My real estate agent called around 1 p.m. today and told me that she got an offer on my house. For about 30 minutes I felt like the guys in this video:
Then my agent called back. She said that she had spoken to my bank. According to Chase, it will take two to three months to approve a short sale. My realtor didn't think that any buyer would wait three months to find out if their offer had even been accepted, let alone close on a house. That's when I stopped dancing and felt like doing this:
I still do. You know that saying, "You're damned if you do, damned if you don't?" Well, I believe that's the kind of environment the banks have created in today's economy. If you're up to date on your payments and try to sell your house for what you owe, you can't because it's no longer worth that much. However, you can't sell it for less unless you have the cash to pay the difference on hand because theoretically short sales are reserved for hardships. If you're behind on your mortgage and you try to do a short sale, once again you can't because you have to wait three months to get a yea or nay, and no one is going to wait that long, not when they can go the next street or house over and buy a foreclosed property for the same amount. If you take the house off the market and try to restructure your loan, once again you can't because you don't qualify. The only people who do, at least according to Chase, are people whose expenses don't outweigh their income. I've never met one of those people. Have you?
Basically, the banks only want to help the people who don't need help. The longer they drag their feet on short sales and the more people they deny help to, the more houses that they'll see ending up in foreclosure. Those foreclosures, in turn, will further push down the fair market value of the houses around them, which means that those houses, should they go on the market, won't be able to sell either. If the owners are experiencing hardships, then they, too, will mostly likely end up in foreclosure, and the cycle will continue. If something doesn't happen soon with the economy, a nose job or a face lift will cost more than most houses, including mine.
Now I can only hope that the people who put in the offer can wait three months. I'm not going to hold my breath that they can. I'm not going to hold my breath that anyone can. I'd probably suffocate before Chase would even open a file and look at the offer.
At least there's still cookie dough ice cream. It may cost more than it used to, and the containers are getting smaller, but the economy hasn't gotten rid of it yet.
