Banks are Trying to Prevent Short Sellers from Getting a Free Ride

Banks are Trying to Prevent Short Sellers from Getting a Free Ride

A recent stat shows that 23.3% of all US homes are underwater, meaning that the owners of these properties owe more on their home than what it is actually worth. If these homeowners need to sell, they generally have to with Short Sales. Unless they have reserves of Cash stashed away, which thy usually don't, this is about the only option to avoid a foreclosure.

Mortgage Insurance was created to insure banks losses from default home loans. However, the Mortgage Insurance providers are going out of business because they never anticipated losses would be this extreme. They can't cover the damage of all of the US loans in default.

In effort too salvage some money, and make up for the lack of funds covered by mortgage insurance, Bank of America is attempting to collect promissory notes from the owners requesting short sales. One real estate agent I know is working with a client who owes more than $300,000 on a house. They currently have a short sale offer on it for $200,000. The bank is willing to approve the short sale, IF the owner will sign a 20 year promissory note for $55,000. This would give the default borrower a payment of about $250 for the next 20 years.

This is a good move by Bank of America, but the problem is that for borrowers like the one in this example, this makes the short sell less desirable than than just letting the home foreclose. At this point the borrowers credit is already shot, and the only thing they would be saving is the term "foreclosure" on their already shot credit. Is it worth $55,000 to avoid that term? Not for these borrowers.

From Bank of Americas standpoint, by not approving the short sale they are going to lose even more money by having to pay the legal fees associated with foreclosure. Then, after the foreclosure, they still have to sell the house at a price that is nowhere near worth what the owners borrowed against it.

While it is a good move to try and make the default borrowers more accountable, they have to do it in a way that will actually make sense. In most cases, making the guidelines too strict will just make things worse for all parties involved and will simply result in more wasted time and more foreclosures.

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