Full Price Ain’t Full Price when its a Short Sale

I keep hearing this over and over again, “We are not paying Full price for that house”.  Let me explain something to you.  Here in the Tampa Real Estate Market, Full price would be the price that is owed the bank.  So lets say that the home is listed for $150k and the seller owes $350k, guess what, full price is $350k.  I could ask the listing agent to change the price of the listing to $350k and then we can come in and offer $150k, I am sure that would make many feel very good about their offer.  But instead, the sellers are trying to put the homes at market value.  After all, the Sellers are making absolutely NO money off the deal and they banks are the ones that are taking the lose.  The buyer has a second set of fail safes in place and that is called the Appraisal.  If you are pulling a mortgage, the bank is going to require an Appraisal, and not just any appraisal, an appraisal by their own approved appraiser.

So the next time you see a short sale listing, ask your agent if they could do a market analysis and if it is pretty close, don’t bother low balling the offer, because the bank has lost enough money over the deal already and they would rather sit on the property than just give it away!