Keller Williams and TucsonShortSaleNegotiator.com in Tucson. Today I wanted to talk to you about short sale guidelines; this is a subject that I know a lot of people search for online because there are a lot of definitions.
When someone asks me what short sale guidelines are, I first ask them what type of loan they have, who the investor is and who the lender is. All of the different entities have their own short sale guidelines. For me to give you all of these guidelines would take hours; one of the biggest things to know when talking to a short sale agent is if that agent is familiar with the bank that owns and services your loan as well as what type of loan you have. All of these different factors affect you as a homeowner. For example, with a VA short sale, they offer you $1500 in relocation assistance, however the short sale agent has to ask for it; you don’t automatically get it. On the opposite end, with an FHA short sale, they automatically give you relocation assistance.
There are all different types of short sale guidelines within the different programs where not being familiar with them can cause success or failure with your short sale, especially with FHA because they’re very stringent.
Bank of America also has their own guidelines; they have cooperative programs where they’ll give you money at the end of the short sale and cooperative programs with Fannie Mae. Is your short sale agent aware of these guidelines and do they know how to ask the lender if you qualify for them?
In most cases, we can figure out who your investor is and we’d love to sit down and talk with you, explain the different processes and what you can expect if these programs apply to you. It’s very important that you work with a short sale agent that is aware of the many different guidelines. One thing to watch out for is if you get the answer, "It’s no different than any other short sale." That essentially means they don’t know; I can tell you that there are big differences between all of these lenders, investors and loan types and working with the right short sale agent can mean success or failure for your short sale.