Your 7-year-old kid could come up with a better short sale process than the ones currently being implemented by some of the largest banks in the country.  Any kid who ever traded baseball cards knows what it’s like to have a hot commodity.   Ask your kid which of these strategies he’d use if he had a baseball card that 4 of his friends wanted: would he a) ask one friend at a time what they’d trade him for without checking what the other friends would be willing to trade, or would he  b) ask all of his friends what they’d like to pay/trade, gather all the bids and THEN make his decision.

The answer is obvious.  What good does it do to have a hot commodity if you don’t allow the bidders to feel the heat?  But banks are currently employing strategy “a” from the stupid example above.  No kidding.  I was dealing with a bank today, let’s call them Schmank of  Unmerica, and the short sale property in Denver had 3 interested parties.  But the bank would only CONSIDER one offer at a time.  And they go all the way with that offer.  Meaning, it takes weeks/months for that single offer to make it through to someone in negotiations/review and then they make a decision on that single offer without considering any of the waiting offers.   And if that offer does not work, well, then our genius bank moves on to offer #2…and ONLY offer #2.  And maybe that one works out.

Why wouldn’t a bank simply go back to all 4 interested bidders and ask for their best and highest by 4pm tomorrow?  And then go with the best offer?  Isn’t that the best thing for their bottom line?

Short sales are the monster just below the surface of our economy.   These monsters are having an awful impact on property values, and are accounting for substantial losses at banks.  Losses that our government has shown it’s willing to use our tax dollars to rectify.

Email bob@realasave.com if you have any short sale questions, or if you just want to discuss Denver/Boulder real estate.