I have an amazing story about stopping foreclosure using a short sale for all of you folks out there who may be, or who may know, somebody that is trying to go about stopping foreclosure. My brother bought a nice new home in beautiful Chandler, Arizona nearly two years ago. When the real estate market turned, he was on his back and upside down on his payments. Then he lost his job because he got sick – it seemed there would be no happy ending to his turmoil. I had a good friend who was involved in real estate and started asking him if there were any realistic ways that he could help my younger brother with stopping foreclosure. He told me that there were some options, and he called in a favor to a friend who was a short sale real estate agent who specialized in stopping foreclosure via short sales to the bank.
We learned, after meeting with this really nice fellow, that many times the banks want to help you by stopping foreclosure using what is called a short sale process. They explained to us that stopping foreclosure using a short sale is just another way to quickly sell your home in a bad housing market. Since the bank loses tons of money when they take a home back, stopping foreclosure is in their best option as well, as they let us know. So with a short sale, banks would allow my brother to market the home for what it was currently worth, and not what he had originally paid and owed them the balance on; which was much more money. Essentially the process would allow him to go about stopping foreclosure by selling his home quickly for a bargain on the market, with the bank accepting less than was owed and calling it a day on the balance difference.
We hired the short sale agent and started the process of stopping foreclosure. It took several months of showing the house, going back and forth between the bank and filling out the required paperwork for stopping foreclosure. However, after about five and a half months, an interested buyer made an offer and the bank finally accepted it the other day and the sale closed. My younger brother is finally free from that burden and the bank is happy as well. The new buyers are really nice and they got a great deal on a really awesome home that my brother just could not afford to own anymore.
Turns out my brother got his holiday wish after all: stopping foreclosure successfully on his home and saving his credit rating.
