Orlando Short Sale Expert | Orlando Short Sales, Orlando Short Sale Realtor / Agent

Short sales are increasing as a percentage of home sales in many states, helping some neighborhoods and homeowners avoid the more devastating impacts of foreclosures.

Short sales – when lenders allow financially strapped borrowers to sell homes for less than their unpaid mortgage – accounted for 12 percent of home sales nationwide in the second quarter. That’s up from 10 percent in the same period last year, says researcher RealtyTrac.

The increases were sharper in some states, including California, Nevada, Michigan, Georgia and Colorado, the data show.

In Colorado, short sales were 17 percent of all sales in the second quarter, up from 10 percent a year earlier. In California, they made up 25 percent of sales, vs. 18 percent.

Bank of America, the largest home mortgage servicer, expects to complete more than 100,000 short sales this year – more than double what it did in 2009, the bank says.

Wells Fargo Senior Vice President J.K. Huey says short sales have been “steady to slightly” up in recent months, partly because there are fewer bank-owned houses for sale in some markets, and that has forced buyers to pursue more short-sale properties.

Short-sale homes, which often remain occupied until sold, tend to retain values better than those that go through foreclosure. That helps values of neighboring homes.

In the second quarter, short-sale homes sold at a 21 percent discount to non-foreclosure homes, while bank-owned homes went at a 40 percent discount, RealtyTrac says. Short sales may also reduce losses for loan owners because they avoid full foreclosure costs. Borrowers may qualify for new mortgages sooner after a short sale than after a foreclosure.

“Short sales are a very positive solution,” says BofA Vice President Dave Sunlin.

Short sales peaked at 16 percent of the market in early 2009, RealtyTrac says. Realtors say there should be more short sales and that they should get done faster.

“We lose buyers constantly because short sales take too long,” says Beth Peerce, president of the California Association of Realtors. Short sales completed in the second quarter took 245 days, on average, RealtyTrac says. In a June survey, 77 percent of California Realtors called short sales difficult or extremely difficult; 15 percent said clients were foreclosed on while pursuing short sales.

Many short-sale efforts fail because homeowners aren’t eligible because they can still make payments, or purchase offers are too low, says Wells Fargo’s Huey. Loan owners may not agree on sale prices, either, she says. In most states, lenders can try to recoup short-sale losses from homeowners unless balances are forgiven. At BofA, Sunlin says balances are forgiven more than half the time.

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Jerry LaRose is an Orlando Area Residential Real Estate Expert and Foreclosure Specialist who can assist you with the purchase and/or sale of Real Estate in Orlando, Windermere, Winter Garden, Kissimmee, St. Cloud, East Orlando, Longwood, Altamonte Springs, Maitland, Winter Park, Oviedo, Apopka, Lake Mary, Clermont, Ocoee Florida or any place in the country. Jerry has created a team of professionals throughout Orlando and the country to ensure that you enjoy a smooth transition to your new area.
Please visit:
Avoid Foreclosure / Short Sale Help http://OrlandoShortSaleExpert.com, or http://ShortSellMyOrlandoHome.com
Our Website http://JerryLaRose.com or www.JerrySellsOrlando.com, or http://OrlandoRealEstateVoice.com ,
If you’re a Buyer looking for Great Deals – http://InvestmentPropertyDealsOrlando.com
Please give me a call if you have questions about the Orlando and Central Florida real estate market.
P.S. If you are listing your home as a short sale in Orange, Seminole, Polk, Lake, Osceola and Brevard County Florida and Orlando, East Orlando, St. Cloud, Davenport, Clermont, Longwood, Windermere, Winter Garden, Kissimmee, Winter Park, Altamonte Springs, Maitland, Apopka, Lake Mary, Oviedo or Ocoee Florida make sure you hire an agent and realtor who knows how to do short sales and has the experience to get the job done. We are doing successful short sale packages. The short sale process is complicated and we can help simplify it.
We also have now expanded to help homeowners to Stop Foreclosure in Brevard County Florida. Servicing Melbourne, Coco, Coco Beach, Satellite Beach, Palm Bay, Indian Harbour Beach, South Patrick Shores, Palm Shores, Rockledge, Cocoa West, Merritt Island, Port Saint John and Titusville Florida
Call us at 407-580-7011 or email at jerry@JerryLaRose.com to find out more about Orange County Short Sales and Orlando Area Short Sales.
Orlando Short Sales, expert, specialist, Realtor, Keller Williams Realty, agent, broker, short sale, stop foreclosure

Roughly sixty percent of the Orlando homes for sale on today’s market are Orlando short sales and Orlando foreclosures! Distressed properties are well known for their value (a reputation which is sometimes accurate, and sometimes not), but they also have a reputation for causing buyers to become distressed, too!

Transactional snafus, last-minute surprises and long, drawn-out escrows that never close seem to be par for the course. Instead of avoiding these properties altogether, get educated about the most common dramas that go down in these deals, and how you can avoid falling victim.
1. Run-on (and on, and on) escrows. When you’re buying a home (or selling one, for that matter), time is absolutely of the essence. And buyers reasonably expect that the big time suck in Orlando real estate is in the house hunting process itself; seems like once you find a Orlando home you want to buy and the seller agrees to your price and terms, things should move pretty quickly, right?
Not so much, when it comes to some distressed property sales. I’ve heard tell of the occasional, swiftly-moving escrow on an REO (real estate owned – by the bank). But for the most part, these transactions take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks longer than “regular” sales, because of the extra signatures, supervisor-level approvals and even investor involvement required to seal the deal. Banks don’t have the same sense of urgency individual home sellers do, and it’s not uncommon for the people who need to sign on the dotted line to be on vacation or scattered across the country, adding days’ or weeks’ worth of time to the escrow.
And Orlando, Fl. short sales are also an entirely different animal when it comes to escrow timelines. While a standard sale from an individual seller to an individual buyer might take 45 days from contract to closing, a short sale can take anywhere from 45 days to 6 or 8 months (!) to get the deal closed, after the seller has accepted the contract.
Avoid the drama by: expecting your escrow to run long, and being pleasantly surprised if it doesn’t. Expectation management is everything. Make sure you take these extended timelines into account when you’re working with your mortgage broker on the issue of when to lock your interest rate, and how long your rate locks will last. You might even need to plan on and/or set aside an allowance for the cost of extending your low interest rate, if rates are rising rapidly during the time you’re waiting for the deal to be done.
2. Bank won’t take lowball offer. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve received a question from an outraged reader to the effect that a buyer has had their Orlando short sale or Orlando REO offer rejected on grounds that it was too low, even though the bank has no other offers.
Banks owe their shareholders and investors a duty to get as much as they can for these properties. Just because you see it’s on the market and listed as a Orlando short sale or a Orlando foreclosure doesn’t mean they’re going to give it to you for a fraction of its worth. The bank’s goal is to get a purchase price as close as possible to the home’s fair market value, as determined by the recent sales prices of similar, nearby homes, with some adjustments made for the property’s condition. Fact is, many banks would rather see the listing agent reduce the price by a moderate amount, and wait to see what offers come in, than to accept an offer 30 percent below the asking price just because there are no other offers on the table.
Avoid the drama by: working with your agent to make a realistic offer, based on recent comparable sales in the neighborhood, not just on what you think you can get away with. You can waste a lot of time, spin a lot of wheels and lose out on a lot of properties making lowball offer after lowball offer on distressed homes. Sit down with your broker or agent, review the ‘comps’ and make a smart offer that reflects a good value for you, is within your budget and is not bizarrely out of the realm of the fair market value of the property.
3. Last minute postponements/cancellations. These transactions have an uncanny way of being delayed at the last minute – or never going through at all, through no fault of the wanna-be buyer. You signed docs yesterday, put your dog in the crate this morning and just hopped in the moving truck, only to get a text from your broker that the deal didn’t close because the escrow company which was selected by the bank flubbed the checkboxes on a single sheet of paper (it happens). Or, you’ve been in contract (with the seller) on a short sale for four months, and the bank refuses the sale entirely because the seller refuses to kick even $1 of their own cash into the deal, despite having a flush savings account.
Avoid the drama by: staying as flexible as possible with your moving plans as long as possible. Best practice is to plan on some overlap between the time you can be in your last place and your scheduled move-in date. Also, if you’re in contract on a short sale, you should take the point of view that you don’t have a firm deal until you get the bank’s approval of the transaction. So don’t even think about starting to make moving plans or paying for home inspections and appraisals until you know the bank has green light the deal and that the purchase price and terms they’ve approved work for both you and the seller.
4. The bank’s black box. Make an offer on a normal home and you’re likely to know what the outcome will be within a few hours or a few days, at the outside. If things take longer because the seller is out of town or some such, the listing agent tells you that, and you at least know what’s going on.
Make an offer on a Orlando bank-owned property or a Orlando short sale? It’s a crap shoot – could be days, but could also, easily, be weeks or months before you know what’s going on. And no amount of calling, pleading, prodding or nudging is likely to get you much information on how your offer or the seller’s short sale application is being handled or what (if any) progress is being made. And that “black box” into which your offer disappears at the bank level is very frustrating.
Avoid the drama by: continuing your house hunt until you have an answer back. Maniacally pestering the listing agent for answers or harassing your buyer’s broker into spending hours on hold with the bank is highly unlikely to get you any insight. (With that said, it does make sense for your agent to check in regularly – sometimes even daily – with a short sale or REO listing agent to stay updated on any developments with the property and to make sure your offer/transaction stays in the front of their mind.)
Most of the angst in these situations arises when a buyer feels they passed on properties that would have really worked for them when they pinned their hopes on a distressed home. You can only control your efforts and activities, not the bank’s. So, consult with your own broker or agent about staying proactive in viewing and even pursuing other properties until you have a firm “yes” from the bank on your Orlando short sale or Orlando REO offer. Until that time, and usually for a short time after you get the bank’s approval, you have the right to back out of the transaction if you need to (make sure your broker briefs you on precisely when your right to rescind your offer or exercise contingencies – i.e., bail – will expire).
5. Double standards. In a “regular” equity sale with no bank involvement, both buyer and seller are obligated to meet various timelines. Seller has to provide disclosures by X date, open the property to inspections – with utilities on – by Y, and close and move out by Z. Orlando REO and Orlando short sale buyers, on the other hand, are often dismayed to find that even though the bank might take weeks or months to sign or handle its deliverables, the bank will insist that the buyer show up, sign or send a check quick-like.
Avoid the drama by: chalking it up to the (admittedly irritating) way things are – the price you pay to buy from the bank. Realize that working with the bank on the bank’s terms is unavoidable when you buy a distressed property. Then, go into the deal with realistic expectations – including the expectation that the bank will drag its feet, despite expecting you to keep every deadline – and you’ll be less frustrated, and less likely to make poor decisions out of frustration.
Also, make sure you do respond in a timely manner to the bank’s requests and your obligations under the contract. I’ve seen banks capitalize on buyer delays in returning signatures and removing contingencies to accept higher offers they received in the interim. Don’t lose your home on a technicality because you assume that the bank’s lackadaisical timelines apply to you as well.

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Jerry LaRose is an Orlando Area Residential Real Estate Expert, who can assist you with the purchase and/or sale of Real Estate in Orlando, Windermere, Winter Garden, Kissimmee, St. Cloud, East Orlando, Longwood, Altamonte Springs, Maitland, Winter Park, Oviedo, Apopka, Lake Mary, Clermont, Ocoee Florida or any place in the country. Jerry has created a team of professionals throughout Orlando and the country to ensure that you enjoy a smooth transition to your new area.
Please visit:
Avoid Foreclosure / Short Sale Help http://OrlandoShortSaleExpert.com, or http://ShortSellMyOrlandoHome.com
Our Website http://JerryLaRose.com or www.JerrySellsOrlando.com, or http://OrlandoRealEstateVoice.com ,
If you’re a Buyer looking for Great Deals – http://InvestmentPropertyDealsOrlando.com
Please give me a call if you have questions about the Orlando and Central Florida real estate market.
P.S. If you are listing your home as a short sale in Orange, Seminole, Polk, Lake or Osceola County Florida and Orlando, East Orlando, St. Cloud, Davenport, Clermont, Longwood, Windermere, Winter Garden, Kissimmee, Winter Park, Altamonte Springs, Maitland, Apopka, Lake Mary, Oviedo or Ocoee Florida make sure you hire an agent who knows how to do short sales and has the experience to get the job done. We are doing successful short sale packages. The short sale process is complicated and we can help simplify it.
Call us at 407-580-7011 or email at jerry@JerryLaRose.com to find out more about Orange County Short Sales and Orlando Area Short Sales.

On April 12, 2011, a new law was introduced in the U.S. Congress by Representatives Tom Rooney (R-FL) and Robert Andrews (D-NJ) known as the “Prompt Decision for Qualification for Short Sale Act of 2011″. The law will require lenders to give an approval, disapproval, or a status on approval of a short sale within 45 days. While the law does not require a 45 day time limit to be met (the lender can ask for additional information), it does place some obligation on the lender to respond. This law is not a cure all, but could be a good step in getting communication going between a negotiating lender and the seller.

“The current short sale process can be time-consuming and inefficient, and many would-be buyers end up walking away from a sale that could have saved a home owner from foreclosure,” said National Association of Realtors (NAR) President Ron Phipps. “Realtors and consumers continue to raise issues about delays in the short sale process, because lenders are unable to decide whether to approve a short sale.

After many months of delays, and with no response from lenders, potential buyers are losing patience and cancelling their contracts, often resulting in the property entering foreclosure. A short sale minimizes the negative impact on sellers and generally costs the lender less than a foreclosure,” said Phipps. NAR has been actively pushing the lending industry to improve the process for approving short sales, which represent about 13% of recent home sales according to NAR data. Phipps praised Reps. Rooney and Andrews for their efforts on the bill and urged Congress to pass the bill quickly.

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Jerry LaRose is an Orlando Area Residential Real Estate Expert, who can assist you with the purchase and/or sale of Real Estate in Orlando, Windermere, Winter Garden, Kissimmee, St. Cloud, East Orlando, Longwood, Altamonte Springs, Maitland, Winter Park, Oviedo, Apopka, Lake Mary, Clermont, Ocoee Florida or any place in the country. Jerry has created a team of professionals throughout Orlando and the country to ensure that you enjoy a smooth transition to your new area.

Please visit:

Avoid Foreclosure / Short Sale Help http://OrlandoShortSaleExpert.com, or http://ShortSellMyOrlandoHome.com

Our Website http://JerryLaRose.com or www.JerrySellsOrlando.com, or http://OrlandoRealEstateVoice.com ,

If you’re a Buyer looking for Great Deals – http://InvestmentPropertyDealsOrlando.com

Please give me a call if you have questions about the Orlando and Central Florida real estate market.

P.S. If you are listing your home as a short sale in Orange, Seminole, Polk, Lake or Osceola County Florida and Orlando, East Orlando, St. Cloud, Davenport, Clermont, Longwood, Windermere, Winter Garden, Kissimmee, Winter Park, Altamonte Springs, Maitland, Apopka, Lake Mary, Oviedo or Ocoee Florida make sure you hire an agent who knows how to do short sales and has the experience to get the job done. We are doing successful short sale packages. The short sale process is complicated and we can help simplify it.

Call us at 407-580-7011 or email at jerry@JerryLaRose.com to find out more about Orange County Short Sales and Orlando Area Short Sales.

A common question I often get is: “Why would a bank or lender agree to a short sale?”

Let’s look at an example…

The seller of a home owes 200k on a property where the best offer was only 160K. The reason why could be almost anything…lack of curb appeal, cost of repairs, old house, today’s slow market?

What are the seller’s choices? The homeowner can sell for 160K and bring 40K to close the deal because the loan is upside down. Or the buyer and seller can work together to negotiate a short sale.

Obviously, if the seller doesn’t have 40K to bring to the table at closing, the deal’s not going to get done. Even if they do, does it really make sense to toss in 40K without seeing if the bank will take less?

Of course, it takes a great deal MORE than a phone call to get a bank to agree to taking a loss, no matter what the number.

Banks actually don’t want to take houses to foreclosure because they don’t want to have to worry about selling residential real estate; after all, they’re financial institutions, not real estate brokerages. Being heavily regulated by the federal government, banks can only have so many bad debts on their books. A foreclosed property represents a “non-performing asset” that ties up money, hurting profitability.

For this reason, doing a short sale on a property in foreclosure is the PREFERRED method used by banks to liquidate property.

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Jerry LaRose is an Orlando Area Residential Real Estate Expert, who can assist you with the purchase and/or sale of Real Estate in Orlando, Windermere, Winter Garden Florida or any place in the country. Jerry has created a team of professionals throughout Orlando and the country to ensure that you enjoy a smooth transition to your new area. Please visit http://OrlandoShortSaleExpert.com or www.JerrySellsOrlando.com for your real estate needs.  Please give me a call if you have questions about the Orlando and Central Florida real estate market.

P.S. If you are listing your home as a short sale in Orange or Osceola County Florida and Orlando, Windermere, Winter Garden,  Kissimmee or Ocoee Florida make sure you hire an agent who knows how to do short sales and has the experience to get the job done. We are doing successful short sale packages. Call us at 407-580-7011 to find out more about Orange County Short Sales and Orlando Area Short Sales

Current market conditions offer a fleeting window of opportunity for buyers and investors.

Prices are down 50 to 70 percent from their highs but are beginning to stabilize and even tip higher in some markets.

Interest rates remain artificially low, but most economists predict this can’t last much longer.

The $8,000 first-time homebuyer tax credit and many local foreclosure buying incentives are still in effect, but only temporarily.

This means you can own for less than it costs to rent and find solid cash flow investment properties in many areas – even if the real estate market hasn’t completely bottomed out.

Momentum matters. Existing home sales have increased over the last four months as buyers jumped back into the market.

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Jerry LaRose is an Orlando Area Residential Real Estate Expert, who can assist you with the purchase and/or sale of Real Estate in Orlando, Windermere, Winter Garden Florida or any place in the country. Jerry has created a team of professionals throughout Orlando and the country to ensure that you enjoy a smooth transition to your new area. Please visit http://OrlandoShortSaleExpert.com or www.JerrySellsOrlando.com for your real estate needs.  Please give me a call if you have questions about the Orlando and Central Florida real estate market.

P.S. If you are listing your home as a short sale in Orange or Osceola County Florida and Orlando, Windermere, Winter Garden,  Kissimmee or Ocoee Florida make sure you hire an agent who knows how to do short sales and has the experience to get the job done. We are doing successful short sale packages. Call us at 407-580-7011 to find out more about Orange County Short Sales and Orlando Area Short Sales.

Too many agents are afraid to take on short sales, as they should be. They’ve heard that these short sales in Orlando are too complicated, the lenders are uncooperative (and sometimes hostile), or the property gets foreclosed on before they find a buyer. Any of these can happen, but mostly to agents who are unaware of how to successfully negotiate and close a short sale.

Let me tell you, if it was that easy, every agent in Florida would be rolling in cash by now.

 If you are considering doing a short sale on your property give me a call and we can discuss the in’s and out’s of doing a successful short sale.

 Our Services include:

· Presenting a solution to the lender and negotiating favorable terms

· Allowing the borrower and her/his family to get a fresh start

· Expediting the process with a fast resolution.
Our success rate is among the highest in Orlando. Many of our services are FREE OF CHARGE to the borrower and our consultation services are always FREE.

You need a Short Sale Specialist and now you’ve found one. Call me today for a Free Consultation at 407-580-7011

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Jerry LaRose is an Orlando Area Residential Real Estate Expert, who can assist you with the purchase and/or sale of Real Estate in Orlando, Windermere, Winter Garden Florida or any place in the country. Jerry has created a team of professionals throughout Orlando and the country to ensure that you enjoy a smooth transition to your new area. Please visit www.JerrySellsOrlando.com for your real estate needs.  Please give me a call if you have questions about the Orlando and Central Florida real estate market.

P.S. If you are listing your home as a short sale in Orange County Florida and Orlando, Windermere, Winter Garden,  or Ocoee Florida make sure you hire an agent who knows how to do short sales and has the experience to get the job done. We are doing successful short sale packages. Call us at 407-580-7011 to find out more about Orange County Short Sales and Orlando Area Short Sales.

If you have patience then buying a short sale is the way to go. If you can wait the 3-4 months that it takes to negotiate a short sale then your patience should pay off. A short sale is another word for pre-foreclosure. You are purchasing from a motivated seller and negotiating with a motivated lender. The seller want to sell to avoid foreclosure and the lender also wants to avoid foreclosing. Foreclosing on a property is very expensive to a lender, sometimes costing the lender up to $40,000 to foreclose on a property. The savings can depend upon many factors like condition of the property, location of the property, the motivation of the lender and seller. A buyer normally can purchase the property for approximately 10%-20% below market value.

So, if you have the patience and are looking for a great deal on an Orlando area property please give me a call.

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Jerry LaRose is an Orlando Area Residential Real Estate Expert, who can assist you with the purchase and/or sale of Real Estate in Orlando, Windermere, Winter Garden Florida or any place in the country. Jerry has created a team of professionals throughout Orlando and the country to ensure that you enjoy a smooth transition to your new area. Please visit www.JerrySellsOrlando.com for your real estate needs. Please give me a call if you have questions about the Orlando and Central Florida real estate market.

P.S. If you are listing your home as a short sale in Orange County Florida and Orlando, Windermere, Winter Garden, or Ocoee Florida make sure you hire an agent who knows how to do short sales and has the experience to get the job done. We are doing successful short sale packages. Call us at 407-580-7011 to find out more about Orange County Short Sales and Orlando Area Short Sales.