1.“I don’t have a hardship”: We work with homeowners to truly figure out what their hardship is, there are a lot of reasons that will qualify you for a hardship and we have seen a lot of homeowners get short sale approvals when they initially thought they didn’t have a hardship.

2.“It is an investment property, I hear the lender won’t allow a short sale.” Tell that to homeowners of the many approvals we have negotiated on homes that are not primary residences.

3.“I make too much money.” We have negotiated short sales on million dollar plus properties where the homeowner’s monthly income may be more than most working people see in a year. It is very case specific.

4.“I will have to pay tax on the difference between what I owe and what the home sells for.” In the hundreds of short sales we have negotiated we have yet to hear of a homeowner actually having to pay on an issued 1099-C cancellation of debt. While we are not CPA’s, there are many exceptions to this rule including the Mortgage Debt Relief Act of 2007 which applies to most homeowners and the rule of insolvency which typically applies to the rest if the first does not.

5.“It will ruin my credit.” If you need to stop making your mortgage payments for financial concerns or because your lender is requiring that you show your hardship by being in default what will affect your credit is the fact that you will have missed mortgage payments (30 days, 60 days, 90 days, 120 days late). The credit impact to your score will be immediate but after the short sale is finalized and the missed payments fade into the distance and is reflected as such on your credit as long as you maintain creditworthiness with regards to your other debts you will see your credit score go up fairly quickly. In fact you can still get an FHA loan within 3 years of a short sale if you were late on payments in the 12 months that preceded the short sale, or immediately if you were not delinquent in those 12 months.

6.“But the market will get better soon, we have to be at the bottom, my home will start going up in value soon!” Unfortunately although years have passed and everyone thought that we would be at the bottom by now, statistics show that we are not. Home prices continue to decline and while millions of homes have foreclosed, millions more are still set too. Called “shadow inventory” statistics and research show the number of homes that have already been foreclosed on but not yet listed or resold, or are in the foreclosure pipeline to be foreclosed on to be in the millions, some put as high as another 7 million homes. This shows that property values will continue to decline for years to come due to the number of discounted properties that will be flooding the market, and your neighborhood.

7.“You have to be late on your mortgage.” While it is true that most short sales are negotiated with homeowners who are late on their mortgage this is typically more of a function of the homeowners financial situation and the fact that they simply can’t afford to continue making payments on a home which they wish to rid themselves of. If you are in a different financial situation and can afford to continue to make your mortgage we have had success in homeowners doing so and getting a short sale approval. However we warn all of our clients who wish to try this that their current status may induce the lender to deny the short sale and in order to get an approval the homeowner must become delinquent. At this point it is a benefit analysis that we engage the homeowner in to see which choice is best for them and their particular situation.

8.“I hear horrible things about trying to work with Bank of America/Countrywide, OneWest/IndyMac, etc.” Yes we hear and experience these horrible things as well, and while the process may take longer and be a bit more of a harrowing experience with certain lenders, it is still possible to achieve a positive end result!

9.“I don’t want my neighbors, friends, etc to know I am short selling my home.” While we can certainly understand that you may feel embarrassed you really ought not to be. The decline in property values is not your fault and the truth remains that even though your home is upside down your personal circumstances may dictate that you need to sell your home. However, we do understand that some homeowners don’t want others to know the status of their sale and you need not worry. All public information regarding the sale of your home does not need to indicate that it is a short sale if you do not want it to, it would only be indicated in the private listing information on the MLS that only licensed real estate agents have access to, not your neighbors.