Do you owe money after a short sale?
Possibly, a short sale does not necessarily remove your liability to the bank for the loan. Even though the bank has agreed to the short sale, they may still hold you responsible for the remaining loan balance.
After the short sale is completed, your lender might call you or send letters stating that you still owe money. These letters could come from an attorney's office or a collection agency and will demand that you pay off the deficiency.
In the end, short sales are almost always damaging to your credit, but they do less harm than foreclosures or bankruptcies. A short sale might block you from a mortgage on a new home for two years or so, but a foreclosure or bankruptcy could keep you out of the market for as long as seven to 10 years.
Short Sale Drawbacks For Sellers
Lack of profits: Since a seller owes money to the lender, they won't receive any of the proceeds of the sale of their home.
Although the lender might agree to release its mortgage lien in exchange for the short sale proceeds, it might not release you from personal liability on the debt. So, if state law allows it, the lender could potentially come after you for the deficiency.
For a short sale to happen, both the lender and the homeowner have to be willing to sell the house at a loss. The homeowner will make no profit, and the lender will actually lose money for selling the house for less than the amount owed. A short sale is not a do-it-yourself deal.
A short sale will remain on your credit report for seven years. The starting point for this period depends on the timeliness of your mortgage payments. If your payments were never late and the account was in good standing at the time of the short sale, the period begins on the date of the sale.
Advantages and Disadvantages of a Short Sale
Short sales allow a homeowner to dispose of a property that is losing value. Although they do not recoup the costs of their mortgage, a short sale allows a buyer to escape foreclosure, which can be much more damaging to their credit score.
Yes. There is no way to avoid the damage a short sale does to your credit score. A short sale can knock as much as 160 points off your credit score, but the level of damage heavily depends on your credit standing before the short sale and how much your lender gets in the sale, among other things.
Under the short-sale rule, shorts could only be placed at a price above the most recent trade, i.e., an uptick in the share's price. With only limited exceptions, the rule forbade trading shorts on a downtick in share price. The rule was also known as the uptick rule, "plus tick rule," and tick-test rule."
Who pays money in short selling?
A seller opens a short position by borrowing shares, usually from a broker-dealer, hoping to repurchase them for a profit if the price declines. The investor then sells these borrowed shares to buyers willing to pay the market price.
The short seller usually must pay handling fee to borrow the asset (charged at a particular rate over time, similar to an interest payment) and reimburse the lender for any cash return (such as a dividend) that was paid on the asset while borrowed.
Banks are businesses and, just like any business, they are seeking to earn a profit. If it costs more to foreclose over agreeing to a short sale, the bank is very likely to favor the short sale. With foreclosure, a bank takes possession of the house, then resells it at a mortgage auction to the highest bidder.
Your lender can decide that you or your property do not qualify for a short sale. It is never required for a mortgage company or bank to accept a short sale to satisfy your loan amount. If this happens, you might need to look at other options, such as: Sell your house in a traditional sale.
Just because a seller accepts a short sale price doesn't mean that the lender will, and the list price may be far below what the lender wants. Banks may reject offers when the price is low, the seller or buyer doesn't qualify, the application is incomplete, or the loan has already been sold.
Although a short sale shows up on your credit report for 7 years, sellers in short sales typically get financing for a new home within a range of 1 to 4 years. This varies with the kind of loan, credit score, and the size of the down payment.
Put simply, a short sale involves the sale of a stock an investor does not own. When an investor engages in short selling, two things can happen. If the price of the stock drops, the short seller can buy the stock at the lower price and make a profit. If the price of the stock rises, the short seller will lose money.
Example of a Short Sale Loss
For example, if you were to short 100 shares at $50, the total amount you would receive would be $5,000. You would then owe the lender 100 shares at some point in the future. If the stock's price dropped to $0, you would owe the lender nothing and your profit would be $5,000, or 100%.
Potentially limitless losses: When you buy shares of stock (take a long position), your downside is limited to 100% of the money you invested. But when you short a stock, its price can keep rising. In theory, that means there's no upper limit to the amount you'd have to pay to replace the borrowed shares.
Here are ways a seller can cancel a short sale contract: A seller may decide to cancel the listing, and the listing agent will agree. A foreclosure may take place, preventing the short sale. The seller may be able to accept a higher offer and cancel the first offer.
How can a short sale affect a seller?
There is potential harm to the short sale home seller. In addition to not obtaining the highest price for the seller, which is or may be a violation of the law and or your fiduciary duty, the Lender may still require the seller (the original borrower) to pay off the remaining debt.
Myth: You Must Be Behind on Your Mortgage To Complete a Short Sale. While this might be an unavoidable situation if your loan is unaffordable, there is no requirement that you be in default to complete a short sale.
They include Alaska, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Idaho, Minnesota, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, Texas, Utah, and Washington. If you live in one of these states, you won't have to pay federal or state taxes on any amount of canceled debt that comes with a short sale.
Short sale homes are notorious for being neglected, so they tend to have more severe issues than other real estate properties. While sellers are required to disclose information about the property, they could leave out or manipulate details to make the short sale more attractive to potential buyers.
For many sellers, though, the chance to buy another home in two years is the real motivation to do a short sale. Some sellers qualify immediately to buy again under certain terms. Good credit behavior can supplant bad credit after two years, even though the derogatory will remain. HomePath Short Sales.
