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Short Sale Pilot Program

Posted on June 24, 2010

A national average tells us that less than 9% of short sales listed will go through to closing! One in every 173 housing units in Florida are more than 30 days late on their mortgage payment. Approximately 30% of the listed homes and condos are “distressed”…80% of those are “underwater”, or in a short sale situation. An example of the huge learning curve that all of us in the real estate industry have had to deal with in the past few years: Florida’s largest home loan mortgage company had 50 employees in their foreclosure department a year ago…now they have 1,400 employees in that same department! ~ Most lenders have inadequate staffing for the number of loans that are in default. Another large national lender had over 57,000 new short sale requests in February, 2010 alone in Florida! At that same time, the same lender only had 12 REOs (foreclosures) listed in Collier County (Naples). Obviously, the short sales far outnumber the foreclosures. We need to develop the best practices to expedite short sales and increase their closing success percentages! One of the greatest challenges we, as real estate professionals face, is managing buyer’s expectations.  With such low success rates, we MUST find better ways to communicate with lenders, thereby creating more opportunities for today’s buyers AND sellers!
In an effort to increase the service we provide, our Coldwell Banker affiliate: Sunbelt Title, recently implemented a pilot program and created a Short Sale Assistance Center. It is designed to help coordinate and facilitate communications between the seller, the Coldwell Banker listing associate and the lender throughout the short sale process. Eventually this will be a statewide program utilizing the Sunbelt Title branch offices around the state with the main assistant center located in Tampa, Florida. A Short Sale Packet has been designed to help streamline the process.
For additional information about Sunbelt Title Agency and their short sale program which is being offered to all Coldwell Banker listings that qualify as short sales, please call us today at 239.370.0574.  For a list of homes and condos for sale in the Naples area, you can register on The Harris Peppe Team website at NaplesRealEstate.com.
Thank you.