You may think you are pulling one over on the bank by putting in a lowball offer on a short sale, but all you are really doing is wasting your time. A bank is not going to give the house away. If the house is worth 135k, the bank is not going to sell it to you for $84k. Any lowball offers are a waste of time for the banks, negotiators, agents involved and the home buyer and seller.
It is not a good idea to buy a house together with anyone if you are not married or don’t have a formal business agreement. For every one success story there seem to be a dozen disasters.
You may say, but we are engaged and in love, it will work out for us. That is what the couple who was engaged and living together said too, before they they sent me an email that said help, get me out of this situation.
No one will change my mind, they have tried. I would never advise a couple or even friends to buy a house together unless they are either married or have a formal business agreement with an exit strategy.
I talk a lot about having a good lender. Someone who has in house underwriting and in house docs so they can get deals done quick. But when one of my lenders recently left a company like that for another company like that I realized that a good company is not all you need.
We had a deal in the works and that deal stayed there after he left for his new office. I was used to getting deals done in two weeks with this company, but now dealing with a new loan officer it is taking longer. Not only is it taking longer but I cannot get him to return emails or phone calls unless i keep sending them.
So lesson learned, not only do you need a good company, you need a good loan officer at that company.
More and more banks are countering short sale offers. You cannot blame them, but at the same time just because they are countering does not mean they will not accept the offer you submitted. You need to know what the house is worth and make sure the offer you submitted is solid. You also need to have good supporting documentation.
